Slatsz Wildflower Walks 2016: 13 April 30, 2016

5/12/2016

21:43

I don’t seem to have written up Wildflower Walk 13, April 30, 2016, at the time. I see there is an audio recording of notes. It is a mess. Lots of it the sounds of walking heard inside my pocket.

I’ll transcribe the six minutes I was able to salvage.

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The huge domestic hawthorn on the south side of tall pine grove has a few blossoms.

Crataegus monogyna, common hawthorn

I improved the photos of buds on the Viburnum opulus.

Viburnum opulus, cranberry tree

The mallow 9 bark has a blossom.

Physocarpus malvaceus, mallow 9 bark

I thought I saw something new to me, pink flowers above filmy foliage. It was just Allium geyeri, Geyer’s onion growing up through filmy Lomatium foliage.

The Lomatium foliage was not quite like Lomatium macrocarpum, big seed biscuitroot. It was filmier than that.

I picked a leaf of an L. macrocarpum to compare with the filmy foliage. But the comparison isn’t well done. The leaf I chose was on a new plant and they are heavier than those on older plants.

Lomatium species

Camassia quamash, blue camas

I picked a Lithophragma parviflora, prairie star, with fruit developing on the flower stalk.

Lithophragma parviflora, prairie star

Grass species, fruit

The first bitterroot I’ve seen is on the top of long rock ridge, maybe 75 feet from the main trail, Fairly near the last large pine along the trail headed west, with a big patch of snowberry under it.

Lewisia rediviva, bitterroot

I searched diligently for blossoming buckwheat. I found nothing even approaching blooming.

I picked one to photograph that looked a little odd to me, with a ring of white buds inside the mass of red buds.

Eriogonum heracleoides, parsnip flowered buckwheat

Collinsia parviflora, blue eyed Mary, with fruit

I thought I might have seen a final narrow leaf miner’s lettuce but later I found an abundance, fresh and green, in the damp near north pond.

Montia linearis, narrow leaf miner’s lettuce

I started for home because I was tired and remembered that I had not checked the death camas. I decided to double the road. Whining but doing it.

I saw Microseris nutans at the point where I got back to long rock ridge. It had a bud to photograph and there was the strange pennatifid leaf very strange. I sat to photograph them, looked up and saw Oh My God, clouds … that I intended to photograph and didn’t.

Microseris nutans

I photographed a dry saxifrage, hoping for fruit too small to see with the eye. Nothing.

There is a loose patch of death camas at the northwest end of long rock ridge, where I found the first one.

Zigadenus venenosus, death camas

The huge choke cherry fairly near north pond is in full bloom.

At the foot of the choke cherry there are many Delphinium … larkspsur. I might have overlooked them on the last trip because they are nearly the same color as the camas and there are lots of camas nearby. Some larkspur are developing fruit so they have been blooming for awhile.

Delphinium nuttallianum, two lobe larkspur