Slatsz' Wildflower Walks 2012 - two: June 23, 2012 - American birds's foot trefoil, hairy owl's clover

One hour. 25 photos. 17 keepers.

Another early walk. I didn’t wait 5 days.

I wanted to check the purple dangle shrub and the Opuntia fragilis, brittle prickly pear but the real object of the walk was to show a neighbor, Steven Swaner, around the park.

We stopped at the east end of the park and walked down to North Pond to check on the purple dangle. When we passed the east-west boulders I checked the tiny plants with the brush like top to see if there was one with more blossoms. I was immediately distracted by the Lotus unifoliolatus, American bird’s foot trefoil … the three leaf plant Grant asked me to watch for pink blossoms. These were white blossoms but I think I remember pink blossoms on them last year.

I had to pull the leaves off to get a good side view of the blossom. My fingers are too large and the plants are too small. Yeah, yeah, I’ve got a pair of tweezers somewhere. Maybe I’ll bring them next time if I can find them.

As I approached the purple dangle shrub I KNEW this time that I saw petals on the Gnaphalium palustre. Wrong again.

We walked around the pond so I could show Steven the fruit bearing shrubs on the west side of North Pond. I check the mudflat, of course. A few of the Navarretia intertexta had blossoms on their heads but only one each.

I was surprised to see Castilleja tenuis, hairy owl’s clover in bloom. I hadn’t noticed the foliage developing on previous outings.

We drove to the west end of the park to check on the prickly pear. I was sure it would be in bloom.

The bud was gone! I can’t believe it. Some one must have picked it? Hard to believe, but it’s gone.

I need to look again to be sure that I had the right patch. But I’m fairly sure there is only one patch with more than a couple of ‘lobes’ of cactus in them.

I’ll watch for more blossoms but I have little hope.