coast buckwheat ~ 05/18/14 ~ San Bruno Mt.

coast buckwheat / seaside wild buckwheat

Eriogonum latifolium

Polygonaceae
(fuzzy and not fuzzy)

 coast buckwheat leaves
(fuzzy and not fuzzy)

coast buckwheat in bloom
(fuzzy and not fuzzy)

coast buckwheat / seaside buckwheat

Eriogonum latifolium

Polygonaceae
(fuzzy and not fuzzy)

I'm on a mission to learn the regional buckwheats as they bloom this year, because it's much easier to locate them when they're in full blooming glory.  Calflora currently lists 256 spp./var. of Eriogonum.  That's a lot of buckwheat, and it's all quite confusing.  Fortunately, I'm focusing on the dozen or so found regionally from the central CA coastal area, inland to Pinnacles.  So when the opportunity came up to visit San Bruno Mountain with Santa Clara Valley CNPS guru Ken Himes, I was ready to get my buckwheat IDs sorted.  Turns out, the mountain in all its uniqueness has only one sp. of buckwheat, E. latifolium, locally known as coast buckwheat, and elsewhere described as seaside buckwheat.  I found plenty of variation, from pink to white blooms, perfectly round to flatted pom-poms, fuzzy to green leaves, short stalk stature to reaching for my knees.  I kept asking Ken, "Are you sure this is still coast buckwheat?"  He laughed at first, but then I think he tired of my repeated questions.  I still suspect there's some naked buckwheat (E. nudum) in the above with the flattened flower heads and greener, fuzzless top, larger leaves.  In any case, I'm now familiar with coast buckwheat, and I hope I can recognize it even when it's not blooming.  I found the low-growing, wavy-edged leaf shape with fuzzy underside to be recognizable, but not entirely distinguishable.  It's a perennial herb.  So, does that mean it dies after 2 years?  Yes, I'm seriously asking.

diffuse spineflower ~ 05/17/14 ~ Fort Ord

diffuse spineflower

Chorizanthe diffusa
(common, sand or gravel)

Polygonaceae

These short and spreading white flowers tickled my fancy.  I wish I had better pics a couple steps back, but with a large tour group that kept moving at quick clip (thanks to speedy Jane Styer) I only had time for a couple quick pics.  Too bad it was also blustery windy (read: blurry photos).  I'd like to note that spineflowers belong to the buckwheat family, an extremely popular food source for several local butterflies.  I double-checked this ID with David Styer who gave me his 2014 updated Fort Ord plant list, which is different than the online 2012 CNPS list.  I hear from his wife Jane that he's recently described a new spineflower sp.  Very cool.  Out of the 51 Chorizanthe spp./var. listed on Calflora and in addition to the diffuse spineflower shown above, here are the other spineflowers of record for Fort Ord (with my common name updates taken from Jepson eFlora):

(CalPhotos) --- (Calflora) --- (Jepson) --- (CNPS status)
narrow-leaf spineflower --- C. angustifolia --- uncommon, sand --- may be new sp.*
Douglas' spineflower --- C. douglasii --- sand or gravel --- 4.3
Monterey spineflower --- C. pungens var. pungens --- sand --- 1B.2
robust spineflower --- C. robusta var. robusta --- sand or gravel --- 1B.1 --- not on David's list**

* With David's permission, this is what he said, "Also, what we had called C. angustifolia, turns out not to be that, but a species new to science that will probably be called C. minutiflora. It has smaller flowers than any other Chorizanthe."  He goes on to say, "You can mention it, but you should note that the new name is not yet official."

** Also, David said, "I would, however, remove C. robusta from the list. Randy Morgan says he added some years ago (perhaps when he was working for Jones & Stokes), but learned later, when he saw the real robusta, that what he had seen at Ft Ord was not robusta. That is how it got on the Ft Ord list, and why I removed it from the list."

I also made a spineflower list o' links for Pinnacles National Park with Douglas' being the only spineflower found at both locations.

northern Pacific rattlesnake ~ 05/17/14 ~ Fort Ord

northern Pacific rattlesnake

Crotalus oreganus oreganus

(ssp. of western rattlesnake)

Rattlesnake or rattle snake?  Ugh.  In any case, you'll notice the max, fuzzy zoom on this baby.  Lyle, the Army Lands munitions safety officer, also served as the snake safety officer and kept all of us a respectable distance away.  This is probably only the third rattlesnake I've ever seen here in CA.  The other two sightings have been tucked in among rocks at Pinnacles at the east entrance to the Balconies Cave and the switchbacks along the Juniper Canyon Trail.  I sometimes forget we have these poisonous snakes, because for me their sighting is rare.  Gary Nafis has created quite a montage of rattlesnake warning signs.  Note the wide head and 3-segmented rattle.  Can you tell how old a rattlesnake is by the number of rattle segments?  This one was small, took up an area probably smaller than a salad plate.

large marble ~ 05/16/14 ~ Mal Paso Canyon

large marble

Euchloe ausonides

(Shapiro and Tenney)

Did I choose the butterflies, or did they choose me?  I guess it helps when studying butterflies that given enough patience they'll cooperate for poses on my fingers.  Am I the butterfly whisperer?  Not really.  Macro, macro, macro!  Mwahahaha...  In the hand, this large marble is totally a piece of cake to ID.  However, I still can't distinguish this butterfly in flight compared to the more ubiquitous cabbage butterfly, which has been extremely frustrating for me.  Chris is quite impressive with his flight ID skills (probably all those years spent as a birder), but it's hard to explain to another person exactly what you look for to make that ID.  I think everyone has different cues that work for them.  I know a local botanist who is color blind, and I actually think that helps him distinguish the slight color variations in plants.  We all have our gifts.