Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Posts Tagged ‘Sedum’

My first pika of the year! As soon as we reached the talus, I stopped to look for pikas. My husband spotted this one right away. It actually appeared to be running toward us, but I’m guessing it was just looking for its own safe spot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a clear view before it disappeared under the rocks.

On July 11, My husband, Jim, and I were joined by our friend Peter Gallagher on a trip to Tidbits Mountain. It had been 5 years since I’d been there, but Jim hadn’t been for 20 years, and it had been quite a while for Peter as well.

On our way back to the car, we passed this wasp with an impressive ovipositor (not a stinger!). Apparently, it is a Norton’s giant ichneumonid wasp (Megarhyssa nortoni). According to Wikipedia, they live in the forest, where their larvae are parasitoids of the larvae of horntail wasps.

It was interesting to see how the combination of above-normal winter snowpack and early summer drought manifested in the bloom period. The spring flowers were long gone in most places. As I expected, the gravelly areas west of the summit were completely toasted with only a few species still in bloom. 2012 was also a high snowpack year but followed by a “normal” spring. My trip that year on July 9 (see Off the Beaten Track at Tidbits) was completely different with gorgeous flowers covering the south-facing gravelly slope of what I call “the wall.”

I was surprised, however, that not only were there fresh spring flowers on the north-facing talus slope, there were several patches of snow remaining along the edges of the bottom slope. The trail was also in worse shape than I’ve ever seen it. We had to negotiate many fallen trees. The last section of road wasn’t in great shape either, and we wished we had parked at the bottom and walked after almost getting stuck going up. Still, we enjoyed our hike. No matter the season, the rock formations are always gorgeous. Here are some photographic highlights. Read the rest of this entry »

The photographic highlight of the day had to be this cluster of trilliums visited by a pale swallowtail. The butterfly was as enthralled as we were and stayed for at least 10 minutes, allowing me to get over 40 photos from every angle.

For months, I’ve been working on and off to finish editing and doing the layout for the Saxifragaceae treatment for Volume 3 of the Flora of Oregon (I finally finished it so I felt I could take a break to write this report, however late). I had enough space to add a couple of illustrations and wanted to do two of the more interesting species, rusty saxifrage (Micranthes ferruginea) and Merten’s saxifrage (Saxifraga mertensiana). Our lead artist, John Myers, does most of the illustrations, but he has so many to do right now that I’m contributing a few of the species I’m familiar with.

Both these species are unusual in that they are able to produce asexually by vegetative offsets. Rusty saxifrage has tiny plantlets in the inflorescences that replace most of the flowers except the terminal ones. These drop to the ground and form colonies of clones beneath the mother plant. Mertens’ saxifrage often produces clusters of red bulblets in the inflorescences. Like the rusty saxifrage, these replace the lower flowers. From what I’ve read, it produces these bulblets in most of its range. In the Western Cascades, however, I’ve only seen them in a few populations. One of these is along Coal Creek Road 2133 on the way up to Loletta Lakes. Read the rest of this entry »

Jenny taking notes about the Siskiyou fritillary population on the south ridge. The downslope gravel was awash with spring phacelia, Olympic onion, and Menzies’ larkspur.

The old growth forest is quite impressive along the trail. The trail itself is so little used as to be hard to follow if you haven’t been on it before. We had to cross over a number of large logs and small branches (I moved what I could to make the trail easier to follow), but it is worth it to see all the interesting species and beautiful flowers as well as the view from the top.

Middle Fork District botanist Jenny Moore had never been to Bearbones Mountain and had mentioned to me earlier in the year that she’d like to go check it out. After getting an e-mail last week from Chad Sageser that he’d cleared the roads (2127 & 5850) to Bearbones (thank you Chad!!), I suggested we head up there on Wednesday, June 15, the one day of the week that was supposed to have some sun. Luckily, both Jenny and Sheila Klest were able to make time to go out hiking that day. After all the rain we’ve had (yay!), and a trip to the Ochocos the week before, I was really looking forward to getting back to the Western Cascades. This was also my first trip to higher elevations (Bearbones tops out at 4910′).

