Archway

Day 206: "Arch!" No, I'm not in the holodeck on the Enterprise NCC-1701D. I'm in Pack Forest, and I'm ducking under an arch of Vine Maple (Acer circinatum), one of many which curve over the trails. This small-leaved species is common in Pacific Northwest lowland forests, and is more of a shrub than a tree, although a very leggy one. Its branches are very bendy when fresh, and were used by native peoples to make baskets similar to those made with willow withies. When it arches like the example in the photo, it may self-layer where the tip touches the ground to form a new cluster of trunks still connected to the parent tree. Like other maples, it produces samaras, winged "helicopter" seeds which animals and birds both enjoy. Its hardwood trunks seldom attain a diameter of more than a few inches, although roots may be larger. In fact, I have a lathe-turned vase of Vine Maple made by a former neighbour which is 8" tall and 4" in diameter.

Lathyrus Polyphyllus

Day 204: Well, pea! "One of Those Days" seems to be continuing, so why don't we just have a pea before my head explodes? Of the seventeen Lathyrus species found in Washington, six are introduced and problematic, but dainty Lathyrus polyphyllus (Leafy Peavine) is native. It occurs largely in the western lowlands, and is characterized by a subopposite or alternate leaf structure with 10-16 leaflets. Certainly, its invasive cousins overshadow it, cropping up in mounds along roadsides and, although it's not particularly uncommon, it is often passed over as a vetch (Vicia) because of the shape of the flowers and leaf arrangement. Finding a few examples in bloom along the lower Hugo Peak trail was a treat for me because it was a species I had not yet photographed for the WTU Herbarium. This addition brings my total contribution to 239 photos covering 132 taxa. Science, people! To quote a Life Is Good t-shirt, "Science is like magic, but real."

Macro Walk

Day 203: Yesterday was One of Those Days. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a "virtual assistant" trying to install a new key fob for my alarm system, and we never managed to get through the first step. I finally told her I simply wanted to return it for a refund, so she transferred me to another department. The process there took half an hour or more, and by the time we were done, I was at my wits' end. The mail came, bringing with it a squashed and mangled box of Merry's broths, and since my order had gone through a third-party seller, another half hour in a chat session never successfully resolved the issue. Next pictures and story, I poured my slipper full of chicken blood when I took the thawed meat out of the refrigerator to make dinner. After supper, I sat down to put some photos on the computer and couldn't get the data cable to acknowledge the camera's existence. It's been failing for some time, and finally just gave up. As did I. I said, "Screw this!" and went to bed cross at the entire world. This morning, I decided to follow a friend's advice and went into the woods, despite it being Saturday. I turned a mile-and-a-half ramble into a Macro Walk to bring you this selection of wildflowers and weeds blooming along the lower reach of Pack Forest's Hugo Peak trail. I'm not going to identify them for you. They're all fairly common except the Calypso Orchids which were really the highlight of my walk.

Smiley

Day 213: Who could resist getting up close and personal with that cute li'l smile? While I was down on my hands and knees conversing with Smiley, he kept tasting the air with his tongue, presumably trying to determine whether or not I was a predator. I assured him that I meant no harm, and after I'd captured his portrait, he allowed me to pass by without slithering off into the brush. Thamnophis sirtalis, our common Garter Snake, is harmless. They come with a variety of stripe colours (yellow, red, blue or even green) and can be as much as 3-4 feet long. Smiley had some bends and I couldn't quite see the tip of his tail, but I'd guess he was on the high end of that range, and if not the largest example I've ever seen, but definitely respectable in size. His diet consists of a variety of things, including slugs, snails, mice and worms, so garter snakes in your garden are a good thing. When the weather is warm, they may hide out beneath flower pots, under bits of wood or in other shady shelter, but since they are cold-blooded, they often seek out spots of sun in which to warm themselves for the day's activities.

Iris Tenax, Oregon Flag

Day 210: Also known commonly as Oregon Flag or Toughleaf Iris, lovely little Iris tenax is native to Washington and is found primarily in the oak woodlands of the state's southwestern prairies. That's why I pulled up short yesterday when I found it alongside one of Pack Forest's less travelled roads. There were two fully open specimens and one bud, plus several clumps of stiff, short-bladed leaves spaced along a distance of roughly ten feet. None were in evidence anywhere else during my hike. I don't think there's a single oak tree anywhere in Pack, so the appearance of this plant raises the question of how it got there, especially since it is rhizomatous. Could a rhizome have been caught in the tread of some piece of machinery and dropped off at this site? That seems a bit of a stretch, although some means of transport must have brought seeds of my other find for the day: Spotted Jewelweed, a serious invasive. It was also alongside the road, and only covered about 25 square feet. For a brief second, I wondered if my own boots had been the medium until I remembered that I'm always in water sandals in Jewelweed country because I'm surveying by kayak. Malignant or benign, plants can be carried from one location to another when root fragments or seeds are introduced deliberately or accidentally.

