Lewis And Clark

Day 299: A voice came through the brush, its owner rendered invisible by a screen of blackberry vines: "We're going to call this the 'Lewis and Clark' hike after this." Nisqually Land Trust Steward Charly Kearns had been scouting ahead for a route as the remaining seven of us edged along the muddy rim of a beaver dam. Charly was wishing for a machete. One of the team members passed a trekking pole forward and I took to whacking thorny stems as thick as a man's thumb. The "kudzu of the north" is one of the plants we strive to remove from our properties, but in this case, we were forging through timber company lands where invasives grow unchecked. I knew that there was an easier and much shorter way into Boxcar Canyon and suspected that Charly had designed this hike to be an "experience" in land management. It's not an easy job.

In spring or fall when leaves wouldn't have obscured the view, you might have gotten a glimpse of the canyon walls which confine the Mashel River here, but on this day, we pushed through approximately two and a half miles before arriving at a popular (and prohibited) swimming hole beneath an old railroad bridge where we could look directly up the gorge. The water was dark and deep where it cut through the rocks, and inevitably, litter lined the shore. The Mashel is part of the greater Nisqually River watershed, and thus falls within the definition of habitat the Land Trust strives to protect. Future acquisitions may allow us to restore the historic salmon run here, but for now, portions of it are still owned by timber companies and the Town of Eatonville.

The "Lewis and Clark hike" wound down as we strolled the last half-mile back toward Eatonville, munching blackberries as we walked along a disused access road. The sound of traffic on the highway brought us back into the modern world, perhaps a little wiser for the journey.

Luetkea Pectinata, Partridgefoot

Day 298: It's just one of those "little white flowers" you see all over the subalpine meadows in the Park, but Partridgefoot (Luetkea pectinata) is enchantingly lovely. Its common name comes from the shape of its leaves which resemble bird tracks left in snow or sand. The second half of its Latin binomial also refers to the leaf: "pectinate" means "having comb-like teeth." Interestingly enough, Luetkea is not classified as an herb, due to the woody nature of its rootstalk, nor can it be called a shrub because of its diminutive size. It therefore falls into the category of "subshrubs," plants whose woody stems and roots overwinter without entirely dying back. Many groundcovers qualify as subshrubs, and indeed little Partridgefoot often forms dense mats of foliage soon after the snow melts.

Eriophyllum Lanatum, Oregon Sunshine

Day 297: When a plant is said to be a "composite" (i.e., it belongs to the family Asteraceae), the term refers to the structure of the inflorescence. The blossom (a non-scientific and indefinite word) as we perceive it actually contains two different types of flower: ray and disk. In many cases, the showy ray flowers (usually sterile) surround a tight cluster of much tinier disk flowers containing the plant's reproductive parts. The ray flowers serve as attractors for pollinators. Oregon Sunshine (Eriophyllum Lanatum, aka Woolly Sunflower) is an excellent example of a composite.

When botanizing with Your Humble Narrator, you would find that I generally break subalpine composites into two categories: yellow daisies and purple daisies. Both occur at Mount Rainier National Park in abundant numbers and varieties. The field guides and manuals required to distinguish many of them would easily fill an expedition-sized backpack, although Oregon Sunshine's woolly, silvery leaves clearly set it apart from the rest.

Plants Playing Jokes

Day 296: As if identifying plants accurately wasn't already a daunting task, doing so without a flower is even harder. Plants may look quite different when their foliage is just beginning to develop or they are in the budding phase, and likewise when they have gone to seed. Sometimes you stumble across something so unusual that you're certain you've never seen it pictured in a field guide. Such was the case when I pulled up short to examine this specimen.

I never disturb my subject until after I have obtained photos of it in situ, and in any event, I wanted to capture the beads of morning dew, so didn't handle any portion of the plant for fear of shaking the droplets loose. While I danced around searching for the proper angle, I noticed several other leaves with the same strange growth in their centers. The plant was a lupine; that much was certain, but the structure in the middle puzzled me. It was certainly not characteristic of either a pod or bud of the species, but what was it?

Photos "in the bag," I examined the specimen more closely, and in that moment learned that some plants have a very warped sense of humour. I'd been suckered by the teamwork of a Sub-Alpine Lupine and an Avalanche Lily. Plants playing jokes! Now that's something no botanist should have to endure.

The Cousins Epilobium

Day 295: Once thought to belong to the same genus as common Fireweed, the Epilobiums were set aside as genetically distinct and were retained as the genus while Fireweed was removed to Chamaenerion in another of those taxonomic moves which makes almost all of your field guides obsolete. If this nomenclatural shift seems insignificant to my readers, please understand that it is the result of hard science and as such, has benefits which outweigh the inconvenience of learning a new name. If we are to understand the ecological niche in which a species occurs, knowing that it is distinct from another species or genus is vital in order to determine its relationship to other species/genera within the same niche.

Shown here as a demonstration of diversity within a genus, the four-petalled flower characteristic of the Epilobiums is easily observed in species such as E. glaberrimum (left) and E. anagallidifolia (right), but not so readily seen in E. luteum (center) where the petals are broad and overlapping. With a loupe, one might also note that each flower contains eight stamens. When in fruit, the Epilobiums form a long four-chambered capsule which, when it is ready to release seed and splits, releases puffs of silvery-white hairs to which are attached individual seeds. The tiny seeds are dispersed by wind, borne aloft and sometimes carried for miles before dropping to the ground.

Penstemon Procerus, Small-Flowered Penstemon

Day 294: When a wildflower occurs in a colour variation radically different from how it is commonly found, identifying it can be challenging. Small-flowered Penstemon is normally purple, so when Team Biota found numerous examples of the white form in an area where there were no purple ones, we had to break out all the field guides. White Penstemon procerus is not uncommon by any means, just a little unexpected when you've just left a trail where purple is the rule.

There are many species and subspecies of Penstemon in Mount Rainier National Park, in shades ranging from cream through pink, purple and blue. Single flowers are always trumpet-shaped, but the arrangement of them is variable: panicled, racemose or clustered in a whorl. Penstemon procerus (whether appearing in purple or creamy-white) and P. confertus (creamy-white or yellow) were once considered to be a single species. Even today, the "lumpers" argue with the "splitters" over whether a distinction should be made between the two, or whether the colour variations should be treated as subspecies. The point can be made that, for example, Nasturtiums occur in cream, yellow, orange and deep red, but the colours are not considered different species or subspecies. The inconsistency in the discipline is enough to make you want to throw your hands in the air, your field guides and manuals in the river, and go back to the simpler days when wildflowers were bunched under a generic name: "Oh, look! Penstemon!"

Ursine Idyll

Day 293: Team Biota wasn't the only party enjoying the meadows today. We happened on this family moment while driving out of Paradise late in the day. Cubby and mom were enjoying a dinner of wildflowers. The little guy was fairly independent, trailing behind his mother at some distance, but finally caught up to her in time to pose for this distant shot. I suspect mom is the sow who was hanging around Paradise Valley late last fall. Even rangers can't resist bears! We weren't the only carload of uniformed personnel who stopped to watch the show.