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!
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.Seven miles in hundred degree heat-not the most fun, but it sure beats watching TV with the air conditioner on.
Comments requested!
No comments:
Post a Comment