Awesome, thanks for teaching!
Mostly recent review for myself and application. Reinforcing the learning.
2 Likes
Two days ago I took these three at Redwood Regional Park in Oakland:
- Moss/lichen on side of a redwoodâs trunk. 2) Looking up from the center of a fairy ring where new trunks are growing from the roots of an older, larger tree that was taken out. 3) Looking up at the umbel of a large native plant growing not far from a creek.
Two of a thistle and something (Iâm curious if anyone knows it) very low growing in the sandy soil near the beach in San Francisco taken yesterday.
Finally one from my garden of orange blooming Rat Tail cacti (Aporocactus flagelliformis) growing in hanging pots near the pond.
[
7 Likes
The bottom right of the tree looks like a face to me.
Had a really weird coincident tonight. Made me feel bad. So my neighbor is a vegetarian. Sheâs been one almost as long as I have been vegetarian/vegan. I dated her bestfriend who was also vegetarian such a long time ago. Anyways, I left a good metal insulated cup in my momâs vehicle yesterday. She was also supposed to bring me something she bought few backs on father day. She brought it over and called saying â there is something left on your porch also. Some foodâ .
She dropped it off and left while I was still hiking. This was at 7pm. I got back at about 730. I brought the stuff in and saw that the food was the vegan whopper meal from Burger King. So I ate it. I thought it was food my mom was saying she left. About 20 minutes after that, Iâm still eating the burger and fries and I hear a knocking at my door. She says that DoorDash said they left it at the house with a purplelight. We both have a purple light. I told her I had that food but I think my mom dropped it off and was confused. I call my mom and she said no she did not, it was already there and she was just telling me it was there. I apologized and said I would give her money and she said itâs ok they refunded it and she ordered it again and itâs being brought back. On the bag I seen that there was a receipt with her name on it. I felt like she only like 50/50 thought I was telling the truth.
Itâs almost like divine interference lol. This sounds stupid, but itâs actually happened with her before too. Last year I went outside on Saturday and there was a vegan mocha coffee thing and I thought my brother dropped it off for some reason. He sometimes comes by with coffee. I drank her coffee while she was walking over. She said they literally dropped it off like 30 seconds before I came outside and they knocked on my door. I said I never heard any knocking and just came outside to look in my van. Same thing. After that happened I noticed her name was on the cup. I feel like she definitely thinks Iâm just sometimes taking advantage of her orders coming to my house.
3 Likes
And apples are roses . . . with the 5-petal, 5-sepal, five-etc. structure.
3 Likes
Iâd want a closer look but that looks a lot like a wild pea.
There are multiple wild beach pea species on the west coast of North America, many of which are found on just one stretch of coast or even just one sandspit between a bay and the ocean. Most have purple flowers but there are some with yellow.
3 Likes
Good point! Seek app says it is deerweedâŚrelated to vetch! Itâs beautiful!
(I cheated)
https://coastal-watershed.org/plant-profile-deerweed/
4 Likes
Interesting that my first thought was vetch but the flower color was nothing Iâd seen on one before and it was much smaller too. Thank you for cheating on my behalf!
Thank you too St. Raymond for your thoughts. There is a plant that grows in the sand there with a nice yellow flower that has succulent leaves but I think I may have already posted a pic of it here before. An unusual form of a common enough plant for around here.
1 Like
I see it too now. Makes me think of Abe Lincoln.
2 Likes
Yep.
.extra characters
This is the low growing Sand Verbena I was referring to above. Lots leaves are succulent and Iâve only ever seen it growing in deep sand.
4 Likes
I thought deerweed was a shrub, not a ground creeper. Heh â your link calls it a âsubshrubâ; never heard that one before!
But it is a wild pea! And happily a native one â here are places itâs been officially found in Californiaâ
Apparently it grows differently depending on location; on and near well-drained sandy areas, especially beach zones, it grows low; more inland/moister areas it gets bush-like (thus âsub-shrubâ, I presume). Turns out I actually field-identified some in one botany cass, but I knew it as Lotus scoparius; itâs got a new scientific name, Acmispon glaber â I think the old name was easier to say!
