Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Posts Tagged ‘Minuartia’

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 »

I never had gotten back to further explore the west side of Mount June (see Spring Phacelia on Mount June), so yesterday (October 7), I headed back up there. It was still foggy in the valley but had been clear above when I woke up in the morning, so I hoped Mount June would be above the clouds. It’s close enough to the valley that it often is foggy even up at the top. Thankfully, I drove out of the fog and enjoyed the sun all day.

Fog can be seen from the rocky north end of the west meadow

I headed straight up past the first outcrop to just before next opening. Here I turned right and headed down through the open woods, pretty much due west, following the least steep incline. I quickly popped out into the west meadow just above the wonderful rocky dikes. No great view of the valley this time, just a blanket of fog, its fingers creeping up the ridges below me. There was still some seed left in the numerous larger patches of Penstemon rupicola and Saxifraga bronchialis growing on the steep sides of the rocks. Some of the mats of Penstemon were three feet wide. They must have been glorious in bloom. What with the cold spring we had, I was too early to see them in flower this year on my previous trip in June, normally their peak season. Growing on top of the rocks were little tufts of Minuartia rubella. Most of the seeds were already gone, but there were at least three plants with a few fresh flowers. Considering how rarely I see this little cutie, it was quite a coincidence that this was the third trip in a row I’d seen it. And all three sites had some reblooming plants. Very little else was in bloom, only the little annual knotweeds and a few rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia). Fresh leaves were out on Micranthes (Saxifraga) rufidula and Lomatium hallii. Read the rest of this entry »

I hadn’t expected any excitement when Sabine and I headed up to Groundhog Mountain yesterday (October 1). Earlier in the week, I had hurt my foot (no, not while bushwhacking over logs or climbing up a talus slope—I stepped wrong on my carpeted stairs!). I had planned to go to Olallie Mountain, but I was too unsure of my foot to risk hiking seven miles. At Groundhog, I could enjoy a relaxing day of roadside botanizing, and if my foot gave out again, I wouldn’t be too far from the car. I had no real agenda other than enjoying the sunshine (the fog didn’t lift until late afternoon at home) and spending a few more days in the mountains before winter.

Out in the sun, these creeping snowberries (Symphoricarpos mollis) have far more berries than usual. The view west is terrific, with a little fog visible in the Valley.

We headed straight for Waterdog Lake. Today is the first day of gun hunting season, and there were already several hunters camping by the lake. They turned out to be very friendly and came over to see what we were doing on our hands and knees on the ground. I thought this might pique their curiosity. We were looking for the remnants of the tiny Botrychium simplex that Molly Juillerat and I had found back in August (see Awesome Day at Groundhog). There were only a few withering yellow leaves left. In contrast, the much larger Botrychium multifidum, a few hundred feet to the north, were sporing and had large, handsome green leaves. Dozens of little Boreal toads were hopping around throughout the area, still dispersing from the massive congregation in the lake in August. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday (August 1), I headed up to Hells Half Acre for what was supposed to be a fairly relaxing day. I’d had good luck with butterflies in August there in the past and thought I might take it easy and just enjoy hanging out in the meadows and not doing any strenuous bushwhacking. Hah! Most of the forest plants such as bunchberry (Cornus unalaschkensis) and queen’s cup (Clintonia uniflora) were on the wane. There were lots of ericaceous plants coming into bloom including Orthilia secunda and some very pretty Pyrola picta. One clump of indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora) was just starting to push through the ground.

An elegant clodius parnassian nectaring on arrowleaf groundsel (Senecio triangularis)

Lots of things were still blooming in the lower meadow area, however. I was disappointed that there were no butterflies in the first two meadows (or sections of a larger meadow if you like), in spite of lingering Senecio triangularis and Valeriana sitchensis, two butterfly favorites. These meadows were quite overgrown with bracken and, as the trail is seldom used, had to be plowed through. The last meadow was a different story. It was much grassier, with very little bracken, and filled with fresh Alice’s fleabane (Erigeron aliceae) and pink owl-clover (Orthocarpus imbricatus). A number of blues were flitting about along with some checkerspots, mylitta crescents, a few parnassians, and at least one hydaspe fritillary. I spent a while trying to photograph them before heading up to Hell’s Half Acre, the much larger meadow at the end of the trail. I was joined by a very nice couple and their sweet dog Pepper who were unsure about where the trail was. For those going up there, the trail is really hard to follow in the meadows, and there is no sign where the trail picks up in the woods on the right-hand side just in front of an enormous noble fir. Read the rest of this entry »