Slatsz' Wildflower Walks 2012 - two: June 1, 2012

Out about 2 hours. 151 photos. Kept 77. 8 new bloom.

My main purpose was to improve the snapshot photos of my walk with Grant.

I thought I was giving my photos a lot more care and I think sometimes they were better but the photos I meant to improve were not improved.

I entered at the north entrance to the Park to check on the buds of Rosa woodsii, and Asparagus officinalis.

There was Melilotus officinalis, yellow sweet clover in bloom by the park entrance.

The Lepidium campestre, field pepper-weed alongside the path had developed.

Both the palmate and the pinnate Potentilla were at hand for comparison photos. I decided the Potentilla with palmate leaves was P. gracillis. I don’t know what to do about the Potentilla with pinnate leaves. Burke doesn’t list either P. glandulosa or ‘sticky cinquefoil’. USDA has both. I hoped for an alternative name, there but none looked useful. Carr doesn’t have P. glandulosa. Turner does have it.

The plant is sticky … so, it’s P. glandulosa on my list.

But are there two Potentilla with palmate leaves? I’ll watch for a Potentilla with a ‘heavier’ palmate leaf than P. gracillis.

I remembered to check on Euphorbia cyparissias, Cyprus spurge. It lies in the row of boulders running east-west from Ash court to North Pond. I looked for it between the wrong boulders and found another plant, obvious escapee, beyond blooming. I intended to photograph it after I dealt with the spurge but I forgot to.

The Woods rose and the asparagus were both in bloom.

I found a very large Plagiobothrys scouleri, popcorn flower east of North Pond. I ‘collected’ it for comparison. I got bad photos of it, however.

There was a bushy Linaria dalmatica, Dalmatian toadflax beside North-side trail. It is another naming problem, only because I prefer L. dalmatica to the listing in Burke, “Linaria Genistifolia, brown leaved toadflax”. Burke’s photos don’t show brown leaves.

I found the patch of Amsinckia retrorsa, rigid fiddleneck I had been watching for … damn … Burke seems to have it listed as Amsinckia lycopsoides, tarweed fiddleneck or bugloss fiddleneck.

It’s nearly invisible ‘stickers’ were a torment of my childhood. They must not be fully developed. I had no problem with them.

I re-photographed the unidentified red stemmed yellow flower, not satisfactorily.

None of the other dry mudflat plants seem to have arrived.

Sambucus cerulea, blue elderberry is in bloom.

I tried to improve my photo of Arnica fulgens. Failed.

Finding the unidentified Delphinium was difficult but I managed it. I believe it to be D. distichum, two spike larkspur. I photographed an over-the-hill Delphinium nuttallianum, upland larkspur for comparison.

Finding the Achillea millifolium, yarrow that I had seen in bud was also a problem in the deep grass of Besseya rubra Hollow. It was beginning to bloom.

Later I saw plants along the north trail near the west-most large pine that I remembered from last year. They may be a bit earlier and are a lot easier to find.

I had walked down to Long Rock Ridge to check on Apocynum androsaemifolium. Spreading dogbane. No buds as yet. Looked for Rumex acetosella and didn’t find it. No sign of Orobanche uniflora, naked broomrape. Grant thought it was a parasite and had no leaves. Burke says that’s the case.