23 June 23,2016

Solstice predawn. The camera is pointed due north

6/24/2016

02:42

6/26/2016

02:52

I decided, about ten in the morning last Thursday, to walk the wildflowers. I would check the poison ivy for flowers and see if the American bird’s foot trefoil was in bloom. It had been far too long since I checked up on that world. Six hours later a dragged old bodikins out of this chair and into my car.

Fortunately, it was only a couple of days after summer solstice and there was still lots of light.

Once again, thinking about the camera was too much trouble. I set it on 1/400^th of a second and ‘program’ [whatever that means] and I seem to have had good fortune much of the time.

Most of this writing is from an audio recording made during the walk. I walked the park about two hours and took about 150 images. I’ve used most of my waking time for two days processing them. I don’t suppose that’s true, however it is true that they exhausted my time/energy budget.

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4:16 at Spokane Falls Boulevard and Washington. The temperature is 80 degrees. It’s mostly cloudy but with lots of sun breaks. Lots of small piles of sunlit clouds

4: 28 at the east end of the park. I’m here to check Toxicondendron radicans, poison ivy

for blossoms and to look for blossoms on Lotus unifoliolatus, American bird’s foot trefoil.

I forgot I was interested in Centaurea stoebe, spotted knapweed. I should have stopped and checked the patch at the north entrance to the park.

I see no action on T. radicans. Nothing. Now I have to wonder if what I thought was a bud was an illusion. I do see old fruit from last year.

The Crepis capillaries, smooth hawksbeard at the edge of the thicket is still in bloom.

The Holodiscus discolor shrubs, ocean spray, are in full bloom all over the park. The one on the east end looks a little brown. I wonder if it’s past bloom. I won’t walk over to check. I took an image to improve the H. discolor collection.

Holodiscus discolor, ocean spray

I walked over to the north shore of south pond to check for a species I supposed had been destroyed, just in case it had come back and noticed a couple of very late blossoms on the Cornus sericea, red osier dogwood that half circles the pond. Presumably a second blossoming.

Cornus sericea, dogwood

I found the Asteraceae with disk flowers only that I have been looking for and can’t at the moment remember the name of. It was in bloom.

The NPS Drumheller Springs plant list has Bidens vulgata. Burke says Bidens frondosa because it has long slim petioles. Bicdnx vulgata has winged petioles.

Bidens vulgata, tall beggar-tick [B. frondosa]

I’m too late to improve my photos of Trifolium microcephalum, woolly clover in full bloom. I did photograph a seed-head.

Trifolium microcephalum, Woolly clover

I took some landscapes with clouds photos from this location. I seem to have touched sticky subjects with the lens attempting super closeups. Interesting that the crap on the lens only showed up in certain images.

Landscape, clouds, north of south pond

There’s a big patch of the Lotus unifoliolatus, American bird’s foot trefoil on the south of the main trail across from the west edge of south pond. But they are easy to find. They are everywhere.

Lotus unifoliolatus, American bird’s foot trefoil

I took a specimen that might be the last Microsteris gracilis, Slender Phlox.

Microsteris gracilis, Slender Phlox

I took a specimen not in bloom or bud, a tall column thick with leaves. I see a lot of these along the main trail. Just a reminder for me to watch for flowers on it in future.

Unidentified foliage

The clouds continue to be spectacular.

Landscapes, clouds

The sun is still very high after 5 p.m., daylight time, a couple of days after the summer solstice.

I took a small specimen of Perideridia gairdneri, yampah in bud. I sat on a basalt outcrop east of the Prunus virginiana, chock cherry, west of north pond to photograph it. I have been checking the base of the hillock the P. virginiana is on for a P. gairdneri patch I’ve seen in the past. I wondered if the piles of Vicia villosa, winter vetch had strangled them.

I discovered later that I have been looking at the wrong hillock.

While I was photographing, seated on the basalt outcrop in front of P. virginiana, I looked up to see three or four more P. gairdneri sticking up above thick foliage south of the outcrop. One looked like it might be at least partially in bloom and so it was. But the flowers were so small I didn’t see that till I got the images into the computer.

