Lush and Leafy: WNPS Backpack 2014

My first was at age 12, and my first introduction to backpacking, as well. I've missed quite a few since then, but I managed to make it to this year's Washington Native Plant Society Annual Backpacking Trip down on the Dark Divide. Besides, there was one mention of a plant from the previous trip to this location that I simply had to confirm.

I arrived at the trailhead an hour late, but unafraid because botanists and other native plant people are the slowest hikers I have ever encountered. We stop to make sure that everyone has seen each new species we find . . . there is no such thing as adequate sampling until we have found every last species on our path.

So it was without hesitation that I took time to photograph the views from the start of the Sunrise Trail. It was propitious, too, since we'd end up hiking out in the middle of a cloud, and since my camera would remember every five pictures or so that it had decided that something was wrong with the lens, and refuse to let me take any more.

Mt. Adams

Mt. Hood

Mt. Rainier

See those white spots?

Calochortus subalpinus !

I met up with the group, and before camp, no less. Let me put this in perspective: I started out nearly an hour late on a 1.25-mile trail to camp, and I catch up about three-quarters of the way. I love botanists.

Set up camp, eat lunch, review illustrations for two new species. Discuss unusual Penstemon, offer guess of P. subserratus (looks like P. ovatus but is smaller and eglandular, and from the southern Cascades), even though it's a little high for that species. Set out for Sunrise Peak.

The area was burned twice in the early 20^th century, which evidently depleted the soil enough so that many of the hillsides are still covered in brush, mostly Rhododendron albiflorum and Vaccinium membranaceum (the famed black huckleberry; this place must be bear heaven in a few weeks).

Have you ever seen so much white azalea?

Strangely, my experiments with this species are going quite well.

Jumbo Mountain, goal for the next day. Also note the cliffs in the lower left. They'll be important later.

Clouds around Rainier! An ill omen.

Crevasses on Adams are pretty

This bully covered the whole area in ~6" of ash about 3 decades ago.

Camp - it looks so tiny, and not just because they're lightweight tents

Something was eating the saxifrages. There were Clossiana butterflies, but C. tritonia astarte apparently doesn't get so far south. Mountain goats?

Saxifraga bronchialis subsp. austromontana

And I found a new location for the recently-separated and very interesting S. vespertina, the first record between Mt. Rainier and the Columbia Gorge! The grazers don't seem to care, though.

Note the stubby leaves, which are occasionally trilobate

Stubby petals, too, and shorter inflorescences, but very variable petal spotting

I apparently didn't photograph them, but in the same crack in the rock I found the new southernmost record of Gagea serotina (remember the genus Lloydia?) in the Cascades. It wasn't previously known south of Rainier. Granted, it's a Pleistocene alpine expansion, but still: keep your eyes peeled for unusual plants. You might be surprised at what you find.

Back to camp, and there's a shed exoskeleton of a cicada. Yes, we have cicadas in Washington. Multiple species, in fact.

Just look at those forelegs...

And three species of Botrychium! I can't remember which one this was. Certainly not B. pinnatum.

Sporangia on the trophophore? What a time to be alive...

Next day, we went south to Jumbo peak. I forgot to write this species down in the field, but at least I photographed it.

Ribes watsonianum - note the prickly ovary

The cliffs on the west side of Jumbo are not only very scenic, but support several unusual plants. Noteworthy records of Hemieva ranunculifolia (once in Suksdorfia), Arnica nevadensis, and Micranthes rufidula. Remember the thing about keeping your eyes peeled?

Ooh, so pretty

Remember what I said about scrubby meadows?

Erythranthe breweri (no longer in the much-shrunken Mimulus) - each flower is about 1mm wide!

Camera didn't want to let me photograph the abundant Hemicleuca eglanterina moths. Click the link. You won't regret it. I searched all the Ceanothus velutinus bushes I could find, but I saw no egg clusters. Bummer.

But there were goats.

I told you there were goats.

Kids these days...

We climbed this eroded dike up to the top of Jumbo. It was steep.

Goat baths on top of Jumbo

Other goats on the other side of Jumbo

On the way back I stopped to see what was growing on the cliffs just south of camp, especially since I hadn't yet seen my Holy Grail plant, which grows on rocks. And lo and behold, I found it. The first record between Mt. Rainier and the Columbia River Gorge: Douglasia laevigata!

(Does that disjunction sound familiar? It's the same one as for Saxifraga vespertina above. This sort of pattern is the basis for my current research.)

Some of the plants had strangely elongate leaves, and all had less-coriaceous leaves by far than I've seen before. This is, in part, why I spent some time plucking out a few rosettes to press. Science!