Homework #8 & extra credit

I went back to the Chaparral/mixed forest behind the stadium and on the other side of the hill from Strawberry Canyon. Not only did I find plenty of common plants I found lots of other interesting things.

1. The five most common plants I found were: the common Dandelion, a Greater Periwinkle, lots of Wild Oats, quite a few Western Sword Ferns, and giant French Brooms.

2. There were lots of other common plants out with the warm weather. The Coyote Brush was super happy. There were still some vetches but they were looking a bit dry. The California Blackberries and the French Broom had spread quite a bit since the earlier spring, course the recent rain helped with that.
   All of the plants above seemed to like areas that were more disturbed and so did a few of these woody shrub plants with sort of waxy leaves. I'm not sure what they are but they were growing along the pathways.

The grasses were 'going to town'! The whole chaparral area was covered in grasses like the Wild Oat, various Bromes & Hordeum. There were also a bunch of thistle (Carduus) in this area.

Mixed in with all the grasses were still some wildflowers hanging on. There were definitely less than earlier. But there sure are some pretty ones. Like Forget-me-nots, Wild Radishes, Blue DIcks, and some pretty little yellow flowers that Might be Suncups. The herb Arroyo Lupine still had some pretty blooms going as well as the Oesteospermun.

It was later in the day and warmer that when I went before so I got to see quite a few critters running about. I didn't get a picture of most of them but I did manage to catch a couple. Ladybugs seemed to be doing well, there were five or six I spotted in a pretty small area. The Western Fence Lizards were happy with the warm day but not as much with all the people hiking about.

Posted on April 19, 2013 05:25 AM by tabithahewitt9