Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Posts Tagged ‘Sedum’

Frosted paintbrush (Castilleja pruinosa) and hotrock penstemon (Penstemon deustus) up on the rocky bald.

After finally spotting the hidden north trailhead last summer (see A Grand Day Exploring Bristow Prairie’s Varied Habitats), John Koenig and I returned last fall to do the northern end of the High Divide trail that crosses Bristow Prairie. We discovered an awesome pillar rock, moist forest, and more meadows, so it was definitely worth a return trip. On Wednesday (June 11), Sabine Dutoit and I decided to head up there and see what the area looks like in flower. We still had trouble finding the trailhead, as although John and I had found the trail sign in the ditch and put it back up on the road, it was moved yet again. Luckily, I had made a GPS waypoint last year. Once we found the trailhead, just a tad up the road from a quarry and pillar rock I had checked out a few years ago, we could see the sign had been placed on the ground next to the trail, just up into the woods—not much good for spotting the trail from the road, but at least we knew we were in the right place! Read the rest of this entry »

Several years ago, Sabine and I discovered a great roadside area for botanizing along Deer Creek Road in Linn County. Head out the McKenzie Highway past the ranger station. Deer Creek Road heads off to the left (west) after about 7.5 miles (3 miles south of Trail Bridge Reservoir). While you’ll start to see nice patches of Cryptantha intermedia pretty soon along the road banks, the real show doesn’t start until you drive past Fritz Creek. Here, between about 2.5 and 4 miles from the start of the road, there are about 13 creeks and seeps spilling down onto the road bank and fueling an amazing show of annuals this year.

Easternmost meadow with sweeps of Collinsia grandiflora

We hadn’t explored the area since 2005, so after a quick trip up Castle Rock a couple of weeks ago, we decided it would be worth checking out. The blue sheets of Collinsia grandiflora were outstanding. Mimulus guttatus was also quite lovely, and many other plants were still going strong—even some Romanzoffia thompsonii I remembered seeing on our original trips. At one particular small creek, I had discovered some Dodecatheon pulchellum back in 2005. At only about 2500′ elevation, it is the lowest site for this variety I know, and I figured it would be finished, but I still wanted to relocate it, and was pleased to find 3 small plants in the creek bed. I remembered finding much more in a somewhat hidden seepy meadow farther up hill. There are several other meadows above these roadcuts I hadn’t investigated yet. Clearly this area was worth a whole day of exploring. Read the rest of this entry »

It is easy to find the green flowered-alumroot (Heuchera chlorantha) along Eagle Creek Road.

Sabine and I had another exciting day in the field yesterday, checking on Fuji Mtn to see how it might be if we offer a hike there for next year’s NPSO Annual Meeting. Our major excitement was when we did some roadside botanizing on the way back from Fuji. We stopped to look at the oodles of white bog orchids in a ditch and discovered lots of other wonderful plants including a little Stenanthium and Parnassia. Just a little farther down the road at MP6, I was shocked to see hundreds of Heuchera chlorantha in bloom on the steep roadbank. I have it in the garden, but in all my wandering have never seen it in the wild. I noticed most of the Lane County sightings are from Bruce Newhouse. Loren Russell tells me he saws it long ago along the bottom of the road to Moon Point. I’ve gone up that road dozens of times, but I’ll look again. Read the rest of this entry »