Jedediah Smith Redwoods

 

Coast Redwoods, Stout Grove

Just back from a little road trip up north to see family, including laying eyes for the first time on an eight-month-old grand-nephew and his mom, as well as North Cascades National Park which has been on my bucket list for ages. We spent our first night on the road in Crescent City and just had time for a quick visit to the Stout Grove in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park before laying down the miles to Seattle the following day.

After stopping for lunch at the Cafe Phoenix in Arcata we were soon speeding past numerous patches of orange coast lily and sneaking quick peeks at enchanted, misty redwood forests decorated with bright, rose-colored rhododendron blossoms. 

It drove me mad to be unable to pull over anywhere to photograph these evanescent sights, especially where road repair work reduced Hwy. 101 to a single lane of one-way traffic following a guide vehicle. We passed numerous photogenic nooks and crannies where any viewshed consultant worth his silver halide would have created pull-outs. Then again, these off-limits (or at least hard-to-reach) areas are probably spectacular because we can't stop to see them: I love the Stout Grove, but the understory has been lovingly trampled right down to dirt.

Old Burl

Redwood Gnome

Secret Trail

The Immortals

Redwood Bark Furrows

Redwood Grandeur

Maple View

Forest Edge Along the Smith River

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Amorphophallus titanum

 

"Scarlet" the Corpse Flower, Conservatory of Flowers
Golden Gate Park, July 5, 2023

The tall plant behind the flower that looks like a slender tree is actually a very stout leaf that has sprouted from a corpse plant's subterranean corm. The photosynthesizing leaf will nourish the corm, then die back to make room for the rising blossom.

The Conservatory is usually closed on Wednesdays, and we thought we were out of luck until they announced mid-morning today that they would open for a few hours at noon. We were glad to have another opportunity since the bloom, which only happens every 2-3 years, will almost certainly fade by tomorrow.

We waited in line for about 40 minutes to get an in-person look at this native of the Sumatran jungle, and after ogling the exquisite corpse to our heart's content, we continued to enjoy the many other interesting and beautiful plants within the greenhouse. (Afterward we hit up the Hometown Creamery).

The tall spadix is covered with pollen-generating male flowers, and the female flowers are near the bottom. After pollination by flies and beetles, the fruits take up to a year to mature, and are then eaten by birds which disperse the seeds. I held my camera as high as I could but couldn't get an angle any deeper into the bowl. We were allowed to touch a preserved sheet of the red spathe from a prior bloom, and it felt almost tough yet supple enough to be used to make clothing.

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The Corpse Flower Lives

The Conservatory of Flowers had been predicting that the corpse flower's opening was imminent for about a week, but even by Sunday, July 2, it remained stubbornly closed. Thankfully we were able to keep track of it via the web cam, and I took several screenshots in anticipation of its grand opening.

 

Like my trail cameras, the Conservatory's web cam also has decent night vision.

I checked the web cam throughout the day and saw the flower's first opening at around 4 p.m. yesterday. I don't know how long people had to wait in line to get in before the plant opened, but these lucky viewers no doubt had it easier than folks who went after news of its opening got out. The only thing the early birds missed was the corpse-like stink, which apparently didn't come on strong until later.

My wife and I went down around 8:15 p.m. yesterday but turned around and went home when we saw how long the line was. It was certainly going to be more than a 45-minute wait, and the Conservatory had posted that the "last entry" would be 9 p.m. As you can see, they were still letting people in after 10 p.m.!

Scarlet the Corpse Flower was looking good this morning, ready for the large numbers of Fourth of July visitors.

I took a spin past the Conservatory on my bike to see that the line snaked from the front entrance, east all the way down the length of the building and beyond, then up a winding pedestrian path to Conservatory Drive at Arguello Blvd., then downhill to the vehicle barrier. My wife read on social media that people were waiting two hours to get in to have a look at this infrequently blooming flower -- and imbibe a good snootful of Scarlet's beguiling scent.

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Grass Catchers

 

Click to View Larger

As I said in my last post, I encountered numerous grass species on my ride up Panoramic Highway to Mt. Tamalpais on Thursday. I told myself I'd drive up early Saturday morning to collect a few of them to bring home and photograph, but because I've gotten used to sleeping in now that my wife is on summer break, I wasn't sure I'd actually make the effort. Also, a couple of cats woke us up with a rowdy caterwauling racket last night that sounded like really bad violin-playing. We even got out of bed and went outside to peer through the dense fog to see if Coco, the neighborhood cat who adopted us, was in trouble. I figured the cats would be okay between themselves, but I also hoped they wouldn't attract the attention of a passing coyote.

Despite the interruption, I woke up before six this morning anyway. It was light out already, so I figured I'd roll myself out of bed and get to it. On my second stop I pulled off Panoramic Highway in front of a car that I figured had been parked there all night. I went out and scissored a couple flower heads and the woman in the car poked her head out and asked me if I was collecting wild edibles. Although I believe all grasses are technically edible (i.e., not poisonous), I simply told her I was doing a photo project.

I collected at a few other spots and timed my arrival to coincide with the 7 a.m. opening time at Pantoll gate, but the ranger was a few minutes late and other cars were already waiting ahead of me. Both the Bootjack and Pantoll campgrounds had lots of cars in their lots, and a few campers must have hiked up the road for sunrise. At one point I pulled over near a couple of young women who were walking back down, and they stopped in their tracks. I got out of the car and explained to their obvious relief that I was just collecting grass (the most natural thing in the world, right?).

