Posts Tagged ‘Fritillaria’
Another Exciting Day in the Calapooyas
It had been three years since I’d been up on Loletta Peak, and I’d been hankering to see the Siskiyou fritillary (Fritillaria glauca) in bloom up there since I first discovered it on my first trip back in 2009—I didn’t write about it because, at the time, it was considered rare, and its locations were withheld. The road is on the north side of the Calapooya crest and is normally blocked with snow when these very early bloomers are peaking, so the lack of snow made this year seem like the perfect chance to give it a shot. On May 29, I was joined by John Koenig, who loves the Calapooya area as much as I do.
Spreading phlox (Phlox diffusa) is abundant on the gravelly summit slope of Loletta Peak.
Two Foggy Outings
I’m a fairweather hiker and usually avoid going out on days without a good amount of sun. But sometimes it happens. On both of my last two outings, I ended up spending most of the day literally in the clouds. I don’t take anywhere near the number of photos I usually do, but I thought I’d share a few.
Bristow Prairie, 5/15/15
Molly Juillerat, Middle Fork NF district botanist, and her dog Ruby and I made the same trip John Koenig and I had done a couple of weeks before (see Bristow Prairie: 2015 Trip 2), but the low clouds gave the area a distinctly different mood. From a scientific standpoint (not from one of comfort!), it was interesting to see how much moisture the plants received without any actual rain.
Low clouds dancing around below the road at Bristow Prairie
Bristow Prairie: 2015 Trip 2
Looking to the northwest along the front of the cliff. Compare this with the photo from last year. The seep is now damp and mossy. In the distance, 6000′ Bohemia Mountain and Fairview Peak can be seen with no snow on their south-facing sides. They usually don’t melt out for another 6–8 weeks.
One of my goals for the year is to track the botanical progression at Bristow Prairie by getting up there at least once a month, hopefully more. There’s such a broad variety of habitats, from cliffs to meadows to wetlands, that it should be an excellent site for observing the effects of the largely snowless winter on the different plants. So on April 27, John Koenig headed up to Bristow Prairie for my second trip of the year. While there had finally been some snow a week or so before, it was all melted again, and we only saw a few patches along the upper road and on nearby ridges. Our main destination was the lower, west-facing cliffs we first visited last fall (see First Trip to Cliffs Northwest of Bristow Prairie), so we started again at the north trailhead. Read the rest of this entry »
Super Early Look at Snowless Bristow Prairie
My first post of the year, and it’s already April. What with the heat and forest fires, my summer hiking season petered out much earlier than usual last year. Then my work with the Oregon Flora Project ramped up, and I’ve been super busy all winter. I’ve been editing, designing, and doing layout for the new Flora of Oregon (more about that another time). I’m usually happy to be parked in front of my computer most days in the winter, but with all the glorious weather during this winter-that-wasn’t, it’s been really tough not having time to go out, especially after getting reports from my friends of getting up into the Western Cascades in February(!). We’re almost done with the Flora, and we just had a brief, much-needed respite while the publisher read through the manuscript. At last, I was able to take a day off and get up into the Cascades to see what it looked like after this unusual, largely snowless winter.
Looking north from Bristow Prairie, there is no snow in sight—very scary for late March! In the center of the photo is the imposing south face of “Mosaic Rock”. Youngs Rock and Moon Point can also be seen, just to the left of the dark tree on the left.
The Bristow Prairie Area Continues to Yield More Discoveries
Frosted paintbrush (Castilleja pruinosa) and hotrock penstemon (Penstemon deustus) up on the rocky bald.
After finally spotting the hidden north trailhead last summer (see A Grand Day Exploring Bristow Prairie’s Varied Habitats), John Koenig and I returned last fall to do the northern end of the High Divide trail that crosses Bristow Prairie. We discovered an awesome pillar rock, moist forest, and more meadows, so it was definitely worth a return trip. On Wednesday (June 11), Sabine Dutoit and I decided to head up there and see what the area looks like in flower. We still had trouble finding the trailhead, as although John and I had found the trail sign in the ditch and put it back up on the road, it was moved yet again. Luckily, I had made a GPS waypoint last year. Once we found the trailhead, just a tad up the road from a quarry and pillar rock I had checked out a few years ago, we could see the sign had been placed on the ground next to the trail, just up into the woods—not much good for spotting the trail from the road, but at least we knew we were in the right place! Read the rest of this entry »
Expect the Unexpected
Siskiyou fritillaries sure grow well on Heavenly Bluff.
With a week of dry weather and the snow quickly retreating to higher elevations, I wanted to head back to Heavenly Bluff to get another look at the beautiful Siskiyou fritillary (Fritillaria glauca) there. Last year when John Koenig and I went up there (see Siskiyou Fritillary in Lane County ), we were having an extremely dry May, and despite some snow on the road, the frits were past peak. I thought we might have better luck this year since, although things are still early, we’ve had regular rain all spring. So Sabine Dutoit, Nancy Bray, and I headed up toward Heavenly Bluff on May 12, just 2 days later than my trip with John last year. After all the obstacles on the road on that trip, I figured we’d better have a backup plan, so since we were going right by the Bearbones Mountain trailhead, we could go there if we couldn’t make it to Heavenly Bluff.
