Category Archives: wildflowers

Naming and claiming wildflowers.

June 18, 2015nature, wildflowersGretchenJoanna

California Coneflower Crane Flat Yosemite 7-09 — California Coneflower – Yosemite – 2009

If you’ve read my blog very much you know that I love to take pictures of wildflowers.

I also like to identify the flowers, so I know what to call them. I can’t enjoy them half as much if I don’t know their names or relations. If I know a flower’s name I feel more the reality that we are both creatures of our Father, and it is my own kin.

lupines varicolored Yos 6-10 89 — Lupines – Yosemite – 2010

shooting star East Sierra 7-11 — Shooting Star – Eastern Sierras – 2011

Plant identification was slow going until ten or so years ago. Our outings usually included a few children and a father who wanted to get to the mountaintop or some other destination. There never seemed to be time to stop and look through a wildflower guide to see if we could find a picture of what was before us next to the trail. That is, if we had even brought a guide.

If we even owned a guide. Several years of marriage and children passed before we invested in a wildflower guidebook. I hadn’t learned the names of these plants as a child, but when I married Mr. Glad he started teaching me the ones he knew, and that’s how my love of wildflowers began: Blue Dicks, Sticky Monkey, Tiger Lily, Lupine….those were my first flower friends.

I suppose it wasn’t until I had the tools for digital photography that I got inspired, surely by Pippin first, to take pictures of blooms and then go home to work further on the fascinating task of figuring out the name — if not of the exact species, at least the family or genus.

flax crp Smith Rock OR 6-10 — Flax – Oregon – 2010

My findings were often published on my blog. Then months or years would go by, and I would see the flower in the wild again, and not be able to retrieve its name from the corners of my brain — even if I had spent hours looking in multiple guides and on websites. So I would go back to my blog and try to find it there, if I had time for that job.

Sierra primrose - Yosemite summer 09 — Sierra Primrose – Yosemite – 2009

A few years ago I got the idea of sifting through all those picture files, to scroll through scores of pictures from every hike or trip and find flowers that I had photographed and managed to identify — then I would copy them all into a big Wildflower folder (still on the computer) so I could easily find them again when my ailing memory failed me.

For a couple of days last month when I was too weary and sad to do anything else, I worked on that project, and it didn’t take as long as I’d expected.

Many flowers remain unidentified, maybe more than I know the names of. I put some of them in the folder, too, with a “Q” in the file name, for Question. A question mark would be ideal but it’s not allowed in those file names. If the date and place the picture was taken are known, I add that information.

Tincture Plant – Collinsia Tinctoria -Feather Falls trail 7-11 — Tincture Plant – Feather Falls CA – 2011

Scarlet Gilia - close Yosemite summer 09 — Scarlet Gilia – Yosemite – 2009

I am sharing a few of the pictures I put into this new folder, not the recent ones, but specimens that haven’t been on my blog for several years. Some of these flowers I haven’t yet encountered again since I first made met them, but I hope there will be many more chances in my future.

dry but so alive

May 23, 2015nature, wildflowersbrodiaea elegans, California, hikes & walks, manzanita, Mariposa lily, poison oak, sticky monkey flowerGretchenJoanna

Annadel park 5-22-15

Thanks to the encouragement of my friend Eleanor, I went outside my usual walking realm this morning on a trail she suggested, and with her along to make sure I didn’t get lost.

fb sticky monkey flwr — sticky monkey flower

She and I had enjoyed walking together a couple of times, say, ten years ago? but then our lives got busy with expanding family. Now that I don’t have Mr. Glad for a walking companion, various friends with whom I’ve had ongoing and indefinite plans to walk or hike will find me easier to pin down to a date.

We went up into those hills from which streams run down – but we didn’t get near any wet areas this time. The hills had their typical summer parched look, but lots of wildflowers were scattered over the landscape, and the oaks and bay trees had green leaves. gl annadel lichen on branch 5-15

The poison oak was profuse. This picture shows the leaves with three leaflets of the toxic plant Toxicodendron diversilobum alongside some other oak sprout in the foreground, the “regular” oak having four leaves and a coarser form.

