Don
Rideout and I, accompanied by Cathy Wiley and her husband Chuck Bemis
for the first hour, had a good time botanizing Palo Verde Wash north
of S22 and its Canyon.
We had two main goals:
-
to check on the Cottontop Cactus, Echinocactus polycephalus =
Homalocephala p., plants that I had GPS'd in 2007 and one post by Jim
Roberts from 2015, to see if they had any blooms on them, and see how
they were doing.
- to document the monsoonals
present along our hike.
Summary of the cottontop:
- we found no plants in blooms, and no sign that
any had recent blooms. We saw just one old detached fruit.
-
it looks like the cottontop population here has declined since 2007.
We checked seven locations, six from my GPS points from 2007, and one
from an iNat observation in 2015. Of those, we found no
evidence of any Echinocactus at three points, and dead plants at two
points. At the other two points, we found multiple plants -
four live plants and two dead plants at one; and three live plants
and two dead plants at the other.
I was able to match up
two of my pix from 2007 with pix from 2022. In both cases, the
plant was alive and happy in 2007, but dead in 2022.
Plant
#1, with a bonus dead ocotillo in 2007 that was still dead in 2022,
looking much the same.
2007
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143207955
2022
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143006983
better pix of the ocotillo in 2022:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143212547
Plant #2:
2007
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143208533
2022
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143006986
On the plus side, Don spotted one plant at a new
location, as did Chuck and Cathy.
Summary of
monsoonal plants:
- there were lots, which we
documented! (;-)
We were very pleased to see a ton
of yellowhead, Trichoptilium incisum, all in bloom. They were
found in numerous places along our hike. We posted 7 obs of it:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2022-11-25&place_id=95385&taxon_id=79394&user_id=tchester,lagoondon,wiley1
As in many places this year, Perityle was very
abundant, especially on the canyon walls. Here's my post of a
good display in one spot:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143134986
Chamaesyce was very abundant, with C. polycarpa
(Euphorbia p.) the most abundant, and C. setiloba not far behind.
We found no other Chamaesyce species.
Boerhavia wrightii
was everywhere as well, mostly in fruit.
In total, we
found 32 species in bloom. The list, with abundances, is at the
bottom of this email.
Don, Cathy and I posted a
whopping 138 observations of 64 species from our hike, as well as
from two stops in the Borrego Springs area:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2022-11-25&place_id=95385&subview=table&user_id=tchester,lagoondon,wiley1
Surprisingly, for the second trip in a row, I
posted the most observations, 65 obs of 28 species, but Don posted
the most species, 49 obs of 42 species. Cathy posted 24 obs of
22 species.
I posted a lot of the same species to
document how widespread the monsoonals were.
Details:
On our drive to Borrego, the Encelia actoni plants were
still in bloom, but it looked like their bloom was winding down.
The ocotillos along the Montezuma Grade were now
mostly leafless.
This time we drove along Di
Giorgio Road, and saw a good Abronia bloom at the southwest corner
with Henderson Canyon Road. My post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143006065
We then stopped at the desert sunflower field along
Henderson Canyon Road, and it was in full bloom. Don's pix and
post, and my post:
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/rideout/geraea_field_henderson_canyon_road_30.jpg
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/142887380
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143135946
We then stopped at the Abronia field along S22 in
the sandy area just west of the Villager Peak Trailhead. The
Abronia there was still in good bloom. My post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143136483
We met Cathy and Chuck at the junction of S22 and
Palo Verde Wash at 11:30 a.m. There were a number of annuals in
the Wash on the north side of S22, so we dawdled over them for a
while.
Chuck took a very nice pix of three happy
botanists at that spot, made much better by him asking us to smile.
(:-)
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/bemis/three_happy_botanists_75.jpg
There were a ton of Palo Verde seedlings at that
location, and all along our hike, as befitting a canyon called "Palo
Verde Canyon". (;-) You can see the density of them in
Chuck's pix linked just above.
