Saxifraga Austromontana, Spotted Saxifrage

Day 260: By and large, I'm not much impressed by Saxifrages. Okay, some of them put on a fairly good floral display at the tops of thready stems, but unless you look past the flowers and start trying to sort them out by foliage, they pretty much look the same and usually elicit "Oh, yeah, that's another Saxifrage" from me as I walk by without a second glance. That changed while Joe and I were standing in Sourdough Gap. I was off nosing around in lichens until he said, "Take a look at this one. It has spots, lots of them." I dutifully climbed down off the rock and had a peek. "Oh!" says I, "I gotta get a picture of that!" Thus Spotted Saxifrage (Saxifraga austromontana) moved into the mental niche I reserve for "noteworthy plants."

It's easy to become complacent when you've been looking at little white flowers all day. After stopping to look at five clusters of exactly the same thing, you start to shelve them all under "LWF" (refer to the previous sentence) and you start to ignore them. Likewise DYDs and DPDs (Damn Yellow Daisies and their purple counterparts). The mind goes into "nothing to see here, just keep moving" mode, and if there was something exceptional, you'll probably walk past it without so much as a nod. In fact, I'd walked by S. austromontana, dismissing it as "just another bloody Saxifrage." Thanks to Joe's attentive eye, I got to add a new plant to my botanical Life List, and as far as the plant is concerned, it now has appropriate status as my favourite Sax. I mean, what's not to like about polka-dots?

Boechera Lyallii, Lyall's Rockcress

Day 259: As many of you know, I was invited to be a contributor to the University of Washington's Burke Herbarium photo database some years ago, and add images frequently. In addition, I refer to Burke when I am working on identifying plants because contributors who have a background in botany know what features of a plant's morphology are definitive and often show those parts in close-up (or in extreme cases, under a microscope). The Burke is very good on keeping up with taxonomic changes, perhaps a bit too good in this case. When I looked up Lyall's Rockcress Tuesday night, it was filed under Arabis lyalli. I labelled my photo as such and the following morning, I sent a batch of images in to Burke. Last night while I was reviewing the material for my next few posts, I thought I might have mis-typed "lyalli" because the final i (it should have two) was missing. I went to Burke to check...and couldn't find the plant under Arabis! Puzzled, I immediately began hunting down synonyms and discovered that it had been reclassified to Boechera lyallii in the space of a mere three days (yes, I edited my submission). As I said to Joe when I updated the information I'd sent him, "Give me a big rock and the nearest taxonomist." I'm ready to whop somebody upside the head.

So, Boechera it is, Boechera lyallii with two i's. It is a very hardy little plant with a preference for dry soils (amazing how some of these tiny marvels survive bitterly cold winters and heavy snowpack). It is most frequently found in alpine/subalpine areas, but also may occur in dry lowland meadows from British Columbia to California, and east to the Rocky Mountains. The flowers may be purple as they are in this image, although some specimens may be lighter and almost pink. The lower (basal) leaves are somewhat fleshy. In addition to its former binomial, it has carried a number of different common names including Murray's Rockcress (how did Murray get in there, I wonder?) or Slender Rockcress. Let's give botanist David Lyall his due and stick with Lyall's Rockcress, please.

Lewisia Triphylla, Three-Leaf Lewisia

Day 258: Roughly a quarter inch across, the flowers of Lewisia triphylla (Three-Leaf Lewisia) are borne close to the ground. Its leaves are succulent (fleshy); flowers emerge on reddish stalks lacking basal leaves, and the inflorescence of a single plant may contain up to 25 blooms. In the case of these specimens found near Chinook Pass (Wenatchee National Forest), they were mostly single. I was thrown off track by the leaf and the absence of pink veins on the petals and wound up referring it out to my contact at the Burke Herbarium for identification. The photo and 10 others taken while on this particular hike will be included in Burke's database. It was a very productive trip! Four of the species we encountered only marginally outside the Park will be the objects of a search next week when we make a patrol of a different trail in the same area which lies within Park boundaries. Lewisia triphylla is one of our targets.

Viola Purpurea, Mountain Violet

Day 257: "Come and look at this," Joe said while I was zoomed in on a small purple flower near the top of Sourdough Gap. "This is a different violet." I took the few steps which brought me to his side. "Look at the leaf," he continued. With two sets of eyes scanning the slopes, we'd been finding all sorts of interesting plants in the east-side ecology. Neither of us has spent much time on "the other side of the mountains," so even common plants were curiosities.

I responded with an appropriate, "Ooooh, I gotta get pictures of that and GPS it." I knelt down, the better to use a macro filter, flipped the flower over to look for a spur. Spur presence/absence and size and helpful in identifying the Violas, although I suspected the leaf would tell me all I needed to know when I got my hands on my field guides. "Oh!" I said. "The back of the top two petals are purple, Joe!" With that revelation (see inset), I had all the field characteristics I needed to make an ID: Viola purpurea, Mountain Violet. We couldn't have found a better specimen. The Violas (including V. purpurea) often intergrade, creating new plants with characteristics of both parents according to dominant traits. This was as pure purpurea as we could have hoped to find: leaf morphology, colour, "bee guides" on the lower petals, the whole nine yards. As much as I love finding "new" plants and especially the less common ones, I prefer it when they conform to the standard descriptions. Had this been an intergrade, I'd probably still be trying to figure out what it was.

