pjwbotany's Journal

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Among the many benefits of living on the northern California coast, the allure of the extended wildflower season is not to be underestimated. A couple of recent jaunts corroborated my observations that the variable phenology (the timing of plant reproductive or growth phases such as flower and fruit production, bud break, or leaf senescence) of coastal California’s native plants provides a wealth of blossom-watching to be treasured year-round. Late summer is no time to rest on one’s laurels – a little exploration can be as good as gold.

Thanks to my friend Angelica, who alerted me to a population of Abronia umbellata ssp. breviflora in the Ten Mile Dunes, I spent a day there traipsing sandy slopes, hollows, and marsh in mid-August. Not only did I find in bloom the pink sand-verbena, a rare species that typically grows in the coastal strand plant community, but also its yellow-flowering cohort, A. latifolia, a more common species of strand and coastal dunes, both sharing sand with the delicately flaring pink trumpets of coast morning-glory (Calystegia soldanella). Nearby, another seldom-seen plant, Wolf’s evening-primrose (Oenothera wolfii), whispered in soft yellow from amidst a riparian thicket of Hooker willow (Salix hookeriana), weedy non-natives such as yellow glandweed (Parentucellia viscosa) and bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), the native lavender-flowering mint Mentha arvensis, the pink willow-herb Epilobium ciliatum, and violet marsh speedwell, Veronica scutellata, a kaleidoscope of colors against the bleaching gray of an errant stack of timber clogging the outlet of Fen Creek.

A few days later, I sought a more familiar population of the pink sand-verbena near the outlet of Virgin Creek – alas, I’ve not seen any plants there now for 3 years. Nevertheless, I intended to make the most of my short walk, so I caroused the low dunes and spring outlets along the coastal bluffs in search of solace. Much resounding joy! Sand, stones, and seeps were abundant with color and texture: Bolander’s goldenaster (Heterotheca sessiliflora ssp. bolanderi) vying for gaudiest golden composite with gumplant (Grindelia stricta ssp. platyphylla), while their more demure cousin Erigeron glaucus appealed with its pink persistence. Nearby, coast buckwheat (Eriogonum latifolia) sprawled luxuriantly atop dunes and bluffs, perhaps luring me in to meet its steadfast sibling, dune knotweed (Polygonum paronychia), the foundation of the local dune scrub plant community. The sight of water (albeit a trickle) soon set my heart racing, as I’ve long been attracted to the small coastal seeps that form verdant oases amidst the otherwise parched landscape. I was not to be disappointed, as I soon spied a few of the most boisterously blooming common monkeyflower (Mimulus guttatus) plants alive. Not to be outdone, a couple of Angelica hendersonii sirens just about fell off the bluff beckoning to me with sweet, lilac-tinted domes of white towering sturdily above ruffles of leathery green. Back in the soggy, sandy, stony seep, the coastal bluff- and prairie-wetland stalwart cow clover (Trifolium wormskioldii) sat astraddle perfect pincushions of the diminutive bulrush Isolepis cernua (= Scirpus cernuus), punctuating a mat of lemon-yellow flowering silverweed cinquefoil, Potentilla anserina.

“Wow, lots of gold on these thar hills,” I mused, almost startled as at yet two more shimmering dune graces smiled up at me from their sandy digs: beach evening-primrose (Camissonia cheiranthifolia) and the gleaming gold-orange north-coastal California poppy (Eschscholzia californica). Wending my way across the brown prairie, past native lavendar-rayed daisies with little to care about what humans call them (Symphyotrichum chilense = Aster chilensis, and Corethrogyne filaginifolia = Lessingia filaginifolia ssp. californica = Corethrogyne californica = yikes!! Taxonomists be gone!!), I spied yet one more gladdening glimmer in the grassland, coast goldenrod (Solidago spathulata ssp. spatulata). How fitting a finale was this for my summer stroll -- yet one more gift of gold, reflecting late summer sunlight along the California coast.

