Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Posts Tagged ‘fern’

I had been feeling a little bummed about not being able to head farther east for an all-day hike, but as it turns out, I was under beautiful blue skies, and it looked quite cloudy over southeastern Lane County where I would have gone. The lovely cutleaf daisies (Erigeron compositus) here near the summit also grow at Horse Rock Ridge, although there they have much larger flowers.

According to our upcoming Volume 2 of the Flora of Oregon, the difference between the native Euphorbia crenulata and the weedy E. peplus has to do with some aspect of the fruit and that the native has sessile lower leaves, so I believe this is the native, known as western wood spurge.

On Thursday, May 28, I didn’t have time for an all-day hike, and I was heading over to Dexter in the afternoon to pick up some vegetables at Circle H Farm, so the perfect solution was a quick afternoon trip to Eagles Rest, a short, low-elevation trail in Dexter that climbs up to the top of a large rock formation. The trail starts at 2575′, and after about 1.4 miles of pretty forest reaches the summit at 3025′, where there is a great view.

As usual, I climbed off-trail on the many grassy levels on the east side on much of the way up the rock (only climbers could make it up the vertical south side!) and did more exploring around the rocks just below the summit. There are some interesting plants that I don’t see very often in the Cascades (and you won’t see if you stick to the trail!), so I thought I’d share some here. Read the rest of this entry »

Larkspur covered the mossy rocks of Sacandaga Bluff.

On May 3, John Koenig and I went back to Rigdon to check out what I now call Sacandaga Bluff, a wonderful rocky area hidden away between the Middle Fork of the Willamette River and Sacandaga Campground. Last year, Ed Alverson had told us he found a population there of Sierra cliffbrake (Pellaea brachyptera), an unusual fern found more commonly to the south. It is one of my favorite ferns, and I’ve written about finding new spots for it in Lane County several times. I went to this spot a couple of times later year, and once earlier this year (see last report), but I still wanted to see it in its high spring bloom. Read the rest of this entry »

With the continued warm weather of late October, I made one final trip to the Rigdon area south of Oakridge to look at another interesting spot. During my many trips up Coal Creek Road 2133 to get up to high elevation sites in the Calapooyas, I had often caught glimpses of an open slope on the far side of Coal Creek. I’d wondered for years about this intriguing spot, so it seemed like the right time to figure out how to explore it.  On October 31st, I followed the route of my previous trip (see https://westerncascades.com/2018/01/27/further-low-elevation-meadow-exploration/previous post) but turned south off of Road 200 onto Road 210. I’d never been down this road before, so I wasn’t sure whether it was even driveable. It actually was in good shape for a while, and a gate across it was open, but I decided to park at the gate anyway as it didn’t look as though it was well driven. As it turned out, there was a tree blocking the road farther along, and there were other spots where it was clearly growing over from disuse. But it made for a pleasant enough walk until the road was bisected by a creek. At this time of year it wasn’t too hard to ford the creek, jumping from rock to rock, but when the water is higher in the spring, it might be necessary to head upstream to find a narrower crossing than I took. Not too long after traversing the creek, the slope on my left went uphill, rather than downhill toward Coal Creek as it had done until then. I knew this meant I’d come to my destination at last!

Looking north across the rocky slope.

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Parsley ferns (Cryptogramma spp.) are relatively small rock-loving ferns, which are sometimes known as rock-brakes. Unlike our other rock ferns, spore-bearing structures are on separate fertile fronds that are usually taller than the sterile fronds. There are two species of parsley ferns in the Cascades. American parsley fern (C. acrostichoides) is common throughout the Western Cascades and is found elsewhere in western Oregon. It is found primarily at low to middle elevations. Cascade parsley fern (C. cascadensis) is found only at higher elevations, mostly in the High Cascades. Both species have also been seen in the Wallowas. The third species in Oregon, Steller’s rock-brake (C. stelleri), is a rare inhabitant of the Wallowas, although its range stretches across much of the northern US.

Left: Cascade parsley fern in the Calapooyas; Right: American parsley fern at Table Rock Wilderness

For a number of years, I’ve been uncertain of my identification of Cascade parsley fern. Recently (see More Discoveries along the Calapooya Crest), I got a great lesson in distinguishing our two Cascade species from the expert, Ed Alverson, who first described Cascade parsley fern in 1989 (see “Cryptogramma cascadensis, a New Parsley-Fern from Western North America,” in the American Fern Journal, Volume 79 Number 3, pp. 95–102). In addition to genetic differences, there are several morphological characteristics that can help separate the two species in the field. Read the rest of this entry »

Cascade grass-of-Parnassus (Parnassia cirrata var. intermedia) is one of my favorite wildflowers and a wonderful bonus this late in the season.

Ever since our early June trip to the meadow along Road 3810 on the south side of Loletta Peak (see Another Exciting Day in the Calapooyas: The Sequel), John Koenig and I had been planning to return to see the later blooming plants, especially the Cascade fringed grass-of-Parnassus (Parnassia cirrata) that we found there. Just before we had planned to go, Ed Alverson e-mailed me about the quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) we had discovered there. He’s been studying the scattered populations on the west side of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington. The timing was perfect, as we were able to take Ed along on August 12 to see the population in what we were now calling “Aspen Meadow.” We had been somewhat concerned with all the fires down in Douglas County, especially the Potter Mountain complex burning just east of Balm Mountain (thankfully not actually on Potter Mountain). But other than some drifting smoke above, we had no problems reaching our destination and enjoying what was an otherwise lovely day. Read the rest of this entry »

On the second day (June 3) of my brief overnight trip to the North Umpqua area, I headed up to the Twin Lakes trailhead, but my destination for this trip was the former BVD trail, accessed from the same area. While I did spend a couple of hours over at Twin Lakes at the end of the day, I was really more interested in looking at rock plants, especially after my fabulous trip to Pyramid Rock the day before (see Peak Bloom at Pyramid Rock). I was not disappointed. There were a great many beautiful plants in bloom. And because I had been camping just a few miles from the bottom of the road, I was already out walking at 8:30am and had lots more time than usual to poke around. My goal was to explore beyond the main meadow I’d been to several times before. Looking at the Google Earth image, it is clear that there are a lot of openings, both large and small, along this steep, south-facing slope.

Perhaps the most outstanding display of the day was from the numerous silver lupines (Lupinus albifrons), which were all over the meadow and rocky areas. I do love purple!

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Sierra cliffbrake (Pellaea brachyptera) at Pyramid Rock

I thought I might be done with reports for the season, but the weather is holding, so yesterday (September 11)  I went back through the Calapooyas on my way back from speaking to the Umpqua Valley chapter Thursday night. Someone once told me about the Lewisia columbiana on Pyramid Rock, so that’s been on my to do list for quite a while. I’ve been up to Reynolds Ridge many times, but I hadn’t been past Bullpup Lake on Road 300, so I was happy that the road was in such good shape. Hunters all over the place yesterday, and one guy right in front of me stopped to shoot out of the car @#&*^!! Luckily he turned around and left and I didn’t hear anyone else actively hunting in the middle of the day although I did chat with a few old timers. Read the rest of this entry »