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Sunday, 4 June 2006 (Heaps Peak Arboretum, San Bernardino Mts)
Having looked for mountain dogwood (Cornus
nuttallii) several times before but never at quite the right
time, I was eager to find it in bloom and drove up the mountain to Heaps
Peak Arboretum near Lake Arrowhead. This is one of the places I had
seen it before along with Kuffel Canyon Road which goes from the Rim
of the World Highway (Rt. 18) to the lake. I drove down Kuffel Cyn Road
and saw many dogwoods in bloom. It's not easy to find places to park
along there, but I managed it and got some photographs of some of the
dogwoods right next to the road. Many of them were again just barely
passed the best stage of their bloom. Dogwoods are a particular favorite
of mine since my wife and I moved to California from Virginia, and the
flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) is the state flower of Virginia.
I was immediately intrigued when I became interested in the flora of
California to learn that there were several native dogwoods here. There
is what we call the American dogwood (Cornus sericea), our most
common dogwood, the mountain dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) and the
brown dogwood (Cornus glabrata), which I haven't seen yet. I
headed further along the highway to the Arboretum where I hoped they
might be in a little better shape.
As I was standing out in front of the Arboretum with my Jepson Manual,
a fellow came over and we started talking. It turned out that he was
Bob Reed, the curator of the Arboretum and a colleague and friend of
my friend Gina Richmond, with whom I took a bunch of botany classes
at Rancho Santa Ana. It was very nice to meet him and compare notes
on different species. He gave me a heads up on some of the things that
were blooming, told me that Gina was working down the road aways, and
I bought a copy of the first edition of his book on San Bernardino wildflowers.
He told me that he was re-doing much of the photography and hoped to
have a better edition out soon. I told him I would let him know about
anything interesting that I saw and he promised to do the same. Since
then we have exchanged several e-mails and he has put me on to the location
of at least one beautiful flower that I doubt I would have found on
my own, Nama rothrockii.
The Arboretum was extensively damaged by the fires of a couple of years
ago, but it is in excellent shape now, with a new bathroom near the
trailhead and the trail itself reworked so that it can even be accessed
by a person in a wheelchair. There is some lovely planting at the entrance,
deerbrush (Ceanothus integerrimus),
California false-
indigo (Amorpha californica
var. californica), foothill penstemon (Penstemon
heterophyllus var. australis), mountain sticky cinquefoil (Potentilla
glandulosa ssp. reflexa), spreading dogbane (Apocynum
androsaemi-
folium) and showy penstemon (Penstemon
spectabilis). I began walking around the trail and immediately
saw a beautiful display of Hartweg's iris (Iris
hartwegii ssp. australis) and baby blue eyes (Nemophila
menziesii var. integrifolia), the variant with whitish-colored
flowers. Other things I saw in bloom were American vetch (Vicia
americana var. americana), beautiful rock-cress (Arabis
pulchra var. pulchra), broad-leaved lotus (Lotus
crassifolius var. crassifolius), Child's collinsia (Collinsia
childii) which was a new species for me, common madia (Madia
elegans), Davidson's phacelia (Phacelia
davidsonii), large-flowered collomia (Collomia
grandiflora), spreading larkspur (Delphinium
patens), western wallflower (Erysimum
capitatum ssp. capitatum), whiskerbrush (Linanthus
ciliatus), winter cress (Barbarea
orthoceras) and woodland stars (Lithophragma
affine). I also saw a white-blooming lupine that I'm pretty
sure was L. andersonii, and another much shrubbier species that
I wasn't sure of. I got to the mountain dogwood and found that some
of the trees were in prime condition, which pleased me greatly. I also
saw quite a number of the white-flowered form of plain Mariposa lily
(Calochortus invenustus)
popping up in the woods. Somewhere around the trail, Gina showed up
and it was nice to see her again.
