Search for the Snow Queen

I just became aware of a plant I'd never heard of before called the Snow Queen from one of @dgreenberger's observations. I thought I'd at least heard of most plants in Marin County if not seen them so I decided to try to track these down today. I followed Doreen Smith's advice on the Marin Native Plants FB page to head to Cataract Falls. Super beautiful, also super crowded with hikers which was kind of surprising given how far it is. Turns out Snow Queen is ridiculously common there. I saw it growing along the road just as I was parking before I even hit the trail and its definitely frequent along the Cataract Falls trail. Along with the Milkmaids, Redwood Sorrel, Anemone's (are we calling these Gray's or Oregons now?), and Pacific Trilliums, plenty of white wildflowers all along the trail.

I turned off the Cataract Trail onto the Helen Markt Trail to get away from all the waterfall traffic and was glad I did because I found the first California Pill Millipede on iNat (actually kind of disappointed though because at first I thought it was the woodlouse Venezillo microphthalmus but its actually a millipede that rolls up in a ball - how crazy is that?). On my way back to the car along the road I found a nice big Chanterelle that I was surprise hadn't been eaten.

Then on the way home I stopped by Azalea Hill to see if anything interesting was blooming on the serpentine. There was a beautiful bloom of Serpentine Spring Beauty and the worlds smallest rattlesnake. I was kind of hoping to see Brownies, which I've seen before but realized I've never iNatted. So I cheated and stopped one more time on the way back at the MMWD Ranger Station to tick them from a population Terry G. had posted before.

Posted on February 29, 2016 05:32 AM by loarie