Natural History Wanderings

The Plumas County Bloom Blog reports

We started hiking from the Southpark Trailhead for the first time, and found a few surprises. There was very little underbrush among the widely spaced young pines and firs, but we were started to see a bright red glow some 50 feet off the trail.

Turned out to be a couple of patches of Snow Plant. At 3,500′, that’s the lowest elevation that I’ve ever encountered them.

I don’t know how I spotted the little white flowers, all of 1/4″ in diameter on stems only 4 or 5″ tall. I think it’s either popcorn Flower or White Stickseed. Definitely something in the borage family, the family that includes Forget-me-nots.

The first butterfly activity in my yard this season was several Painted Ladies that discovered my best-in-the-neighborhood crop of Dandelions. We only hiked as far as the Monument Peak traihead, but saw lots of Henderson’s Shooting Star, Death Camas, and Dusky Horkelia, all of which have been pictured here earlier.

See photos and older reports at Bloom Blog Wildflowers in Plumas County Northern California.