I put the specimens in a shoe box and separated each species with a length of paper towel. I'm not very handy at identifying grasses and figured I'd collected some of the same species more than once. I'd have been happy to bring home ten species in all, but I was glad to see when I was done that I had nineteen. I checked iNaturalist's Mt. Tam section for a few IDs, but I still wasn't confident enough to hazard many guesses. If they have a grass person who fills in the IDs I'll come back and update this page.

I've always been curious about these strangely flowered plants, but aside from pulling grass seeds out of my socks I have very little interaction with them (not counting the 35 species we eat, like rice, corn, wheat, barley, oats, etc.). I'm sure I lack the patience to learn the nitty-gritty of identifying grasses, but I would like to at least learn the names of our most common species.

Waiting for the Gate to Open

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Summer's Bounty

 

Cataract Trailhead at Rock Spring

Riding my bike over the bone-chattering surface of the boardwalk parallel to Coyote Creek is a price I willingly pay to avoid having to tangle with vehicle traffic on the approach to Tamalpais Valley. I stand on my pedals and coast as much as possible, and as I scan for shorebirds I'm also looking forward to reaching the end of the boardwalk. If it's windy enough on the way home, as it was yesterday, I can usually pedal across Highway 1 to the boardwalk and coast all the way until it reaches the smooth bike path behind the Holiday Inn Express. 

It's been a while since I stopped along the boardwalk to photograph something of interest, whether willets in the salt grass, or black-necked stilts foraging in the shallow, brackish pools along the way. As I was noticing all the golden spaghetti-balls of dodder on yesterday's ride across the boards, I saw another plant that made me stop. Was that Castilleja? In the salt marsh? When I stopped I realized there were other interesting plants flowering among the salt grass and pickleweed, although the alleged Indian paintbrush was still just in bud. There was a lot of plant diversity going on in that marsh that I'd never noticed before.

Higher up and above the fog, I was struck by the diversity of grasses flowering along the edge of Panoramic Highway. I wanted to stop to photograph them all, but immediately I realized it wouldn't be possible in the wind. 

More and different grasses greeted me up near Rock Spring, and on the dry hilltop near my trail cameras I was greeted by countless yellow mariposa lilies. Flying insects buzzed everywhere, and clouds of ladybird beetles opened their wings to drift on the breeze, with musical accompaniment provided by the constant buzz of stridulating crickets and grasshoppers. 

Newly minted butterflies fluttered in the sun, and dragonflies patrolled their territories. Fence lizards scuttled and pumped push-ups on rocks and logs. Plant growth was running riot, and as I was about to follow a deer trail through marshy sedges to get a better angle on the first and only blooming leopard lily, I decided to find a different route when I saw all the stinging nettles rising in their midst.

At times I found myself hiking through chest-high grasses, and I picked a bunch of seeds out of my socks when I got home. Somehow I didn't get a single tick on me. The sun baked my feet inside my hiking shoes, and I sought shade wherever I could. In about an hour I'd finished all the water I'd brought (I refilled for the ride home at Pantoll Ranger Station). 

I like warmth, but don't care much for real heat. So many years in the cool climate of San Francisco, I suppose. But even though I miss the fresh coolness of spring's season of rejuvenation, I do appreciate the summer -- despite its heat, insects, prickly seeds, stinging nettles, and poison oak -- for its season of bounty.

I recognized the spaghetti-like dodder (Cuscuta salina), one of four species of this strange, parasitic flowering plant found in Marin County, but it was the circled "paintbrush" that made me stop. The foreground plant with the longer green leaves at its base was also blooming with tiny flowers.

I spotted a small patch of windmill pink (Silene gallica) along Panoramic Highway that I'd probably have missed if I'd been driving.

I don't usually see spotted petals on farewell-to-spring (which is also usually bigger), so these might be winecup clarkia (Clarkia purpurea, ssp. quadrivulnera). I was surprised to find only two clarkia species listed in the Marin Flora (C. elegans and C. concinna).

A black blister beetle feeds on rosinweed (Calycadenia multiglandulosa). I could smell the rosinweed coming up a couple of weeks ago, even before it started flowering. It is the scent of summer on Mt. Tam.

Several grappletail dragonflies stayed close to the water along Cataract Creek.

I don't know what these fence lizards were doing, but I suspect it was something territorial rather than sexual. Note the very different skin patterns on these two.

I think I found the source of all those munch-marks on the petals of the yellow mariposa lilies....

Collecting pollen.

I'd seen a few leopard lilies blooming along Panoramic Highway on the way up, but this was the only flower in bloom among many buds in a marshy spot near Cataract Creek.

Guessing these are some kind of flower longhorn beetles (possibly Anastrangalia laetifica), here in side-view...

...and here in top view.

The hummers really wanted to drink nectar from the lone lily, but they were so skittish that they flew away as soon as they noticed me. See this post for better pix.

Rock, lichen, ferns, and lizard (growing the tip of its tail back) -- an ancient scene from the world of nature long before human beings came along.

A California sister butterfly perches in the sun.

View toward San Francisco from Mt. Tamalpais.

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