After missing the trailhead last year (see Return to Bearbones Mountain), I made sure to have the map on my phone ready. Chad had warned me that Road 5850, which leads to the trailhead, had been prepped as a firebreak when there were so many fires in the area last year. The edge of the road was logged, making it even harder to spot the trailhead, and forcing us to start our hike by climbing over a large pile of branches. The blooming dogwoods at the beginning of trail also helped me recognize the spot, and someone (Chad?) had left some red flagging across the road, but if you want to try the trail, having a map and GPS are a must, as there is no longer any trail sign. Jenny was interested in seeing the firebreak as one of the projects of the Forest Service is to figure out how to heal the roadsides after the disturbance and hopefully to replant with natives that are less flammable and lower growing. We all wondered why the downed trees and branches are left to dry out. It doesn’t seem to make any sense to create a firebreak and then leave all the flammable material in place. Maybe I’m missing something. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking north across the slope to Moon Point and Youngs Rock. I hadn’t seen such a pretty show of monkeyflower on my past visits.

On Wednesday, May 25, Nancy Bray accompanied me on a trip to the place I named “Coal Creek Bluff.” I had heard that the Forest Service would be further decommissioning the old Road 210 that I use to access the site to protect Coal Creek from further erosion. I wasn’t sure what this entailed, so I was anxious to find out if I would still be able to access this lovely spot, one of our purple milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia) sites in the Rigdon area. The last time I was there (in 2020, see Followup Milkweed Count at Coal Creek Bluff), I couldn’t make it to the last place you can park before a big washout on the old road. I managed to scratch my brand new car trying to turn around after coming upon a fallen tree. So this time, I just decided to park at the old gate where there is a large area to turn around and do the extra walking. I was surprised to find the road completely clear all the way to the final parking area. Darn! We could have shortened our walk. Next time I’ll know. Read the rest of this entry »

From the south ridge on Mount June last year, we had a good view of Sawtooth Rock at the right end of its large meadow as well as the three smaller openings below that I went to on this trip. The Three Sisters and Mount Bachelor had way more snow than this year almost exactly a year ago on June 22, 2020.

For years I’d wanted to explore all the meadows and rocky openings in the area of Mount June and Sawtooth Rock. I’m pretty sure I’ve checked out all the open areas on Mount June and regularly make a loop down the south ridge and west side when I go up there now (for a look at last year’s trip, see A Rainbow of Flowers at Mount June). I had also once explored several of the small openings just east of Sawtooth Rock Meadow (see More Meadows Near Sawtooth Rock). But I’d never made it down to a string of three rocky openings downhill to the southwest of the main meadow. On June 19, I decided to make that my goal.

At the first rocky opening, the paintbrush was attracting a rufous hummingbird. I tried to be ready to photograph it as it zipped around, but this was the only decent photo I was able to get. Perched as I was on the steep rock, I couldn’t move much, nor could I even see it most of the time, but its hum let me know it was still around. The blue flowers are bluefield gilia (Gilia capitata).

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So many brightly colored species clamouring for attention on the south ridge that it was hard to know where to point the camera. Here paintbrush, penstemon, lupine, Oregon sunshine, and stonecrop make it into the photo.

Once again, there weren’t as many butterflies as one would expect for all the flowers, but we did see this pale swallowtail nectaring on wallflower (Erysimum capitatum). California tortoiseshells, duskywings, and parnassians were about the only other species we saw.

Mount June was one of the first places I went hiking when I moved to Oregon (back in the ’90s!). I went at least once a year for many years. I guess there are just too many great destinations to explore these days because it had been almost six years since I’d been there and 8 years since I’d seen the area during bloom season. My last report was from 2011 (see Sawtooth Rock Meadow in Gorgeous Peak Bloom)—funny how that seems like it was just a short while ago!

I’d been wanting to show John Koenig the off-trail areas on the south and west, and he was already planning a trip there, so, for my 30th trip there, we agreed to drive up separately and do a socially distanced hike together on June 22. The pandemic has reduced my already limited social life to almost completely absent, so it was nice to be out with a good friend on such a gorgeous day.
 
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Acres of bistort in the wetland by the lake

We always make a stop along the road to see the tiny least moonworts (Botrychium simplex). There were hundreds of them, some only a half-inch tall. Happily, the population seems to be increasing.

