2015 - Robert's adventures in the Northern Sierra Nevada - California

[Robert]

Another inspirational instalment, Robert. Thank you. I enjoy your mix of unfamiliar plants, beautiful landscapes and historical/cultural information. Reading your adventures makes me want to return to northern California and spend some time botanising.

Matt,

Thank you so much.

I can understand your desire to return to Northern California. Northernwestern California has a tremendous variation in plant habitats as well as a large diversity of plants often very well suited for your climatic conditions. And California is very beautiful!

California is a large state and other areas in the state have much to offer in the way of interesting plants as well as natural beauty. Many years ago, Wayne Roderick encouraged me to also consider exploring for plants south of the very popular Northwestern part of the state. I was "missing out" on way too much. Over the years I have found his advice to be invaluable. There are many other hot spots for interesting and diverse plants in California.

If life sends you back to California, I am sure you will enjoy your visit where ever you travel.

[Robert]

Trond,

I am more than happy to answer your questions.

Robert,

Once more a very engaging trip! You are dissatisfied with 52 species found but how do you count? I mean, do you just count different native plants on that particular trip or all kind of plants?

I only count the native plants. The one exception is Poison Oak. It might be native, however I never count it. I "get" poison oak, maybe that is way I do not count it.

What kind of animals grazed here before cattle? I have read that the landscape was open and dotted by oak trees when the settlers arrived, but without grazing I would assume that it was all forested with dense woods.

Before the non native peoples arrived California had herds of Elk, Antelope, and Deer.

The Native Americans used fire in their stewardship of the land before settlers arrived, thus there was Savanna as well as dense woods.

And how have the exotics established there? Are they brought in deliberately to "improve " the food for the cattle? I don't think the soil has been plowed in these places.

Most of the non native species were not brought deliberately. Some of the most aggressive plants were brought by the Spanish. Over grazing destroyed the native perennial bunch grass communities and the Asian grasses easily took over. In the Central Valley agriculture destroyed most of the plant communities.

I am not astonished that the construction site recover better than the grassland as the exotic plants are (mostly I assume) specialists on open meadows with good soil rather than on the meagre rocky habitats.

Yes, I am sure that you are correct!

The native wildflowers, where they annuals or perennials?

Both. There were many bulbs too.

Do you have a map or do you memorize all the routs you take (and plan)?

I have lived here my whole life and have been out in nature since I was very young. Memory is good enough for me even when traveling far off any established trail.

I have read that acorns were an important resource in the stone age in Europe (including Norway) and that the word "acorn" and "acre" (åker in Norw) are related.

Have you tried different kind of acorns?

My wife and I have tried different acorn. The California Natives prized California Black Oak (Quercus kelloggii) and we have found that this is the best too. Some guarded prized trees as though they were personal possessions and fought to keep these trees in their families possession too. The Natives had their troubles before anyone else showed up.

[Hoy]

Thank you Robert, most interesting!

I thought of deliberate fire to control grassland as this has been done many places. When I was visiting Venezuela our guide told us and we saw for ourselves that they still used to set fire to the grass on the Grand Savannah to keep the woods at bay. This should both increase the populations of big game and birds and reduce the insects. Unfortunately some valuable woods (species rich) were destroyed not many years ago.

Here at the coast fire was used up to about 50 years ago to remove shrubs (like junipers) and saplings from the heathland. The common heather (Calluna vulgaris) is a valuable fodder plant when young and it can be grazed all winter. Livestock was kept outside as long as possible to reduce the amount of stored winter fodder. The heathland was burnt every 20 - 25th year. The Norw. name of the plant "røsslyng" actually means "horse ling" (heath).

Due to this burning the west coast of Norway (and Europe) was kept as an open heathland from the stone ago until recently. I have lived here for 30 years now and in my time the open landscape has been covered by trees (birch, pine, spruce, fir, hemlock, sycamore maple etc - many of them are foreign and planted).

[Robert]

Trond,

I have to admit I had never thought of fire as part of the ecosystem, human or otherwise, in Norway. I learn something new every day. Thank you for sharing the information.

Livestock grazing still has a strong impact on our native flora. Generally all of the young seedlings of trees and shrubs are destroyed by the various types of livestock, mostly cattle in this area. There can be many large, old native trees in the landscape, and this looks quite nice, however with closer examination one notices that there are no younger seedling trees or shrub. They do want to grow as there are plenty growing between the fence line and the spray zone of the paved roads. This is very sad, as at the lower elevations, this is often the only place I find many of our native plants.



Someday I will be able to purchase some improved camera equipment. The Red Maids (Calandrinia ciliata var. menziesii) have started blooming now. It is a tiny annual that is very nice growing here and there in the rock garden. At the best, my ancient camera makes a semi-blur of this sweet little native annual. I saw these the other day on my outing and they also grow down the road from the farm on the serpentine rock foundation, otherwise they get buried by the Asian grasses.

[Yann]

Thanks for your reply Robert, yes my small garden is a bit my heaven area. I also travel a lot because life is short and there're so many lands to visit on this wonderful planet.... I should add Sierra Nevada in my roads book.

[Tim Ingram]

Walnuts are probably a bit more tasty than acorns and there is a very informative chapter in Roger Deakin's book 'Wildwood - A Journey Through Trees' on how they are harvested in Kyrgyzstan. He speaks of families collecting between one and two tons (even up to five tons in a good year!) of nuts, and how increasing population is putting pressure on the stands of trees. A farm down the road from us has a fine avenue of walnuts, but quite a few had to be replanted after the infamous gale of 1987. Squirrel sown seedlings pop up around and about regularly! I've also been reading Oliver Rackham's masterpiece, 'Woodlands', which looks in detail at the history of woodlands in the UK - how they have been used, developed, lost and regained - over millenia. He punctures a lot of misconceptions about the age and structure of woodlands which are obviously quite important in considering how they might be managed and retained in the future. Fortunately fire is not a factor in our environment as it is in California, Australia and the Med., except sometimes deliberately for heathlands, as Trond says.

