Coast Lily

Lilium maritimum, or coast lily, is not to be overlooked. It's a plant of wet wood openings with a fairly small flower that becomes even more interesting when looked at from below. Its leaves are palmate, smooth, and glossy. Like other members of Liliaceae family, its petals are in multiples of three (think of the trillium or Easter lilies as other examples) and it has parallel veins on its leaves.

Lilium maritimum, Salt Point SP, 2011.

The coast lily is considered a rare plant, reaching the California Native Plant Society's ranking of 1B.1. Part of this ranking comes from it being endemic to California -- it is found in California alone -- and partly from its habitat being threatened. I suspect most of its habitat has already been lost; thankfully, there are protected populations such as the one I saw at Salt Point.

Salt Point State Park is an amazing place to explore. See also previous posts. 

Salt Point Calochortus

This was one of the thousands, nay, millions of blooming native wildflowers at Salt Point State Park over Memorial Day weekend. The genus Calochortus boasts some of the most marvelously sculpted wonders of the California flora -- that I've seen, anyway.

Calochortus tolmei, Salt Point State Park, 2011.

This was one of eight or so plants "discovered," (i.e. first collected and described to Western civilization) and named after William Fraser Tolmie, a Scotland-born Canadian botanist, explorer, and translator of native American vocabulary. He had no sense of humor and was a devoted student of numerous topics; he is also remembered as an outstanding citizen. One of his twelve offspring became the Prime Minister of British Columbia.

The elevation range of this species has been narrowed down to between 164 and 6561 feet. This was growing 236 feet above sea level, so it certainly fits the bill. Actually I have no idea. I'm just kind of poking fun at such specific limitations. I'm guessing these are developed from GPS points submitted to Calflora.

Keep exploring!

Travel, pelican flight

This image has been in my head for the last week. I have been wanting to post it but haven't found the time to sit down, locate it on my hard drive, and write a short blurb about it to post  here. In the past week, I've taken a boat trip out to the Farallon Islands, flown to Albuquerque, taken a tram up Sandia Peak while there, and flown back to San Francisco. It's been a busy travel week! Best of all, I've gotten to share this with others close to me.

Brown pelican formation, Salt Point, 2011.

I photo'd these brown pelicans last spring as they patrolled the coastline at Salt Point State Park. They came over a crest where I sat, then swooped down to the water's surface, where they flew into the distance low over the water they way they do, taking advantage of the aerodynamics of flying low on the water. I marvel at how their wingtips miss the water's surface. 

The pelican is an amazing animal, but I'm not the first to recognize it (thanks for the poem, Dad):

THE PLIGHT OF THE PELICAN

Ogden Nash
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican;
He takes in his beak enough food for a week,
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

Special Edition: Baja #4 - Dinosaur Eggs

Aside from boasting some of the most diverse, accessible, and undeveloped reefs for snorkeling and diving in the hemisphere*, Cabo Pulmo hosts a very strange conglomeration of smooth granite boulders the size of, well, dinosaur eggs. 

Dinosaur eggs, Cabo Pulmo, 2012.

I have done some online research on the geology of the area and found nothing. So I'm forced to speculate on the matter. Looking at the surrounding geology, one can observe layers of sandstone and granite. Also in some of the sandstone is a formation found in other parts of the Pacific coast known as tafoni (see below), which I recognized from Salt Point in northern CA and even in the Presidio.

"The exact process of formation of tafoni is not entirely understood. The waves and salt spray leaves salt crystals on the sandstones. Salt and water interacting with the cement between the sand grains, and in minute fractures in the rock alternately hardens portions and loosens others, creating the lacy, box-like pattern." Dr. Sue Ellen Hirschfeld.

Tafoni/Dino Eggs, Cabo Pulmo, 2012.

I suspect the same process, expressed in a different way on this far-harder material, is occurring to give these boulders their shape. 

Shown below is a series of cairns that inspired visitors have created.

Dino egg cairns, Cabo Pulmo, 2012.

* By the way, this in itself is a great story, since the reef was closed to commercial fishing in 1995 and has since seen tremendous rebounds in marine life. Read more here... or translated here.