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Saturday, 17 June 2006 (Santa Ana River Wash, Redlands)
This was my first attempt to find the rare and endangered Santa Ana
River woollystar (Eriastrum
densifolium ssp. sanctorum). I had seen this species once before
with Lorrae Fuentes on a Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden field trip,
but could not remember where the location was. I asked my friend Gina
Richmond who has been working with Oscar Clarke on a book about the
flora of the Santa Ana River, and she sent me the e-mail address of
Greg Ballmer, who she said knew where to look for it. I contacted him
and he told me precisely where to go. This is about the right blooming
period for it so I drove out to an area near Redlands where the river
goes approximately east-west. Unfortunately the street across the wash
there was closed on the south side, so I drove around to the north side
and the street was closed there too. I got as close as I could and parked,
walking the rest of the way on foot through low scrubby vegetation and
cactus. Within a few minutes I saw a blue Eriastrum and I got
all excited. Soon there was lots of it, and not having a good mental
picture of ssp. sanctorum, took this to be what I was looking
for. There were also Stephanomerias blooming, and a lot of sweetbush
(Bebbia juncea) which is a species
more typically found in desert areas. Perhaps I should have recognized
the Eriastrum as an annual which would have eliminated densifolium
ssp. sanctorum as a possibility, but I didn't. The annual/perennial
couplet in the keys is the one I hate the most. In any event, I later
realized that it was actually the annual sapphire woolstar (Eriastrum
sapphirinum) which is also in that wash area, and I knew I would
have to get some further locational information and come back on another
day. It is frequently the case that it takes at least two attempts to
find some of these species. Sometimes the directions I get from people
don't make complete sense to me until I'm actually in the area, and
then I can ask follow-up questions which are more specific. So people
should definitely not be discouraged by a failure of the first attempt.
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Sunday, 18 June 2006 (Baldy Notch, San Gabriel Mts)
Today Miriam and I took the chairlift up to Baldy Notch in search of
a phacelia that Jane Strong saw recently, southern mountain phacelia
(Phacelia austromontana).
We had to walk down the road from Desert View toward Stockton Flats,
a road which I had never been on before. Around the Notch area itself
was a profuse bloom of bird's foot trefoil (Lotus
corniculatus) and I was able to point out to Miriam a lovely
clump of bright red snowplants (Sarcodes
sanguinea) growing under a pine tree. Jane had said that we
only had to go about a half-
mile down the road to the first drainage, and along the way we saw a
lot of fuchsia although not in bloom, and some beautiful clasping-leaved
caulanthus (Caulanthus amplexicaulis
var. amplexicaulis) with its deep purple flowers. When we got
to the drainage, we began searching for the phacelia. Jane had said
it was very small and that there were only about three plants. Miriam
was the first one to spot it, partly hiding under the edge of a log.
They were only about 3 cm tall and I'm amazed that Jane was able to
notice them, but then she has amazing abilities. This is a species that
ranges from the central Sierra Nevadas and White-Inyo Mts to the Transverse
Range and San Jacinto Mts. I don't know how common it is but given its
small size is probably often overlooked. This was the first time Miriam
had been up on the chairlift and she thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Wednesday, 21 June 2006 (Santa Ana River Wash and Heaps Peak Arboretum,
San Bernardino Mts)
This was my second attempt to find the Santa Ana River woollystar, and
Greg Ballmer was kind enough to e-mail me all the way from Thailand
with further locations! I drove to an area a bit further east along
the wash, parked at the end of a road, and hiked about a mile into the
wash itself. Once I was in the wash, it only took me about ten minutes
to spot the first Eriastrum, and it was immediately evident how
different it was from the sapphire woolstar I had seen a few days ago.
Densifolium is a perennial species, much larger and more robust,
and ssp. sanctorum has very large, especially beautiful flowers.
As mentioned before, this is an endangered species, but in this one
particular location it is very happy. Gravelly river beds is the habitat
the Jepson Manual gives for it, and it is quite amazing to be in a dry,
stony area and find these lush and robust plants popping up above the
sandy soil.
After leaving the wash, I drove up to the Heaps Peak Arboretum to have
another look at the shrubby lupine I had seen last time. Bob had told
me in an e-mail that he thought it was meadow lupine (L. polyphyllus),
and that it was now blooming. I had never seen polyphyllus before
and was eager to add it to my website, but I suspected that it might
also be the large-leaved Parish's lupine (L. latifolius var. parishii)
that is seen fairly commonly in moist areas of the San Bernardinos.
On this visit I found a mass of diamond-petalled clarkias (Clarkia
rhomboidea), Laguna Mountains jewelflower (Streptanthus
bernardinus), little spring beauty (Claytonia
exigua ssp. exigua), musk monkeyflower (Mimulus
moschatus), and streambank lotus (Lotus
oblongifolius var. oblongifolius). I also was able to give Bob
an identification of the yellow-flowered sunflower-like species that
was quite in evidence in several places. It was woolly sunflower (Eriophyllum
lanatum var. obovatum) and had all appeared just since the last
time I was there. I collected a sample of the large shrubby lupine and
headed home.
NOTE: The Streptanthus I initially identified as Caulanthus
major var. major because at that time I was not aware of ever having
seen Streptanthus, but I got that straightened out as a result
of hiking the Devils Slide Trail with Tom, and learning the difference
between the leaves of the two species. Also, when I got home and keyed
out my sample of the lupine, it did turn out to be Parish's lupine,
so I will have to keep looking for meadow lupine.
