Coastal Collections

After our long cold winter and very wet spring, the crew here at Wildflower Blog Central was more than ready for a field trip and in particular a coastal one! But with over 360 miles of shoreline to choose from, we had to narrow down our destination, so after couple of growlers and few rounds of Twister, it was decided we would focus mainly on the southern Oregon coast.

Coastal habitats here in Oregon vary a quite a bit from north to south, but one thing they all have in common is the narrow width of the true coastal habitat. It is seldom more than a mile or so wide, unless it is a tidal marsh. Even so, a rich amount of unique plants are found within that narrow band. The sand dune area of the Central Coast is a oddity within the otherwise rocky and dramatic cliffs of the northern and southern coast. We'll save that area for a future trip and post!

Bandon State Natural Area

It would be easy to spend several weeks exploring any region of the coast, but we do have other important obligations, such as mowing the lawn, cleaning out the barbecue, and of course doing the laundry. So we packed our bags, stuffed the cooler, and loaded up the road trip mix.

Port Orford - Humbug Mountain in Distance

In this post we'll focus on the plants and flowers we found growing in the unique coastal "hood" we visited. Some of these plants will grow inland, all the way to the Willamette valley, such as the non-native Foxglove, the native Cow Parsnip, and the native Coastal Monkeyflower. For the most part, the others shown here are stay-at-home plants.

Cape Blanco

Flowers we had never seen in bloom before: American Searocket near the Oregon Coast trail in Yachats, Johnny Nip at Shore Acres State Park, Douglas Iris at Cape Blanco State Park, and the Bolander's Phacelia on the Humbug Mountain trail. And we were quite surprised to see the non-native Sea Fig Plants blooming in Port Orford! Here's the rest of this trip's coastal collection.

Hover your mouse or finger over the image to see the names. Click or tap to see larger version.

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

And last but certainly not least, we want to give a shout out to the Bandon High School "Go Native" project. We saw their giant mural of local native plants in Old Town while visiting. The project has the goal of fostering appreciation for native plants and creates a business opportunity in sales of the plants. They also work on habitat restoration and other community projects. This is a great idea, so hats off to them! Check out their website here.

Henry Hagg Lake

You wouldn't think that a place known for power boats, jet skis, kayaks, and fishing is also a good place to find wildflowers, wooded trails, and some really big oak trees and firs - at least, I would not have thought so. Henry Hagg Lake is a man-made reservoir a bit south of Forest Grove, OR. It was created in 1975 to provide water backup for agriculture in the area as well as for several nearby towns. It has over ten miles of shoreline and the lake and occupies about 1000 acres when full. Named after a prominent local dairy farmer who was active in government in the earl 1900's, the park and lake are now operated by Washington County.

Over the years the lake and surrounding park, officially known as Scoggins Valley Park, has expanded its recreational offerings, the main one of interest to us here at wildflower blog central is the 13.5 mile hiking trail that surrounds the lake and all of its inlets. This trail passes through several varied habitats including open meadows, dense mature forest, and many riparian areas where creeks slowly flow into the lake. Each habitat has a wealth of plants and trees, blooming from April to August. The lake is very popular in the summer but most folks are on the water or hanging out in the developed areas - which leaves quite a bit of park to explore on foot.

Of particular note for the naturalist is areas of the park now identified as special habitats for the Fender's Blue Butterfly and its host plant, Kincaid's Lupine. The Fender's is endangered and the lupine is threatened, so one can appreciate the effort going on at the lake. This lupine prefers the grassy exposed areas on the south-facing slopes of the park. Some of the trails in this area have been relocated to provide more protection for the plant and butterfly. Efforts to remove invasive plants such as Scotch Broom and Himalayan Blackberry are also underway. Hopefully these efforts will pay off for the butterfly.

About 12 years ago, I started riding my mountain bike around the lake on the trail. It has many ups and downs as well as good views of the lake. It was on these rides that I began to notice the varied flora around the lake. A few years ago, I quit riding the bike and instead walked portions of the trail to get a closer look at the flora. The park's massive disc golf course also got me out there on my feet, sometimes with my canine companion, to explore the lake's many areas.

