You’ve no doubt heard of bird watchers who enjoy birding but do you know that there are folks who botanize? Folks that will spend hours kneeling on the ground, looking at tiny plants and referring to big books with small print in hopes of keying the individual plant out to its species? I took a botany class sponsored by the Methow Conservancy this winter in hopes of at least being able to figure out the genus of plants I find in the wild. For me to determine the species on my own is often too much to expect. Making it even more difficult is the ‘powers that be’ in the botany world recently reorganized the plant families, moving them around in a manner that doesn’t even seem to make much sense to the local experts in the field. So any field guides that are now in hand are out of date with the current information. This happens in the bird world also. Whenever a new birding field guide comes out, the species are in a different order and some species are split and some are lumped. With flowers, there are so many more species to learn that it becomes an even greater challenge.
All that being said, our botany class went on a field trip this past weekend to the lower Grand Coulee area. It’s a little warmer down there although it did not feel like it on Saturday and it gets less snow so the flowers are ahead of what we are seeing here in the Methow Valley. It is an area of dramatic basalt coulees dotted with many lakes and seeps. The habitat is primarily shrub-steppe with sagebrush being the dominant plant. We stopped first at Dry Falls to look at plants of the lithosol (thin rocky soil) habitat. Then we went to Lake Lenore Caves and also Sun Lakes State Park to see a dry vernal pond and to observe the Hooker’s Balsamroot.
I have named these plants to the best of my abilities. There may be errors in spelling and species.
A small yellow desert-parsley, maybe Lomatium triternatum
Nodding onion? Alium sp. I could not find this in my field guide.
Sagebrush violet, Viola trinervata
One of the wild onions, alium sp.
Dry Falls
The rugged landscape of the lower Grand Coulee
Wooly-pod locoweed or milkvetch, Astragalus purshii
Chocolate tips, Lomatium dissectum
Basin giant rye in front of a basalt cliff
How many lichen species are on this rock face?
Wildflower watchers often do not get very far up the trail
Leahe examines a wax currant flower
This was interesting. A plant not in bloom but the dried seed pods were present from last year and then we found this one with new leaves. It is a paintbrush, desert or Thompson’s? Castilleja sp.
An insect gall on big sagebrush, Artemesia tridentata.
Wax currant, previously referred to as squaw currant, Ribes cereum.
Serviceberry, Amelanchier alnifolia
Serviceberry blooming in the coulee
Purple sage, Salvia dorrii. It is in the mint family.
Close-up of purple sage
Poison ivy
One of the famous Lake Lenore Caves. They are more like basalt overhangs or shelters.
A comparison of golden currant and wax currant
Currants growing at the base of a basalt cliff
Mock orange, not yet blooming. Philadelphus lewisii
I think this is Dwarf hesperochiron, Hesperochiron pumilus
Dry salt grass indicates a very alkaline soil. This location was a dried vernal pond.
Death camas, Zygadenus venenosus
I am not sure what this is. Its leaves resemble columbine and also meadowrue but the habitat did not seem right for either one to me.
Goldenweed, Haplopapus sp
Hooker’s Balsamroot, Balsamorhiza hookeri
This balsamroot differs from the one we see here with a more delicate flower and the divided leaves
Hooker’s Balsamroot, Balsamorhiza hookeri