Poison oak is often, but not always, glossy, and it sometimes has these pretty colors, but the easiest way to identify it — except when is leafless in winter — is by the clusters of three oak leaves. gl sticky monkey rocks tree Annadel

So strange and dramatic to see a densely bright, perfect bloom rising above the pale and crispy grass. Even its name is a contrast to the setting. fb P1000179 I was shocked when the names of three flowers came to my mind right while I was looking at them! I guess after dozens of instances of entering the same data into my brain, a synapse is finally ignited? I only had to think for half a minute to remember Mariposa Lily and Elegant Brodiaea when we came upon them.

This is a park where I’ve hiked many times, but not much lately. Maybe now that I’ve been reintroduced to its system of trails I might return on my own.

But I’m afraid this may be the last I’ll see of the spring wildflowers.

Annie and I walk and shoot.

May 13, 2015family, nature, travel, wildflowersgrandchildren, Oregon, photographyGretchenJoanna

My granddaughter whom I call Annie had recently taken a photography class with a few other homeschooling girls. The first day of my visit with her family we would go to the exhibit and reception in the evening, but we had a whole day to do “whatever” before that, and in addition to sitting around chatting and eating some meals that her mother graciously prepared, we took several walks.

var lilac revert so OR 5-15

The first one suggested by Annie was to a nature trail on the other side of the small town they live in, and as the trailhead as it might be called was easily within walking distance, we set off on foot. It’s so scenic there in southern Oregon that we both found things to catch our attention within a block or two of their house.

For example, a lilac whose every petal is bi-colored, but seems to have reverted to all white on one branch. I looked it up online when I got home and think it might be called “Sensation.”

Yellow Rose close OR backyard — Rose in Annie’s back yard

The sun was high in the sky, as it was mid-morning, so Annie showed me how to adjust the exposure on my camera to compensate. We talked about how it often happens that we take a picture of a beautiful flower and then when we get it home and see the enlargement on our computer screen, there is an ugly insect or a chewed-off flower petal spoiling the perfection. Occasionally I have found the bug to be cute, but only if he hasn’t already defaced the blossom or leaf.

P1130437

The woodsy path was just shady enough to make our flower photography easy. We took care to avoid the poison oak just off to the side.

false Solomon's seal so OR 5-15 — false Solomon’s seal

Annie will turn thirteen this month, and she had embarked on a project to take several photos of flowers each day to fill up an album for her birthday month. Her skill at composing her pictures was admirable, developed over six weekly sessions of three hours each, covering the techniques of portraiture, landscape, photo-journalism, macro, and animals. You can learn a lot in 18 solid hours.

bleeding heart so OR trail — bleeding heart

Later in the day we took three more walks, twice to the library to return books, and once to the post office. How many people can live such a life? For years the family also walked to church every Sunday. I often think that this kind of town life conducive to and convenient for walking would be really nice when I get 15 or 20 years older; I will need the walking and will likely be a more dangerous driver than I am now.

The photography exhibit was enjoyable; the girls were all country-bred-sweet and I loved seeing their unique collections showing their skill and perspective on the world. I’m looking forward to more outings with Annie; it’s always great to explore with someone who thinks dawdling along the trail to frame pictures is the most normal thing.

Collis takes the bluebell.

April 20, 2015nature, quotes, wildflowersJohn Stewart Collis, perfectionGretchenJoanna

hyacinthoides-non-scripta “We call wild flowers common because of their quantity. But this is just where we strike the great difference between the productions of Nature and the productions of Man. When we produce many samples of the same thing they are of poor quality and we speak of them as mass-produced. The mass productions of Nature do not fail at all in terms of quality. Take the bluebell. There indeed is quantity. Yet every single year we are freshly struck by their quality. Only a flower-snob could fail to see that any one of these bells on the uplifted belfry is as delicate a construction as any tulip or any rose. I will not say more beautiful, or less, for in this realm of flowers we actually are in the presence of abundant examples of — perfection. I think that perfection is the key to the emotion that flowers cause in us. When a thing is perfect the problem of its existence is solved. Gazing at flowers in a wood an unexpected signal seems to go up; we feel a movement of happiness and hope about everything, there is a suggestion that all is really well, all is right with the world….”