From an email by Jocie to the Botsny/Mycology Group on September 19. Click a photo to enlarge it.
Here’s “Part 2” of the September 15 walk, featuring plants from the Black Creek gravel flats (accessed just upstream from the bridge in Miracle Beach Park). Low water levels (though not good!) give the botanist a chance to explore the creek & river beds. It’s an interesting ephemeral landscape in late summer. Hard to believe it will all be washed away soon.
- Black Creek view.
- American brooklime (Veronica beccabunga).
- Blue skullcap or one-sided skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora).
- Field mint (Mentha arvensis).
- Musk monkeyflower (Erythranthe moschatus). A lovely little creekside flower with slippery leaves. Special!
- Lung liverwort (Marchantia polymorpha) was a nice surprise. Note the pronounced dark line along the middle of the thallus.
- Burdock seeds (Arctium minus). Joan told us a fun story about how she and her childhood friends used to build things with these stick-together seed heads. Note the hooked tips, like mini crochet hooks, which were the inspiration for the invention of Velcro.
- Burdock blooms from back in early August.
- Douglas aster (Aster subspicatus).
- Small-flowered bulrush (Scirpus microcarpus). A large, spectacular plant in the sedge family.