Letharia Vulpina

Day 256: Team Biota ventured somewhat outside the Park boundaries yesterday to hike to Sheep Lake and Sourdough Gap from Chinook Pass, the trail slightly east of the Cascade Crest. Joe had been to the lake only a few days earlier and had found a lichen he knew I'd have to pursue: Letharia vulpina, aka "Wolf Lichen." We have two species of Letharia in Washington and both are primarily "east side" dwellers. The second species (L. columbiana) usually bears an abundance of fringed apothecia which are so distinctive that Northwest Lichenologists uses the lichen as their logo. I was hoping we might find both on our seven-mile trek.

And there's a point right there: Washington Trails Association's website claims the gentle hike to Sourdough Gap covers a mere five miles. Trusting in them, we left our lunches in the truck. Using my new GPS which tracks your actual route, we had covered seven miles by the time we got back at 3 PM. The largest discrepancy occurred between the lake and the pass. WTA claimed it was 0.75 miles one way. My GPS showed 1.4 miles.

That said, we found Letharia vulpina in abundance, noting that it occurred primarily on dead cedars and alpine fir. Brodo refers to it as preferring barkless branches, and indeed this was what we observed, although we also found it growing on bark. We did not find the second species, but felt we were much more than compensated by the number of "new" vascular plants we discovered, including a couple of species I had not seen before. I still have a few left to identify, but many will be featured in this blog over the next week. Stay tuned!

Mr. McCaw's Amazing Flight

Day 255: In geocaching, a "Travel Bug" is an object bearing a numerically coded tag which travels (hopefully) from cache to cache with the assorted players who happen to retrieve it. Many TBs (as they're called in shorthand) have specific goals, places they'd like to visit, things they'd like to "see." From Mr. McCaw's page, I quote:

"Mr. McCaw is my pet crow, and I've sent him off to find bird sanctuaries across the country. You needn't worry about him eating other birds' eggs because Mr. McCaw is a strict vegetarian (well, except for those noodles...he has a particular passion for pasta. Don't you? I certainly do!) I'd ask a favor of anyone who helps Mr. McCaw during his flight. Would you please post pictures of birds to his log, especially the less common ones? Images from bird sanctuaries would also be very welcome. Mr. McCaw would appreciate layovers near Belmont NY, Seabrook NH, St. Charles IL and Grand Forks ND if possible. Thanks!" (and a bit of further description) "The Northwestern crow (Corvus caurinus) is smaller than the common crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos). Mr. McCaw is a Micro crow (Corvus caurinus-parvus)."

Mr. McCaw first took flight from my hands on June 4, 2005. It took him 14 years (plus 20 days) to complete his migratory cycle. He was able to visit both of my "sisters of the heart" (one in New York and the other in New Hampshire), but oh, where he went in between! Within the United States, he visited caches in Washington, California, Colorado, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida, but his international journey was even more amazing. He made stops in Belize, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Russia, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands and Greece! Unfortunately, he missed North Dakota and Illinois, but he saw many wonderful bird species on his way. Now he's ready to retire to a Perch of Honor, home at last and keeping me company from the top of my hutch desk.

Well, This Doesn't Suck

Day 254: Well, this doesn't suck...but it should. That's my wellhead. Ninety-something feet below its little blue hat, the pump which supplies my household with water isn't doing its job. I've been without water since Friday afternoon, unless you count the mud which flowed briefly from the tap Saturday morning, so thick with particulate matter that an inch in a bucket hid the bottom entirely from view. We had a few drops of rain on Saturday, enough that I could gather two bucketsful from a downspout for a flush and a hair-wash, ignoring the tea-coloured stain from the roof's asphalt shingles and contamination from bird poop and pollen.

I'm no stranger to this. For almost eighteen years in my previous home, household water came from the sky. It was gathered into two below-ground cisterns which at full capacity contained 8000 gallons. That 8000 gallons had to see my husband and me through the months between April and October, during which time the collection system had to be shut down because of dust generated from the gravel road. We learned to conserve. You bet we did. Even using the Little House Out Back, there were a few summers which saw us dangerously short of water.

When I moved here, I thought my water woes were over because I was on a well. Ten years into my occupation of the house, the well went dry and had to be re-dug. While trying to find financial aid, I spent six months hauling water in carboys, buckets and bottles from any source I could find, every single time I left the house. If I wanted to bathe, it had to be heated on the stove; you can't fill a hot water tank manually.

Since Friday, I've been back on camp conditions. The well-drilling company's serviceman is supposed to get here Friday. What will happen after that is a huge unknown. For now, though, if you're headed my way, please bring potable water in any quantity. The commodity most Americans take for granted is unavailable in Crow's own little third-world country.