Posts Tagged ‘Sphenosciadium’
Back to Warner Mountain Bog
Gentians blooming in the main bog.
Alpine laurel (Kalmia microphylla) is already in seed by the time the flowers of the late-blooming gentians appear.
Having just discovered explorer’s gentians (Gentiana calycosa) on Warner Mountain (see previous post, Hidden Bog on Warner Mountain), my top priority was to get back to see them in full bloom. I contacted Molly Juillerat, botanist and Middle Fork District ranger, to see if she wanted to come. Luckily, she was free the following weekend. I figured that was enough time for the display to be worth the trip. As it turns out, a couple of other friends, Nancy and Keiko, were already planning to head up to that area as well. So we agreed to all drive up separately and meet by the lookout on August 2. Keiko brought her husband, Daniel, and Molly brought her faithful dog, Ruby. After checking out an interesting rocky spot a short way off the road that I’d noticed on Google Earth (not too many flowers but pikas under the rock pile!), we stopped to have lunch by the lookout. Sadly, the Cascade lilies were pretty much done—I was really fortunate to have seen them the week before. Then we headed over to the bog. Read the rest of this entry »
A Fine Day at Fuller Lake
We came across this amazing display of scarlet paintbrush (Castilleja miniata) along the road and stopped for a while to watch the hummingbirds fighting over it.
We had to stop at our favorite butterfly-watching site along Road 3810 where the dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium) attracts numerous butterflies and other insects with its candy-like fragrance. Nectaring here a fritillary and an Edith’s copper.
On August 1, John Koenig and I headed back to the Calapooyas to visit Fuller Lake, just east of Reynolds Ridge. John had never been there before. It was my third trip, but it had been six years since my previous visit, and somehow I’d neglected to post a report on this blog of either of the earlier visits. There’s a short but somewhat rough road down to the trailhead, but surprisingly the trail was in great shape. It’s an old road that leads to the lake, less than a mile away. Sadly, the shelter that was still there on my last visit was nothing but a pile of boards. There was also evidence of an old dock along the lake that was in similar disarray.
The lake itself was as pretty as I remember it. A large talus slope bounds the south end of the lake. We headed down the west side toward the talus. Most of the flowers were finished blooming, but we did come across one exceptional stand of leopard lilies (Lilium pardalinum) in their full glory. It was clear there had been a lovely show of camas (Camassia sp.) a month or so earlier. We even found a couple of stray flowers left. We imagined it must look a lot like nearby Bradley Lake, but although it was already August, this was my earliest trip, so I’ve never seen its spring bloom. Read the rest of this entry »
The Day of the Caterpillar
Rangers buttons attracts lots of insects, including bees, as seen here.
The scintillae (sparkling blue scales) are especially evident on the lower wings of this pretty female Anna’s blue.
On August 2, Sabine Dutoit, Nancy Bray, and I went up to Groundhog Mountain for a relaxing day of enjoying flowers and butterflies and whatever else we came across. We started our day in the small sloping wetland that heads downhill to the east off of Road 2309. While most of the flowers, even in the wetlands, are finishing up early this year, it was the perfect time for Cascade grass-of-Parnassus (Parnassia cirrata) and rangers buttons (Sphenosciadium capitellatum). The latter is found mainly in the southern part of the Western Cascades. It is always fun to come across. The unusual flowers have open umbels of soft, dense, spherical umbellets, the kind of thing you just have to touch. I told Nancy that this was a good host food plant for Anise swallowtails, and, sure enough, before we left the wetland, she’d found a caterpillar chewing on the leaves of a rangers buttons.