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Saturday, 24 June 2006 (Palomar Mountain State Park)
Richard Sapiro and I drove up to Palomar Mountain State Park today to
look for a few things and hike into a couple of the areas of the park
that we had never been in before. We began on the Weir/Lower Doane Valley
trail and almost immediately found the introduced wall bedstraw (Galium
parisiense) that I had looked for before unsuccessfully at the
Santa Rosa Plateau. Mountain sweet-cicely (Osmorhiza
chilensis) was our next goal and we found a single grouping
of leaves right where Tom had them on his plant guide. This was one
of these situations where you photograph something the first time you
see it and it's not very impressive but you don't realize that just
up the trail are literally masses of it in much better shape. The bloom
unfortunately was over, but at least now I know that I can come back
a bit earlier next year and photograph it again.
The first part of this trail is through some lovely woods with lots
of "berry" bushes like wild strawberry (Fragaria
vesca), western raspberry (Rubus
leucodermis), thimbleberry (Rubus
parviflorus), Utah serviceberry (Amelanchier
utahensis), California blackberry (Rubus
ursinus) and mountain pink currant (Ribes
nevadense), and some other interesting and fairly uncommon things
like burning bush (Euonymus occidentalis
var. parishii), woolly angelica (Angelica
tomentosa), hairy honeysuckle (Lonicera
hispidula var. vacillans), and the white-
flowered Palmer's ceanothus (Ceanothus
palmeri). Eventually you begin glimpsing a meadow off to the
right and soon the trail is paralleling the edge of the meadow. These
meadows in the park are very unusual because you don't find too many
such features in Southern California, and they are really beautiful
and the result of the 40" of rain that Palomar Mountain gets each
year. Soon, bracken fern (Pteridium acquilinum
var. pubescens) is lining the trail and you see mats of Sierra
Nevada lotus (Lotus nevadensis var.
nevadensis), whiskerbrush (Linanthus
ciliatus), mustang mint (Monardella
lanceolata) and yarrow.
We crossed Doane Creek (pronounced "doe-n" not "do-ayne"
as I originally thought) and crossed an open section of meadow to the
junction of the French Valley trail loop that parallels the Doane Valley
Natural Preserve. As we got farther back into this valley, I was overcome
by its incredible beauty and peacefulness, and I was just intensely
grateful that places like this existed and had been preserved. The meadow
was covered in grasses and there were many little flowers showing spots
of color, among which were Cleveland's horkelia (Horkelia
clevelandii), the yellow form of common linanthus (Linanthus
parviflorus) and Heermann's lotus (Lotus
heermannii var. heermannii). I pointed out some Mexican rush
(Juncus mexicanus) to Richard
and showed him what Tom had demonstrated to me about how you can grip
the stems with your fingers and slide them up causing the stems to rotate.
At the upper end of the trail, it approaches a creek area and suddenly
there were large shrubs covered with the most amazing display of white
flowers. They were western azaleas (Rhododendron
occidentale) and they made the few individuals down by the Weir
look sick by comparison.
Upon our return we joined the Lower Doane Trail again. I wanted to show
Richard the spotted coralroot (Corallorhiza
maculata) that Miriam and I had found on our recent hike in
here. When we had been here on the way to San Diego to celebrate my
birthday, we had only found a few plants. This time, in searching for
the one plant we had seen before that was in good shape, we found probably
upwards of 50 individual plants, but most of them were past their best
blooms. Still, it gave Richard a good idea of what they looked like.
We also found a bunch of the royal rein orchids (Piperia
transversa) although they were just beginning to bloom. Some
of the orchids were growing immediately adjacent to coralroots, and
it's curious that these two species should so prefer this one particular
area under oaks.
Next we started out on the trail that goes around the Upper Doane Valley,
which I had never been on either. On one side of the valley the trail
is in the woods. It seemed quite different from the other trails. All
along the edge of the meadow where Doane Creek flows there was a solid
mass of corn lilies (Veratrum californicum
var. californicum) that a month from now willbe in full bloom,
and under the pines we saw what I think was Child's collinsia (Collinsia
childii). The trail comes out of the woods and goes through
a small meadow where we saw a lot of large-flowered collomia (Collomia
grandiflora). Where the trail cuts across the creek, there was
more western raspberry and roundleaf leather root (Hoita orbicularis),
and coming back on the other side of the meadow we saw lesser indian
paintbrush (Castilleja minor
ssp. spiralis) and robust vervain (Verbena
lasiostachys var. scabrida). I know there were other things
we noticed but I just can't think of them right now.
