Summer is Here - Victory Lap!

My good friend Eddie recently finished a challenging year of teaching special education in a new school district run by very unsavory administration.  To celebrate this feat, he made a trip up to Napa to hang out and see his folks and we did the good ol' Skyline Park hike!

After a week in the mid-90's, Sunday was much cooler and cloudy... perfect hiking weather, and great for photographing plants.

View of the Napa Valley w/ monkeyflowers foreground

I saw a handful of personal firsts, as far as wildflowers:

Above: Cardinal Catchfly (Silene laciniata) growing in the understory of oaks and bay trees.

Alongside the Silene, were these gracefully pendant clusters of flowers belonging, I am guessing, to a plant called Cream Bush or Ocean Spray (I thought that was a brand of fruit juice!).  The botanical name is Holodiscus discolor.  Apparently it is common in the Pacific Northwest.  It was quite beautiful!

Lake Marie, adorned in brown velvet... algae?

After the lake, the trail cuts up the hillside of Sugarloaf Peak and the habitat shifts from wooded to rocky and exposed.

Above: Canyon Liveforever (Dudleya cymosa)

Dudleyas have become a global commodity the last few years and have fallen prey to poachers shipping loads of these precious, slow-growing, long-lived succulents overseas for profit.  Fish & Game is working on catching these poachers.

There is also another strategy to combat poaching, and that is to grow the plants in nursery setting and "flood the market" to drive prices down.  I collected some seed from these ones and will see if I can get them to grow (largely just for experimentation and for fun... I don't actually think I am combatting poaching in a significant way by doing this, but you gotta start somewhere!).  I have a few Dudleya farinosa that I collected seed from in Salt Point that are approaching about a quarter inch in size after about 4 months of being planted.

Dudleya & Penstemon

Unknown scrubby shrub

Eddie!

Yellow Mariposa Lily (Calochortus luteus)

Above: Unknown species of wild buckwheat (Eriogonum).  This specimen was quite astounding exploding in flowers from the sheer rock cliffside.  Buckwheats are a source of nectar for many butterflies and the seeds are eaten by birds.

It was a very pleasant hike with good company, both human and non-!  Congrats on making it through the year Eddie.  I hope your new position in a new school district is a big improvement over the last one.