Pack's Calypsos

Day 191: Charles L. Pack Experimental Forest ("Pack Forest," for short) is managed by the University of Washington and is, as you might infer, a testing ground for various sustainable forestry practices. It is also a "multi-use" area, meaning that it is open to hikers, horses and hunters, although motorized vehicles are prohibited. However, Pack is not a "nature area," and is not maintained with visitors or habitat preservation in mind. In fact, it is quite weedy, with numerous invasive species, particularly in logged areas. While there are trails, many of them are overgrown and almost impassable, dirt roads form a network which provide walking access to the far corners. I frequently use a trail going one way, a road going the other, forming a loop so I don't have to retrace my footsteps. Day before yesterday, I hiked up the Reservoir Trail to Kirkland Pass, then out the 1000 Rd. to visit the Calypso Orchids. As I approached their embankment, I was dismayed to see that Pack has been clearing the roadside ditches with an excavator. They narrowly missed the Calypsos! And by "narrowly," I mean that this grouping was less than a foot above the gouge. It would have done no good to stop at the office to report my concern for these delicate plants. I am just glad they grow elsewhere, in places where they are protected.

It's A Quadrillium!

Day 190: The very name "Trillium" tells you that this plant should have three somethingoranothers to distinguish it, but this extraordinary specimen from Pack Forest apparently missed the memo. Four petals, four sepals, four leaves, as perfect as if they always grew this way, caught my eye as I was coming down the 1000 Rd. from Kirkland Pass. I had actually taken a few steps past it before the unusual arrangement registered with me, jerking up short in mid-stride to backtrack with a "What the heck...?" spoken aloud. After taking several photos, I continued on, trying to decide whether it was a Quatrium, Quillium or Quadrillium, settling eventually on the latter cognomen. It will be interesting to pay a follow-up visit next year to see if it repeats the performance.

On The Tip Of My Tongue

Day 135: Oemleria cerasiformis is one of the first shrubs to come into bloom in the spring here in the Pacific Northwest. "Oemleria cerasiformis," I said to myself as I passed the first one, "Oemleria...it's on the tip of my tongue...hang on...I know it...it'll come to me...WHAT THE HELL IS THE COMMON NAME?" I gave it another quarter mile of think before I started going through the alphabet. I was pretty sure there was an i-vowel sound in it. "Ia..ib...ic...id. That rings a bell. Ie...if...ig..." and in another quarter of a mile, I'd hit "in" which, coupled with "id" made me yell "INDIAN PLUM!" to an otherwise empty (thank heavens!) forest. After a relatively botany-free winter, it always takes me a while to get the synapses to snap into place. I used to have trouble with Cardamine every year (another early bloomer) until I put it into storage as "something to do with 'heart,'" but it has never been in my mental database as "bittercress." In late summer, Indian Plum (the Oemleria under discussion) makes small oval fruits consisting primarily of a large seed and a little skin. That said, they were used as a foodstuff by native peoples here which, under analysis for calories vs. effort gives one a much greater appreciation of how tough it is to survive as a hunter-gatherer.

My Guide

Day 134: We have this in common, my little guide and I: we have a song to sing, but we prefer to remain unseen as we give it voice. Pacific Wren (Troglodytes pacificus) is adept at staying out of sight, concealing himself in piles of brush so well that all anyone passing may see is a flash of motion in the corner of their eye. His song is long and varied, more music in his breast than one would think a small bird could hold, unless of course one understands the physiology of the syrinx which permits it. As we try to spot him in the dark places of the forest, we look vainly (there...no, there...or there, perhaps?) as his talent for ventriloquy deceives us. And then the melody falls upon us from immediately aside in a cascade of tinkling trills and arpeggios and, if fortunate, we catch a glimpse of drab, brown agitation, gone again in an instant. Where least expected, the song rises again repeatedly amid the stillness of the trees, acknowledging the interloper in the territory of the singer.