When is a thistle not a weed? You may say any is a scourge to be sought and destroyed by blade, toxic potion, or carbon-swilling mechanical executioner. But what if the spiny one is as part of natural lore as the quail, or poppy, or oak, here for years ‘ere humans cast long shadows across the land? What if our feathered friends and buzzing ones, too, relied upon these prickly plants for sustenance, shelter, and sociability? That they are well defended is scant reason to regard them with disfavor.

Weeds are simply so in the minds, the eyes, and the oft’ idle hands of the beholder. While many fall prey to righteous zeal, in attempts to repel invaders that squat in forest, glade, or meadow, too many of the vitally indigenous also perish, victims of mistaken identity. Thusly do so many native thistles suffer the indignity I plead you reserve for those oh-so-lovely ochre-blossomed peas from the East – you name the broom – or the hordes of red-berried, black-druped, fleshy fruited, woody-capsuled, parchment-podded, slimy or seedy, pompously plumed, nursery-groomed, creepily rhizomed, strangling, entangling, ecologically mangling, horticulturally-pimped-for-your-conspicuous-consumption garden wretches (Acacia, Arundo, Carpobrotus, Cotoneaster, Cortaderia, Delairea, Eucalyptus, Hedera, Ilex, Ligustrum, Pyracantha, Vinca, Watsonia, et al., ad nauseum). But I digress!

Truly, with so many prickly pranksters infiltrating our fabulous thistle flora, the native sticklers can confound the otherwise noble restorationist, leading to their untimely demise (meaning that of the thistles, but who knows the vengeance that might simmer in the hearts of artichokes?). So, by way of telling tales (not tall), I must warn those who weed – one and all – know thy thistles! Seek counsel for taxonomically tantalizing tricksters! Grope and grab with all due caution amongst the spiny thickets, for the bite may be worse than the bark, and harbor botanical booty, to boot! Now will I share fair warning, from mountains far and near, of the blight those who vie to do good deeds can deliver, for alas, they know not foe from friend. These are dark fables of woe for thistles that, having peacefully plied verdant slopes for thousands of years, were tragically separated from their earthly heritage.

In Yosemite, the summer past, as I traipsed the slopes of Dana and Lyell, I was beset with the withering corpses of countless Cirsium scariosum (elk thistle), rent asunder and lying wasted along the way. Surely this could not be the work of an evolutionarily wayward deer, time and again mistaking the spiny herbage for more palatable fare? No, for I soon happened upon another traveler, also aghast, who shared with me the spying of the perpetrator's deeds. Apparently, these thistles manifested as a pestilence pirating resources from the more becoming native posies, and thus deserved to die! Yet, in these alpine climes, nary an invader has been known to survive winter's wrath, yet the unenlightened deed-doer didst mistakenly slay the indigenous herbs, whereupon the park's learned ones did lament by decree, "Let the natives be!"

As the days fell to chill, I returned to the hill called Hood, above Valley of the Moon. My heart did start me in a hurry and with a thrill, along the trail through these peculiar woods, where serpentine mineral and infertile till keep invaders at bay. Had but a few fortnights passed since I last trod these trails, and thence had made the dear acquaintance of Cirsium douglasii, the denizen thistle of western swamp. Soon, and alas, tears doused my cheer, as in the ultramafic muck I fell upon a field of gore – no, neither Al nor Vidal, but a sickening scene of Cirsium -slaying! With haste to sound the alarm of this errant slaughter, I soon learned the terrible truth that I must tell: citizens worthy, if not well informed, wreaked the havoc, fearing an invader had designs for the entire mountainside. So did another native thistle perish, for crimes of encroachment never committed.

Well, fear not – these natives are tough, as well as perennial; in resiliency they will long outlive us! I know well that the weeders had love for habitat in mind, if not in the hand. But, please, take these tales to heart, and spend not your time wrenching from Earth those plants that precede us. Seek twice, nay, thrice, the advice, of a thistly sage, for knowing what weeds to cull from forest and field.