Two In My Path

 Spent the day yesterday without my camera.  Too busy with errands.  But I have to share a few images from my afternoon walk on Wednesday.  My wife and I hiked fairly far up Boyle Ravine and on the way down, this beautiful Alligator Lizard was in our path.  My wife spotted it first as I was busy looking sideways for other things. 

Then, when we got home, I looked at the several Red Clovers that have bloomed in our lawn since the last mowing.  I was slowed by this one, thinking I had spotted a small white imperfection amongst the tiny red blossoms.  Found it was the smallest Goldenrod Crab Spider I've ever seen, which I suppose some people would call an imperfection.  I was trying to imagine what sort of prey it would take on.  It was smaller than any ant I've seen.

This scene reminded me of a clover blossom at the side of the paved walkway at the college that leads from the large parking lot to the upper campus.  I spotted a larger Crab Spider on a Red Clover last Tuesday.  It was still there on Wednesday, and there again this morning.  I hope it last a few more days.  I'm sure the side of this particular walkway is due for weed-eating.  Drat.  If left alone, so much interesting stuff would happen there over the next month or two due to the small but steady flow of water from the leaking water tanks at the top of the hill. 

It's That Time of Year!

 After a summer of daily hikes, I am definitely not used to sitting at a meeting for three hours.  And, I don't want to get used to that much sitting.  It's not healthy.  What did we do before the invention of the chair - much less the couch?  We were not potatoes.  So, late in the afternoon I joined my wife and we walked the dog up Boyle Ravine a ways.  I brought the camera, thinking I'd try to get a few aesthetically pleasing shots of plants.  I found the spheres of seeds of the Mountain Dandelion attractive.  This Agoseris sp. is a native dandelion, unlike the one that is the scourge of lawn keepers.

 The Lemmon's Wild Ginger .as bloomed and gone to seed, but the leaves look as fresh and beautiful as they did in the spring.  So far so good.  But, when we entered the patch of Tansy by the green water tanks, what a surprise!  Virtually every plant had one or more pairs of mating Ambush Bugs. 

 Note, the smaller and darker males are on top except for this one couple (below) that was not engaged.  I watched them for a few minutes, undecided about whether they were "finished" or about to get started.  They never moved, so I continued onward.

 Looks like there will be another good crop of Ambush Bugs next summer.

Thinking of Seeds

Can't help it.  That's what's going on all around us.  The Heart-leaf Milkweed (above) is the first around here to bloom and also the first to have seed pods burst open.  Sometimes this makes some very photogenic stills that look like action shots.  If I were heavily into technology, I'd be tempted to try to capture a pod burst in time-lapse.  But, in my case, imagination will suffice.

The Douglas-fir, like the true firs and pines, has male cones and female cones.  It's interesting to see how they are arranged on the various species.  Sometimes the female cones mostly on the top branches and the male cones below.  Unlikely that pollen would travel straight up, thus minimizing chances of self-pollination.   In the case of Douglas-firs, I've seen make and female cones distributed all over the tree on some, but separated in others.  Not sure of the statistical average arrangement.  For ID purposes, the Douglas-fir female cones can't be mistaken for any other.  Click on the photo for a closer view.

On my way to Oakland Feather River Camp each morning, this was the spot where I was most likely to run off the road.  There's just one Sugar Pine on the stretch just north of Chandler Road on the Oakland Camp Road, and I can't help but stare at those great cones for a hundred yards or so.  Note: the female cones concentrated near the top of the tree.

Next, the Gum Plant.  In most places around Quincy, it has gone to seed and few or no flowers still blooming.  In a few wet areas, though, one can see every stage from bud, to blooms, to seeds on the same plant!

Take a walk in the woods and have some seedy fun!

More Roadside Wanderings

I took my last guided nature hike of the season yesterday, and felt a little sad about it.  That is,  until I discovered that on most any short drive out of downtown Quincy, there is plenty for the nature lover to see.  Despite the browning of vegetation that happens at this time of year, there are some persistent species of wildflowers and attractive and/or interesting weeds.  And the birds.  On the way home from that last hike, I got my closest view yet of a Sandhill Crane. 

This morning on my way out to the college, I stopped to get a closer look at what was blooming.  There were several thistles and other members of the Asteraceae (sunflower family) that I haven't identified, and

first year and second year Mullein.

The tallest blooming flower I saw, also a member of the Asteraceae, looked a bit like a Groundsel or Goldenrod, but I haven't found the species in any of my books yet.

I found these little spheres of seeds very photogenic, but I don't recognize the species.  It's probably one I'd recognize while it's blooming, but haven't seen it before in this last stage of life.

I took several photos of the ditch-side willows, mainly to show some of the galls and the leaf buds, for my botany archives. 

Where there's water, there's always an opportunistic flower blooming well after its relatives on drier ground have gone to seed.  This Daisy looks as fresh as any of them did in the Spring.

While I await the beginning of Fall Colors, I'll probably be posting some of my favorites from this past summer.  You can also review the summer wildflowers around Qunicy by visiting the Bloom Blog at www,plumascounty.org

Can Liver Have Warts?

