Slatsz Wildflower Walks 2012: April 28, 2012

If you walk Drumheller Springs Park and see flowers in bloom that I do not have listed please let me know when and where you saw them.

If you see misidentifications or have comments on this blog please write me at:

Spokanewildflowers.slatsz@yahoo.com

I use the UW Burke museum herbarium as a guide to technical names:

http://biology.burke.washington.edu/herbarium/imagecollection.php

April 28, 2012 – Jacob’s ladder, field gromwell, camas, white prairie star, saskatoon, prairie smoke, Holboell’s rockcress

My daughter Christine walked with me today. We parked near the fireplug on the south side of the park. We were out about an hour and a half. 156 images. 66 keepers.

I wanted to photograph the foliage of Polemonium micranthum, Jacob’s ladder. I didn’t expect blossoms yet. There’s a patch ten or a dozen feet north of the fireplug. The grass is deep and there are lots of tiny white flowers, mostly Montia linearis, narrow leaf miner’s lettuce. I also hoped to find Holosteum umbellatum, Jagged chickweed, but I didn’t.

Jacob’s ladder and jagged chickweed are also tiny white flowers so it was a difficult search.

I could barely make out something strange on a Jacob’s ladder. I thought it might be a flower bud. But I see in the computer that it is a leaf bud.

In a patch nearby I saw some Jacob’s ladder with buds showing white. The plants with buds seemed to have seed pods on them so there must have been blossoms earlier. Eventually I found one plant and only one with a flower.

There was also lots of Collinsia parviflora, Blue eyed Mary in the deep grass.

And there was another tiny white flower, Lithospermum arvense. It won’t be tiny long.

I photographed the Ribes aureum, golden currant, near Tall Pine Grove just because it looked good.

A few of the Camassia quamash, common camas, are in bloom. There will be a bumper crop again this year.

The Allium geyeri, Geyer’s onion, along side the path to the main trail are still in bud but the buds are swollen. Some of the plants there are a white variety. I can’t remember if the blossoms are white but they must be.

Not far from the patch of Geyer’s onion there were a couple of patches of Lithophragma parviflora, small flowered prairie star.

I tried to improve my photos of Besseya rubra. It has to be the least photogenic plant in the park.

Amelanchier alnifolia is blooming out in the park, now, but only the smallest plants. There must be a rule that small shrubs flower before tall ones of the same species.

I saw an interesting composition of Dodeactheon pulchellum, shooting stars and photographed them.

Th Geum triflorum, prairie smoke, in the seep beside highpoint rock are apparently blooming. The insects on them are interested in something. But is this its blossom or is the ‘prairie smoke’ look later its blossom?

The Lewisia rediviva, bitterroot foliage has buds.

I hoped to show Christine Fritillaria pudica, yellow bells, on Yellow Bell Hill. But I didn’t see any there or anywhere else.

I saw a very few, maybe only a couple of Olsynium douglasii, grass widows, and one nearly destroyed Ranunculus glaberrimus, sagebrush buttercup later, in the pines.

I got a photo of Christine that I enjoy and I asked Chris to get some images of me sitting on Slatsz’ Stump.

I routed us through the trees to see if there were any late Lomatium gormanii to be found and found none.

I checked the blocked driveway where I saw the Arabis holboellii, Holboell’s rockcress, last year and there they were. I don’t remember seeing any anywhere else in the park and these don’t look happy.

My chronology shows 34 plants so far this year, 31 in April.

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