John Koenig was disappointed he wasn’t able to join us for the trip to Bristow Prairie (see previous post) and was still hankering to go there. And I hadn’t managed to get to the lake to look for Sierra Nevada blues on either of my earlier trips, so I was quite willing to return to this wonderful area just a few days later, on June 25th. We started out by hiking down to the lake. I had made sure to put my rubber boots in my vehicle, but I had forgotten to transfer them to John’s truck, so I had to walk very carefully through the still fairly damp wetland surrounding the lake. It was quite beautiful, filled with bistort (Bistorta bistortoides), the Sierra Nevada blue’s favorite nectar plant, and we saw a great many butterflies, including a swallowtail nectaring solely on the gorgeous white bog orchids (Platanthera dilatata) and many checkerspots. But where were the Sierra Nevada blues? We both looked at every blue we saw, but although there were many greenish blues and a few other species, I only saw one butterfly that I believe was a Sierra Nevada blue, but it was so low in the foliage, I couldn’t get a very good look at its underside to be sure. Read the rest of this entry »

Three checkerspot butterflies delight in the abundance of coyote mint (Monardella odoratissima) on the rocky ridge just above Road 2154, although one had a quick taste of northern buckwheat (Eriogonum compositum) before returning to the coyote mint.

Although it had only been 9 days since I’d been to Potter Mountain with my rock garden friends (see NARGS Campout Day 3: Potter Mountain), when John Koenig expressed interest in going to Potter Mountain, I was anxious to go back. This was a new spot for John, and I wanted to look for more plants of the California stickseed (Hackelia californica) and do some more exploring along Road 2154 between Potter and Staley Creek Road 2134 that we travel to get up there. We had a beautiful clear day on June 30. Although it was still hot (what a wretchedly long heat wave!), it wasn’t as bad as it had been, and most of what we did wasn’t too taxing for a warm day.

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Dozens of little Orobanche uniflora on the mossy cliff ledges

Since Orobanche uniflora is parasitic, it has no leaves, just these pretty purple tubular flowers.

The genus Orobanche, known as broomrape, is made up of numerous species that parasitize other plants. With vampires and zombies all the rage these days, these plants ought to be more popular. I find them (broomrapes that is, not zombies) really fascinating and am always pleased to find them. I’m not sure if the other plants feel the same, but they don’t look as though they are being harmed by supporting their parasites. Different species of Orobanche use different hosts; some are very picky, while others have broader tastes. Orobanche uniflora is one of those with a number of potential hosts. With the common name of naked broomrape, you’d hardly think it would be such a pretty thing. It is also called one-flowered broomrape since it has only one flower per pedicel.

Probably the best place I’ve ever seen Orobanche uniflora is at Cougar Reservoir, just south of the McKenzie Highway. That was the my destination Tuesday, April 21, along with my friends Sabine Dutoit and Nancy Bray. All of us have been nursing injuries, so easy roadside botanizing was just what we were looking for. The flowers are fabulous in April along the roadside cliffs along the west side of the reservoir. There is more rustyhair saxifrage (Micranthes rufidula) and California mistmaiden (Romanzoffia californica) there than I’ve seen anywhere else. The saxifrage was on the wane, but the mistmaiden was gorgeous. Both these species are hosts for naked broomrape, so, not so coincidentally, Cougar Reservoir is also a haven for this species. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a fabulous 360° view from top of Potter Mountain. Here you can see Mount Bailey to the south. The air was cool and clear after the recent rains, and I could see Mt. McLoughlin and maybe even the top of Mt. Shasta.

Have you ever heard of Potter Mountain in Douglas County? I may have seen the name on a map, but I’d never heard anyone mention it. I had no idea what I was missing! I’m always excited to find new places, and several weeks ago when my husband and I were hiking along the ridge of Balm Mountain (see Butterflies, Blossoms, and Boulders on Balm Mountain), I couldn’t stop looking at a craggy summit a few miles due east. Later, looking at a map, I discovered it was Potter Mountain, and I was thrilled to find it was just off Road 2154, a major road (for a gravel road, that is) that traverses much of the Calapooya crest. This might actually be an easy place to access. With so many interesting plants in the Calapooyas, I couldn’t wait to check it out. Yesterday, July 25, I finally got to do it. Read the rest of this entry »