habitat ~ 07/25/10 ~ Manzanita Regional Park

Manzanita Regional Park
July 25, 2010

This is a new park for us. It reminds me of Fort Ord with all the sand and manzanitas, but it's closer to Elkhorn Slough. We'll have to go back another time when we're not orchid hunting to check out the trails.

naked lady ~ 07/25/10 ~ Manzanita Park

naked lady
Amaryllis belladonna
Amaryllidaceae (formerly Liliaceae) 
 

Is it August yet? I saw the striking pink of a couple belladonna lilies already blooming here in town. And, yes, I prefer to call them naked ladies, because it's so much more fun to make people look. Hopefully, this next month, I'll take a better picture of them in full bloom compared to last year. Interesting to note, those pretty red and white striped flowers grown for the winter holidays are not actually in the Amaryllis genus; they belong in Hippeastrum.

Yadon's piperia ~ 07/25/10 ~ Manzanita Park

Yadon's rein-orchid among Hooker's manzanita
Piperia yadonii among Arctostaphylos hookeri ssp. hookeri
CNPS 8th Edition Inventory among CNPS 8th Edition Inventory
Orchidaceae and Ericaceae

After 4 unsuccessful GPS coordinate attempts to find this rare orchid and finding other things instead, we finally hit pay dirt on our 5th try. The first photo above is unusually light colored compared to other Yadon's piperia that we saw this day. For a much better picture of this pale individual, check out Native Orchids on Flickr. The low growing shrub where this orchid is found is, I'm totally guessing, Hooker's manzanita and it's classified by CNPS as a 1B.2 rare, threatened, and endangered CA native.

ps 06/06/11 - As I was looking at my new labels for endangered and threatened species, I discovered Hooker's manzanita is considered endangered in the state of CA.

pss 10/23/11 - I'm going through and adding labels for endangered and threatened species for CA . I can't find this particular manzanita on the official California Department of Fish and Game's PDF list updated this month October 2011. I haven't figured out which is correct, the PDF or Elkhorn's site (embedded in the postscript above) is correct. And, I also have not figured out how to embed links to PDFs.

our GPS find

I think this must be an introduced species called Trashia inweirdplacus var. bowlingpinii. Well, that's not what we expected to find with detailed GPS coordinates. We were looking for the endangered Piperia yadonii. On Sunday, we went on a multi-location orchid hunt with a fellow who drove hours from Sacramento just to see this rare orchid... I said orchid, not bowling pins. After much sand in our shoes, bushwhacking through scratchy manzanitas, sliding down steep slopes, and several bunk GPS records, we were finally successful in a big way. The failed GPS coordinates might be reliable, in another year since this orchid doesn't always bloom. I already knew where some of the local Yadon's was blooming and sure enough we found them just fine. I need to credit Andy for taking a back road and finding a 4th location. The blue flags were more noticeable than the endangered orchid. Pictures are posted on Flickr for now. Once I get the locations sorted out, I'll backpost to Sunday, July 25, 2010.