The photo album links below are a sampling of visits from the past few years. The photos have captions. If those don't appear, click the small icon with an "i" in it.

Meanwhile, the lake trail continues to be one of our regular walking routes, almost any time of year.

Links:

Hagg Lake Photo Album 2016

Hagg Lake Photo Album 2013-2014

NPSO Page on Kincaid's Lupine

Wiki Page on Fender's Blue Butterfly

Institute for Applied Ecology

Festival

Although I had never been to an official "Wildflower Festival" in the past, the idea intrigued me. The poster advertising the recent Mount Pisgah Arboretum Wildflower and Music Festival had the right words to lure me in: Music, Food, and Fun. Not to mention a beautiful warm sunny day, wildflower displays, artwork, and nature walks; what's not to like? Expert botanists were on hand to answer your plant questions along with microscopes and books. For the more casual festival goers, there were artworks created out of natural things only, many eco-vendor booths as well as food carts galore. And of course you could purchase native plants to take home. 

Pavilion Flower Displays

It's an intriguing way to celebrate native wildflower appreciation, education, and preservation - and hold a fundraiser in the process. The good folks at Mount Pisgah should know - they have been doing it for 38 years! We spent most of the day at the festival enjoying the vibe and taking a few walks around the arboretum and up to the top of Mt. Pisgah, where the views are expansive in all directions. 

Art in Nature Entry

In the larger sense, the festival affirms what many nature lovers already know: spending time enjoying nature is good for you and your health; it's good for society and it needs to be preserved. In this day and age of capitalism-crazed national leaders, this obvious human necessity seems at risk of fading away. The anti-science and anti-environment rhetoric emerging from the new D.C. arrivals is astonishing. One wonders if these odd people have any experience with nature or wilderness. Not to belabor the point, but I'll just leave it at this for now: be vigilant, stay informed, and speak out for nature. There are still many in D.C. who will support us, but they need to hear from us and be encouraged to take action to protect what we have and educate the uninformed. 

The festival appeared to be a huge success, at least by the numbers attending and the "miles of smiles" seen. Hundreds attended, seemingly from all walks of life ages. We were impressed by the well organized feel of the event and the army of eager volunteers working the beat. All in all, a day well spent for us!

On the trail to to the summit we saw hundreds of Toughleaf Iris, a few dozen Blue Dicks, and a smattering of Meadow Checker mallow and Oregon Checker mallow. Among the oaks we also saw poison oak growing profusely! 

Oregon Checker mallow (Sidalcea campestris) and Meadow Checker mallow (Sidalcea oregana):

 

Toughleaf Iris (Iris tenax) and Nine-leaf Lomatium (Lomatium triternatum):

 

Tolmie's Pussy Ears (Calochortus tolmiei) and Blue Dicks (Dichelostemma capitatum)

 

Orange Honeysuckle (Lonicera ciliosa) and Slender Tarweed (Madia gracilis), with 

Purple Sanicle (Sanicula bipinnatifida)

   

Links:

Mt. Pisgah Arboretum

Native Plant Society of Oregon

Oregon Nature Conservancy

Life and Death

Imagine living in the unspoiled Pacific Northwest before the European Americans arrived; before there were roads and cities along the rivers. The views, sounds, and natural state of the area was vastly different. And imagine you are a Nez Perce native American in the year 1800. You would be living in one of about 100 villages throughout the Northwest, many along the Snake, Salmon, and Clearwater rivers. Your life would be structured around seasonal encampments to take advantage of important food sources: salmon, berries, nuts, and camas bulbs.

No need to expound on the delights of eating salmon - most of us continue to enjoy this wonderful staple of river living to this day. The Nez Perce knew the best spots for spearing the salmon and learned to smoke and preserve it as well. Thankfully, today, we don't have to reel in our own fish when we feel like having a salmon dinner, but many still choose to do so.

But what about those camas bulbs? You probably don't have a bag of them in your pantry. The Nez Perce and others relied on baked camas bulbs as a regular staple, similar to our potato of today. In the 1800's there were thousands of acres of the camas plants growing throughout the region. According to historians, the bulbs were gathered in late summer and then baked in home built ovens that resembled a giant clay pot. Their natural flavor is rather bland, so usually the bulbs were mixed with salmon oil or berries for flavoring.

