Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Gold stars likes the moss along the road. Unfortunately the highway department does not.

Last Wednesday, April 3, Nancy Bray and I went to see what was blooming on the cliffs along Cougar Reservoir in northeastern Lane County. I frequently explore the similar habitat along Hills Creek Reservoir, about 30 miles to the south, but had never spent any time along Cougar Reservoir until last year (see Laid Back Botanizing Along Cougar Reservoir). This is probably in large part because the trails I frequent near Cougar Reservoir (Lowder Mountain, Quaking Aspen Swamp, and Olallie Mountain) are accessed by the road that crosses the dam, missing much of the good habitat along the west side of the reservoir, and by the time the higher elevation blooming season is in gear, the roadside plants are mostly finished. On the other hand, at Hills Creek Reservoir, most of my favorite hikes, including the Calapooya Mountains sites, require that I drive past the roadside cliffs on the west side, which I seem to do on a weekly basis. I’ll have to add Cougar Reservoir to my favorite early season botanizing sites because it is really floriferous and has more seepy cliff than I’ve seen anywhere else.

Looking up the cliffs at rustyhair saxifrage (Micranthes rufidula) blooming in profusion

The Aufderheide (Road 19) snakes along the windy perimeter of Cougar Reservoir for over 7 miles, passing quite a number of cliffs. We were thrilled to see that almost every one of them was covered with the lovely white flowers and shiny deep green and red leaves of rustyhair saxifrage (Micranthes [Saxifraga] rufidula)—more than I’d ever seen before. This was peak season for this pretty sax, but its cousin, Merten’s saxifrage (Saxifraga mertensiana) was just starting to bud. Also budding up, and looking to be equally spectacular in a few weeks, was a copious amount of California mistmaiden (Romanzoffia californica). While it did seem like the majority of the plants were white-flowered, in two spots several miles apart, the mossy ledges and banks were blanketed with the lovely yellow flowers of gold stars (Crocidium multicaule). As at Hills Creek Reservoir, they also grow along the very edge of the pavement, where they sometimes fall victim to the road crew scraping of moss. We wondered why they didn’t grow on more of the cliff areas, especially as there was much seemingly suitable habitat in between the two sites.

A mourning cloak and a green comma sharing a meal on some littered toilet paper—how romantic! Both of these species are usually found near water because their caterpillars live on willows.

Early in the season, willows like this Salix sitchensis are a great source of nectar for insects.

Hall’s lomatium (Lomatium hallii) also added a touch of yellow to most of the rocky areas. It looked like it had been blooming for quite a while in some places. Lori Humphreys included a photo of this in a post to the NABA Google Group about the butterflies she had seen near Cougar Reservoir 10 days earlier. She had also photographed a Moss’s elfin, a small butterfly whose caterpillars live on the Sedum spathulifolium that is abundant on these cliffs. I was surprised to see 3 of them at our very first stop when it was still quite chilly. No doubt these early flying butterflies can take the cold better than the species that come out in the summer. At this spot we also discovered an osprey nest across the lake, after the pair’s repeated squawking caught our interest. The high overcast in the sky waxed and waned, but it never quite cleared up. Still it was warm enough in some spots out of the wind, and we did see a few more butterflies, including more Moss’s elfins. The best site turned out to be at the campground at the southern end of the lake where we wandered around for a while before turning around. The Sitka willows (Salix sitchensis) were in full bloom and attracting hordes of little flies, some bees, and at least a couple of what are now called echo azures (Celastrina echo—now split from spring azures, C. ladon). The real hotspot, however, was the outhouse, where at least 6 green commas and a mourning cloak were enjoying the added warmth, among other things!

On the right is chickweed monkeyflower (Mimulus alsinoides). On the left is the unusual small-flowered monkeyflower. It will grow much taller than it is here.

These strange stalkless mushrooms (perhaps false morels?) were growing in the planted areas by the dam parking area. (Jake, this is for you!)

While I had already seen many of the plants here last year—though past bloom—we were able to make a few additions to my plant list. One of the cliffs, just a bit over a mile south of the dam, has an accessible meadow at the top. Most of the meadowy habitat elsewhere is just too steep or there is no way to reach it. This one tapers down along one edge until you can climb up it from the road. I still plan to check out the top on another trip, but nothing much seemed to be happening at the top yet. On the cliff, however, froths of the tiny white flowers of Thompson’s mistmaiden (Romanzoffia thompsonii) caught my eye as we drove by. They were mingled among the rustyhair saxifrages. What a pretty sight. Oddly, this was the only spot where we found them. Growing on the damp mounds of gravel and rocks collecting below the cliffs, we saw another early bloomer, the darling meadow nemophila (Nemophila pedunculata). Another plant of particular interest to me was a very small-flowered monkeyflower. Both this and the equally small-flowered chickweed monkeyflower (Mimulus alsinoides) were just beginning to bloom. I had been tentatively calling this small-flowered, large-leaved monkeyflower Mimulus nasutus, although many believe it is just one of many forms of the common monkeyflower (M. guttatus). From a paper I read over the winter, it looks like this may be a newly named species, shy monkeyflower (M. sookensis). Mimulus is a difficult, though fascinating, genus because it seems to still be evolving rapidly. While the common forms of M. guttatus have large flowers that are quite attractive to bees, not only do these odd ones have very small flowers, their throats are also closed. Not that a small bee couldn’t push its way through, but it does seem to be rather unwelcoming—you might indeed call it “shy”. This is a good indication it is probably self-pollinating, which would eventually effectively separate it from the large-flowered, insect-pollinated types, creating a new species. I’ve been looking at these funny monkeyflowers on damp cliffs along several of the other reservoirs the last few springs, and I’m still not quite sure what is going on. Something else to study this spring!

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