Saturday, May 06, 2017
23:07
14 minutes of recording – This is a transcription with
amendments.
About 90 images. 38 keepers.
About two hours in the park but a couple of long
conversations. I didn’t walk far.
1600 hours in my parking place at The Park Tower. I think
tomorrow is Bloomsday so my usual route will be blocked by runners signing up
for the run. I’ll drive down Riverside .
[Big mistake. Missed my turn. Lots of red lights to deal with.]
I drove down to the 2 car parking lot near the dead end on Euclid to check for
Boechera pendulocarpa, Holboell’s rockcress, the only rockcress I have seen in
the park. Other’s report at least one more.
There’s lots of it in this little area, right in what used
to be a driveway before it was blocked off. Most of it is very scrawny and
rather short. There are a very few taller plants. They, too, are scrawny,
perhaps too scrawny to hold themselves up.
Boechera pendulocarpa, Holboell’s rockcress
B. pendulocarpa plant
01
B. pendulocarpa plant
02
B. pendulocarpa root
03
B. pendulocarpa apex
04
B. pendulocarpa flower front
05
B. pendulocarpa flower side
06
There is a Prunus mahaleb in bloom. They are a weed tree
here. They are in several locations around the park.
[excerpt]
Prunus mahaleb, the mahaleb cherry[3] r St Lucie cherry,
is a species of cherry tree. The tree is cultivated for a spice obtained from the seeds inside
the cherry stones. The seeds have a fragrant smell and have a taste comparable
to bitter almonds with cherry notes.
The article says it is cultivated as an ornamental tree. It
does not mention using it as hardy rootstock for more delicate cherry species.
It has a hardwood used for furniture. It has medicinal uses. It may be a tree
mention in writings of ancient Sumer .
It has a pleasant odor.
Prunus mahaleb, St Lucie cherry
P. mahaleb plant
07
P. mahaleb inflorescence
08
P. mahaleb inflorescence back
09
P. mahaleb flower front
10
P. mahaleb flower side
11
P. mahaleb flower back
12
P. mahaleb leaves
13
I see a Lomatium macrocarpum that looks a little different.
It has a very open inflorescence. It will be easier to count the rays and to
determine a pattern for the rays. The outer ring is very distinct. It is made
up of 7 umbelets.
There is only one inner ring. It is a bit ambiguous. It seems
to have 5 umbelets with 2 umbelets. There seem to be two umbelets at the center,
as there were with the other plants I looked at.
Lomatium macrocarpum, big seed biscuitroot, inflorescence
14
L. macrocarpum umbelet outer ray back
15
L. macrocarpum umbelet outer ray side
Female flowers seem to be an outer ring of the umbelet. This
needs to be verified.
16
L. macrocarpum umbelet outer ray female flowers
Note hypanthium styles and stigma on female flower. There is
a male flower with no hypanthium that has anthers on the right.
17
L. macrocarpum, a female and a male flower from an umbelet
in the outer ring. You must forgive failed focus. I’m photographing things I
cannot see.
The male flower lacks a hypanthium.
18
L. macrocarpum, an inner umbelet, back
19
L. macrocarpum, inner umbelet flowers
I see no hypanthiums, no styles and stigmas
20
1639 hours I’ve done what I’m going to do at this location.
1655 hours I’ve cruised slowly east on Euclid , on the wrong side of the road,
looking to see what there is to see. I got out of the car a couple of times
recording the receding water in south pond. It still extends almost to the foot
of the Ribes Aureum, golden currant, at the south east corner of tall pine
grove.
South Pond receding
21
I saw the Narcissus poeticus was in bloom and recorded it.
Narcissus poeticus, poet’s narcissus
22
I assumed incorrectly that the violas and the Berberis
aquifolium, Oregon grape, would be underwater so I didn’t check on them earlier.
I forgot that the south bank of south pond is steep.
B. Aquifolium does have its feet in the water but it is
flourishing. It has an odor with some power.
Berberis aquifolium, Oregon grape patch
23
I haven’t missed the blooming. I thought I had. Most of the
inflorescences are still buds.
Berberis aquifolium inflorescence
24
Berberis aquifolium flower, side
25
Berberis aquifolium flower back
The sepals are a little hard to see. I tried to burn them in
and discolored them a bit. There is little or no hypanthium.
26
What seems to be a patch of the Prunus mahaleb cherries is
actually two different cherries. The north most portion, the portion nearest
south pond, is probably a domestic cherry of some kind. The leaves are
distinctive. It has bloomed and faded. Prunus mahaleb is just coming on.
One may suppose that the apparent domestic cherry was
grafted on P. mahaleb rootstock.
Domestic cherry twig
27
Domestic cherry faded flowers
28
Domestic cherry leaves
I intended to compare them to P. mahaleb but forgot.
