habitat ~ 02/20/11 ~ Garland Ranch Regional Park

Garland Ranch Regional Park
February 20, 2011

So often Nature ID posts are of specific things, getting as close as my point-and-shoot will allow for a positive ID. However, I do like to take a step back and look at the larger picture. I hope I can convey in my habitat shots what any location is like throughout the year. While my blog is not a hiking blog (there are much better ones, like Way Points and Bay Area Hiker), I believe people may be able to get a sense of if and when they'd like to hike at the many locations shown here. All locations are labeled with an 'x' and grouped to the right of my blog towards the bottom.

In the 2nd picture above, there is indeed snow on the hill tops. To the left is the Sierra de Salinas range and to the right is the better known Santa Lucia Range. By Saturday after these pictures were taken, we had snow here at sea level along the Monterey Bay.

broadleaf stonecrop
Sedum spathulifolium
Crassulaceae

Without these in bloom, I have little chance of identifying this plant. I'm assuming they're a species of Dudleya, but I could be incorrect. I've checked a handful of plant lists for Garland Ranch and only one even mentions succulents. As you can tell from my pictures, this is a very moist area... but only in the winter and spring. Several years ago when I returned to CA, these were the very first wild (i.e., not garden) succulents I had ever seen in this area, and if my memory is correct, I believe the blooms were yellow. Can anyone ID?

ps 03/02/11 - Boy, did I have this wrong! At the very least, I knew this was a stonecrop thingahoo. I originally posted this as an unknown dudleya. Nope. No wonder I couldn't find a match after searching through hundreds of pictures of dudleya. Many thanks to Megan and Matti at Far Out Flora, I got an ID. I also double-checked the CNPS Garland Ranch plant list from 2006 and this is the only Sedum on their list. I've corrected the ID above.

dudleya ~ 02/20/11 ~ Garland Ranch

lanceleaf liveforever
Dudleya lanceolata
Crassulaceae

First ferns, now succulents? I am trying to branch out and look at plants outside of my comfort zone. This is typically a more southernly plant and Monterey County is about as far north that it grows naturally. Does anyone have a good dudleya ID site to recommend?

California maiden-hair
Adiantum jordanii
Pteridaceae

If I had a garden of my dreams, this is the one native fern I would definitely include. I suspect it would require quite a bit of moisture and could be challenging to grow in an artificial setting. That's Garland's waterfall in the background of the third photo, which had water running after a week of decent rain. Interestingly enough, this is not CA's only maiden-hair fern; there's another called southern maiden-hair (Adiantum capillus-veneris) that looks a lot like cilantro, the herb staple of many salsas.