Natural History Wanderings

The National Forest has added two new wildflower viewing area on its Pacific Southwest Region website.  They are Willow Lake Area of Botanic Special Interest  Area in Lassen National Forest and Alpine Pedal Path in San Bernardino National Forest. Below are the Forest service descriptions of the two sites

Willow Lake Area of Botanic Special Interest  Area

“Willow Lake Fenis a rare, botanically special place. Located about 10 miles southeast of Mount Lassen, Willow Lake is surrounded by forest-covered mountains rising up into Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Besides being a beautiful setting, the lake is adorned along its shores by extensive floating mats of sphagnum moss two feet or more thick. These sphagnum mats have no mineral soil and are a kind of wet meadow called a fen. They support a variety of unusual plants, some typical of arctic and subarctic climates but rare in California. American scheuchzeria (Scheuchzeria palustris ssp. americana), once thought to have been eliminated from California by the creation of Lake Almanor, was rediscovered at Willow Lake in 1988. Two species of carnivorous plants, English sundew (Drosera anglica) and roundleaf sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), grow here and also hybridize with each other to produce Drosera xobovata. A variety of other fen species thrive here as well, including pink-flowered American laurel (Kalmia polifolia ssp. microphylla), western blueberry (Vaccinium uliginosum ssp. occidentale), and shore sedge (Carex limosa), with its gracefully nodding inflorescences. Buckbean (Menyanthes trifoliata) is common here—Native Americans used its bitter rhizome, after several boilings, for food. A shrub of the rose family, Douglas spiraea (Spiraeadouglasii), adds color to the shores with spikes of small pink flowers, and various herbs add flowery color to the fen: pale violet from alpine aster (Aster alpigenus), red from marsh cinquefoil (Potentilla palustris), and white from western tofieldia (Tofieldia occidentalis).

Because of the unusual assemblage of plants that occur here, Willow Lake was designated a Botanical Special Interest Area in the Lassen National Forest’s Land and Resources Management Plan (1993). The best time to visit for wildflowers is July through August.

Forests surrounding Willow Lake include red fir (Abies magnifica var. magnifica), white fir (Abies concolor), sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), and lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta ssp. murrayana). A small primitive campground is located in the forest adjacent to the lake, for visitors wishing to linger in the area, and a hiking trail leads northwest about a mile from Willow Lake to Terminal Geyser, a geothermal feature within Lassen Volcanic National Park.”

Alpine Pedal Path

” The paved Pedal Path has three main access points including Juniper Point, Stanfield Cutoff, the Discovery Center and Serrano Campground.  The best wildflower viewing occurs during the months of May through July however, there are a variety of shrubs and perennial herbs that continuously bloom along the trail year-round. Plant species vary across a rainfall gradient that extends from the east end of the Pedal Path to the west end. A beautiful montane meadow is located near the Juniper Point entrance where tall Juniperus occidentalis (western juniper) trees can be observed just to the west. The east end consists of drier plant communities dominated byArtemisia tridentata (big sagebrush) and Ericameria nauseosa (rabbitbrush) while the west end towards the Solar Observatory consists of plant communities that require more moisture including Salix lasiolepis Shrubland Alliance. Some showy annual herbs include Abronia nana ssp. covillei (desert sand verbena) Sisyrinchium idahoense (blue-eyed grass), Penstemon labrosus(San Gabriel beard tongue), and Lupinus excubitus (grape soda lupine).”