Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Posts Tagged ‘Pedicularis’

From the ridge above the talus slope on Warner Mountain, you can see northeast to nearby Logger Butte (the rocky spot at the top left-middle catching a little light). Talus is the favorite habitat of western boneset (Ageratina occidentalis). Its pinky purple flowers have been replaced by fluffy seed heads. While it is found at mid to high elevations, I have a plant I grew from seed that has been blooming well in my rock garden for 20 years or so.

After my previous outing (see A “Berry” Surprising Day at Groundhog and Warner Mountains), I contacted Jim Pringle, the author of the Flora of North America Gentianaceae treatment, who also assisted us with the treatment for the Flora of Oregon. He’s the person I’ve been communicating with about gentians for many years (see The Quest for Enemion Flowers at Table Rock). I attached some photos to my e-mail, including a scan of a specimen I had collected from the Warner Mountain bog for the OSU herbarium a couple of years ago. He pointed out that there was a small rosette at the base of the plant. I hadn’t recognized that as a rosette because it was so small relative to the whole plant. Read the rest of this entry »

The rock formations of Logger Butte are quite stunning, and the many colorful wildflowers growing in the rocks make it even more special.

Dave admiring the cliff on the south side of Logger Butte.

Groundhog Mountain in southeastern Lane County has been one of my favorite botanizing sites for almost 20 years (over 40 trips so far!). Unfortunately, despite many roads leading up to the numerous wetlands and rocky spots, it has been getting more difficult to get up there, so my visits have been getting less frequent. From any direction, it’s 10 miles or more of gravel roads that have been deteriorating over time, and with no trails and no real logging of late, there has been no upkeep on the roads. So I was thrilled to get invited by Dave Predeek to go up there with him and Alan Butler, who also loves the area. Both are fellow members of the Native Plant Society of Oregon. Alan has a hefty truck and doesn’t mind driving—my kind of a guy! On July 15, Alan drove us up the northern route to Groundhog via Road 2309, the road I took for many years until I finally gave up on it when a deep gully developed in the middle of the road. I was really happy to see the gully seemed to have filled in on its own, and the road wasn’t as bad as the last time I’d driven. Not to say I would take my smaller car up that way yet, but it was passable for a sturdy, high-clearance vehicle. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking north from the edge of the plateau where Loletta Lakes lie, there’s a good view of the Coal Creek drainage to the right and the hill above the quarry that we visited the previous week on the left. I’ve been to the rocky summit a number of times, but I’m still eyeing the rocky area down the eastern slope. Some day….

One week earlier, we looked for Sierra Nevada blues in the wetlands along the crest of the Calapooya Mountains (see Second Year of Sierra Nevada Blue Surveys) with Willamette National Forest wildlife biologist Joe Doerr. We didn’t find as many as we’d hoped, so thinking that perhaps it was a bit early, we decided to wait an extra week before returning to the area to check out some additional wetlands. So on Tuesday, July 18, Joe, Joanne, Lori, John, and I returned to the area near Loletta Lakes. We were joined on this outing by Matt Georgeff, another Middle Fork district wildlife biologist. Read the rest of this entry »

A male Sierra Nevada blue kindly sitting on my finger for a portrait at Bradley Lake

Last year, Joe Doerr, Willamette National Forest (WNF) wildlife biologist organized several trips to the Calapooyas to survey a lovely little butterfly known variously as Sierra Nevada or gray blue (Agriades or Plebejus podarce), which is at the northern end of its range in the Calapooyas (see More Butterfly Surveying in the Calapooyas). This year, we returned to many of the same areas we visited last year to see how they were doing. Our first trip was July 11. Joe and I were joined by John Koenig, Lori Humphreys, and Joanne Lowden, Middle Fork District wildlife biologist.

Bradley Lake is one of the prettiest subalpine wetlands I know of in the Western Cascades.

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Elephant’s head (Pedicularis groenlandica) blooming in a boggy section of the wetland at the end of Road 462.

While the Sierra Nevada blues (Agriades [Plebejus] podarce) were out and about, Willamette National Forest Service wildlife biologist Joe Doerr organized one last group butterfly survey. Now that we knew they were definitely established in the Calapooya Mountains (see the previous post, More Butterfly Surveying in the Calapooyas), we wanted to know if they had moved north across the Middle Fork of the Willamette. The area around Groundhog Mountain has an extensive network of wetlands, most of which have abundant mountain shooting stars (Dodecatheon jeffreyi), its host food plant, as well as lots of bistort (Bistorta bistortoides), its favorite nectar plant. If they were going to populate anywhere to the north of the Calapooyas, I thought Groundhog would be the ideal spot, although I had no real expectations of finding them there since I’d been there over three dozen times and never spotted them. Still, it was worth checking. And any data is important. So on Monday, July 11, Joe, Cheron Ferland, Lori Humphreys, and I, along with 4 botanists from the Middle Fork district headed off to Groundhog. Read the rest of this entry »

Yellow pond-lilies (Nuphar polysepala) and the narrow leaves of small burreed (Sparganium natans) fill a very shallow pond in the western wetland.

