Slatsz' Wildflower Walks 2012 - two: June 07, 2012

Two hours. 162 photos. 77 keepers. Some redundant.

Constant rain. Mostly sprinkle, some light rain. Some blustery wind some calm.

Chat with Grant.

I was out in the rain for two hours and got damp, not really wet. A typical Spokane rain. The drenching rain a few days ago was not typical.

I drove to the west end of the park to check the buds on Opuntia fragilis, the brittle prickly-pear. They are developing.

A somewhat strange buckwheat caught my eye, very red blossoms. I decided to advance the buckwheat study so there are three sets of photos of plants that may be variations on Eriogonum heracleoides, parsnip flowered buckwheat, and two sets of photos of plants that may both be Eriogonum umbellatum, sulfur buckwheat.

The villainous Vicia villosa is blooming everywhere. I have not seen a blossom since the first blossom I noticed almost two weeks ago. There are lots of blossoms today. The first blossom was also in this location, north end of White Bitterroot Rock. I didn’t have my camera with me that day.

I noticed a nice bug on the Vicia villosa when I got it into the computer.

I was delighted to see a few Allium acuminatum, taper-tip onion. I noticed a few, later, under the large pine at the north end of fireplug rock. I don’t think there are ever very many.

Sedum Lanceolatum, lance-leaf stonecrop is in bloom. There’s a big patch on the north side of White Bitterroot Rock. There are also patches at the east end of the park near Ash Court and across Ash Court
from the park.

The tall mustard with rather fernlike cauline leaves is in bloom. I’m calling it Descurainia sophia, flixweed.

I saw specks of white topping a small herb with pinnate leaves. There is a loose patch of them a short distance east of White Bitterroot Rock. I saw them elsewhere. The white might be just the fur of new leaves but there seems also to be a bud structure there. Needs to be watched.

I meant to photograph the escaped domestic I saw in the east-west row of boulders at the east end of the park but that meant wading through deep wet grass so I put it off and drove to the fireplug to check on the Delphinium distichum, two spike delphinium in bud in Besseya rubra Hollow. It is in bloom. It does not have two spikes.

I saw others in the deep grass west of the big Prunus virginiana, choke cherry but I saw only about four total so I wouldn’t take one in order to get better photographs.

I walked over to the mudflat west of North Pond. I photographed a plant I can’t identify. A tall spike with tiny white flowers but it was apparently blown down or stepped on. It s spike was on the ground.

Just west of a rock outcrop bordering on the mudflat there was a patch of Gnaphalium palustre, marsh cudweed in bud.

I thought I saw Lomatium dissectum, fern-leaf biscuitroot by the fireplug. I walked over to Grant’s house to check his L. dissectum and he was just leaving on an errand. We had a pleasant chat. I was wrong. The Lomatium I saw near the fireplug were just late blooming L. triternatum, 9 leaf biscuit root. The leaves were totally wrong for L. dissectum.

The domestic yellow roses were in bloom. I wanted to ignore them but decided to wade through more wet grass to see what I could see. Who can resist raindrops on rose buds?

The Muscari sp, grape hyacinth has an attractive set of seed pods.