Cladonia Macilenta

Day 133: Cladonia macilenta is one of the few Cladonias I can identify with any degree of certainty without playing with dangerous chemicals in my kitchen. It is one of a very few "red-headed" species, and is often mis-identified as Cladonia cristatella by people who have come here from the eastern part of the country. These are not "British Soldiers" (cristatella), although I have heard the common name "Toy Soldiers" applied to them, creating further confusion with the similarity. Cladonia macilenta is fairly common in the Pacific Northwest and can be identified by the relatively smooth surface of its podetia (stalks). Our other common "red-head" is Cladonia bellidiflora, which exhibits small leafy scales on its stalks, generally in copious abundance. This particular specimen is out of its natural plumb, obviously having been laid on a horizontal surface (not by me) so it could be photographed. I took advantage of the situation for a photo of my own while thinking that the person who had laid it there would probably mis-identify the species when they tried to sort it out.

Packin' It In

Day 132: When I left home this morning, I had no clear plan other than to go for a hike after picking up some screws for Max at the hardware store. Several options presented themselves: Bud Blancher Trail, Nisqually-Mashel State Park, Pack Forest, or any of the lesser-known trails in the area. As I drove past the trailhead at Bud Blancher, I said, "Nah, boring...boring and mostly flat. That's not what I want. I think I'll go to Pack." Shopping for screws was a five-minute job requiring focus on the task at hand, so I had still not made a determination as to which trail I'd take until I was again on the road. It's only a few miles to the entrance of Pack, and by the time I'd got to the gate, I'd decided on a loop which would take me over a section I haven't hiked in several years, i.e., up the 1000 Rd to the 1400, up 1400 and thence down the Hugo Peak trail to the gate, and back up the paved road to parking for a grand total in the neighbourhood of three miles. At least that was the Plan when I shouldered my pack, but as Kevin would tell you, I'm not one for sticking to a Plan. I was feeling quite perky and invigorated when I reached the 1400, and what was left ahead of me seemed too short for my energy level. Standing there at the junction with the 1400, I said, "Screw it, I'm going up Hugo." From there, I came down the regular trail, did the short section back to the gate (which I seldom cover), and then back up the paved road to parking. Five miles and a thousand feet elevation gain spent in almost total silence but for a Pacific Wren or two, the occasional airplane overhead and one insistent mosquito in my ear satisfied a longing to be out and about which has been plaguing me all winter. Bits of botanical and natural history interest will surface over the next few days. These photos are just to give you an overview of what it's like to pack Pack.

Dear Little Bean Sprouts!

Day 21: Dear little bean sprouts! I was afraid they were gone for good. Every year about this time, I start checking one of Pack Forest's lesser-known trails for Clavaria vermicularis, aka "Fairy Fingers." To me, this member of the club fungi carries the apellation "bean sprouts" because that's what they look like in both size and colour. I am quite fond of them simply because they're unusual, and I'd become quite attached to this lot. I saw them last in 2019. In 2020 when I visited the site, I was shocked to see that it had been disturbed. What was peculiar about the disturbance was that it was limited to the exact 12" square of moss where the "bean sprouts" had always grown. The moss had been lifted as a neat rectangle, leaving the soil bare below, and had been dropped a foot away. Evidence pointed toward human interference, not that of an animal. I replaced the moss in its original location and then spent the rest of the day and some time thereafter puzzling over why anyone would have done such a thing, or indeed would have even known where they grew. They are neither edible nor hallucinogenic, so I concluded that they had been harvested as a specimen. It was the only logical justification I could imagine. The following two years were "sproutless" as well, so I almost didn't stop today, but I thought, "It's quick. I might as well check." And there they were...not in the original site, but on the spot where the clump of moss had been dropped by a person/creature unknown! Apparently, it had been full of spores because there are now more "bean sprouts" than ever before. It doesn't take much to make me happy. This made my day.

Thataway

Day 160: Various land managers and agencies have widely varied ways of indicating designated trails and their specific uses. I was thrown for a loop when visiting the east coast some fifteen years ago when I thought I had lost the trail beneath a heavy layer of autumn leaves, only to have a friend point out the little pink diamonds tacked to trees about fifteen feet up. It was a new experience for me, and something of an eye-opener, having been accustomed to the more open trails in my favourite areas of the Pacific Northwest. Blazes and markers such as those are not something we ordinarily see. One exception to this can be found in Pack Forest. It has a "multiple-use" trail system, with some paths being designated primarily for use by people on horseback. I believe (although I am not certain) that is what this monstrosity indicates, although I can't imagine why a more subtle, less garish marker couldn't have been employed, especially since the map (a handout) clearly indicates which trails allow horses. As with any good marking system, others like it were positioned in such a manner that the next could be seen from the present location, eyesore after eyesore, keeping people and horses safe from getting lost in a three-quarter mile stretch of trail between roads.

