Published by Daniel Mosquin on April 2, 2020
For those who wander looking for wildflowers during California’s springtime, I suspect this tree will be immediately familiar. It is the valley oak or roble that grows near the main parking lot to the exceptional North Table Mountain Ecological Reserve, photographed seven years ago in early morning light.
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on March 16, 2020
Although there are a number of spring bulbs in bloom at the moment locally, today’s photograph features a summer-blooming geophyte. Leichtlin’s mariposa is native to California, Nevada, and Oregon, though it is by far more common in California than elsewhere.
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on July 29, 2019
Brewer spruce or weeping spruce is native to the montane and subalpine forests of the Klamath Mountains of southwest Oregon and northwest California.
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on February 27, 2019
Here is a memory from 2017’s bloom in the Californian desert within Joshua Tree National Park. I’ve heard this year is also turning out to be an exceptional one.
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on January 16, 2019
Calocedrus decurrens, or incense-cedar, has broad habitat requirements. Within its range from Oregon to Baja California, it is most often found in hot and dry sites with poor soils. However, the tallest individuals typically occur in “sunny, well-watered sites such as riparian areas in canyons or near subalpine lakeshores“.
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on September 6, 2018
Although first collected in 1894, Adiantum shastense wasn’t described as a distinct species until 2015. It is native to the “mesic forests of the Eastern Klamath Range, close to Shasta Lake, on limestone and metasedimentary substrates”, where a number of locally-endemic species have been recognized in the past few decades.
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on June 8, 2018
Frankenia is the sole genus within the Frankeniaceae, or the sea heath family. This flowering plant family has a distribution that covers warm, dry areas of most continents, though the majority of species are Australian. Typically, plants in this family are associated with soils that are either saline, calcareous, or gypsum-rich.
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