Oregon in March

[Diane Whitehead]

Further up Waters Creek Road, on a dry hillside, Arctostaphylos
(patula, I think) was blooming, and Lomatium howellii.

[Diane Whitehead]

A bit further down Highway 199, and along the Illinois River Road.

As we drove by a hillside covered in the bare branches of shrubs
a flash of gentian blue caught my eye.  It was the same intense
colour that I had seen in South Africa on Anchusa capensis, but I had
never seen it here before. It was Cynoglossum grande, a very
handsome plant with good red-tinged leaves.  Too big for the rock
garden, but I've got to grow it, maybe under my apple trees.

Then some white - I think a Thlaspi, and Sedum obtusatum on a
rockface. 

I walked back to the car and suddenly noticed Trillium
rivale under all the bushes on the slope above where we had
parked.  How could I have gone chasing a little white flower and
completely missed all the Trillliums?  It was interesting to see how
they were sheltered under deciduous shrubs, as it gets very hot and
dry here in the summer.

Perhaps a hundred metres away there was a slope covered in
Dodecatheon hendersonii.  (Most of us here are ignoring the change
to Primula).

[Diane Whitehead]

We had been enjoying warm weather but a storm was due later
in the day, a cold front from the Aleutian Islands, and a rock slide
further along the highway had cut off the way to the coast, so we
headed north up the I-5 towards home.  There were a few  snow showers
on the way, and it was interesting to see how sporadic the snow was -
some hills were completely snow-covered, but the ones on either
side would still be dark green.

As we drove north, there were trees in flower - pussy willows, plums -
but these trees are decorated with thick lichens.

[Lori S.]

"Nice leaves" might be Hydrophyllum spp., perhaps H. macrophyllum? (From Reply #14 on: March 13, 2010, 06:31:09 PM page1 )

http://www.earlham.edu/~biol/brents/field_botany/Test/hydrophyllum_macro1.jpg

[TheOnionMan]

Thanks Diane for this series.  It reminds me of the days when I would just venture down from the Seattle area and drive to northern parts of Oregon, or the several trips I would take to visit my friends at Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery in Medford, OR.

The Arctostaphylos_patula2.jpg show a particularly striking plant, with those rounded nearly blue leaves setting off pink flowers, striking.

[Lesley Cox]

Great to see gardens in this area which I know to be very plant/gardener rich but haven't seen many pictures from (haven't belonged to NARGS for many years). I think the bun in the first set may be Dianthus erinaceus, the true plant. Looks like Kathy suffers from the same problem I do, burning on the sunny side?

I like the mat very much. Wonder what it is?

[Afloden]

The "nice leaves" from Reply #14 on: March 13, 2010, 06:31:09 PM page 1, is a Hydrophyllum spp. Likely H. fendleri or occidentale. The eastern North American H. virginianum is just as beautiful, but can and will take over the garden. Fortunately it is wintergreen and dormant May-September.

 Aaron Floden

[Maggi Young]

On page 1, Reply #7 on: March 13, 2010, is the Purshia really P. tridentata?  The leaves look too long and narrow, isn't tridentata more of a club shape with the three indents at the tips?

[fredg]

Diane, I take it you were nowhere near the stands of my favourite Oregon native.
It has an interesting leaf.

[Maggi Young]

Funnily enough, in his blog, John Grimshaw, one of the Speakers at the NARGS event, has pictured some of the same plants that Diane spotted!
http://johngrimshawsgardendiary.blogspot.com/2010/03/spring-in-siskiyous.html

[fredg]

 He got a stand of Darlingtonia too

[cohan]

lots of great plants in the area--i agree about the cyno, but i like everything from the thlaspi to viola--i'm jealous of 8 species of yellow viola!..--although we have a high density of violas here, no yellows in my area..

[Diane Whitehead]

Yes, Maggi, those Purshia leaves are anything but tridentate.

  P. tridentata covers 340 million acres and varies a lot, besides
hybridizing with P. mexicana which used to be called Cowania. 
However, mexicana's leaves are also indented.

I wonder what it is.

[Maggi Young]

I have no idea, Diane.... but I like it!

[fredg]

Diane, I take it you were nowhere near the stands of my favourite Oregon native.
It has an interesting leaf.

I'll assume that it's a no then