Natural History Wanderings

Plumas County Bloom Blog reports

What used to be called the Keddie Cascades Trail, together with the area’s many deer paths, has undergone a lot of revision recently, and there are now signs and maps galore. On Sunday, we began our hike at a trail head by the bridge over Spanish Creek on the Oakland Camp Road. It’s across the road from the popular swimming hole. We started off on what is called the Spanish Traverse. If we had stayed on this trail, I think we would have come out in the vicinity of the Keddie Cascades. But, we opted to head further up hill by taking what was called the Spanish Ridge loop.

Altogether we hiked close to five miles and found a surprising number of spring wildflowers blooming. There’s one purple species I haven’t yet identified, but it looks like it might be a Penstemon. Some of them were so fleshy and beautiful, they looked like they could have come as potted plants in a nursery, despite the very dry soil, or even apparent lack of soil. It’s obvious the area has been logged, probably several times, and much of it has inadequate soil fro growing trees. This, Manzanita, Black Oak, Buck Brush, and Silk Tassel Bush dominate the drier hills. At the highest point on the ridge trail there were abundant patches of Death Camas ( a lily) and Shooting Star. These areas were relatively flat and had a fair amount of soil consisting mostly of pine needles. We saw the early leaves of lots of species that haven’t bloomed yet and this promises an interesting spring. Among those is the Heart-leaf Milkweed pictured here. There were also lots of Lupine, Horkelia, Fennel, Pennyroyal, and various lilies.

via Bloom Blog Wildflowers in Plumas County Northern California.