St. Paddy's Day Hike

Day 155: St. Paddy's Day dawned clear and crisp, and matured into pleasant temps by 10 AM. It's been months since I took any serious exercise, so I decided to go for a hike on the Bud Blancher Trail in Eatonville. Where exactly I was going to wind up, I had no idea, although I did want to check out the one spot along the trail where I've occasionally seen Skunk Cabbage. It wasn't blooming yet, so I went up a spur trail a little ways, finding that it didn't seem as familiar as it should have done. Was it because there were a few small trees down? I didn't think so. The lay of the land was foreign to me, and I have a very good memory for those kinds of details even if I can't tell you if a friend of forty years wears glasses. The trail took a sudden jog to the west, and I was even more convinced that I'd never been on it before. I followed it until it came out on a grassy secondary road. I definitely didn't recognize the intersection. How had I missed this one all these years? I kept heading west and connected with the familiar 1000 Rd. after about 3/4 mile. Not wanting to backtrack, I looped down past the Upper, Middle and Lower Mashel Falls trails without bothering to detour to the falls themselves (too many people), taking great joy in conversation with this chatty brooklet as it wound its way down to the Mashel mainstream. Out and about in the green! St. Pat would have loved Washington's forests.

Amelanchier Alnifolia, Serviceberry

Day 207: Identification of Serviceberry has been simplified by a reduction in the number of accepted variety names with most now lumped under Amelanchier alnifolia. There was no need for me to push through the reed-canary grass to get close enough to count stamens, and although I didn't have that information at the time, the thought of ticks was sufficient to prevent me from doing so. There is a limit to what I'm willing to sacrifice in the name of science, and while I am perfectly at ease with getting muddy, filthy, prickled and poked, I draw the line at exposing myself to ticks, and Pack Forest is full of them. That said, it's also full of Serviceberry which, in my opinion, is one of our most lovely native shrubs. The Latin "alnifolia" refers to the leaves which some feel resemble a scaled-down version of Red Alder (Alnus rubra). The lumping of varieties also means that there is no longer the necessity for assessing the amount of serration along the leaf margins. In the argot of Hitchcock, "Controversial, intergrading and unconvincing taxa within A. alnifolia, often based on continuum of pubescence variations or ped. infl. and petal length" excuses me from making a closer examination. So there.

Siberian Miner's Lettuce, Claytonia Sibirica

Day 206: Siberian Miner's Lettuce (Claytonia sibirica) is native to the Pacific Northwest and can be found in the moist lowlands to the mid-elevations west of the Cascade crest. The leaf is fleshy and edible, and was consumed by early settlers as a tangy salad green, hence the common name. The term "edible" comes with a caution: consumption of large quantities over time can lead to development of kidney stones, owing to the presence of oxalic acid in the leaves, but browsing a few while hiking is not likely to cause future issues. In fact, the tart, puckery taste can be a good thirst-quencher or an unusual garnish laid atop a green salad. Miner's Lettuce (both C. sibirica and C. perfoliata) are present in abundance in western Washington.

Pellia Epiphylla, A Liverwort

Day 205: Every spring, at least one plant's identity will elude me as I'm walking through the forest, refreshing my memory as I go by addressing each species with its Latin binomial or, failing that, its common name. Some I've drilled so thoroughly into my brain that they no longer require deep digging with the Alphabet Tool ("A, B, C...c...ca, ce, ci, co, cu...ca...car...has something to do with heart...cardio...Cardamine!"), but others frustrate my best efforts to mine out the sequence of letters which will give me the necessary clue. Such was the case when I found a patch of liverwort on the Reservoir Trail in Pack Forest a few days ago. I could get no farther than "not Marchantia," and that only because the morphology of the specimen told me it was something else. In any event, it covered roughly three square feet of mud and rock in the most damp and dismal section of the trail, perfect habitat if you're a liverwort, and at least that much was obvious. Eventually, I was distracted from the alphabet by trying to keep upright in an exceptionally muddy stretch and then forgot about it until I got home.

