Muir Woods in Bloom

I had planned going mushrooming up at Salt Point with Mickey & Caner, but with the rain and the distance and the uncertainty of mushrooms in general, we decided to just explore a little closer to home and headed to Muir Woods. I'm glad we did, because we caught the beginning of the spring wildflower season! Plenty of early bloomers were out and flowering, including many milkmaids and, amazingly, TONS of fetid adderstongue! Pretty much the entire trailside from Panoramic Highway down Redwood Creek into Muir Woods had a couple, and some spots were practically carpeted with the little flower. Most had already done their thing, but there were plenty still in bloom.

Other welcome sights were my first Indian Warrior of the year, in the higher areas, and Common Star Lily (Toxicoscordion fremontii), one of my favorite flowers to photograph. Toxicoscodion is a relatively change in genus I hadn't known about, and I have to admit I will miss being able to say "Zigadenus." Then again, "Toxicoscordion" sounds kind of like it's describing a poisonous accordion, so that's almost as fun.

Weather was cool and damp throughout, though no outright rain. Pretty much zero in the way of birds. Didn't do too much herp searching (and found nothing for my minimal efforts). Coolest animal by far was the one little Timema Mickey had on her shirt. Timema is a very weird genus of stick insects, always fun to see.

Julkaistu helmikuu 16, 2009 06:38 AP. käyttäjältä kueda