vernal pool bent grass ~ 05/11/12 ~ Fort Ord

vernal pool bent grass
Agrostis lacuna-vernalis
Poaceae

I'd offer additional ID links to this newly described species, but it has yet to show up on Calflora.org or the CNPS Inventory of Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Plants of California, which I suspect will be included at some point. As you can tell by the several boots in the background, everyone and their brother were taking pictures of this diminutive grass. Apparently, very few pics have found their way to online search engines. I've been contacted by a SLO CNPS rare plant coordinator to have my pictures of the vernal pool bent grass added to CalPhotos. Phooey, you know I really do not like joining things, but I'm finally giving in after several encouragements from various contacts and will become a CalPhotos contributor... if only I can figure out how to shrink my photos to the size they require.

vernal pool bent grass ~ 04/22/12 ~ MBC CNPS Wildflower Show

vernal pool bent grass

Agrostis lacuna-vernalis
Poaceae

Normally, I never include pictures from the annual Monterey Bay Chapter of the California Native Plant Society Wildflower Show held at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. However, for the 51st Wildflower Show (the largest in the Northern and Western Hemispheres!) there was a newly described grass species found at Fort Ord. When Brian LeNeve and his wife Carol were creating the identifier card, they faced a challenge coming up with a common name. Before they added water to this tiny chunk of specimen, the grass was actually bent... hence the name. Despite the lack of rain this year, there were over 670 species of flowering plants at the Wildflower Show - not too shabby.

I love Fort Ord and am looking forward to when 15,000 acres are saved as publicly accessible natural areas. The species diversity there is incredibly unique. Speaking of which, the federally-owned former Fort Ord lands (~14,600 acres) has just become the newest National Monument (link to another local news article) putting it on the map with the likes of Pinnacles National Monument. The remaining few hundred natural area acres belong to the State of CA as Fort Ord Dunes State Park.

ps 05/11/12 - I've since learned Brian was pulling our legs during his talk the day before this picture was taken. For those who don't know the genus Agrostis is known as bent grass. From David Styer I guess there was some talk about whether it should be vernalis-lacuna or lacuna-vernalis.

harding grass ~ 11/12/11 ~ Elkhorn Slough

harding grass
Phalaris aquatica
Poaceae
more information

Sigh... off the beach and back to drier land. My brain has to switch some serious gears for Nature ID. I occasionally overlook the fact that Elkhorn Slough used to be a farm. I'm often so preoccupied simply being in awe of the estuary, or looking for birds close enough to photograph, or seeking out native plants, which, pardon the expression, is like looking for a needle in a haystack. The official Elkhorn Slough site has a nice write-up on this common grazing grass.

butterfly mariposa lily ~ 06/09/11 ~ Pinnacles

butterfly mariposa lily among wild oat

Calochortus venustus among Avena fatua
Liliaceae and Poaceae

We saw whole hillsides of this beautiful lily in various shades from white to pink. Unfortunately, the invasive wild oat was taller than the lilies and made them difficult to spot in photographs.

ps 08/07/11 - Thanks to Way Points post on mariposa lilies, I looked at these again to double-check the IDs. Many of the 45 kinds of mariposa lilies found in CA look very similar. I'm not familiar enough to know the tricks to look for to distinguish between the species and Jepson's descriptions confuse me. Here are links to Flickr groups that highlight mariposa lilies, CaliFlora and Calochortus beauty. I wonder if one or more of these might be clay mariposa lily (Calochortus argillosus) even though it is not on the official Pinnacles plant list. I asked on a Flickr picture with hopes to get an answer. Does anyone know of how to tell the difference between mariposa lilies?