Liverworts are less common than mosses, and although they share a number of features with them (reproduction by sporulation, for example), there are others which set them apart. Most contain oil bodies in the cells of their leaves, and mosses do not have this characteristic. In many species, these oil bodies can be seen with the naked eye or minor magnification. Liverworts may be either leafy or thalloid (as above); mosses are always leafy. Another less definitive difference is that there are numerous field guides available for mosses, and darn few for liverworts, and thus their identification becomes more difficult. Consider yourself fortunate if you can place a liverwort in its proper genus. For anything further, you may need professional help as I did when I first encountered this species (Pellia epiphylla).

Calypso Corner

Day 204: I wasn't thinking about Calypso orchids when I set out for a hike in Pack Forest yesterday. The plan was to follow the Bud Blancher Trail from Eatonville, then take the Falls Trail and a short section of the 1070 until connecting with the 1000 Rd. Following the 1000 Rd. would take me through the stretch I call "Butterfly Alley" where I hoped to pick up some material for these posts. Second to that was an invasives patrol, to which purpose I had included my GPS and field notebook in my pack. The Falls Trail was muddy and slick, and a warning sign had been placed at the spur to the lower falls saying that the trail was closed due to potential slides, but I hadn't intended to visit the falls and went on by without investigating. The hard-packed dirt roads of Pack Forest were dry as expected, but even with the way being rather warm and sunny, the only butterflies I saw were Cabbage Whites. About halfway up to Kirkland Pass, I said to myself, "Why don't I go out the 2000 to see if there are any Calypsos? It'll only add about half a mile to my hike." Oh, how dim memory is sometimes! It was closer to three-quarters of a mile from the intersection at Kirkland Pass to Calypso Corner, but I'd committed myself to the project, having no butterflies for backup. The Calypsos and I had a nice visit, and I returned via the sloggy, boggy, muddy and messy Reservoir Trail (much muddier than the Falls Trail had been) for a total of 8.5 miles and a notebook full of invasives to report.

Ramalina Farinacea

Day 192: Lichens have been around for a long time. Obviously, they were preceded by algae, fungi and yeasts because all three are components of the structures we now call lichens, but they were already well established when herbivorous dinosaurs went looking for snacks. Many lichens reproduce both sexually and asexually, a factor which gives them a distinct leg up as to their survival capabilities. Sexual reproduction draws genetic material from two sources, mingling DNA to form new individuals. Asexual reproduction clones the parent material, i.e., the DNA of the new lichen is the same as that of the original. Ramalina farinacea rarely develops apothecia, the fruiting bodies which contain the spores necessary to sexual reproduction, but the margins of its lobes are often heavily populated with elliptical soralia containing hundreds of soredia, its vegetative clones. The soralia are quite obvious in the photo of a fresh specimen on the left. Can you spot them, still holding thousands of green and viable soredia, on the dried-up specimen on the right? Although the parent body is dead, it has the potential to live on in copies of itself. Barring a mass extinction of all life on the planet, I'm betting lichens will be around long after H. sap. has died off.

Happy Earth Day!

Day 191: Happy Earth Day! With the possibility of showers in the forecast, I stuffed my new day-pack accordingly and set out for Pack Forest, intending to hike the 200-300 Rds. as an invasive-plant patrol. The loop I had charted out required very little backtracking and measured out at four miles, an easy walk, although portions of the route had become quite brushed in by Scotch broom (that's one). For the first part, the road lies beneath the high-tension lines from the hydro plant at LaGrande, a swathe liberally filled with common tansy (that's two) and foxglove (that's three). The occasional holly tree (that's four) crops up between evergreens. At its intersection with the 300, the 200 continues on to the river, but my goal was to complete the 300 loop. Here, the broom had encroached heavily onto the first quarter mile of road since I last walked it three years ago, but once into the reprod (reproduction forest), I found it largely carpeted with moss. At the furthest possible point from the car as measured by my GPS, a few raindrops tapped me on the head as I knelt down to photograph Snow Queens. "Of course!" I said. "It couldn't have happened any other way!" But the shower was short-lived, and I completed the top of the figure-8 trail wet only where my trousers had collected moisture as I pushed through the Scotch broom. A short section of the main road was lined on both sides with Stinky Bob (that's five) and in one spot, a mass of Spanish hyacinth (that's six), and the last leg of the hike took me into a section I'd never visited before. The only invasive present there was Scotch broom, in places so dense that it had crowded out everything else. That said, I met some friends along the way: two snails, one cow elk, and a chickadee I could have sworn knew me from home for the way he tagged along at my side for several hundred yards. Nature provides such rewards as these for those who are kind to her and her creatures. Walk softly in the woods.