Natural History Wanderings

The Plumas County Bloom Blog  has a new report for May 31, 2013.

Wow, is spring ever going by quickly! Fortunately, we have great wildflower reporters to keep us in the know around the county.  Today we have another report from Joe Willis:

I took a drive out to Greenhorn Ranch on Tuesday and drove to Grass Valley on Wednesday. Here are the highlights of my wildflower sightings from Quincy to the Gold Lake Road area combined into one set of photos.

The Lupine holding dew drops caught my eye more than the blossoms and it, along with the three different colors of Larkspurs, were on the Greenhorn Ranch road about half way between Highway 70 and the Ranch office.

There was a break in the forest on the right hand side of the road where a meadow of about a quarter acre had all these colors of Larkspur. I wondered if they were cultivars spread along the roadsides by the highway department as I’ve never seen all these colors in one place in the wild.

Around the new development going in near the western end of Chandler Road there are quite a few flowers blooming that definitely appear to be cultivars planted by humans as I’ve never seen these before the roads were cut into the hill. The beautiful purple one I haven’t identified.

Then there were lots of Tidy Tips and Madia in that same area.

Salsify are blooming all around American Valley and out by Oakland Camp. This particular one with the insect visiting was photographed by the eastern end of Chandler Road. The rest of these were photographed along Gold Lake Road.

The Mountain Pride, a Penstemon, was near the summit and was growing out of cracks in the rock walls on either side of the road.

Choke Cherry was blooming abundantly on both sides of the road and was giving off a very strong and pleasant (to me) aroma.

There was Groundsel along both sides of the road in spots that had more soil. This is in the sunflower family and resembles some of the Goldenrods.

The Crimson Columbine was spotted in several wet areas on the Sierra County end of Gold Lake Road,

and Pussy Paws were growing out of the drier areas of decomposed granite (DG in road crew language) also on the Sierra County side, but probably blooming in many places in the Lakes Basin now.

I also photographed many species along Highway 49 from Sierra City to Grass Valley, since they weren’t in our immediate area, I’ll feature them on my blog, blackoaknaturalist, but all of them do grow in Plumas County except for the KitKitDizze.

To see photos and older postings go to:  Bloom Blog Wildflowers.