Ben Lomond sandhill parkland habitat
A couple of Sundays ago, I took a guided tour into a part of
Quail
Hollow Ranch County Park that is normally closed, because
there are a number of threatened or endangered plant species
there. (This is the same sort of tour as described in
this
1996 Sunset Magazine article ... it's kinda sad that it
took nine years for me to actually go on one.)
Pretty interesting tour; some unique plants there, including some of
Ben Lomond's rare low-elevation ecological island of Ponderosa Pines.
(Several of these grow on my property.)
Earlier this evening, I took a walk up the ridge behind my house. And I now recognize several of the little sand-habitat plants that our guide pointed out on that tour. Lots of sticky monkey-flower plants (the ones with the orange flowers), and there are a few Lewis' monkeyflower plants (larger, with light purple flowers). Actually, there are a lot more Lewis' ones than I remember seeing up there before -- I wonder if they respond more readily to wet winters than most of the other sandhill plants do.
(Handy bonus link: my other botany-related page is at the google-top for indurate peltate.)
8:46:15 PM
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