I was surprised at how good the road condition was for the first half of May—no snow, no logs, and not even a rock out of place. Then we discovered why when we passed a brushcutter along the road. I talked to someone at the ranger station later who said they had no one working up there, but there is a lot of private timber company land in the area, and there was some sign of thinning, so it could be they are getting ready for more logging. In any case, we were able to make it all the way to Heavenly Bluff. Why someone would clear that final deadend spur road, I don’t know. But I was very pleased to be able to drive right to where we could walk easily up through the woods to the opening. Pleased that is until we got out of the car and discovered the tire was flat. Perhaps it was the very short section of the spur road where there were a lot of small, sharp rocks, or perhaps the tire was already leaking as I’d had to inflate it last week when it looked a little low. Whatever the reason, changing a tire had not been on my agenda. I couldn’t face dealing with it immediately, and I was not about to miss out on my botanizing, having come all this way, so we headed up to the bluff. Read the rest of this entry »
Spring Comes Exceptionally Early to Grizzly Peak
A few spring whitlow grass (Draba verna) are hardly noticeable, but en masse they are quite pretty.
Last Tuesday (April 15), I went down to southern Oregon for a quick but rewarding trip. Almost every year, I’ve gone down in mid-April to shop at a fantastic rock garden plant sale put on by one of the NARGS members in the area. Sadly, this is going to be her last sale, so I didn’t want to miss the chance to buy some more gems for my rock garden (many to replace those that didn’t make it through the tough winter). I was also in luck that a quilting store in Ashland was just starting their going-out-of-business sale, so I was able to stock up on batik fabric for my new-found creative passion, quilting. I always get in as much botanizing as I can squeeze into two days while I’m in the area, but I never expected I would have the opportunity to get up to Grizzly Peak so early in the year. With the trailhead at 5200′ and the peak—such as it is—at 5900′, it is usually covered with snow in April, but from what I hear, there has been almost snow in the area, and they’ve missed much of the rain we’ve had farther north in February and March.
Siskiyou Fritillary in Lane County
Last year, I discovered what is currently the northernmost known site for the lovely Siskiyou fritillary (Fritillaria glauca). I purposely did not write about it in my report about Heavenly Bluff, A Heavenly New Site in Lane County, because it has been considered a rare plant, and the Oregon Flora Project and Oregon Biodiversity Information Center had been withholding location data for the reported sites. Evidently there are enough populations now that their locations are no longer withheld, so I guess I needn’t be so circumspect.
Fritillaria glauca happily grows en masse in the loose rock of a steep slope. The plants spread by little bulb offsets sliding downhill along with the gravel.
Paintbrushes at Eagles Rest
The masses of western trillium (Trillium ovatum) were fading to a beautiful deep wine color.
Yesterday (May 10), Nancy Bray and I enjoyed the lovely weather by spending a few hours up at Eagles Rest. I was up there both May 5 and May 20 (see Spring Moving Slowly at Eagles Rest) last year, and the blooming was right in the middle of those two trips. That would not be so surprising except that last year the flowers were so far behind because of the cold spring. I guess it really has been damp and cool up until now, so the lower elevations are still later than “normal”. On the other hand, the deep snowpack pushed the higher elevation plants as much as a month late last year. This year, the snowpack has been pretty poor. From the top of Eagles Rest, Mount June could still be seen covered with snow last year on May 20. Yesterday, even with the binoculars, I could only see a touch of snow on the north side of Mt. June. And with the several weeks of dry, sunny weather we’re having, the mountain bloom shouldn’t be nearly as late as last year. Read the rest of this entry »
Spring Moving Slowly at Eagles Rest
Who can resist photographing such a beautiful clump of fairy slippers (Calypso bulbosa)!
On our last trip to Eagles Rest, 15 days earlier (see Early But Lovely at Eagles Rest), Sabine and I were excited about the multitudes of Fritillaria affinis buds. I didn’t want to miss what looked to be a fabulous bloom, so yesterday (May 20) we headed back up there. The most striking thing we noticed is how little had changed in two weeks. Upon entering the woods, the carpet of trilliums was still there, with only a few showing signs of their petals fading to pale pink. The snow queen was also still blooming well, but there were far fewer violets. There were still oodles of gorgeous fairy slippers there and farther along the trail, and they were still in perfect bloom. They were even more profuse in the woods up near the summit, some of which were only in bud before. Usually they grow scattered about, but we saw two tight clumps each with seven blossoms. After viewing at least a few hundred flowers, we noticed we never saw a single pollinator visiting them. I’ve read several times about how they fool bees into pollinating them without giving a reward of nectar or pollen. But in all the years of admiring and photographing these stunning flowers, I can’t remember ever seeing any bees or other insects show any interest in them. Read the rest of this entry »