Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Posts Tagged ‘Grassy Glade’

Molly and Joe both carried butterfly nets all day, hoping to be able to tag an adult monarch. This Lorquin’s admiral was the only butterfly to make contact with a net. It must have found something tasty on the net and joined us while we ate lunch on the banks of Coal Creek.

On June 15, Molly Juillerat (botanist but now deputy ranger at the Middle Fork District), Joe Doerr (wildlife biologist for the Willamette National Forest), and I went back to Rigdon to do some more exploring. First, we headed out to see the purple milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia) at Coal Creek Bluff. Neither Molly nor Joe had been there before, so I’d been hoping to take them there for some time. We took a relatively short spin around the slope, stopping to check on the milkweed. There was no sign of eggs or caterpillars yet, so I’m still not certain if the monarchs know about this small population. Although the slope was pretty dry, there were plenty of nectar plants to be had if any monarchs did show up. The milkweed was in fading bloom, but fresh northern buckwheat (Eriogonum compositum), Oregon sunshine (Eriophyllum lanatum), bluefield gilia (Gilia capitata), and elegant cluster-lily (Brodiaea elegans) added some color to the mostly brown slope. Read the rest of this entry »

The west end of the ridge can’t be seen from most of the ridge, but this is where most of the purple milkweed is found.

After my first look at the rocky slope north of Grassy Glade (see Exploring Near Grassy Glade), I was anxious to get back when the milkweed was in bloom (and the weather was better!). On June 11, I drove to Grassy Glade and walked directly to the end of Road 262 to where I could climb down to what I’m now calling “Rabbitbrush Ridge.” Since the thunderstorm drove me away before I was able to make it to the far end of the ridge on my earlier trip, I headed along the ridge to west end rather than poking around down the steep slope. That turned out to be the right thing to do. After finding a few individual plants scattered along the ridge, I was thrilled to come upon a decent-sized population of milkweed blooming in a scree just beyond the north-south dike I had thought marked the end of the ridge. This area was a bit more protected and more gravelly than rocky, so perhaps more to their liking. Read the rest of this entry »

While most of the milkweed is in some openings in the woods, a small number of plants grace the north end of Grassy Glade. Parts of the large meadow were already dried out, while others remained green and floriferous. Remnants of a forest fire can be seen on the hills to the south.

I suggested we look for seedlings of milkweed, and Sasha quickly spotted this clump. You can see the purplish, long-petioled cotyledon leaves still evident at the bases of the tiny plants.

In spite of not receiving a Monarch Grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Fund this year, Walama Restoration Project is still working on collecting data about the milkweed and monarch sites in the Rigdon area. Hopefully, they’ll have better luck next year. Maya Goklany is the volunteer coordinator for Walama and has already started taking volunteers out to count purple milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia) at Monarch Meadow. We had been wanting to go out to Rigdon together sometime to survey the milkweed and finally had a chance on Sunday, May 27. I invited Sabine Dutoit along, and Maya brought her friend Sasha. How wonderful to hang out with a great group of plant-loving women! It was a gorgeous day to be out botanizing. It was also a great day for Memorial Day Weekend camping trips, and there were more people along the lake and in the general Rigdon area than I think I’ve ever seen before. We even ran into other folks up at Grassy Glade, our first stop. But most of our day was spent enjoying the peace and quiet with only the pleasant company of each other and the butterflies, birds, and bees. Read the rest of this entry »

A lovely madrone (Arbutus menziesii) grows on the backside of the rocky ridge.

On my most recent trip (see Surveying Milkweed at Maple Creek Meadow), I had seen an intriguing rocky slope to the east. I realized it was one of the sites in the Rigdon area of southeastern Lane County that I had made a note to survey. It was just north of Grassy Glade, where there is a good population of purple milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia), so I decided for my next outing, on May 15, to check it out, as well as some other openings in that area. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the same view across the meadow, with the same milkweed and rabbitbrush, as I posted last year. You can see an open, rocky slope on the near ridge. I visited it a few days later. Grassy Glade is nearby on that ridge but can’t be seen from here. Unfortunately, the clouds never really broke, so we couldn’t see the view of Diamond Peak.

