Don
Rideout and I had two goals for this trip. First, to look for
more occurrences of the Deep Canyon Snapdragon. Second, to get
close enough to the elephant trees of Clark Valley so that Don would
have a good idea of where they are here.
Alas, we found
no new occurrences of the DC Snapdragon. But we did find a
surprisingly-good flower display. We noted at least 60 species
in bloom, with a number of good displays of flowers and unexpected
species finds. The list of species in bloom is at the end of
this email.
When we began hiking, we thought we
would be lucky to find 10, or maybe 20, species in bloom on our
entire hike. We had driven the Truckhaven Trail from its
beginning near Inspiration Wash, to its junction with a dirt road
that leads to Little Clark Dry Lake, where we started hiking.
The plants looked nearly dead on that drive, with the dominant live
plant Sahara Mustard, along with zillions of Plantago ovata that were
mostly finished flowering. It looked the same hiking north.
Don
took this pix of the start of our hike:
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/start_of_hike_35.jpg
But the sandy area to the north, and the hillsides to the
east, were a different world, filled with flowers and happy plants.
We made it to within 2.0 miles of the Elephant
Trees, which was close enough to clearly see their locations, but not
close enough to recognize for sure that they were Elephant Trees,
even in binocs. Don's 40x zoom camera was able to reveal their
identity, at least to the extent they matched up with my pix of known
elephant trees from afar:
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/bursera_microphylla_1_25.jpg
Compare to my pix on this page, starting with the first
one below the topo map:
http://tchester.org/bd/species/burseraceae/clark_valley.html
Don posted 64 obs of 52 species from this trip:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2023-02-08&place_id=any&user_id=lagoondon
Details:
On our drive to Borrego
Springs, we stopped to photograph the California poppy display on the
south side of Palomar Mountain. Don's 40x zoom pix:
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/palomar_poppy_fields_1_25.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/palomar_poppy_fields_2_crop_75.jpg
We made our usual stop at the "Red Gate
pullout", and this time Don explored a bit across the highway
while I ate a sandwich. I explored a bit farther up the pullout
while eating. Amazingly, we both found California peonies in
bud, and Don found a plant in bloom! Don's pix:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148411154
We have stopped here literally hundreds of times, and
never found peonies here before. We speculated that the "brush
clearance" which was done along SR76 in this area in the past
year must have opened up that area, and the peonies were formerly
hidden by other plants.
It was 67 deg when we
started hiking at 11:48 a.m., and 55 deg at the last drop of light at
6:02 p.m. when we got back to the car.
We picked up
a handful of species in bloom as we rapidly hiked the first mile
north toward Little Clark Dry Lake on the road. At that point,
we decided to "head to the hills" to look for the DC Snap.
As we got closer to the hills, the plants kept getting better and
better, with good fields of Abronia in bloom the star.
We
checked on Fred and Carla's first plant of the Deep Canyon
Snapdragon, and it was almost completely finished, with most of its
fruit capsules already opened.
Here's what it looked like
on Nov 12, 2022:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141828610
and what it looked like on Feb 8, 2023, 88 days
later:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148422175
We scoured the nearby washes, and then the nearby
alluvial fan, for more DC Snaps, but unfortunately we found none.
(:-(
Don took this pix of the alluvial fan just before we
ascended it:
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/alluvial_fan_we_explored_35.jpg
Look at all the possible habitat for the DC Snap!
We of course could only survey a very small fraction of that area.
We did find some good displays of Eschscholzia
parishii on the fan. Don's pix of one of them:
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/field_Eschscholzia%20parishii_35.jpg
Don, being Don, ventured much farther up the
alluvial fan than I did. I soon went back to the bottom to have
a cookie. Don took these two pix while he was still high up:
Note me in the middle of this pix for scale:
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/view_from_don_location_in_alluvial_fan_1_35.jpg
Looking toward Rockhouse Canyon:
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/view_from_don_location_in_alluvial_fan_2_35.jpg
We then decided to switch tactics. After
exploring the alluvial fan in some depth, we decided to mostly hike
toward the Bursera, looking more shallowly along a longer path for
more DC Snaps.
