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Skunk Cabbage Meadow, San Jacinto Mountains | 
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Fig. 1. The "white dots" in boggy parts of Skunk Cabbage Meadow change with time.
On the left are pictures from 26 July 2011, showing the flowers of Epilobium oregonense. Hall commented in his 1902 flora that its flowers [are] rather conspicuous for so small a plant, ... [that is] only six inches high.
On the right are pictures from 30 August 2010, showing the flowers of Perideridia parishii. Hall left San Jacinto on 7 August 1901, so possibly never saw the "changing of the guard" in the meadows.
The pictures are not to the same scale; the Juncus macrandrus inflorescences and leaves in both top pictures can be used as a relative scale.
Click on the pictures to get larger versions.
Introduction
Analysis and Numerology of Taxa Found in Tahquitz Valley Meadows
Notes on Some Vouchered Species
Species To Be Looked For
Plant Checklist
Introduction
This page gives a plant checklist for Skunk Cabbage Meadow, and also includes species from the other named meadows in Tahquitz Valley. We include plants found in those meadows to give a more complete checklist of the meadows in Tahquitz Valley. This checklist can be used to note which species should be looked for in Skunk Cabbage Meadow, and the other meadows in Tahquitz Valley.
Note that the checklists for every one of these meadows is incomplete, due to insufficient surveys, and that there is considerable unevenness in the checklists for different meadows.
Skunk Cabbage Meadow has had the most survey work done for it. However, as detailed in Table 1, the total amount of survey time has been small, and most of those surveys were conducted late in the year.
Table 1. Survey Dates and Survey Times for Skunk Cabbage Meadow
| # | Date | # hours | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 June 2008 | 1.0 | Tom Chester, Dave Stith, James Dillane |
| 2 | 21 October 2009 | 1.0 | Tom Chester, Dave Stith |
| 3 | 25 October 2009 | 1.3 | Tom Chester, Dave Stith, William Schlegel |
| 4 | 23 July 2010 | 1.0 | Dave Stith |
| 5 | 30 August 2010 | 4.0 | Tom Chester, Dave Stith, Krista Adamek |
| 6 | 30 September 2011 | 0.6 | Tom Chester, Dave Stith, Keir Morse |
| 7 | 11 October 2011 | 4.2 | Tom Chester, Dave Stith, Erik Blume |
| All | 13.1 |
The checklist for Skunk Cabbage Meadow is also the most-narrowly defined, containing just those species found within Skunk Cabbage Meadow itself, or in the immediate vicinity of the edge of the meadow.
For example, species in the bracken forest along the Willow Creek Trail 0.08 miles (= 400 feet = 125 m) above the meadow proper (as shown on the topo map) are not included, nor are species found in Candy's Creek below the meadow proper. The area in Candy's Creek is clearly not part of the meadow, although it is nearby. However, it is less clear whether to consider the bracken forest above Skunk Cabbage Meadow as being part of the meadow or not.
Analysis and Numerology of Taxa Found in Tahquitz Valley Meadows
See Analysis and Numerology of Taxa Found in Tahquitz Valley Meadows.
Notes on Some Vouchered Species
- Spiranthes romanzoffiana, hooded ladies-tresses, has been collected at San Jacinto in four collection events: 2 August 1916; 5-6 September 1922; 6 September 1929; and 18 August 1937. One of these collections was from Skunk Cabbage Meadow; two were from Tahquitz Valley, and may have been from Skunk Cabbage Meadow; and one was from Round Valley at 9000 feet elevation.
One of those collections was determined as S. porrifolia, but until that voucher is determined by an expert, we are suspicious that this collection is a different species than the other vouchers. It seems extremely difficult to determine dried specimens of these orchids. The 1916 voucher of this species was originally determined as a separate genus, Habenaria leucostachys (the name Spiranthes romanzoffiana was published in 1828, so it was distinguished from Habenaria long before this voucher was collected and determined).
- Malaxis monophyllos ssp. brachypoda, adder's-mouth, was vouchered by Munz, #6366, on 5 September 1922, from Meadow north of Tahquitz Valley, 7300 feet. In Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, Vol. 22, Part I, p. 7, Munz stated that it was found growing on small hummocks in wet meadows on the south fork of the Santa Ana River in the San Bernardino Mountains, and in similar situations in Skunk-cabbage Meadow in Tahquitz Valley, San Jacinto Mts. (Munz 6366). (Skunk Cabbage Meadow is at 7900-7940 feet elevation; it is not unusual to find elevations this far off in vouchers.)
This species has never been vouchered by anyone else. Hall didn't find it in his surveys from 1896 to 1901; Hamilton didn't find it in his surveys for his 1983 Ph.D. thesis; and we haven't been able to find it either.
