Day 258: Rosy Twisted-Stalk (Streptopus lanceolatus) doesn't seem to be as abundant these days as it was thirty or forty years ago, at least not in the areas which I commonly hike. This, of course, is anchored in purely personal recollection, and therefore subject to question as an actual record, but I am attuned to this kind of thing and trust my memory when it comes to plant phenology. There have been no suggestions that the species is moving toward "threatened" or "endangered" status, only a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that there should be more of it in this "pocket ecology" or that. Is it truly in decline, or is my mental database losing its integrity? Unfortunately, my "notebook" has long been maintained solely between my ears, with the occasional photograph to support it. This is just one of the lessons I've come to appreciate in my advancing years: "If only I'd known then what I know now" or as it is sometimes stated, "Hindsight is so much clearer than foresight." Streptopus has taught me that, but rather too late to do anything about it.