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Thursday, 29 June 2006 (Whitewater Canyon and Devils Slide Trail,
San Jacinto Mts)
Our excursion today began in Whitewater Canyon where I had been informed
by Greg Ballmer that there was a likelihood of finding a species I had
been looking for for years, catchfly gentian (Eustoma
exaltatum). We drove up Whitewater Canyon Road looking for a
moist area in an otherwise dry desert terrain, an area I had been assured
we would recognize immediately. And so we did. There was water actually
running along the side of the road from a spring, and even from the
car I saw scarlet monkeyflowers and cat-tails. We quickly pulled over
and began inspecting the roadside vegetation. The first thing we saw
was the introduced pulicaria (Pulicaria
paludosa) which I had only ever seen before in Upper Newport
Bay. Then I spotted a little monkeyflower that looked different to me
and I just couldn't place it. Later I keyed out a sample of it and it
turned out to be an unexpected new species for me, Parish's monkeyflower
(Mimulus parishii), which
is an uncommon species of wet, sandy streamsides in the western desert
regions. Then Richard spotted the first gentian and we began celebrating
because not only is it an incredibly beautiful flower, but there was
an amazing display of it on both sides of the road. We were certainly
off to a good start for the day with two new species.
Having seen a number of species on Tom Chester's list for the Devils
Slide Trail that typically bloom from June to August, and not being
very familiar with the flora of the San Jacinto Mountains, I had decided
that this would be an opportune time to try out this location. The trailhead
is in Humber Park, a few miles north of the ranger station in Idyllwild,
where you have to stop to get a wilderness hiking permit. The permits
are free and are not usually a problem on weekdays, but might be difficult
to obtain if you get there late on a weekend because they are limited.
And don't neglect this responsibility because there are volunteer rangers
on the trail and more often than not your permit will be checked.
Even though it was hot down below, it was refreshingly cool in the
upper pine forests, although the flying insects were annoying. The trail
begins at an elevation of 6,440' and ascends in 2.5 miles to Saddle
Junction at 8,075', passing on the way a number of drainages that depending
on the time of year and what kind of year it has been might or might
not be moist. It quickly became apparent to us why this is one of Tom's
favorite and most-visited trails, not terribly steep, good trail surface,
much of it shaded, and with many interesting plants.
We began meandering up the trail amidst a host of conifers like white
firs, incense-cedars and jeffrey, coulter and sugar pines, and broadleaf
trees such as black oaks, canyon live oaks and interior live oaks. Other
large shrubs along the trail include the mountain whitethorn, two different
manzanita species (pink-bracted and greenleaf), bush chinquapin, western
azalea, and Fremont's silktassel. There were masses of large-flowered
lotus (Lotus grandiflorus var.
grandiflorus) mostly in fruit and prostrate mats of Sierra Nevada
lotus (Lotus nevadensis var. nevadensis)
with its multi-flowered inflorescences distinguishing it from var.
davidsonii in the San Gabriels. We saw some Indian milkweed (Asclepias
eriocarpa) and southern honeysuckle (Lonicera
subspicata var. denudata) but we were looking for the first
examples of a buckwheat I had never seen, San Jacinto buckwheat (Eriogonum
apiculatum), which I had looked for once before unsuccessfully in
the Laguna Mts. Right where Tom had it listed on his guide, we found
some buckwheats with no blooms. The leaves looked very much like naked
buckwheat to me, but then I didn't know what to look for. Beaked penstemon
(Penstemon rostriflorus) was
very much in evidence with its beautiful scarlet blossoms, and then
after a couple of switchbacks we came to what Tom had on his list as
Arabis sp.? Evidently he had not seen it in bloom as it was now,
and looking at the flowers I decided that it was Caulanthus major.
I took some pictures of it to forward to him, and we continued on to
the first moist drainage on the trail. More about this plant in a subsequent
report.
Someone had e-mailed Tom about a fern she had seen on this trail that
she thought was either Cystopteris fragilis or a Woodsia,
and since I had never seen either we looked carefully at the first seep
where she thought she had seen it. Although we found a couple of other
things I was looking for, the rather small brown-headed rush (Juncus
phaeocephalus var. paniculatus) and pinegrove groundsmoke (Gayophytum
oligospermum), we saw no sign of any ferns. There were two tiny
yellow monkeyflowers within inches of each other that were clearly different
and that turned out to be downy monkeyflower (Mimulus
pilosus) and many-flowered monkeyflower (Mimulus
floribundus), and climbing up the drainage above the trail I
observed masses of scarlet monkeyflower (Mimulus
cardinalis), Cleveland's horkelia (Horkelia
clevelandii) and columbine (Aquilegia
formosa). Attracted to the water were lots of butterflies, the
lovely California sisters which were not unexpected, but the real surprise
was the relatively uncommon California tortoiseshell in great abundance.
