Out there about an hour and fifty minutes but much of the time sitting in the car doing photographs or waiting out a shower. 162 photos but many chasing a bug that didn’t mind posing … much. Some attempts at weather photos. 76 keepers – way too many bug photos.
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It was a day of thunder showers, some sustained soaking rain, some drizzle until I was ready to leave.
It was a good day. Who minds drizzle in late July after a hot week?
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New camera idea. To hell with ‘shutter preferred’. That’s about stopping action. Set it on ‘aperture preferred’ and watch the readout to see what is happening with the shutter speed.
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I had three objectives none of which worked out except that they all led to nice accidents.
I parked, first, near the dry plant I thought might be Erigeron speciosus, showy fleabane, hoping to find it again and mark its location somehow. Total failure. There had been enough heavy rain that I didn’t expect to find the seed heads intact. I found nothing.
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I remembered that the big fruit tree across the street and down the hill had ‘apples’ on it. I decided to get a closer look. I saw the division on the fruit that suggested to me that they were apricots. Later I paid attention to the fact that they don’t have the fuzzy skin of apricots. They must be prunes.
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Getting to the ‘apple tree’ I noticed fine specimens of an unidentified ‘red-stemmed ground-hugger’. Its blossoms are invisible to the naked eye … my naked eyes … but they are there.
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Nearby I saw the only Amaranthus retroflexus, red-root pigweed I’ve noticed in the park this year. I have seen them farther along, elsewhere.
It will have flowers with no petals according to Burke. I look forward to attempting close-ups of its inflorescence.
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There is a huge patch of unidentified plants under the tree that I am calling ‘red-flower’ for now … even though the flower is too blue to be called red. They look a very little like the photo in Burke of Lythrum salicaria, purple loosestrife. But the inflorescence is not a “ … crowded, elongate, interrupted, terminal spike …” and the leaves are not lanceolate.
The red-flower plants look like sedum species to me. All the sedum in Burke and Carr are yellow but I see other colors for sale in Google photos.
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I walked in the drizzle but managed to be in the car when the rain got heavier. I wasn’t excited about kicking my way through wet grass. I drove down Euclid
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I drove back up Euclid on the wrong side of the street at one or two miles per hour checking the curbside ‘weeds’, looking for blossoms on the ground hugger that was in bud last outing. I found the Conyza canadensis, Canadian horseweed growing out of the crack between the asphalt and the concrete curb. I pulled it … only with considerable effort. It had mud on its root. I knocked off the mud but only with repeated efforts of increasing violence.
I’m telling you of my violence in detail because there was this big bug on the plant that would not fly away! I didn’t see the bug till I tried to photograph the plant, later.
The bug climbed all over the plant while I was trying to photograph it but made no effort to fly away. I wonder if it was intent on laying eggs.
The bug was still on the plant when I discarded it.
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I didn’t do the photography I talked about above until I got to the west end of the park.
After finding the Canadian horseweed I decided to photograph the Erigeron pumilus, shaggy fleabane just to record its condition on this date. When I got to the shaggy fleabane I noticed another fleabane, the Erigeron caespitosus, tufted fleabane about 8 paces beyond it, both rather near the curb on Euclid
Ash Court
.
I did a locator photo for the tufted fleabane. Just the house across the street. The plant is roughly aligned with the east edge of the driveway.
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I wanted to check on the Jovibarba globifera, hen and chicks and the Stachys byzantine, hedge nettle on either side of the of the north trail about half way up the park. I decided that the most likely clear path was from the west end. I drove to the west end.
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The rain and thunder picked up. It only took a few minutes to wait it out. I attempted to photograph the effect of the rain on the windshield.
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Walking up the north trail I saw magnificent specimens of Perideridia gairdneri, yampah but only did snapshots.
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The hen and chicks did not look healthy. They are very yellow. The hedge nettle was so far past bloom that the plant was dry.
But I saw a couple of Cirsium species, thistle near the hedge nettle. The homeowner bordering the park apparently had taken out some weeds there but missed these. They, too, were far past bloom.
I think April saw some thistle last year. I didn’t. These are the first I’ve seen in the park.
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I crossed the park and walked back west on the main trail.
I checked on my ‘locator photo’ information for April’s strange flower. The pine tree is not significant till you see the cairn but once you see the large cairn it’s obvious. Finding the ‘puddle’ of rock rubble ‘in front’ of [north of] the pine is easy enough. The strange flower patch is on the south edge of the rock-rubble.I can’t see the plants in the photo of the rock-rubble I took last outing.
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I checked the Trifolium arvense, hare’s foot clover patch under the three pines to see if there were blossoms to be photographed. I saw nothing as definitive as the photos in Burke and Carr but attempted to make something out of specks of white I thought were possibilities.
A short distance beyond the Holodiscus discolor, ocean spray on the south-side of the main trail there is an even more extensive patch of hare’s foot clover.
* * *
I’ve just looked through the photos of the 28 Erigeron in Burke for the new find and read the description of the leaves of the chief suspects. Looks like I was wrong thinking it was Erigeron speciosus. The leaf description strongly suggests Erigeron caespitosus, tufted fleabane. But I need a better look. I wouldn’t take a branch to photograph as this was the only plant I saw and I didn’t want to damage it.
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I checked Carr just now. Carr has ten Erigeron species. He does not have E. caespitosus. But his photo of E. speciosus is definitive. This plant is not E. speciosus.
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Burke: Erigeron caespitosus, tufted fleabane, June-August, Whitman County , no-sho in Spokane County
I need to remember that I photographed Erigeron filifolius, threadleaf fleabane down in the 1991 burn. I haven’t seen it at Drumheller Springs Park
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| unidentified red-stem ground hugger |
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| Prunus species across the road and down the hill note unidentified red flowers at the base of the tree that may be Sedum the patch of white flowers on the left are Silene species |
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| a wed day in late July |
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| Amaranthus retroflexus, red-root pigweed foliage |
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| unidentified red flower, sedum mayhe |
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| Erigeron pumilus, shaggy fleabane |
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| Erigeron caespitosus, tufted fleabane |
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| Locator for tufted fleabane roughly aligned with east side of driveway |
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| Conyza canadensis, Canadian horseweed with bug |
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| Conyza canadensis, Canadian horseweed |
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| self portrait |
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| Perideridia gairdneri, yampah |
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| Jovibarba globifera, hen and chicks inappropriately yellow foliage |
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| Stachys byzantine, hedge nettle |
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| Cirsium species |
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| The root doesn't apparently diminish in size it is broken off it was not deep in the earth |
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| Trifolium arvense, hare’s foot clover with water drop |
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| Locator photo for hare's foot clover main trail approaching west entrance of the park Holodiscus discolor, ocean spray in the distance with brown inslorescence the patch of hare's foot clover is in the foreground |
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