Posts Tagged ‘Selaginella’
First Trip to Cliffs Northwest of Bristow Prairie
Looking north at the cliff face and the rocky meadow above. The longer dead grass and foliage in the front marks where there is a seep that must drip down over the cliff. Some large green and brownish clumps of Merriam’s alumroot can also be seen on the vertical rock just to the right of the large, shaded crack in the center.
Back in early June, I went to Pyramid Rock in southern Lane County (see Peak Bloom at Pyramid Rock) and got a good view of some cliffs on the west side of the ridge near Bristow Prairie. I’ve been hankering to explore them ever since. I checked them out on Google Earth and discovered they were only a few hundred feet below the High Divide trail. On my last trip to Bristow Prairie, there wasn’t time to squeeze a bushwhack in, and the weather wasn’t very good, so I had to put it off again. So on Friday, August 15, John Koenig and I decided getting to the cliffs would be our main goal, even though the plants would no doubt be finished blooming. After staying at home for over a week, waiting for the heat and thunderstorms to abate, I was raring to go. Read the rest of this entry »
Surprise at Tidbits
Nuttall’s linanthus (Leptosiphon nuttallii) has delicate foliage that is reminiscent of an asparagus fern.
I was planning to go back to the Calapooyas yesterday, but the smoke is way too bad down there (it’s just reaching our house this afternoon!), so I decided to head to Tidbits. It had been 2 years, and I missed the place. Since most everything is done blooming, I figured I’d do some more exploring, so after watching pikas on the talus and taking in the great view at the top, I went north along the Gold Hill trail from the old cabin intersection. Once before, I went a short ways down to the first outcrop but didn’t have time for more. I only made it a mile down yesterday when, after exploring another outcrop area, I had to turn around. But just .4 mile from the intersection I was shocked to find 2 plants of Leptosiphon (Linanthus) nuttallii. It turns out James Hickman found it on Rebel Rock, but the nearest site I knew of was at Fairview and Bohemia. The Atlas shows nothing else in Linn County. The rest of my few sites are all in Douglas County.