31 March 2012

Date: 31 March 2012
Location: Pack Forest, WA

Today our Natural History class went to Pack Forest, Washington. It was about forty degrees Fahrenheit and about an hour before our arrival it had stopped raining. Before reaching the trailhead, the ground was covered with dandelion and hairy catsear, which look fairly similar. Both are invasive species and either a dandelion or a hairy castsear was growing within every radius of one and a half feet. One can classify the two plants by the texture of the leaves. Dandelions’ leaves are very smooth, while the catsear’s leaves are rough and furry.

The big leaf maples were covered in forking bone and Dolichousnea longisissimalichen. The Dolichousnea longisissima lichen was soft and hairy (and long) and the forking bone was sort of crispy and a pale-ish blue/green/gray. One of the big leaf maples had all of these holes in it that were somewhat in a straight horizontal line but the holes had different vertical lengths. This appeared to be the work of a sapsucker woodpecker. The big leaf maple is an opposite branching tree as opposed to an alternate branching tree. At tims though it could e difficult to tell what is opposite branching and what is alternate branching, if the branches of an opposite branching tree breaks off and it is therefore not symmetrical and appears to be alternate branching, so it is important to take note on that. The big leaf maple also has green wind-pollinating flowers. The big leaf maple is also sometimes called the “paddle tree” because the wood of the tree was used to make paddles.

The trail that we were on (which I forgot to take note on) followed a creek. The water was incredibly warm, and appeared to be 5-8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the air. About a foot to two feet away from the edge of the creek we saw yarrow on ground achilea. There was also a lime green frog in the creek. I think that it was possibly a Pacific Chorus Frog, but really it moved way too quickly for me to get a good look at it. It appeared to be at least 3 inches long but it is possible that that is an incorrect estimate since I saw it passing in the corner of my eye.

I also saw two trilliums, which deer eat, The trilliums had three petals on their white flowers and had three leaves. The petals turn in sort of like a dish.

Species List:
Dandelion, Taraxacum
Catsear, Hypochaeris radicata
Big Leaf Maple, Acer macrophyllum
Yellow-Bellied Sap Sucker, Sphyrapicus varius
Dolichousnea longisissima
Forking Bone Lichen
Yarrow, Achillea millefolium
Pacific Chorus Frog, Pseudacris regilla
White trillium, Trillium Grandifllorum

Posted on May 1, 2012 02:01 PM by anisajackson