I waded into the tangled foliage with some difficulty in my three legged reality. I didn’t get a good image. I was reluctant to take a second specimen and was not sufficiently steady on my feet to get a good image in situ.

Perideridia gairdneri, yampah

flowers partially open

I took a specimen of Rumex crispus, curly dock to photograph.

Rumex crispus, curly dock

No mosquitoes. Few insects of any kind. Something landed on my bare leg a minute ago and I mortally wounded it, more or less by accident. I see something crawling into a V. villosa inflorescence.

Walking past the next shrub-hillock to the north I noticed a patch of Polygonum douglasii, Austin’s knotweed and sat to photograph them. This hillock is just east of the Ceanothus sanguineus, Oregon tea tree.

The specimen I took is about twice as tall as the others nearby. The flower is far down the flower stalk with many fruit above it so it has been in bloom for awhile.

Polygonum douglasii, Austin’s knotweed

This flower is invisibly small, perhaps 1/16th of an inch

Of course I left the tape measure in the car

A bud

This must be fruit

Sitting, doing the photography, I noticed that the shrub-hillock beside me is the one I should have been checking for the patch of P. gairdneri.

A short distance north and west of the hillock there was an Erigeron compositus, cut leaf fleabane in full bloom, obviously a second blooming. There were stalks of dry fruit.

Erigeron compositus, cutleaf fleabane

Lotus unifoiliatus and Polygonum douglasii are everywhere in this part of the park. I see one rather ratty Potentilla gracilis with a couple of flowers. I only saw two with flowers, this walk.

All of the tiny mudflat plants are blooming in profusion. The pin cushion plant is living up to its name. I stuck my fingers only slightly. I wonder about the dogs running the park. I wonder if they learn where not to go. Unofficial trails seem to indicate that they come through here.

There are big mats of Geranium carolinianum, thick and tall. I don’t see many flowers but they may be eyeball failure, and a reluctance to get down and look.

I walked the two basalt outcrops nearest the west shore of north pond to check for foliage of the unidentified red stemmed yellow flower again and once again, nothing.

The thick and extensive patch of Amsinckia lycopsoides, tarweed fiddleneck, northwest of north pond is flaming with flowers.

The north edge of north pond is thick with blooming Sisymbrium altissimum, Jim Hill mustard.

I took a specimen I thought was Descurainia Sophia, flixweed, but checking photos in Burke it seems to be a mistaken identification. It will be some kind of mustard. It has four yellow petals. I don’t see many of these plants. I have photographed it in the past. I don’t remember if I got the flowers.

I lost my black velour backing cloth at some point since that last session of photography. I have more at home.

Unidentified mustard species [I’m sure it’s just a developing Sisymbrium altissimum. The inflorescence had not spread.]

I sat on a boulder of the north-south line, east of north pond to photograph the unidentified species. The clouds were attractive. I took some images.

Landscape, clouds from north-south boulders

I had a hard time getting out today. I started thinking about it at ten in the morning. It was four in the afternoon before I managed to make the front door. It’s hard to remember how good it feels to be out here, glued to my chair, in front of my computer.

The wind has been fairly constant. Sometimes it’s calm. But it can’t be trusted. Gusts blow away my specimens, roll the backing sheet over them.

I walked the north shore of north pond to check the patches of Centaurea stoebe, spotted knapweed for flowers. They are there in abundance but they are not in bloom. I had seen a patch in bud last outing … ten days ago … at the north access to the park. I walked over there to see if they were in bloom and they were.

I wasn’t strong enough to pull up a specimen with one hand and I knew I would fall if I attempted both hands. I asked a passer by how strong he was and he got one for me.

Centaurea stoebe, spotted knapweed

I walked the north access trail back toward the car. I saw a lonely Gaillardia aristata, blanker flower, just east of the trail. And there were a couple of Scutellaria angustifolia, skull caps.

I left the trail to check, once again, for the very odd and probably domestic escapees I remember among in the east-west line of ponderosa. And again I found no sign of them but I did see a couple of Geum triflorum, Prairie Smoke in bloom.

Six twenty seven in my car, ready to reverse route. Two hours walking the park.

Six forty one in my parking place.