purple owl's-clover
Castilleja exserta var. latifolia
Orobanchaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae)

purple owl's-clover
Castilleja exserta var. latifolia
Orobanchaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae)

an "odd form" of johnny nip
Castilleja ambigua var. ambigua
Orobanchaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae)

Alrighty, this post on owl's clovers just about made me throw in the towel on continuing with this blog. Oh my goodness, I couldn't find decent IDs on any of these. What I provided above are my best guesses after looking over hundreds of pictures. I make no allusions that I key plants... or any of the IDs on my blog. I've heard remarks this method is not very scientific. Yeah, well, I'm not claiming to be scientific, but I do like to know what I'm looking at. In any case, I suspect there needs quite a bit of work done to straighten out this genus Castilleja. I'm seeking some help from someone I found online, so maybe I can reconcile these IDs.

ps 05/16/10 - I've already heard back from Mark Egger who is a CalPhotos contributor and specializes in Castilleja. I've made the corrections above according to his expert IDs. I'm also taking his cue by using variety and not subspecies in the scientific names. With big thanks to Mark Egger!!! I've added his Flickr stream under recommended ID links for Castilleja. If anyone can get Castilleja sorted out, he can.

LOL, my 3 guesses for the last photo of johnny nip were: Castilleja attenuata, C. densiflora ssp. obispoensis, C. lineariloba. Oh well...

alligator lizard ~ 05/08/10 ~ Fort Ord

California alligator lizard
Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Can you see it through the leaves? They move so differently than western fence lizards. While looking this up, I was amazed to see this video on CA Herps of the detached tail flailing about. How does it do that without being attached to the body and brain?

common coast paintbrush
Castilleja affinis ssp. affinis
Orobanchaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae)

Last year I was too intimidated to ID the paintbrushes. There are 71 records in Calflora for the genus Castilleja. Oy! For this reason, I've held off posting my pics of them. Thanks to actually using a plant list for Fort Ord, I was able to narrow down my search for this paintbrush ID. My second best guess C. wightii ended up being the old name for C. affinis ssp. affinis.

They really are striking, and, no, I did not enhance the color of these pics at all (oh yep, I tried, but the red turns kinda funky with the enhance feature of iPhoto). These pictures were taken under the oak trees, about a 5 minute walk away from the lupine. Fort Ord really is an amazing place! And to think there used to be soldiers in training trampling through all of this, shooting at stuff left and right. We still find lots of empty bullet casings on the paths. I wonder how many of the soldiers got poison oak rashes?

wooly darkling beetle
Eleodes osculans
Tenebrionidae

Do you have a hairy butt? Why, yes, indeed! I once used this question to distinguish between bumble bees (hairy) and carpenter bees (not hairy) in Ohio. Now that I'm looking at my beetle pics, thanks to my new Beetles of California book, I think hairy butt is the best identifier for this stink beetle.