Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Posts Tagged ‘graminoids’

Lady ferns and white bog orchids grow on lovely floating log gardens at one end of the pond.

Threeway sedge is a distinctive graminoid.

The Middle Fork District of the Willamette National Forest is doing some surveys in search of the rare whitebeak sedge (Rhynchospora alba). District botanist, Molly Juillerat, invited me to join her and Sandra Klepadlo-Girdner, another botanist with the district, to survey a small wetland near Kwiskwis Butte (formerly Squaw Butte), near Oakridge and just east of Heckletooth Mountain. John Koenig also came along for the outing. I had been intrigued by a plant list for this area that he had compiled along with members of NPSO 20 years ago. He didn’t remember the area and was sure the list was for another site—even after our trip—until he checked the location data for his list after returning home. Turns out they had accessed this hidden spot from a different direction. After hundreds of trips to Cascade wetlands, I too have trouble keeping them all straight! Read the rest of this entry »

A female Sara orangetip, unusually still because of the cool, cloudy conditions early in the day.

A tiny spider makes its home between the lovely spikelets of nodding semaphore grass (Pleuropogon retrofractus).

Yesterday, June 29, 13 NPSO members and friends headed up to Nevergo Meadow to look at wetland plants and whatever else we could find. I had been wanting to bring people to see this little known area since I first visited it. I thought it would make a really great place to botanize without having to do too much hiking or worrying about anyone getting lost. After a short stop along the road near the Saddleblanket wetlands, we parked our cars along the road by Nevergo Meadow. The rarest plant here is Umpqua frasera (Frasera umpquaensis), and the population at Nevergo Meadow is the northernmost one in its limited range, which reaches only as far as southwestern Oregon. Our first destination was to see this population, hopefully in bloom. We headed down through the meadow, which was now filled with much taller vegetation than it was for my trip in May (see Early Blooming at Elk Camp and Nevergo Meadow). On the way down, we were all quite taken with a large area of nodding semaphore grass (Pleuropogon retrofractus). This is a tall, attractive grass with graceful, dangling spikelets. I’d admired it here in the past. Never had I seen it looking so beautiful, however. We had arrived just as it was in perfect bloom, with both the fuzzy, white stigmas and large, red-violet stamens in evidence. It was suggested they would make lovely earrings. As a designer and occasional jewelry maker, they certainly were inspiring. Several of us were determined to get photos, but even the slightest breeze kept them moving. Since grasses are wind-pollinated, this makes sense, but it was still frustrating trying to capture the details of their delicate beauty.

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Phantom crane fly (Bittacomorpha occidentalis). Crane flies have a “halter”—something that looks like a pin—where there would be a second set of wings. Although they resemble mosquitoes, they are harmless.

Slender cottongrass (Eriophorum gracile) growing next to a pool filled with Potamogeton alpinus.

After some time off for my first visit to the Olympic Peninsula, I was back up in the Western Cascades on Thursday (August 18). Sabine accompanied me for a trip to Warfield Bog, an interesting wetland east of Oakridge. Last year I discovered a population of the rare swamp red currant (Ribes triste) there (see Unexpected Find at Warfield Creek Bog), and I wanted to do a more careful survey to see how much of it grows there. We relocated last year’s site easily, under a clump of firs growing near the south edge of the bog. The plants had a few unripe berries on them. We crossed the bog and headed to the northeast corner to check on the woods at the edge there. It turns out a photo I had taken there the year before had the currant leaves in them but I hadn’t recognized them at the time. We found those plants creeping along a bleached out log growing with its prickly cousin swamp gooseberry (Ribes lacustre). We actually saw six species of Ribes in the area. When we returned to the small lake by the road, we found three more patches of swamp red currant, all under trees or shrubs fairly close to the water. This is quite similar to the habitat of the ones at Park Creek I’d seen earlier in the month (see Rare Currant at Park Creek). Next year I hope to come back to see them in bloom. Read the rest of this entry »