Wednesday, 25 March 2009:
My manager, Jaromir, was in town from Prague for a few weeks, and suggested that we do a team hike & lunch as a team-building exercise. It should surprise nobody that I eagerly agreed, and we decided to hike at Edgewood County Park, meeting there at 10:30am.
Woodland Star
We hit the trail at around 10:50 under sunny blue skies and temperate weather, perfect for an early spring hike!
Poison Oak
Edgewood has a good deal of Poison Oak, and I made sure folks who weren’t familiar with it could identify its leaves. Plenty of opportunities to get to know it presented themselves as we hiked out on the Sylvan Trail.
The early bloom was progressing, with Hound’s Tongue, Lupine, and Woodland Stars being the dominant blooms in this first, shaded, section of trail.
Lupine sp.
Pipestem Clematis
We emerged from the forest and found a bushy, flowery Pipestem Clematis (with Poison Oak peeking through its branches, naturally!), and the trailside was strewn with Blue-eyed Grass, one of my favorite native wildflowers.
Blue-eyed Grass
We continued climbing, bearing left on the Serpentine Trail, and views opened up of the SF bay below, and the green hills all around us.
Serpentine Trail
Despite being in the middle of a weekday, there were a fair number of runners and walkers, getting in their morning constitutionals.
Indian Warrior
In colorful patches under some oak trees and manzanita shrubs, spiky red Indian Warrior bloomed abundantly. I’d read that this plant is parasitic, and indeed it is – here’s what the Wikipedia article on Indian Warrior has to say about it:
This species is a facultative parasite, or hemiparasite, in that it can live without attaching to another plant but will parasitize if presented with the opportunity. It often parasitizes plants of the heath family, such as manzanita.
Creamcups
Up in the grasslands now, we saw scattered California Poppies, many Creamcups, patches of Goldenfields, and Blue-eyed Mary as we hiked around the west end of the park, and descended back toward the trailhead.
Erik, Jaromir, Ada & Emily
We finished at around 12:30, and enjoyed an excellent lunch at New Kapadokia in downtown Redwood City.
Needless to say, getting to hike with my co-workers during the workday was a real treat. Thanks to Jaromir for suggesting such a fun team outing! (I’m only partially saying that because he’s probably reading this 😉
Hike stats:
Distance: 3.6 miles
Moving time: 1hr 23min
Stopped time: 20min
Elevation gain: 551ft
Wildflowers seen:
– Aster sp.
– Blue-eyed Grass
– Blue-eyed Mary
– Bluedicks
– California Buttercup
– California Poppy
– Creamcups
– Dove’s-foot Geranium
– False Solomon’s Seal
– Fremont’s Death Camas
– Goldenfields
– Hound’s Tongue
– Indian Warrior
– Larkspur sp.
– Lupine sp.
– Mission Bells
– Owl Clover
– Pipestem Clematis
– Red Maids
– Scarlet Pimpernel
– Shooting Stars
– Sticky Monkeyflower
– Sun Cups
– Woodland Star
I can’t thank you enough for providing the name of “Indian Warrior” — I’ve been calling it Indian Paintbrush although I knew that probably wasn’t accurate…
This year there seems to be a real bumper-crop of Indian Warrior her in Marin County… There is a dense patch on the hillside near the pond (Lilly Lake) on the Fairfax-Bolinas Road, and I found another abundance at the Elliot Preserve in Cascade Canyon in back of Fairfax…
Interesting information from the Wikipedia link you gave:
“The buds of Indian warrior are sold as medicinal herbs and are smoked for their psychoactive effects. These effects include muscle relaxation, tranquilization, and sedation“.
Indian Paintbrush & Indian Warrior are related; both are in the Scrophulariacea (Figwort) family. Or I should say both _were_ in Scroph. — looking at the online Jepson manual, it appears that both of them have recently been moved to Orobanchaceae (Broom-rape).
Interesting that they’re abundant where you are – I haven’t seen any at all in my hikes in Marin this season (mostly around the MMWD lakes & Point Reyes, neither of which is really ideal habitat for them, as they prefer chaparral, especially Manzanita)
I noticed that note about the bulbs, hmmmm 🙂
Cool bit about the Indian’s Warrior. For a parasitic plant, it sure is beautiful.
Now who says parasites can’t also be pretty? 🙂
I’m surprised that the Indian Warrior is a parasite and a native… I never thought of the possibility that natives could be parasites.
Excellent team-building exercise, and wonderful opportunity to find and share some wildflowers with us. I really love the dreaminess of the Woodland Star pic.
Well, even leeches are native to somewhere!
Woodland Stars are dreamy flowers – I have more photos of them here: http://www.adampaul.com/gallery/Wildflowers/Saxifrage/Woodland%20Star/
We are so fortunate to have so many wonderful trails and parks/open space, etc. around us. And the weather and temps have been perfect for hiking. It’s great that you could have the opportunity to do a team hike. I love your flower photos, Adam. Any chance you can help me to identify a few flowering plants I saw yesterday on my hike in the Fremont Older OSP? BTW, thanks for verifying the western gull. I’m glad I’m not the only one who has a tough time distinguishing between a coopers and a sharpie. With the photo I had, one could not tell for sure since you could not see its tail.
You’re absolutely right – we’re fortunate indeed. So many areas with our population density lack the close proximity to open space.
Happy to help you ID your flowers if I can. Post ’em on your blog, or you can email them to me (web@adampaul.com).
Beautiful work Adam, I especially love the Blue-eyed Grass, great job !!
Thanks, Bernie – I was pretty happy with how the Blue-eyed Grass turned out since it was a hand-held grabshot 🙂