Although we didn't find any additional DC
Snaps, we found a good stand of Sphaeralcea angustifolia in bloom.
Don's post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148433477
and a spectacular field of Erodium texanum that
actually had so many blooms that Jon Rebman commented "Wow!".
Don's post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148488211
We made it to within 2.0 miles of the Elephant
Trees when we had more than run out of time at 4:15 p.m. We had
3.4 miles to go to get back to the car, with sunset at 5:25 p.m.,
just 1 hour and 10 minutes later.
We started hustling
back to the car, but soon found overselves in the sand dune area
north of Little Clark Dry Lake, and had to stop for new plants.
(:-)
The sand verbena fields there were spectacular.
Don's pix:
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/abronia_field_in_dune_field_35.jpg
And we found a large number of good-looking Baileya
pauciradiata plants in bloom. Don's post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148489958
There were interesting animal tracks there as
well. See Don's posts.
We were very pleased
to find two plants of Streptanthus longirostris (=Streptanthella l.)
in bloom. Don's post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148491031
We found a number of small Borrego milkvetch
plants, and then, amazingly, I spotted one in bloom. Don's
post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148491476
The dune area had one more treat for us, a few
plants of Eriastrum harwoodii. Don's post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148493793
Now we still had 2.8 miles to go, and just 30
minutes before sunset. So we REALLY start hustling back to the
car. We stopped for just three things:
1. For
me to put on a sweatshirt.
2. For me to take pix of
the horrible huge fields of Brassica tournefortii near Little Clark
Dry Lake.
3. For Don to take this pix when we were
on the west side of Little Clark Dry Lake and entered a barren area:
http://tchester.org/temp/230208/rideout/clark_dry_lake_area_25.jpg
We both thought "this was what we expected the area
would look like"!
Our hustling worked.
We got back to the car at 6:02 p.m., 37 minutes after sunset, just as
the last drop of sky light vanished.
List of plants
in bloom:
#Pls in bloom name
99
Abronia villosa var. villosa
99 Achyronychia
cooperi
99 Brassica tournefortii
99
Chylismia claviformis ssp. peirsonii
99
Cryptantha angustifolia
99 Cryptantha
maritima
99 Dithyrea californica
99
Eremothera boothii ssp. condensata
99
Eschscholzia parishii
99 Lepidium lasiocarpum
ssp. lasiocarpum
99 Lupinus arizonicus
99
Monoptilon bellioides
99 Oenothera deltoides
ssp. deltoides
99 Perityle emoryi
99
Phacelia crenulata var. ambigua
99
Sphaeralcea angustifolia
50 Encelia
farinosa var. farinosa
50 Malacothrix
glabrata
50 Plantago ovata
40
Amsinckia tessellata var. tessellata
40
Eulobus californicus
30 Camissoniopsis
pallida ssp. pallida
30 Eriogonum trichopes
30 Eschscholzia minutiflora ssp. minutiflora
30 Geraea canescens
20
Baileya pauciradiata
20 Chaenactis stevioides
15 Erodium texanum
15
Pectocarya heterocarpa
15 Rafinesquia
neomexicana
10 Chaenactis carphoclinia
var. carphoclinia
10 Dalea mollissima
10
Larrea tridentata
10 Nama demissa var.
demissa
5 Hyptis emoryi
5
Mentzelia like affinis
5 Mirabilis laevis
var. retrorsa
5 Stillingia spinulosa
2
Acmispon strigosus
2 Aliciella latifolia ssp.
latifolia
2 Calycoseris wrightii
2
Ditaxis lanceolata
2 Encelia farinosa var.
phenicodonta
2 Eremalche exilis
2
Fagonia laevis
2 Loeseliastrum matthewsii
2 Mohavea confertiflora
1
Astragalus lentiginosus var. borreganus
1
Caulanthus lasiophyllus
1 Chorizanthe rigida
1 Chorizanthe rigida
1
Cryptantha barbigera var. barbigera
1 Encelia
frutescens
1 Krameria bicolor
1
Mentzelia involucrata
1 Oligomeris linifolia
1 Phacelia crenulata var. minutiflora
1
Physalis crassifolia
1 Psorothamnus schottii
1 Streptanthella longirostris
--
tom
chester
