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.