California figworts (Scrophularia
californica var. floribunda) were in full bloom at this same
location as well as the first large groupings of Grinnell's penstemon
(Penstemon grinnellii var. grinnellii),
one of the most abundant flowering shrubs on the trail.
Sierra gooseberries (Ribes roezlii
var. roezlii) were past their bloom which was disappointing
but not surprising given the lateness of the season, but then we started
seeing small clumps of the interesting Parish's bedstraw (Galium
parishii). Richard pointed out a silktassel of which there are
several species which I have not seen that much in the wild, but this
turned out to be a species I had never seen anywhere, Fremont's silktassel
(Garrya fremontii), a resident
of the Peninsular Range. We began passing masses of large bracken ferns
(Pteridium acquilinum var. pubescens),
mountain prickly phlox (Leptodactylon
pungens), and western wallflowers (Erysimum
capitatum ssp. capitatum). At another seepy area, we saw another
larger yellow monkeyflower which I was unsure of but which was probably
M. tilingii or M. moschatus. Just beyond the drainage
we found the first of another species new to me called changeable phacelia
(Phacelia mutabilis), a
biennial or short-lived perennial apparently restricted in Southern
California at least to the San Jacintos but more common in the Sierras
and north.
We continued switchbacking up the trail, meeting a ranger who checked
our permits and told us about a rattle-
snake he had just passed on the way down. He called it a black diamondback
which Richard and I found very pecular because we had never heard of
such a species. When we found it, it was curled up under a rock with
its rattle prominantly displayed and indeed it was black in color. Later
when I checked my western reptiles book, I was unable to find any picture
that looked like it. We had entered a bouldery area with some different
flora like Parish's campion (Silene
parishii), shaggy hawkweed (Hieracium
horridum), Watson's spike-moss (Selaginella
watsonii), and rock buckwheat (Eriogonum
saxatile). At each of several moist drainages we had searched
for the elusive fern but had been unable to locate it. But at the next
one, I did find a fern that I might have taken at first to be a Dryopteris,
but which looked like some of the pictures of Cystopteris I had
found online. Even though this was well past the location that we were
given for it, I came to the conclusion that it just might be the brittle
fern (C. fragilis) we were eager
to find, but I knew I would have to wait for Tom's confirmation. In
this same area we found a different-looking variant of branching phacelia
(Phacelia ramosissima var. ramosissima)
and a very robust California cliff-brake (Pellaea
mucronata var. californica) nestled in a rocky crevice above
the trail.
As we approached Saddle Junction, we saw some San Jacinto Mountains
keckiella (Keckiella
rothrockii var. jacintensis) which even though not blooming
Richard was able to recognize having seen it on the trail to San Jacinto
Peak. Later I found a much larger grouping of it with a single bloom
(it was early for it) so was able to get a picture of the beautiful
flower. Three things I had missed were perennial rock-cress (Arabis
perennans), little prince's pine (Chimaphila menziesii) and
the San Jacinto buckwheat, but all in all we considered that we had
done very well.
From Saddle Junction, trails go off in all directions. A segment of
the Pacific Crest Trail heads north toward San Jacinto Peak and Round
Valley and is the trail that goes off to the left. The Willow Creek
Trail goes straight ahead from the junction and after passing Skunk
Cabbage Meadows heads to Long Valley and the top of the Aerial Tramway.
To the right are two trails, the lefthandmost of which is marked Tahquitz
Valley and proceeds in a southeast direction to Laws and Caramba Camps,
and the other marked Tahquitz Peak which is another segment of the Pacific
Crest Trail goes south to Chinquapin Flats Junction and Tahquitz Peak,
and connects with the South Ridge Trail that goes back down to the Idyllwild
area. This is probably one of the nicest hiking locations in Southern
California because of the great number of different hikes, both out
and back, and loops that are available.
We went a short ways along the trail to Tahquitz Peak, trying unsuccessfully
as it turned out, to find San Jacinto buckwheat, but seeing many changeable
phacelias and the lovely, delicate San Jacinto lupine (Lupinus
hyacinthinus), a species I had never seen before. Another perennial
Tom had seen in this area although somewhat later in the year was beautiful
hulsea (Hulsea vestita ssp. callicarpha) which I was eager to
add to the three other subspecies of Hulsea vestita I had seen,
but regrettably there was none to be found today, and after having a
bite to eat, we somewhat reluctantly called an end to the day and headed
back down the trail.
NOTE: For further information on the species of the rattlesnake, see
the field trip log report for 10
July 2006.
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