western cauliflower mushroom
Sparassis radicata

Did a quick search this morning and can't find anything that quite looks like this. I'll keep searching. It looks like an airy toasted pastry. Can you ID?

ps - I posted this earlier today (02/16/11) as an unknown meringue-pie-looking fungus. Indeed, it was about the size of a pie, too. Thanks to Jim Johnson's comment below, I was able to track down the ID. Interesting to note, MushroomExpert (linked in the common names) states this is a different species from the eastern cauliflower mushrooms (S. crispa and S. spathulata), which are supposedly primarily found under hardwoods, whereas our true western version is found under pines, as evidenced in my picture. The toasty look in the pic above simply means it's an older fruiting body. Like pie and cauliflower this is an edible mushroom... I think I'm hungry.

broad-leaved lupine
Lupinus latifolius
Fabaceae

Lately, I've been relying heavily on Calflora's What Grows Here search query to help me identify plants, which I would usually have a difficult time figuring out and sometimes spend a couple days agonizing over correct IDs. This is a fairly big lupine and I picked the only perennial lupine on the list. And, it looks correct!

dark-eyed junco / Oregon junco
Junco hyemalis

Well, at least I'm still trying to get photos of birds. These pics aren't too bad for me. I have a better pic of a dark-eyed junco here from last April. It's only because I previously looked up this bird that I even knew what these were on the spot. I had fun watching a group of them as they chased each other from ground to low hanging tree limbs; it was almost as if they were playing tag.

Fremont's star-lily ~ 02/11/11 ~ Jacks Peak

Fremont's star-lily

Toxicoscordion fremontii (formerly Zigadenus fremontii)
Melanthiaceae (formerly Liliaceae)

This plant is also known as death camas due to its toxicity to people and animals. Wayne's Word (1/2 way down the link) has the best description I've found describing this with history and references.

As an aside, does anyone else have difficulty taking decent photographs on a sunny day in shaded woods?

There've been major revisions on how to classify this plant in the last decade or so. It's thanks to a couple other bloggers that I even heard of the new names. It used to be in the lily family and has now been separated out to the false hellebore family. Plus, it used to be included in the Zigadenus genus, which is still most commonly used online and is the name in all of my wildflower books. For a nice series of linked pages that explains this at the Pacific Bulb Society, click on the family name above in the ID. I'm updating my previous star-lily posts.

ps 01/05/12 - I moved a 4th picture to a new ID of soap plant.