Looks like it might grow where I do my conservation work if I get the right variety â looks like I want Acmispon glaber var. glaber subvar. Califlora. It would definitely be more welcome than its invasive cousin, the woody pea called Scotchbroom! I should ask the university botany people, I suppose, and figure out where to get seeds. Given that there are plants appearing along my stretch of coast that used to have a northern limit around Eureka and the Redwoods â thanks to shifting climate â I wouldnât be surprised if it could grow here as well; a botanist I encountered when doing some trail work once said heâd found some woody species that used to grow no farther north than Eureka appearing along the southern Washington coast around Long Beach and Ocean Park.
Bonus: itâs the primary host plant for an at-risk butterfly!
4 Likes
I came across a huge patch of those the other day on the beach. It was amazing because four days earlier there hadnât been anything growing on the little sand ridge behind a small chunk of driftwood; then we had enough rain to soak the top 3cm of sand â and boom! they not only sprouted all along that little ridge but spread outward from it, catching more sand. I should grab a picture of it if I can get out there today.
Iâve learned that they would be even more abundant if it wasnât for the wretched European dune grass people planted here almost a century ago that has taken over and totally changed not just the ecology but the entire dune structure, including choking out habitat for the endangered snowy plover. It has value in the foredune area, but the verbena achieves dune stabilization in its own fashion without choking out the native strawberries and vetch.
2 Likes
Around here it is the ice plant that was planted a long time ago. Now they work to remove it in places and have a nursery on site where they are growing starts of native plants.
I hadnât noticed the deer weed before probably because it is so low growing and would be obscured by other plants but this one was right under the skirt of taller more open shrub. Perhaps it is getting extra water by being in the drip line of the foliage the taller shrub.
The sand verbena is one of my favorites among the ones theyâve been introducing. Given the reliable daily fog, it probably gets all the wet it wants without rain.
2 Likes
If you look at the structure youâll see that the leaves catch moisture and deliver it to stems that guide it right into the sand â it is in effect self-watering, not needing to wait for moisture to penetrate the open sand. Itâs not as efficient at it as the European beach grass (or even some of the native beach grasses) but itâs still quite effective â where for water from rain to penetrate to irrigate coastal trees there generally has to be at least 3/4" of precipitation, this stuff gets watered nicely from around 0.05"!
3 Likes
I found this gorgeous moss at our local state park today. I love mosses and need to learn more about them. Theyâre beautiful and fascinating, I think. This beauty is Fan Club Moss and enormous compared to the other mosses I know in these here parts.
Check out those runners! With small mosses I canât see things like that.
Playing around with my clip on âmacro lensâ on my phone. How cool is this stuff!
A longer view, to compare with other plants
4 Likes
All kinds of wonders of creation. As a child, I had a jar with spores of clubmoss (Lycopodium or Diphasiastrum sp.) and used them when I wanted to make a show. If you throw spores to a flame, they ignite and give a spectacular flash. A flashy and almost magical effect, assuming you can take and throw the spores so that other kids do not see what you are doing.
5 Likes
Not exactly common knowledge!
Cool.
2 Likes
Ah, memories! When I was in junior high we kids in the family, with an occasional friend, would set up to play badminton in the back yard. We quickly learned that in the evening as it got cool slugs came out into the yard â and accidentally stepping on one was more than a bit gross, besides messing up your footing for a racket swing. Thus began an evening tradition: before the net got set up we scoured the yard and edges looking for slugs â and someone decided that the fun thing to do with them was scoop one up with a racket, toss it in the air, then give it a whack to send it up on the aluminum-shingle roof. It took a couple of days before the first dead one, shriveled almost beyond recognition, fell off the back porch roof â an event that for us meant we had found a most excellent way to eliminate slugs, far better than using slug bait or salting them.
The sight of a slug always makes me nostalgic; those evenings were awesome.