Urban Outcast Music #46 -
Perennial Bloom by Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real. Willie Nelson's little boy is all grown up. July 7th: Jumping back in time a little bit for a quick trip out to the property to look for the critically endangered Wenatchee Mountains Checkermallow. The WA Department of Natural Resources has been conducting a survey of known Checkermallow haunts and they asked if they could visit previously known locations on my place. This is a perennial flower that is believed to number around 12,000 plants with the vast majority (11,000) living in the Camas Meadow Preserve and neighboring properties in the meadow. Wikipedia claims it to be the most endangered known plant in Washington. Even if it was a futile search, it sounded like a great opportunity to pepper a biologist with hours of questions as we wandered around the property.
We didn't have any luck on the locations marked for survey but ran into a bunch of other flowers along the way, the names of most were forgotten before I got home... However, I do remember we found some Wenatchee Larkspur which as the name suggests, also has a pretty limited home range and is considered threatened. It has a tall bloom like its neighbor, the Checkermallow, but its a very subtle flower, mostly green with just the tiniest hint of purple (above). The only other one that stuck was the Western or Wenatchee Mountain Black Eyed Susan (shown at the top of the post). The bees were huge fans even though the actual blooms are tiny specs on the black heads of the flowers, I count at least eight wild bees on the closest 10 blooms.
We finally found our target plant, all five of them, hiding in a little corner of my swamp. My guest was a good sport and didn't mind that our search pattern on the way back to the trucks was suspiciously close to a lot of game cameras. Right at the property line we got into a draw that was my prime hope for the flower when the DNR first reached out. It turned out to be a lucky guess and we found another 8-10 plants that had been logged right over the top of and were basking in the sudden access to sunlight. A perfect excuse for a walk in the woods and even better, the DNR just gives you a pat on the back for hosting endangered plants, I'm still allowed to visit!
And a couple critter pictures to reward those who read all the way through my first, and maybe only, post on flowers.
