Date: June 2, 2013
Weather: sunny, few light clouds
Temp: 70 F
Time: 3:30pm-5:30pm
Location: Discovery Park
This week we reflect on how things have changed at Discovery Park from Week 1 back at the beginning of April to now (other than the lighting and now perfect temperature). At our first spot, we encountered and identified many plants.
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| April |
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| June |
Our milk thistle thicket has grown much thicker and taller!
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| April |
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| June |
Our Alaskan Yellow Cedar is much the same (it is an evergreen, after all), with a few new developments:
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| Some of the older growth is dying to make way for the new |
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| Development of female cones! |
Next, our Red-Flowering Currant is now neither red nor flowering...
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| April |
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| June |
The little Sword Fern fronds have unfurled and a thicket has developed.
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| April |
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| June |
Our Oregon Grape is now past its prime.
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| June |
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| April |
Our
Galium aparine is flowering!
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| April |
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| June |
The English Holly has not seen much change, as an evergreen species, but the light green leaves indicate new growth
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| April |
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| June |
The Indian Plum that was flowering is now developing fruit. These fruits have been yellow and hard for weeks now that we've seen, and according to the book they are supposed to turn purple and, I assume, ripen as well. So I wonder if it is a slow-ripening fruit of some kind...
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| April |
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| June |
Probably the most marked change is in the Big Leaf Maple, that is now lush with giant leaves and fully developed fruit.
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| April |
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| June |
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| April |
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| June |
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| April |
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| June |
A clover path through the blackberry thickets has now become an uninviting mass of Himalayan Blackberry.
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| April |
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| June |
The young Lodgepole Pine has developed small female cones and males pollen structures
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| April |
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| June |
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| Male pollen structures |
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| Immature female cone |
The Western Red Cedar is, like the Yellow Cedar, experiencing some new growth (the lighter green tips) and developing female cones.
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| April |
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| June |
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| Female cones developing |
Our Lupines are late in their beautiful flowering phase and are now also fruiting.
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| April |
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| June |
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| A tell-tale sign that Lupines are in the Legume family! |
And lastly, and also predictably, our
Amanita (genus) mushroom has vanished. Mushrooms are usually quite ephemeral, so not much ever much phenotype change to observe!
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| April |
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| June |
It has been quite an eventful season, full of plants, birds, animals, fungi, and arthropods (oh my!). We will be writing one last blog as well as summarizing our species into a Walking Tour of Discovery Park, coming soon!
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