California Soaproot

Robin and I spotted a few of these at the end of a hike last night, so I went back after sundown to try and get some pictures. Chlorogalum pomeridianum-soaproot or amole, is a bulb about the size of an onion, with a few long wavy leaves growing in a clump. The leaves on these two plants were withered and gone. It only blooms in the spring following a fire, and then won't bloom again until the next fire. Even though the flowers are easily visible 50 meters away, I've never noticed one before-possibly because it's a night blooming flower that opens at dusk and is closed by morning, although one source I read said that each night's blooms actually fall off by morning. If anyone knows, leave a comment, please...










It's called soaproot because the bulb contains saponin, which gets foamy when mixed with water. It's been used as a dandruff treatment, which makes me happy that I've shaved my head and freed myself from the tyranny of shampoo. Saponin is toxic, but if you cook or roast the bulb it's safe. It is supposed to taste like an onion, but made of wood. Mmmmm.






The other odd bit of info I found about it was that among the food given to the Donner party by the Native Americans they met was roasted soapwood. 

There are very few of these visible in the park-I've only seen these two plants, one near the Visitor's Center, and two on a hill near some of the plants I'm monitoring for CPP. The stalks were about 4 feet tall, and the flowers about 2 inches.

We went on a "herp walk" led by Ranger Anthony Bavilacqua today...not very good weather for it; it took some work to find even a single fence lizard. But, we did go to see the California Newts living locally. There aren't a lot of these guys around, and our lack of water has concentrated them into a few small areas. They only spend the breeding season in the water, preferring to stay dry the rest of the year.

These guys are toxic-the poison is similar to poison dart frogs and pufferfish. You have to eat them to be affected, so don't eat them-simple. Garter snakes DO eat them, and they have evolved a tolerance to the poison, which has made the newts become MORE poisonous, which selects for snakes with greater resistance, and so on. As a result, these newts produce are a lot more poisonous than would be necessary to kill any other possible predator they might meet.

This was pretty hard to shoot, underwater with a bright sky, but there it is.

This one was tougher-underneath a huge boulder.

Not related to reptiles at all, but I can't resist these-Phacelia Grandiflora, or large flowered phacelia.

Snake Trail

This morning I did my usual Snake Trail loop in Rancho Sierra Vista and Point Mugu State Park. I've been watching a hundred or so Humboldt Lilies, which are unusual-Upper Sycamore Canyon is lower than their usual range, and I've never seen them here before.

A week ago I saw the first flowers developing on plants with more sun, but none are open yet. In fact, those plants are already becoming dessicated and wilting-I'm not sure these flowers will open before drying out. Some plants in shadier and moister areas are starting to bud, so I'll cross my fingers.

Here's a Parry's Phacelia (Phacelia Parryi, which makes this Latin stuff look pretty obvious, eh?), which is all over the canyon. Less than an inch accross, but very pretty.

Last week the SMMNRA Facebook page featured a Red Velvet Ant, which is really a wasp. They were all over Danielson Fireroad this morning.

Best sighting of the day, though, was this guy, who darted across the trail in front of me, too quickly for me to really get a good picture. Maybe three and a half feet long. I haven't seen a rattler in ages; it's nice to know they're still finding enough to eat in the burn area.

First post

Saturday, I had a very enjoyable class with NPS botoanist Tarja Sagar learning how to use Jepson to identify plants. Let's just say I'm a level or two below that...but the wonderful site http://smmflowers.org/ is perfect for me at this point. At the class, after finding some rare treasures just along the road on PCH, some people went off to see the Allium praecox, a rarish onion with a beautiful flower. I needed to stay behind since my car was acting up, so I decided to go myself and look for it. It's supposed to exist in the Santa Monica Mountains only in that one spot.

Upon reaching the fabled location (on the switchbacks on the La Jolla Canyon Trail, just above the falls) I was excited to find many of them. I took photos, but only with my cellphone, and none turned out-lesson learned.

I hiked on to the campground in La Jolla Valley, I found another, then another, and even more! And, to add to the excitement, who should be at the campground other than Tarja herself. Well, I had the wrong plant all along, of course-it was a snakelily, Dichelostemma capitatum. At least I was able to find the species once I got home.

On Saturday, they had found a Dudleya caespitosa, which I think I had seen a few days earlier on the Scenic trail in Sycamore Canyon. Today I found two more Dudleyas near the waterfall, but without a flower I can't really tell what sort. They look more like Dudleya lanceolata to my idiot eyes.

Last for today is a picture of some lily buds in Upper Sycamore Canyon. There are over 100 of these that I have found, the Humboldt Lily or Lilium humboldtii ssp. ocellatum, and they seem set to start blooming any day. I may go out tonight to see if these have opened yet-I took this picture three days ago. I am hoping that people don't pick the flowers as soon as they appear. One thing I have noticed with the ones I found is that almost none are in the pattern you'd expect, where new plants are appearing in a ring around the older ones, which can mean that they aren't getting as far as producing seeds.









Seven miles in hundred degree heat-not the most fun, but it sure beats watching TV with the air conditioner on.

Comments requested!

Change of Purpose

For some time, I haven't had the equipment for astrophotography, and while I still enjoy visual observing, that doesn't make for interest photos. But-I've always had many other interests, so I am going to hijack my own blog and turn it into something else until such time comes that I can afford some new astro gear.

Last year I started hiking daily, for health and recreation and sanity. Recently I became a National Park Service Volunteer, and will be working on the California Phenology Project, measuring the exact dates that certain plants go through key changes in their annual cycles-first buds, buds opening, various stages of flowering, etc. This is vital data that, when collected over large areas by large numbers of people, can show exactly what the effects of climate change are. Those of us that have always spent time outdoors are very aware that the world is changed from 20 years ago, and the CPP is one of the ways that change can be quantized.

This means I have a route where twice a week or more I answer a series of questions about specific plants. My area is the Rancho Sierra Vista park in Newbury Park, run by the National Park Service, but I can also collect data anywhere within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which includes Point Mugu State Park and the Boney Mountain Wilderness, two places where I spend a lot of time.

Here's what I'm planning on doing with this blog-I have a butt ton to learn about botany and plant recognition in general, so as I find new plants and learn to identify them, I'll share that here. In the past I planned hikes based on the trails itself, but now I can plan them based on the need to measure certain plants, or even on rumors that a certain plant or flower has been spotted somewhere.

If you subscribed to this to see me learn to take pictures of space, I don't blame you for unsubscribing now :) For now, this blog will just be about hiking, trails, plants and local critters.

Keith