Some had germinated fairly
recently, some had germinated earlier in the summer. Presumably all
of the seedlings germinated this summer.
We posted eight
observations of Palo Verde, five seedlings, one plant with a few
flowers, one big boy, and one dead large plant:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2022-11-25&place_id=95385&taxon_id=63603&user_id=tchester,lagoondon,wiley1
We spent the next two hours mainly on cottontop
cactus, with Cathy and Chuck turning around halfway through those
plants.
Eventually Don and I got tired of traversing the
dissected alluvial fan perpendicularly to the channels to check more
cottontops, especially since we had obtained our answer about whether
they were blooming, and what the status of the population was.
So we got back into the main wash and headed up canyon.
Palo
Verde wash and canyon are not walks in the park. There is no
main wash most of the time, only little snippets one follows for a
while before having to move over to the next snippet.
The
ocotillos along our hike had either lost all their leaves, or were in
the process of doing so, except for a single plant in the Canyon that
was still lush with green leaves. Some plants were in not-bad
fall color, like the one in my post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/142995206
Just before we entered the canyon, Don found a very
interesting baby Ferocactus, that at first we thought might be a baby
cottontop due to the absence of the radial white spines. It was
very unusual in having a fused base, with very elongate tubercles
above. Baby cacti are sometimes quite different! Don's pix:
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/rideout/baby_ferocactus_25.jpg
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/142980714
I was surprised when we came across a large band of
pure white rock, since I had forgotten about it from my previous
trips there. I thought at first it might be the Bishop Tuff,
especially since it crumbled easily. But it couldn't be, since
we were solidly in the metamorphic rock of the Santa Rosa Mountains.
The ABDSP Geology book says they are "tortured,
twisted layers of light-colored marble" that are "remnants
of Ordovician marine sediments, 470 mya" (p. 102). Our pix
definitely show some torture of those rocks!
Don's pix:
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/rideout/marble_bands_30.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/rideout/rock_layer_swirls_30.jpg
My pano pix, from bottom to top, of a small fault in
those rocks:
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/fault/small_fault_1_30.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/fault/small_fault_2_30.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/fault/small_fault_3_30.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/fault/small_fault_4_30.jpg
As is almost always the case, we had to turn around
far too soon.
Don's pix of the upper canyon beckoning to
us to continue:
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/rideout/looking_up_canyon_1501_30.jpg
and his pix looking down canyon from whence we had
came:
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/rideout/turn-around_point_1523_30.jpg
After we had some cookies and brownies, I quickly
tried to document all the annuals at our turn-around point, and back
down the canyon we went.
On the way back, I spotted
some unusually fine sediments. Don's pix:
http://tchester.org/temp/221125/rideout/fine_alluvial_deposits_30.jpg
We got back to the car just as the daylight was
fading, another good trip.
List of plants in
bloom in Palo Verde Wash and Canyon:
#Pls in bloom
name
99 Boerhavia wrightii
99
Bouteloua aristidoides var. aristidoides
99
Chamaesyce polycarpa
99 Chamaesyce setiloba
99 Pectis papposa var. papposa
99
Perityle emoryi
99 Trichoptilium incisum
50 Allionia incarnata var. incarnata
40 Aristida adscensionis
20
Dalea mollissima
15 Physalis
crassifolia
10 Bouteloua barbata var.
barbata
10 Ditaxis lanceolata
10
Palafoxia arida var. arida
5 Encelia
farinosa var. farinosa
5 Eriogonum inflatum
5 Euphorbia eriantha
5
Hyptis emoryi
3 Encelia farinosa
2
Eschscholzia parishii
2 Horsfordia newberryi
2 Krameria bicolor
1
Abronia villosa var. villosa
1 Bebbia juncea
var. aspera
1 Croton californicus
1
Cryptantha angustifolia
1 Geraea canescens
1 Larrea tridentata
1
Mentzelia involucrata
1 Parkinsonia florida
1 Peucephyllum schottii
1
Psorothamnus schottii
--
tom
chester
