Don Rideout and I did the 17 Palms - Una Palma - 5 Palms Loop in the
Borrego Badlands on Wednesday, 1/18/23, and then surveyed a bit
farther down the Arroyo Salado to get in more hiking miles.
We
didn't expect to find many flowers, and we didn't. Still, we
did see 28 species in bloom, and some lovely plants of Xylorhiza and
Geraea in bloom. The list of plants in bloom is given at the end of
this email.
Some Xylorhiza pix by Don:
-
A plant we stopped for on our drive along the Arroyo Salado:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146867969
It was all the more amazing since the following pix shows
the territory in which it was growing and blooming, which looked
pretty dry. Pix by Don looking down the Arroyo Salado:
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/upper_arroyo_salado_35.jpg
- A nice plant in the middle of our hike:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146875291
- A plant we found by following a small wash that
paralleled the Arroyo Salado:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146876102
Geraea was essentially everywhere along our driving
and hiking routes, and essentially every plant looked very happy, and
was in bloom. There were several good areas of Geraea (but
nothing like the Henderson Canyon Road field at its best).
Here's one of the best we saw in Don's post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146876141
We very much enjoyed touring those palm areas,
since neither of us had been there for some time.
Alas,
all the palm areas looked pretty bleak, with salty soil crusts that
made us wonder how anything could grow in that soil. There were no
baby palms, and no obvious water, although the salty crust indicated
there is water at depth.
The mature palms looked
beautiful at 17 Palms, since many of them had their full skirts.
We counted 23 palms there.
Don's posts of the palms; a
"bottlecap top post"; and the "mail box", which
is apparently now a hike register:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146870846
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/bottlecap_post_17_palms_25.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/register_25.jpg
We later encountered a washed-down palm log in the
lower Arroyo Salado, that was almost surely washed down from 17
Palms, since only 17 Palms is in a tributary drainage of this
location. My post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146999925
The single palm at Una Palma was still dead.
Here
is my post from 2009 when this palm was alive, with a link to Fred
and Carl's obs in 2021 when it was dead:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146802306
My post from this trip, showing that palm is still dead:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146998916
Don took this pix of the salty area below Una Palma with
salt grass somehow able to grow there:
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/tom_distichlis_salty_soil_una_palma_35.jpg
We counted 4 live palms and one dead one at 5
Palms, with another dead palm a bit farther away.
My
post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146999665
One of the main objectives of this trip was to
check on the lone Asclepias albicans on our drive down the Arroyo
Salado. Sadly, that plant now appears to be dead. However, in
the desert, plants can appear to be dead and then resprout from their
roots, so I'm not counting it out for sure quite yet.
Don's
post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146868787
My post of this plant when I first saw it in December
2008:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146798216
On our drive to the Arroyo Salado, we also stopped
at the Henderson Canyon Road Geraea field, where we found a large
number of Geraea plants had been hit by frost. The remaining
Geraea plants still looked good, and all of the dune evening primrose
looked great. It will be interesting to see if the frost-hit
Geraea plants can recover and bloom again.
My pix showing
what it typically looks like now:
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/geraea_field_frostbit_09_30.jpg
Don's pix of the happiest plants in the field:
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/geraea_field_henderson_canyon_road_35.jpg
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/oenothera_deltoides_in_henderson_canyon_road_geraea_field_35.jpg
In the last pix above, you can see where I was standing
to take the bleak-looking pix.
We stopped at the
sandy area on S22 near Fonts Point Wash, and it still had some good
plants of Abronia in bloom. However, it looked like some of the
plants were no longer blooming, at least from a distance.
The
fields of Abronia at the corner of Di Giorgio Road and Henderson
Canyon Road still looked fabulous.
On our hike, we
checked a few Tidestromia plants for their stem buds at the base of
the plant, which is part of the key to separate our perennial T.
suffruticosa from the annual T. lanuginosa (ann vs per is the other
part of the key). We found no buds for the first young plant we
checked, but did find some young shoots on a somewhat-more mature
plant. Don's post:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146874784
Don and I posted 45 obs of 36 species at iNat from
this trip:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2023-01-18&place_id=95385&user_id=lagoondon,tchester
Almost all of these posts are from Don, 42 obs of 35
species; I posted just 3 obs of 1 species.
Details:
The Arctostaphylos glauca along SR76 near the San Luis
Rey picnic area on the south side of SR76 were now in full bloom.
The A. pungens on SR79 in the Lake Henshaw area near the SR76
junction has now started blooming.
As on the last
trip at Split Mountain, we met just one other person, a lady walking
back to her campsite after looking for birds.
The
temp was just 58 deg at the start and end of our hike, but the warm
desert sun, and lack of any breeze, made it feel surprisingly
comfortable. During the first part of our hike I even took off
my sweatshirts for a while.
It is a lot of fun to
do this hike in the Badlands, going from one wash to another.
Don's
pix of part of this trail-less journey:
Walking up the
small drainage from 17 Palms:
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/walking_up_wash_tom_35.jpg
This small drainage ends in a little bowl, where
you have to climb up to the top to cross over into a drainage going
the other way:
View southwest from the ridge at the
cross-over point:
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/view_from_saddle_35.jpg
After a few turns in the drainages, we hiked for a
while in this drainage heading southeast:
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/view_hiking_down_wash_35.jpg
We eventually cut out of this drainage to go
cross-country to Una Palma.
Near the end of the
day, we came across one area that was entirely barren of plants, but
which nicely framed the Santa Rosa Mountains. Don's pix:
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/barren_area_santa_rosa_mtn_view_35.jpg
Those barren areas had some neat concretions, such
as this "flying saucer" one. Don's pix:
http://tchester.org/temp/230118/rideout/flying_saucer_concretion_40.jpg
We got back to the car at almost exactly sunset,
glad that we now have 15 extra minutes of daylight compared to four
weeks ago.
List of plants in bloom:
#Pls
in bloom Name
99
Achyronychia cooperi
99 Chamaesyce polycarpa
99 Cryptantha angustifolia
99
Geraea canescens
99 Perityle emoryi
50
Palafoxia arida var. arida
25 Xylorhiza
orcuttii
20 Atriplex hymenelytra
20
Chylismia claviformis ssp. peirsonii
20
Cryptantha maritima
10 Abronia villosa
var. villosa
10 Brassica tournefortii
10
Eremothera boothii ssp. condensata
10
Plantago ovata
5 Encelia farinosa
5
Eriogonum thomasii
5 Larrea tridentata
3
Lycium brevipes var. brevipes
2
Ambrosia salsola var. salsola
2 Dalea mollis
2 Lupinus arizonicus
2
Monoptilon bellioides
2 Oligomeris linifolia
1 Ambrosia dumosa
1
Dalea mollissima
1 Eriogonum inflatum
1
Hilaria rigida
1 Psorothamnus emoryi
--
tom
chester