Last July, I discovered a new site for purple milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia) in the Rigdon area (see Another New Milkweed and Monarch Site!) and dubbed it “Maple Creek Meadow” since the nearest named feature is Maple Creek. I had been looking forward to getting an earlier look at it but wanted to wait until the milkweed had at least emerged. Since I had seen it coming up in some of the nearby sites, John Koenig and I decided to head up there on May 11. Knowing where I was going and how great a place it is, I found the boring, 1.7-mile walk up the bermed-off Road 217 much more pleasant than I did last year when I was wondering all the while if it would be worth it. We had hoped the morning clouds would burn off, but we were under clouds most of the day, so we didn’t get to see many butterflies. Read the rest of this entry »

After the September rains finally put an end to the fires and cleared out the smoky skies, I was anxious to get back outside after being trapped indoors by the smoke for so much of late summer. I had hoped to look for more meadows and open areas in the Rigdon area, southeast of Hills Creek Reservoir. I knew it would be hard to spot purple milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia) plants so late in the year, but I could at least assess the quality of the areas and the potential for milkweed or other interesting plants. With the flowers pretty much done for the season, it didn’t seem worth the many miles of gravel to get up to high elevations, so exploring more low-elevation meadows was the perfect goal.

Ground rose (Rosa spithamea) is generally less than a foot tall. It is distinguished from our other roses by its chubby, gland-covered hips. There’s quite a bit of it at Mutton Meadow.

On September 25th, Sheila Klest and I went to Monarch Meadow to see if there was any milkweed seed left and to collect any other seed of interest. The milkweed stems had mostly collapsed and there were very few intact seed capsules, but Sheila was able to bring home a bit of seed to try growing at her native plant nursery, Trillium Gardens. I was glad I had already gotten some for myself back in July (see Late Season Visit to Monarch Meadow) when they were just starting to ripen. Some sticky birdbeak (Cordylanthus tenuis) was still in bloom, and there was an unusually deep pink form of autumn willowherb (Epilobium brachycarpum) in flower in the meadow but little else. After we collected some seeds of grasses and purple and diamond clarkia (Clarkia purpurea and C. rhomboidea), we headed over to nearby Mutton Meadow. There we hunted around until we found the bright red hips of ground rose (Rosa spithamea) among the grass. They had bloomed well and the hips were perfectly ripe, so we both collected some hips and a few cuttings. I hope I’ll be able to grow this charming little rose. Read the rest of this entry »

After all the great luck we’d been having finding purple milkweed in the Rigdon area of southeastern Lane County, I was determined to find some more sites. With the exception of Grassy Glade, all the other sites were on the north side of Rigdon Road 21 and the Middle Fork of the Willamette. Surely there must be some other areas on the south side. I spent some time on Google Earth, looking for all the openings I could find between Big Pine Opening and Grassy Glade that appeared to be meadows between 2400–3600′, similar to those we had been surveying. I found at least a half dozen or so promising spots, but one in particular seemed like a good place to start.

Milkweed, buckwheat, and rabbitbrush growing in “Maple Creek Meadow”. Diamond Peak can be seen to the east. The ridge in the backround was burned in the 2009 Tumblebug Fire.

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Like many openings in the area, the southernmost one in the complex had Oregon white oaks (Quercus garryana) being crowded out by ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa) and other conifers. Enhancing oak habitat has been the main focus of restoration in the area. Hopefully now improving the area for milkweed and monarchs will also be a priority.

Having found purple milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia) and monarchs at Monarch Meadow (see Hidden Meadow Reveals a Thrilling Secret) and at the meadow complex north of there (see A Week of Monarchs and Milkweed: Day 1), the next logical place to check was another complex of openings even farther up the ridge. On July 5, Joe Doerr and I headed up there to investigate. These openings also follow the old road that the middle complex is along, so we felt particularly confident we would find more milkweed. We decided to drive in from the north on an old but (barely) driveable road. I had been on that road several times years ago, to access what Sabine and I call “Gateway Rock Ridge” (see First Outing of the New Year for the most recent trip), but I can’t imagine doing it now. The tire tracks seemed to be sinking down and lots of vegetation was reaching out into the road from the surrounding forest. Thank goodness we were in a Forest Service rig!

Unfortunately, mortality is very high for these tiny monarch caterpillars. Most get picked off by wasps and other predators when they are quite small.

We parked at the top of the old road and saw ground rose (Rosa spithamea) in bloom right by the car. From there we walked south. Before long we came to the first opening, lying right along the ridge. Sticky birdbeak (Cordylanthus tenuis) grew abundantly here along with western rayless fleabane (Erigeron inornatus). These normally uncommon species have been showing up at most of the other milkweed sites, so it was a good sign. There had also evidently been a great display of showy tarweed (Madia elegans), but it was already shriveling up in the heat of the day. We didn’t spot any milkweed at first, but then we started to see it scattered about in several openings. We found monarch caterpillars and eggs as well. Mission accomplished! We walked as far down the road as the uppermost meadow of the middle complex that we’d both already been to on separate trips. So now we knew the area all along the old road and started back toward the car. Read the rest of this entry »