On July 22 I met Jeff Greenhouse, John Game, Heath Bartosh and Jay Sullivan for an unofficial and mini Jepson workshop in the San Bernardinos. We camped at Barton Flats Campground on CA-38 and spent Friday going up the South Fork Trail and investigating the plants of the meadows along that trail with Tim Krantz. On Saturday we rose early and hiked up to the summit of San Gorgonio, Southern California's highest peak, to check out the rare alpine plants that grow in abundance there. It was a 20+ mile, 13-1/2 hour odyssey with close to 4000' of elevation gain, but it proved well worth it. The alpine zone is amazingly rich in botanical treasures and we only wished that we could spend more time before heading down. On Sunday we looked for some things in the Holcomb Valley north of Big Bear Lake and then briefly visited Eagle Point, part of the Big Bear Valley Preserve, along the south side of the lake. It was a very productive weekend and we saw many new species and others in bloom that I had seen before when not in bloom. It was especially rewarding for our Northern California participants for whom the meadows and alpine areas were new habitats. The picture above was taken from somewhere near the summit looking down at Whitewater Canyon which is that curving white stripe in the middle of the picture. An upside-down V next to the common name indicates a species that was new to me when I photographed it on this field trip, the symbol + indicates a species that was seen near the campground at Barton Flats, an asterisk means a non-native species, and a tilde (~) denotes an identification which I am not 100% sure of. |