After last week’s trip to Warfield Bog and Hemlock Butte (see previous post), I was interested in checking out some more places in the area. While exploring on Google Earth, I noticed several apparent wetlands in the area near Lopez Lake, just a couple of miles northeast of Hemlock Butte. From the spotty appearance of the lake in the aerial image, it also seemed likely that Lopez Lake had aquatic plants—always a plus for me. All of the areas of interest could be reached off of Road 5884, out Hwy 58 east of Oakridge. I’d been up the first half of this road a couple of times before to hike to Devil’s Garden, an area with a small wetland and a lake at the base of a talus slope, but I’d never been all the way to the end. Read the rest of this entry »

Miniature gilia and Kellogg’s knotweed at Groundhog

On both my last two outings, part of my agenda was to relocate tiny annuals I had seen in the past. More and more, I find myself fascinated with these smallest of plants that have such a brief time in the sun. They just don’t get much respect. Sometimes I find myself ignoring large, showy perennials shamelessly calling attention to themselves with their bright colors. Instead, I look for the empty spaces in between the tall plants. Here lie an amazing array of Lilliputian annuals that can hardly be seen without kneeling or lying down (hence the name “belly plants”). But up close, they are as fascinating as the relative giants above them.

At Bristow Prairie on July 13, my first stop was just a short ways from the road up a small wash. A couple of years ago (see Bristow Prairie’s Open Gravelly Slope), I had seen some tiny popcorn flowers (Plagiobothrys spp.). Unfortunately, they are so similar that to differentiate many species you need to see the nutlets. The various patterns of bumps and ridges and the placement of the scar where the nutlets were attached to the style help distinguish one species from another. I found the little plants pretty easily, and, unlike the previous trip, they had started to form nutlets. Even unripe, it is possible to see some of the necessary characteristics. I’m pretty sure they are harsh popcorn flower (P. hispidulus), as I had suspected, but it was good to finally get a look at the nutlets. Read the rest of this entry »

Above the wetlands filled with Jeffrey’s shooting star is the rocky knob of Hemlock Butte.

I don’t usually go out on substandard days—ones where there is a good chance of rain. It’s not just that I don’t like to get wet (some Oregonian I am!), but the flowers are wet and often droopy, so it isn’t the best time for photography. But with five days in a row of wet weather forecast, I couldn’t stand the idea of missing so many days of being out in the mountains. On Sunday (June 24), it was actually pretty sunny when I got up. I figured I could get at least a half day in before the rain started if I was lucky. I headed up to Hemlock Butte to see the lovely roadside wet meadows. If it did rain, I wouldn’t be far from the car. Read the rest of this entry »

The area around Groundhog and Little Groundhog Mountains (really two ends of the same formation) is one of my very favorite places. I discovered it 9 years ago and have returned over 20 times. Although it is highly impacted, with many roads and a great deal of the forest logged in the recent past, this is an amazing spot for roadside botanizing and watching butterflies. When Molly Juillerat, the botanist for the Middle Fork district of the Willamette National Forest, asked me to help her lead a field trip to see plants and butterflies, I immediately suggested Groundhog Mountain as the destination.

A multitude of tadpoles filled the water beneath the bur-reed (Sparganium natans?)

Yesterday, (August 9), Molly and I headed up to Groundhog to “prehike” for Friday’s field trip. There are no trails, so we were mainly checking the road conditions and deciding which of the many great sites would be most interesting at this time of year. There are numerous wetlands, several good seeps, excellent rocky roadcut spots, and several small lakes to choose from. Our first stop was Waterdog Lake. This shallow body of water is usually drying out in August, creating mud flats along the edges where specialized plants such as Rorippa curvisiliqua and Gnaphalium palustre appear. I was surprised to see how much water was still there. The Rorippa had barely started as what mud there was had not really dried out yet. The unusual spherical flowers of Sparganium were sticking up above the water. I’m still not sure of the species as they had characteristics of both S. angustifolium and the far less common S. natans. Read the rest of this entry »

Hills Peak looms large above the wetland to the west.

Back in the fall of 2007, I checked out Big Swamp, a large wetland just south of the line between Lane and Douglas counties. This is before the Western Cascades were available in high resolution on Google Earth, so I wasn’t really sure where the good (boggy) part of the swamp was. After my hike, I drove up Big Swamp Road 2153, hoping to get a good look down on the swamp (I did). I continued on to see what was up the road and found a large wetland right next to the road. Above it loomed the rocky face of Hills Peak. I had no time to check it out that day but decided it was a place I had to get to. I had planned to do it late last summer, but the raging Tumblebug fire just to the west cancelled those plans. Read the rest of this entry »