Tom checked the voucher at RSA on 7 September 2010, and it appears to be correctly identified, from the single leaf per plant (see photograph of entire voucher and one plant). In addition, the Second edition Jepson Manual author, Ron Coleman, annotated the voucher in 1992 as being correctly identified.
The voucher consists of six small plants, just 7-10 cm tall, and the label says Rare in wet meadow, growing on small elevation.
Since no one has seen these plants again, one has to wonder if Munz took all the plants, extirpating the species from San Jacinto Mountain. Collectors back then, and even some collectors today, probably all assumed that there were more species nearby that they didn't see, and had no qualms about taking every specimen they saw for a voucher. (Another voucher of Munz, for a different species, says only one plant seen, and there it was on his voucher sheet.)
However, that speculation might be incorrect. Hamilton (1983, p. 102) says
Tahquitz Valley and Little Tahquitz Valley are currently experiencing an accelerated period of erosion of the upper portions as a result of past, extensive grazing impacts. Records from the 1890s describe a much wetter condition of these meadows, and the presence of several species of plants which no longer exist. For example, one species, Malaxis brachypoda, a small orchid, has become extinct on the mountain as a result of the changes.
It is of course quite possible that Malaxis is still present in Skunk Cabbage Meadow, but that we, and others, just haven't been able to find it, either because it doesn't grow every year, or because it is difficult to spot such small plants growing amidst surrounding taller plants. After all, Hall didn't find it in 1901, and neither our speculation nor Hamilton's explanation can apply to Hall's non-observation.
- Aster occidentalis. There are five vouchers from three collection events of this species from San Jacinto Mountain, from Strawberry Valley and Skunk Cabbage Meadow.
In Tahquitz Valley, we have only seen this species in an area less than one square mile in extent, from Skunk Cabbage Meadow, Tahquitz Meadow, Candy's Creek, Reeds Meadow and a few plants in Tahquitz Creek below Reed's Meadow. For the most part, the plants fit the concept of A. occidentalis well. However, one set of plants appears intermediate between A. occidentalis and A. foliaceus, with four characteristics fitting A. occidentalis best and another four characteristics fitting A. foliaceus best. We use the term set of plants to mean all plants found in a small area that may be genetically identical, since these plants are clonal.
The last set of plants may be responsible for the single voucher of A. foliaceus from Tahquitz Valley. That specimen is apparently quite hard to determine since six different determinations applied to it over the years.
Aster species in general are very difficult to determine, and the plants from San Jacinto are especially so (see a specimen from Strawberry Valley that also has had six different determinations).
We'll write a separate page sometime on the very interesting history of the determination of these plants, which have been described as two separate species unique to southern California, and include detailed field work we've done in measuring a number of specimens. For now, we will treat the plants here as being a single species, and will call it Aster occidentalis. This may or may not turn out to be correct.
- Penstemon grinnellii. This is not a meadow species, and is not found around any of the other meadows. The single voucher of this species seems suspicious. It is a Munz voucher that has a weird collection number, very different from all the other ones on that date. It seems likely to us that it was collected from a different part of the mountain.
Species To Be Looked For
The most commonly found species in the other meadows, that have not yet been found by us at Skunk Cabbage Meadow, along with the species vouchered from Skunk Cabbage Meadow that we haven't seen, are given in Table 5. The first column gives the number of other meadows containing that species. The second column indicates whether it has been vouchered from Skunk Cabbage Meadow.
Table 5. Species To Be Looked For in Skunk Cabbage Meadow
| # Meadows | Vouchered in SCM | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Aquilegia formosa | |
| 3 | Prunus emarginata | |
| 3 | Sagina saginoides | |
| 3 | Salix lutea | |
| 2 | V | Helenium bigelovii |
| 1 | V | Epilobium densiflorum |
| 1 | V | Malaxis monophyllos ssp. brachypoda |
| 1 | V | Penstemon grinnellii var. grinnellii |
| 1 | V | Ranunculus alismifolius var. alismellus |
| 1 | V | Spiranthes romanzoffiana |
Plant Checklist
For the latest checklist that includes all the Tahquitz Valley Meadows, see Flora of the Meadows of Tahquitz Valley.
For a shorter print version that just includes the number of plants for Skunk Cabbage Meadow, see html (4 pages) or pdf Clickbook booklet (1 double-sided page). (See printing instructions for an explanation of these options).
We thank Krista Adamek, James Dillane, William Schlegel, Erik Blume and Keir Morse for their help with some of the surveys of Skunk Cabbage Meadow, as detailed in Table 1.