22 June 11, 2016

Wildflower Walk 22, June 11, 2016

This is a fairly raw transcription of an audio recording.

I found three species in bloom, two unidentified species. The big find was a bud on Toxicondendron radicans, poison ivy.

2:56. Arrived at the southeast corner of the park to check for the late blooming Erigeron, fleabane. No sign of them, yet. I fear they have been destroyed. It’s still a little early for them. I should admit that I don’t remember their foliage except that it is different, more ‘conventional’ than the E. compositus, cutleaf fleabane. I’ll keep watching for blossoms.

The day was cold, dark and windy.

I stopped for a haircut on the way here. A nice young man from Orofino, Idaho. His girl friend is here, studying for a teaching certificate. They will return to Orofino after she gets her degree. He will have his own barbershop there. He’s good. Does nice work on my hair and beard, gently. Does the entertainment thing effectively … tactfully.

I ask people how they amuse themselves. He spends all of his time working. Making money. Presumably for marriage and a business. His girlfriend is home, in Orofino, visiting relatives.

The strange, unidentified plant with green flowers is in bloom and past bloom. I set the camera for manual, f. 8, 1/400^th of a second … stupid. It was a dark day AND I was in deep shade. The monitor looked absolutely black, then would clear, briefly, when I half pressed the shutter button to focus. Some of the ‘images’ are sheets of black. Some of the images were probably worth processing … salvaging. No. It didn’t occur to me to use flash.

I am astounded that there was as much ‘information’ preserved as there was. I feel sure film wouldn’t have recorded as much.

Raw photo, before processing

Unidentified species, south of south pond
[David Giblin has identified the unidentified flowers. This is Cynoglossum officinale, gypsy flower. What I thought were very strange flowers were fruit. The flowers have pretty purple or lavender petals.] 

[There are hawks circling in the dawn. I suppose they will have starlings for breakfast.]

I walked around the west side of south pond. I checked for Cocklebur. Lots of foliage no buds. There was slightly familiar but unidentified foliage that I photographed for remembrance sake. Lots of it on the west and north side of south pond.

Unidentified foliage

I saw a somewhat familiar ground-hugger on the north side that I sat to photograph. I have an unexplained affection for the ground huggers. There is a sense of mystery about them. A personal thing, I’m sure. Something unremembered from my childhood, perhaps.

I thought the plant was Amaranthus blitoides, spreading pigweed. But the leaves are wrong, or so it seems. Those in Burke have smooth margins and come to a point, these and oval and have teeth on the distal end like A. alnifolia, saskatoon leaves.

I photographed the ground-hugger in little light. The sun came out and I took more photographs. I’ll try to watch for changes.

Unidentified ground-hugger

[Euphorbia serpyllifolia, thyme leaves spurge]

The beggar tick plants were quite small. I thought I saw a large one where I found the first one in bloom, in the past, up against a downed willow trunk, fallen away from the pond. I was wrong.

There are many thick mats of the native T. microcephalum,  small head clover on both sides of the main trail, north of south pond and west of south pond. Most are very short, starved looking, but those northeast to the junction of the main trail with the north access trail are very tall, by comparison and luxurious looking, 8 or 10 inches tall. I wanted find one in full bloom and improve my photos of it. Robert Carr has a beauty in the EWU collection. I’m envious. Envy didn’t help. I didn’t find a good specimen and didn’t get good images of those I did find.

They are so small and so complex I have to pick them and hold them up to my eye to see whether they are in full bloom.

I changed the camera settings to aperture preferred, f.8. The sun comes and goes. Part of the time the clover heads read 1/100^th of a second, part of the  time it reads 1/400^th or 1/500^th of a second.

Trifolium microcephalum, woolly clover

[David says this is Trifolium microdon, thimble clover. I think it might be T. microcephalum.]

I meant to check for American trefoil, Lotus unifoliolatus, out in the middle of the park but I decided to check the poison ivy and go home. The L. unifoliolatus are hard to see. They will be everywhere, soon.

The poison ivy seems to have one/only bud. I wouldn’t wade into the mass of leaves to photograph it. I attempted, instead, to use the telephoto feature, while still in the macro feature. I seem to have had moderate success. If I were steadier on my feet I might have had good success. Yeah, yeah, I could have brought a tripod.

Toxicondencdron radicans, poison ivy

I found another plant I can’t identify. It is tall. At first glance it seemed to have the small yellow flowers and spread inflorescence of Jim Hill mustard but the leaves are wrong. It was by the trail entering the deep shade east of south pond.  Way too many petals for Jim Hill mustard. Mustards, Brassicaceae family, have only 4 petals.

Unidentified species north and east of south pond

[Crepis capillaries, smooth hawksbeard]

I picked a piece of the foliage of a fleshy ground hugger I like. Most of the photographs were at f.8. The last bunch … dozen? … I switched fo f.2.8. It’s cloudy, now. The best shutter speeds where 1/100^th of a second at f.8, At f. 2.8 they were only twice as fast, 1/200^th of a second. Needs more study. 

And I need a better method of recording camera settings.

Portulaca oleraceae, little hogweed

I’ll take a cloud photo or two, get in the car and go home.

Reset the camera to f.8 for the cloud photos. Focus on a ponderosa the sky goes light, focus on the sky, the tree goes black.

Landscape, clouds

3:51. I have not yet loaded the car. 4:06 in my parking place at home.

107 images. 23 keepers.

I was surprised that I could salvage as many as I did. They all need to be reshot in good light but some have an interesting look because they were shot in poor light.

[We are approaching summer solstice. The sun is rising in the dip between Minnehaha and Baldy. It will reverse course, soon. It rises south of Mica Peak for winter solstice.]