Seattle-Leavenworth

May 12, 2012

(see pg. 31-36 for sketches and context)
~high 50s, sunny, no cloud, no wind
Skykomish Scenic River:
This was our first stop on the field trip. We arrived around 9am and it was already warming up. The area was at low elevation, next to a river. There was a wide flood zone with mostly thimble berries, salmon berries, small leaf maples, and hazelnuts. The cottonwood was right next to the river covered in sand. We saw a western trumpet honeysuckle. One of the most interesting thing i learned was about scotch brooms. The stigma is inside of the flower therefore it can only be pollinated by a very heavy bumblebee. And they're part of the pea family.

Index:
A temperate forest with a canopy of big leaf maples, conifers; both covered in moss. This area receives 2x the rainfall than Seattle. There was an immense amount of licorice fern growing on deciduous trees. There were many butterflies out that resembles the cabbage butterfly, although I could not identify them. Walking through the area, there were many wood ferns, pacific bleeding hearts, and stinging nettle. We found fungus such as the garoderma applenatum.

Money Creek Campground:
This was probably my favorite place out of the day due to the fact that this campground possesses old-growth trees. The ground was covered in forget-me-nots and devil's club as well as the trailing yellow violet. Near the river, we flipped over rocks to find larvae of all kinds, probably mayfly. I'm always excited to see these because they are indicators species. This campground is not polluted. We stopped to talk about the wild ginger for a long time and I'm very surprised at how strongly they smell of ginger. Fungus we found were platismatia glauca and hypogymnia imshaigii which have inflated lobes that are hallow inside. What causes that? What benefit does having an adaptation like that do?

Tumwater Campground:
We stopped here for lunch. It was a quiet place next to the river where we found the letharia vulpina, a bright green lichen that is only present in eastern washington. The color is due to the vulpinic acid which are poisonous. This poison when ground up were used to kill wolves in the area.

Leavenworth:
This was out last stop. The temperature was in the high 80s at this point in eastern washington with no visible clouds and absolutely zero wind. The area is a woodland. The ground were diverse in plants such as yarrow, pinus poderosa, common peony, death canvas. We found two adult western fence lizard and a smaller male, I believe. These guys have blue bellies to attract females, and they show them off doing "push-ups." We caught as wester orange tip butterfly. We took a hike uphill and back down a rock wall to find douglas firs that were still covered in black dirt, reminisce of the 1998 fire. We also found indian paintbrush.

Species account:

• ramnasia
• small leaf maples
• thimble berries
• hazelnut
• sakaton
• japanese knotweed
• salmon berry
• wester trumpet honey suckle
• scotch broom
• hermit warbler
• indian plum
• snowberries
• bracken fern
• western fence lizard
• pinus ponderosa
• yarrow
• common peony
• balsam root
• plastimatia glauca
• aramadopsis
• death canvas
• western orange tip
• candeleria concolor
• letharia vulpina
• hypogymnia imshaugii
• wild ginger
• mayfly larvae
• trailing yellow violet
• algus trifollen
• douglas fir
• devil's club
• forget-me-nots
• garoderma applenatum
• pacific rens
• lady fern
• wild lettuce
• frynch cup
• stinging nettle
• wood fern
• pacific bleeding heart
• trillium
• false lily of the valley
• licorice fern
• big leaf maple
• western red cedar
• trailing blackberry
• dogwood
• sheep sorel

Posted on June 5, 2012 04:52 PM by lhuynh10