Oregon Flora

[Susan Band]

Hi,
Just found this really good website for anyone planning a trip to Oregon.
http://www.oregonflora.org/atlas.php

Susan

[Ed Alverson]

So Susan, are you planning a visit?

One of the great things about the Oregon Flora Atlas, in addition to being able to view and create distribution maps, is the ability to download data files (with location information, observation date, etc) that you can opened in a spread sheet. Also, many of the records are extracted from plant lists for individual localities, and it is possible to download the entire plant list for these sites.

There are some other sources of information that are also worth checking out, especially if you are an armchair botanist. All of the herbarium specimen data can also be accessed at http://www.pnwherbaria.org/data/search.php and can be downloaded in the form of a kml file that can be viewed in Google Earth.

I'll also recommend Gerry Carr's Oregon Flora Image project: http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/carr/ofp/ofp_index.htm which is full of sumptuous close-up photos. Tanya Harvey's "Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades" web site http://westerncascades.com/ has a blog plus lots of great photos and other info.

Ed



edit by maggi to correct URL typos

[Susan Band]

Hi Ed,
Not this year, but I am going to check how busy we are in May and maybe try and get out in 2014. This will be the first time I will have been anywhere in the spring but the bulbs should manage to grow themselves and the seed won't be ready to harvest.
Thanks for the extra links.  I have also found the www.calflora.org site good for searching out locations
Maybe we will see you there
Susan

[Tim Ingram]

Thanks Ed for Tanya Harvey's fascinating website - the other two wouldn't access from my computer. I have also found the calflora site a superb source of photos and information.

[Diane Whitehead]

Susan,  you don't have to wait until May, unless you can't get away earlier.

Higher areas are often still blocked by snow, but I've found plants in flower
in the Siskiyou valleys starting March 1, but that was before I had a digital camera,
so here are a few from mid-March - Erythronium citrinum and Trillium rivale.

[Ed Alverson]

Susan, Diane is correct, due to many species having fairly wide geographic and elevation ranges, many species can be found in bloom (somewhere) over a fairly long season.  For example, Trillium ovatum and Erythronium grandiflorum are both wide-ranging species that can be found in bloom somewhere in the Pacific Northwest any time from mid-March to mid-June. Also, some regions, such as SW Oregon or the Columbia River Gorge, have bloom seasons that start quite early.  So you will do just fine timing your visit either for the best time for you to be away from home, or to see species of particular interest that have a more limited flowering season.

On-line herbarium specimen databases can be really useful for trip planning because you can look at data for particular species of interest to see the dates they have been collected.  if you download data for a species of interest you can sort the data table by collection date to see when it has been collected in different regions or elevation zones.

Tim, you might just try a web search on the term "CPNWH database search" to get to the consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria, and "Oregon Flora Image Project" for Gerry Carr's photo web site (don't be fooled by the University of Hawaii web site, he is retired from U. of Hawaii). E-Flora BC is another good source of information for the province of British Columbia.

Ed

[Susan Band]

Thanks for your help Ed and Diane.
A spring holiday looks great, I will have 2013 to find out what are the best dates for us to travel. Usually we go Arizona, Nevada, Colorado etc. late autumn, it usually is starting to snow by the time we leave. Last year we were in New Mexico and Texas in December it even snowed in the desert when we were there!
Will be great to travel in the spring, we have never been to Northern California or Oregon before so getting to the coast and somewhere different from deserts will be good. Just have to save up.
Susan

[Jim Fisher]

Tim:
   In Ed's first two URLs, there's an errant comma ( , ) at the end of each.
If you click on the URL as is, you'll get the error message; then set your cursor
into the URL field of your browser, trim off the terminal comma, and then hit
enter/return again and you should get to the desired page.

Edit by maggi : Thanks Jim,  I have edited the URLs  in Ed's post to remove the typos.
All should work well now.
Thanks!

[Susan Band]

Thanks Jim,
They also look great sites. No problem finding out about the Oregon flora now
Susan

[Tim Ingram]

Many thanks Jim!

[Ed Alverson]

Thanks everybody, in my effort to use proper punctuation I added an extra comma to the links which rendered them unusable...

Actually, the best starting point for doing research on the flora of the Pacific Northwest in preparation for a visit is this link: http://www.pnwherbaria.org/resources.php which has direct links to many of the state/province-specific or taxon-specific web sites that are out there.

Another more localized reference, but particularly valuable, especially or early spring visitors, is Susan MacKinnon's book, "Flowers of the Table Rocks". This is an important protected  low elevation site in SW Oregon that has a wonderfully diverse flora.  Maggi, you may remember the cell phone call you received from Ian while we were hiking up the trail on Upper Table Rock in March 2009 - at the time we were surrounded by Erythronium hendersonii just starting to bloom. The link to more info on Susan's book is http://www.flowersofthetablerocks.com/index.html . The book is full of excellent photos.

Ed

[Lori S.]

For hard-copy plant guides (in case your iPad doesn't work in the alpine zone  ), a couple of books that might be useful are:

Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest, Mark Turner & Phyllis Gustafson; it's in softcover field guide format.

Wild flowers of the Pacific Northwest from Alaska to Northern California, Lewis J. Clark; a large hardcover book - this one might be best left in the car for reference after the hike!