Camas Prairies

Day 198: When I tell people that I used to live on one of southwestern Washington's prairies, they look at me with disbelief, perhaps even challenging me by saying, "There aren't any prairies in western Washington!" But they're wrong. South and east of Olympia, there used to be vast open grasslands (the definition of "prairie," incidentally) dotted with wildflowers found nowhere else in the state, including several species of Camassia. Where I lived was a camas prairie, and forty years ago, Camas made a veritable sea of blue of the parts of our acreage which were grassy. Occasionally, a white specimen would crop up...a variant of the same species as the blue...or more rarely, a white Death Camas with its smaller flowers. But we also had timber, and as Doug-firs will do, they shed their cones and new Doug-firs sprouted, expanding their range into our pasture. They never quite took it over, but the Camas didn't like the shade, and fewer and fewer bloomed each year. Sadly, the same thing has happened in much of that area, although I do know a couple of good spots for "Camas watching" even in their reduced range. I visited one of them today, and was happy to see it blue as ever.