Saturday, May 14, 2011

Monterey spineflower ~ 05/14/11 ~ Fort Ord

This particular variety of spineflower is listed as federally threatened. To see closeup pictures of this flower, check out my recent sand gilia pictures, then click on each photo to enlarge, and look for the pink spiky clumps to the right of each picture. The purple flowers with yellow-tips are purple owl's-clovers.

I may have walked by Monterey spineflowers many times on the Fort Ord BLM Lands and never knew it was considered likely to become endangered. I would have loved to have better closeup shots. However, being on Fort Ord Army Lands, we were instructed to strictly stay on the path for our own safety due to continuing munitions removal. I believe the above picture was taken in an area that was burned in 2003.

For those who live north of me in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and San Francisco counties, the other variety C. pungens var. hartwegiana (Ben Lomond spineflower) is listed as federally endangered.

3 comments:

Imperfect and Tense said...

Jings, Katie! Combat botany at its scary best!

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Ha! We had a safety meeting beforehand and you would not believe the size of some of the munitions that have been removed! I wish I had taken a picture of them. Occasionally, they'll explode on their own and start unintended fires.

Imperfect and Tense said...

You say "unintended fires" as if "explode on their own" wasn't such a big deal! Respect!