The
purpose of this hike was to see if any Phacelia rotundifolia had
germinated from the summer / fall rains in the location originally
found by Sheriff Woody on the east side of the Coyote Mountains, near
Clark Dry Lake. It didn't look very promising to survey for it,
since there was hardly anything blooming where we parked our cars
along Rockhouse Canyon Road just before it crosses Clark Dry Lake.
Nonetheless, we were there, and the limestone outcrop on
which it was found was only 3/4 mile away, so we went there.
Don
took this pix of us hiking toward the outcrop:
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/rideout/heading_toward_limestone_crop_40.jpg
Pretty bleak! There were a few scattered
Dalea mollis, and some Plantago ovata, but that was about it.
Here's Don's pix of the west edge of Clark Dry Lake,
showing an even-bleaker looking landscape:
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/rideout/view_toro_peak_and_west_clark_dry_lake_40.jpg
I was more optimistic when we got to the limestone
outcrop, since there was fairly abundant Perityle in bloom, albeit
mostly small plants, and we had a good team of sharp-eyed people
looking for it: Ted Caragozian, Walt Fidler, Sharon Gott, Don
Rideout, and myself. But despite spending a full half hour
scouring the limestone outcrops, we found no P. rotundifolia at all,
just tons of Perityle.
My pix of the limestone outcrop:
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/views/limestone_outcrop_pano_1_30.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/views/limestone_outcrop_pano_4_30.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/views/limestone_outcrop_pano_5_30.jpg
I think that is Don in the last pix. You can also
see a Perityle in bloom at the bottom middle of that pix.
Don
took this pix from one of the higher places in the outcrops, showing
me trying to get around a ridge from one Phacelia rotundifolia
location to another; Clark Dry Lake; and the Santa Rosa Mountains
beyond:
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/rideout/tom_at_base_of_limestone_40.jpg
and this pix looking a bit to the south looking
toward Rattlesnake Canyon and Lute Ridge:
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/rideout/view_clark_valley_from_limestone_area_40.jpg
It was tough moving around the limestone, since our
limestone weathers to some very sharp edges. Ted said those
sharp edges could rip up the bottoms of our hiking boots, and I
certainly had to be very careful when placing my hands on the rocks.
We got back to the cars at 2:00 p.m., and decided
to survey the edge of Clark Dry Lake to the north, primarily to get
some hiking in. Just ten minutes after we started hiking, Walt
called us over after he found an annual he had never seen before.
It turned out to be Nama hispida, a species that none of us had seen
before! (I thought I had seen it once before, at the
Crucifixion Thorn Natural Area, but I have no record of that,
possibly because it was long finished when I saw it.)
That
was very exciting, the find of the day. We found it in another
location as well, not too far away.
What was really
surprising is that these plants germinated in those two areas despite
there being no annuals at all in 99% of the area we hiked near the
lake.
Joe Woods drove by just at the right time to see
these plants with us.
Our 7 iNat posts of Nama hispida:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145779611
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145724032
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145724516
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145708639
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145725296
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145779612
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145779613
This species had only been seen once before in
Clark Valley, from a voucher from
1993-05-18:
https://cch2.org/portal/collections/individual/index.php?occid=511354&clid=undefined
For some reason, that voucher wasn't present in my
downloads in 2008 and 2016, so I hadn't known about it until now.
There is another voucher from "Borrego Valley", which is
either from this location or closer to Ocotillo Wells. The only
other iNat obs of this species in our area are near Ocotillo Wells,
and the Crucifixion Thorn Natural Area near Ocotillo.
Don
and I posted 50 obs of 31 species from our trip, which included five
posts from Henderson Canyon Road on the drive back to Don's Borrego
House:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2023-01-02&place_id=95385&user_id=tchester,lagoondon
Don posted 25 obs of 21 species; I posted 25 obs of
20 species.
We found only 11 species in bloom on
our hike, plus four at Henderson Canyon Road.
Other
details from this trip:
On my drive in, I stopped
at the manzanitas near the San Luis Rey picnic area, which were in
full bloom:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145846163
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145846162
On 27 December 2022, there was an absolutely
gorgeous manzanita in bloom on the other (north) side of the highway,
a bit farther toward Lake Henshaw, but it was too dangerous to walk
to it on this trip due to heavy traffic going west. It was
still in good bloom on this day.
The wind was
really blowing along the Montezuma Grade, but was quiet in Borrego
Springs.
The plants on the Montezuma Grade still
looked pretty dry overall, except for some Perityle plants in bloom
near the bottom of the Grade.
It was 61 deg when we
parked near Clark Dry Lake around noon. There was a bit of wind
there, but it vanished as we walked toward the limestone area.
The wind re-appeared a few times later in the day when we walked in
the Dry Lake Area.
The first order of business
after we parked was to photograph Lycium brevipes, since Don and I
had never posted pix of that species at iNat. Fortunately, Walt
had found one plant with one bloom near the cars, so we went there
first. Our posts of that plant:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145716513
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145780300
Surprisingly, although there were one zillion L. brevipes
plants ringing the edge of the dry lake, we only found three total
flowers, one each on three separate bushes, and very few fruit,
either.
Although it wasn't abundantly clear that
this area had gotten recent rain in most areas, we did find a puddle
along Rockhouse Canyon road near the quarry. Don's pix:
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/rideout/puddle_on_rockhouse_canyon_road_25.jpg
Ted and Sharon turned around soon after we saw
Walt's Nama, while Walt, Don and I continued north.
After
seeing the second location of Nama hispida, we noticed that the gate
to the quarry was open, without any "no trespassing" sign
for the main gate, so we hiked along the old Rockhouse Canyon Road
that was closed off by the Quarry. (There was a "no
trespassing sign" on a second gate that led to the quarry site
to the south.)
There was a little shack next to the old
Road that was pretty clearly not part of the quarry. It had a
sign on it titled "Peace House", saying it was built by two
people. (:-) Don's pix:
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/rideout/peace_house_40.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/rideout/inside_of_peace_house_40.jpg
When the old road joined the new road across the
lake, we decided to head east to see if we could find anything
different. We didn't.
We did find a huge field of
Suaeda. After traipsing through that for some time, we gave up
trying to find anything different and made a beeline across the lake
to the cars.
My post of one Suaeda plant a bit separated
from the rest, with pix showing the vast field in the distance:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145785510
The fourth pix show Walt and Don at the plant, ahead of
me on the way back.
Don took a pix of me there as
well:
http://tchester.org/temp/230102/rideout/tom_walking_back_on_clark_dry_lake_to_car_40.jpg
The Geraea plants were still beautiful in their
field along Henderson Canyon Road, along with the Abronia, and now
the Oenothera deltoides. My pix:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145850402
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145850403
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145850404
--
tom
chester