I found a nice patch of Liverwort on yesterday's walk to Gilson Creek.  I thought I'd look up the plant online to see if its place in the plant kingdom has changed since my high school days.  It has!  But, that's too complex a subject for this brief post.
There are many kinds of plants that have "wort" in their names: liverwort, mugwort, and birthwort, to name a few.  What amused me greatly was that looking up "wort" via a well-known browser resulted in thousands of hits for "wart."  I actually had to type in "wort, plant" in order to find what I wanted.  In botanical nomenclature, the word "wort" is usually a suffix but actually derives from a Middle English word meaning "plant."  Most people pronounce the two words identically and may not know the difference in spelling.  As I adventured through my dictionary, I was reminded that many people refer to the state of "Warshington" and do their laundry in a "warshing" machine.    And I did discover that the liverworts are still a bit of a mystery to botanists.  At least there is not universal agreement about where they belong on the "family tree" of evolution.
On my guided nature hikes, I try to defuse an overwrought concern about getting the names of plants and animals correct.  The names change for many different reasons.  Sparrow Hawk changed to Kestrel by a vote of ornithologists.  Indian Rhubarb was changed to Umbrella Plant and Digger Pine was changed to Gray Pine, among many other examples.  These last changes have to do with avoiding common names that may have embedded racism.  Then there are cases like Bindweed, also known as Orchard Morning Glory.  This difference has to do mainly with whether people like or dislike it.
Plants like Dandelions and Daisies that are not native to the USA may be labelled "alien" in some field guides and "non-native" in others.  If a non-native plant is perceived to be a trouble-maker, it is not only a weed, but an invasive weed.
So, the next time you come across a Henbit Dead Nettle or a Western Bloodsucking Conenose, have fun with the names.  Do a little research and see if Google knows any more about it than you do.  Just don't stress.  I never did find out whether liver can have warts.  I know it can have flukes and has over 500 known functions.
By the way, a great way to learn more about plants is to visit an herbarium.  Consider entering the wildflower photography contest sponsored by the Friends of the Chico State Herbarium.  Here's a link to the info: www.csuchico.edu/biol/Herb/Friends.html

Gilson Creek, one last time!

 Yesterday I took my last scheduled hike for 2013 to Gilson Creek with guests of Oakland Feather River Camp.  I tried not to be obvious about one of my primary goals which was to find Scarlet Monkeyflower blooming.  My friend Spencer had posted a photo of this magnificent flower on his blog last week, and I remembered a fairly hidden spot just west of Gilson Creek where I'd seen from 2 to 5 plants blooming in summers past.  On the way to the creek I was stung by a couple of Yellow Jackets, first time this season.  My hand is still fat and sore.  But I found one last Scarlet Monkeyflower plant blooming in the shade almost totally hidden by the taller grasses, sedges, and taller wildflowers of other species.  The overall area around the mouth of Gilson Creek is shaded by large White Alder trees, so that made it even more difficult to find one particular species.  Fortunately, the red of the Scarlet Monkeyflower literally glows (which can make it difficult to photograph) so I could see two shiny spots of red in the underbrush.  When I closed in on the plant, it was a little disappointing to see that it's had a rough summer and was a bit scrawny.  It was good to see it, though. 

 I tried to keep my guests dry as we crossed over the creek by stepping on slightly wet rocks, some of which were stable and others were not.  In focusing intensely on the ground beneath us, a good-sized patch of Liverwort stood out.  This is an ancient plant whose place in the evolutionary tree of life is not agreed upon by botanists.  It definitely conjures up images of dinosaur habitat, as do the Horsetails growing nearby.

 In a dry, open field about half way to Gilson Creek from camp we saw a some patches of fresh Arnica.  Not sure which species, but I remember that several other species bloomed a couple of months ago and have long since gone to seed.  These looked as fresh as spring.

 We looked in vain for the Red Milkweed Beetle and Monarch Butterfly chrysalises on the abundant Showy Milkweed and Narrow-leaved Milkweed, but we did some some attractive small gatherings of the Convergent Ladybird Beetle.

 Buds of the Interior Wild Rose were abundant here as well as on all the other trails I use during my summer hikes.

To top off the day, I saw four more Sandhill Cranes in American Valley on my way home.
I took my last guided hike of the summer this morning.  We went to Berry Creek where I had taken another group last Wednesday.  I decided not to bring my camera this time and was lucky I didn't see anything unusual that would have made me regret that decision.  I begin work at the college on Monday so during the fall semester most of my natural history notes and photos will be about the FRC nature trail and adjacent areas.  Stay tuned.  The Gooseberries are ripening!

Made My Day!

 I usually take close-up photos of small things, but today I saw two relatively large things that I couldn't resist.  On the way to work at camp I saw this Sandhill Crane in a field off Chandler Road.  It might have been injured as there were lots of down feathers on the ground and it kept one leg tucked under its belly.  Also, it didn't try to fly away as I approached.

Then, at work, toward the end of the morning nature hike, we spotted a Giant Sawtooth Mushroom.