[Robert]

Thanks for your reply Robert, yes my small garden is a bit my heaven area. I also travel a lot because life is short and there're so many lands to visit on this wonderful planet.... I should add Sierra Nevada in my roads book.

Yann,

I agree with you that life is too short and there is much to see. In the future, if you decide to visit California feel free to contact me as I may be able to help you see sites that you would like to visit. .......unless you are interested in Urban California, in which case I will be of no help at at. I'm most likely to say "Avoid such places", which is not much help if you are interested in Los Angeles, or San Francisco, etc.

Yes, I bet you garden is a bit of heaven on earth! May your gardening season go well this year.

[Robert]

Walnuts are probably a bit more tasty than acorns and there is a very informative chapter in Roger Deakin's book 'Wildwood - A Journey Through Trees' on how they are harvested in Kyrgyzstan. He speaks of families collecting between one and two tons (even up to five tons in a good year!) of nuts, and how increasing population is putting pressure on the stands of trees. A farm down the road from us has a fine avenue of walnuts, but quite a few had to be replanted after the infamous gale of 1987. Squirrel sown seedlings pop up around and about regularly! I've also been reading Oliver Rackham's masterpiece, 'Woodlands', which looks in detail at the history of woodlands in the UK - how they have been used, developed, lost and regained - over millenia. He punctures a lot of misconceptions about the age and structure of woodlands which are obviously quite important in considering how they might be managed and retained in the future. Fortunately fire is not a factor in our environment as it is in California, Australia and the Med., except sometimes deliberately for heathlands, as Trond says.

Tim,

I have read some interesting books on traditional agriculture in the "stans". Climate change is also impacting traditional agriculture in this region. Mulberry is an important crop in parts of this region and there have been difficulties related to climate change.

Fire is very healthy for our part of California - if manage correctly. Unfortunately this knowledge has been, sort of, lost with the genocide of Native Californians.  Back in June of 2014, I was fortunate have some of the stories relating to fire management passed on to me by some of my Native American friends. We have a long way to go, here in California, to get the land back in balance again.

[Hoy]

Tim,

walnuts are interesting. I visited Morocco and the Atlas mountains some years ago. There Berbers grow and harvest walnuts rather high up in the valleys. Walnuts were an important crop some places. I was there in the middle of May, unfortunately the flowers had just frozen so the harvest would be damaged.
A family I met still had some from last year and I got two nuts which subsequently germinated at home. Both have survived outside till now.

Wildfire has in fact been an important factor in the eastern parts of Norway, especially on the dry pine ridges. About once every 100 - 200 year the vegetation on the ridges burnt. Pines are best adapted to survive and also start anew from seed blown in from other places. The deep moist valleys and canyons were spared.

It is a lot of pine forests where we have our mountain cabin. We can still find old pines with fire damage to the trunk. It looks like this:



Taken from this site: http://www.edderkopper.net/Forum/smf_1-1-11_install/index.php?topic=3937.0

[Hoy]

By the way, is it an English/American word for this kind of damage? In Norw. it is called a "brannlyre".

[Robert]

Time to correct a goof from this weeks posting.



I was not paying attention. The thread-like leaves are those of Lomatium marginatum. I had posted this species earlier as L. utriculatum. Sorry for the mistake.



I forgot to add Telegraph Weed (Heterotheca grandiflora) to this weeks posting.



In the disturbed area near the dam sight there were a few plants in bloom. This native can be annual or perennial. It is generally found in disturbed areas such as road cuts, railroad right of ways, etc. Many of the plants were stunted in this area, in better ground the species can get much taller.

[Hoy]

Either name - the Lomatium looks good.

The dwarf Telegraph Weed looks OK also but I googled it and the more well grown ones seems to be a bit too big for all but a king size garden!

[Robert]

Trond,

I agree, Heterotheca grandiflora might be best for a wild garden - very wild. As we would say around here, "It belongs out on the back 40".

Most Lomatiums are very lovely plants. Some can get large, however I would not mind including them in the garden. Some are very xeric - summer dormant too.

[Robert]

Greetings,

I had to take my 91 year old father to the ER yesterday, so there will be no outing this week. Hopefully I will be back out soon.

[Robert]

I finally had a chance to get out for a short time the last two days. Yesterday, Sunday the 15th, I drove to the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada, to the 4,500 foot (1,372 meter) to 5,500 foot elevations (1,676 meter). Generally there is between 2-4 feet (.6-1.2 meters) of snow on the ground at this time of year. I found only a trace at the highest point. The temperature was running about 65 F (18 C). This is record heat for this time of year at this elevation - and well above the old record high temperatures. I did not have my camera. It was all driving with no time to get out of the auto, so there are no photographs.

Here at the farm we have been having record breaking heat too. The high temperatures have been running about 75 F (24 C) during the day and 40 F ( 4.5 C) for the low at night. Many of our native plants are 4-6 week advanced in their growth for this time of year. In addition, the 4 inches (101.5 mm) of rainfall a few weeks ago did little to relieve the serious drought conditions. I will have much to do when I can get out in the field again, hopefully soon.

Here at the farm the Dodecatheon hendersonii are starting to bloom.



Despite the dry conditions they are doing well.



Many other plants are now coming into bloom. The flower buds are already out on some of the Erythroniums - the rodents did not find them! When they go dormant they will get wire mess, if they make it that long.

Again, hopefully I will be out soon.