Camas and salmon were so important to these native people that many landmarks and places have been named after them. There is a city in Washington named Camas, and of course there are several rivers in the Northwest with the Salmon name.

The Common Camas (Camassia quamash) blooms in mid-spring in damp meadows at low elevation areas, west of the Cascades. It is quite a sight to see a whole field of blooming camas, with their intense blue blossoms. The Great Camas (Camassia leichtlinii) is very similar, but larger and sports more flowers than the common one.

In 1805, the Lewis and Clark explorers met the Nez Perce, who basically helped the explorers avoid starvation at that point in their journey. One of their journals talks about how the native tribe gave them camas to eat. Unfortunately, the bulbs are hard to digest, making life a bit worse for the undernourished explorers. Eventually though the explorers were able to tolerate the bulbs and moved on.

More locally, our Tualatin tribe was known to gather camas bulbs at Graham Oaks Nature Park near Wilsonville. These camas plants are still abundant in areas of the park.

One thing Nez Perce children must have learned at an early age, was to avoid what we now call the Meadow Death Camas (Zigadenus venenosus). This plant also produces a bulb, but is highly toxic and as the name suggests can be fatal. In fact, all parts of the plant are toxic. The flowers look nothing like Common Camas, but the plants grow in the same general conditions. At bulb harvesting time, the adult Nez Perce knew what to look out for and did not gather the toxic bulbs. Botanically speaking, the common and death camas plants are not related at all, but the common name creates this illusion.

Meadow Death Camas flowering in the Columbia River Gorge:

     

There is a wealth of historical articles about the Nez Perce and other Northwest native peoples on the internet. These native Americans knew the land and flora quite well and many of their learnings are still relevant in today's botanical science.

Skunked?

With a name like "Skunk Cabbage," one has to wonder how this Northwest native plant impressed early explorers like Lewis and Clark and David Douglas. Our local Native Americans were very familiar with it and at some point in the early 1900's it was exported to the U.K. where they actually cultivated the rogue cabbage! If our original residents knew about the vile smelling plant traveling across the ocean for aristocrat gardeners, they would probably be laughing their heads off.

      

Western Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus) is neither a cabbage nor is it suitable for a salad. But, as any local  grade school child can tell you, it is easy to identify and it does have a pungent odor. Hikers who venture out on a trail in a boggy area, are probably going to see Skunk Cabbage, with its giant leaves that look almost tropical. The exotic tall yellow "flowers" have an alien look compared to most other Northwest wildflowers. These big, bright yellow shoots resemble old time candle lamps; the plants are also called Swamp Lantern.

In fact, the plant's real flowers resemble tiny popcorn kernels and cover the spadix, the candle-like spire in the center of the big 6-8 inch yellow spathe that resembles a large spoon. When an entire colony of Skunk Cabbage is blooming, the yellow spathes make for quite the show! Of course the bloom also releases that namesake odor, making a show of another kind!

Tiny white flowers

As a member of the Araceae family, the musty, skunk-like odor does have a purpose: it keeps certain large animals away (such as deer and elk) and it attracts pollinators, who apparently relish the low brow smell. Here in western Oregon, they are in bloom now.

In the Eastern U.S., a similar but different and equally fascinating Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) also grows in boggy areas and has a pungent odor when its purple-green flowers emerge from the ground in early spring. Only the flowers are visible at first, during the bloom. Later, the leaves emerge as the flowers die off. This oddball plant has Thermogenesis on its resume. Meaning, the plant can actually generate heat. It is thought that this helps get the tough flowers through the cold ground when emerging, as well as aiding in the odor spreading, once it blooms. The heat is generated by a process called "cellular respiration," a complex topic worthy of study for the serious botanist! Follow this link for a taste.

Eastern Skunk Cabbage. Photo courtesy Wikipedia*

Both the western and eastern versions of this cabbage were used by native peoples extensively. However, parts of each plant are highly toxic, so don't get skunked by the lore of beneficial properties. As always, we here at Wildflower Blog Central remind our readers to leave any plant where it is and take only photos!



*Photo: By Sue Sweeney. - The Monday Garden & Wikipedia.