29
Box elder, Acer negundo, the large, gnarly trees by south
pond, are dioecious, that is, there are male and female plants. I noticed a
male plant in bloom and photographed it, then noticed a female plant in bloom
and photographed it.
Acer negundo, box elder. Wikipedia calls it maple box elder,
introduced from eastern USA .
Most flowers are monoecious, that is, they have both male
and female reproductive organs.
Acer negundo, male inflorescence
30
Acer negundo, anthers
31
Acer negundo, node, twig.
I’ve read that one can calculate the age of a young twig by
the scars and that this doesn’t work on older twigs.
32
Acer negundo, female inflorescence
33
Acer negundo, fruit
The white structures were styles and stigmas. They were very
long earlier.
34
Acer negundo, leaves
35
Dennis’ spring flowers
36
1708 hours. The sky was totally overcast when I arrived and
it was rather dark. The sun is still high at 1700 hours and the overcast seems,
at least for the moment to have thinned. The light is milky but bright.
I heard the first quail I have heard, this year, and, just
now, the first woodpecker, doing its thing. There are ducks quacking on south
pond.
I stopped to photograph the abundance of tulips and other
spring flowers across Euclid and had a long chat with Dennis Megrin [guessed spelling],
the owner of the flowers. The man living next door grew up in that house and
when his parent died he returned to it. I heard several stories of the park
from Dennis and I hope some day to get stories of the park from the man next
door. I have heard that there were many more ponds in the past. I was told that
they were dynamited to reduce the mosquitoes. Dennis says, his neighbor says
they could skate all over the park in winter when he was young and that the
water level went down with the blasting associated with building on the north
side of the park. I hope to recruit Dennis to watch for first flowers on his
walks in the park.
Dennis spoke of a woman coming to see the park that said she
was born there. She was asked where her house was. She said, not a house, a
teepee. The incident was in the past. We guessed she was born about a hundred
years ago.
1740 hours at the east end parking lot. I photographed a
plant in bloom, growing up from the crack between the asphalt and the curb of Ash Place , just a
snapshot out the window of the car. I don’t remember the name. There was a
little patch of them on the north shore of south pond. I think the tribe must
have killed them off. I have seen them by the main trail near Ash Place . I have
to find the name of the plant.
A quick search suggests that the plant is Lythrum salicaria,
purple loosestrife. I need to check the foliage.
Lythrum salicaria, purple loosestrife
37
Intended to walk down past north pond to look at the
development of the tall shrubs, perhaps to do a plate of leaves for comparison.
I didn’t get there. I ran out of gas.
A line of small boulders demarks the west limit of the
parking lot. I’m near the south end of the line and perhaps 10 feet into the
park. There are quite a few of the Antennaria that I suppose are A. Luzuloides,
the ones with the gold colored buds. I mention this as a reminder to watch for
them in bloom.
I photographed possible Microseris nutans foliage about ten
feet north of the east-west line of boulders and 6 feet east of the north
access trail. I haven’t seen this plant for awhile. There have been a couple
visible from north access trail, a bit to the east in the past. They are
Asteraceae of some kind, possibly Agoseris glauca. I’ve been looking at the
Burke photos for both plants and the foliage doesn’t seem right for either.
Just something to watch for, a somewhat strange Asteraceae, in that area. There
has been a few more south of the north side trail, above the U shaped outcrop
and near the leaning pine.
There is a lot of Grindelia squarrosa, curly cup gumweed
foliage alongside the path but it seems significantly different that the
foliage that might be the unknown Asteraceae.
Possible Microseris nutans or Agoseris glauca foliage.
I did a crappy job of recording the leaves. They are not
smooth. Perhaps tiny teeth. They are not the narrow leaves of Microseris
nutans, in Burke. Burke doesn’t have a good image of the leaves of Agoseris
glauca but from what I can see it isn’t much like these. I’m afraid these are
just immature leaves of Grindelia squarrosa.
38
I had a pleasant chat with a young lady with a couple of
friendly dogs, a violinist with the symphony. Her mother was a naturalist in Colorado . I’m annoyed
that I am not confident of her name. Linda sticks in my mind. She walks the
park most days. I tried to recruit her to watch for first and last bloomings.
I gave up on my intention to walk past north pond to the
area of tall shrubs. That was asking too much of the old bod. I did walk over
to the north shore of south pond to see if the Cornus serica, redosier dogwood,
were in bloom, I couldn’t get close enough to see, for sure, but I don’t think
it is. I need to remember to check the south side of south pond in case it is
earlier, there.
It didn’t occur to me to use the telephoto feature of the
camera to check for flowers. Darn.
1805 hours back at my car.
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