Marys River Park in Philomath
Don Boucher
On Sunday, May 5, I led two groups of wildflower lovers on a short tour of Marys River Park in Philomath. We compared both species of camas and I showed everyone a chart of the key identification features. If you want a copy of the sheet, it’s on our home page: http://neighborhood-naturalist.com, at least for a while, or download direct link.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cyz4P_qS1hlZZ3tI1viTOI9RTQpNmtfh/view
This camas chart is an excerpt from a camas article in our 2011 newsletter: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-2CKm01fUqVM21NM0pLeDdXa00/view?resourcekey=0-n6HwLseSi3PBFWIvFEI_RQ
There were a few white camas blossoms and I made sure to point out they are simply a color variant and there may otherwise be nothing significant about it. I also want to counter the misconception that white camas are Death Camas. There were no Death Camas there today and maybe none at the park at all. Death Camas is in a different family and flower plumes look very different https://oregonflora.org/taxa/index.php?taxon=8839 . I think Death Camas is a lovely plant.
I’m impressed by the large population of Dwarf owl Clover in the park in the mowed lawn areas. It’s not a clover, like the Trifolium genus, but in the Orobanchaceae family with paintbrushes and broomrapes. Like others in its family it is a facultative hemiparasite on other plants, attaching to the roots via haustoria to tap nutrients and water. Dwarf Owl Clover is red, very tiny and you need a magnifying glass to see the blossoms.
Species pictured here:
Great Camas - Camassia leichtlinii
Small Camas - Camassia quamash
Common Cornsalad - Valerianella locusta (non-native)
Dwarf Owl-clover - Triphysaria pusilla
Hooker's Fairybell - Prosartes hookeri
Large Solomon's Seal - Maianthemum racemosum
Pacific Bleedingheart - Dicentra formosa
Plantain-leaved Buttercup - Ranunculus alismifolius
Sessile Trillium - Trillium albidum
Star-flowered Solomon's Seal - Maiathemum stellatum
Straightbeak Buttercup - Ranunculus orthorhynchus
Tall larkspur - Delphinium trolliifolium
We looked at other species too, not pictured:
Cow Parsnip - Heracleum maximum
Coastal Manroot (Wild Cucumber) – Marah oregana
Red Elderberry – Sambucus racemosa
Red Osier Dogwood – Cornus sericea
Pacific Ninebark - Physocarpus capitatus
Bigleaf Maple – Acer macrophyllum
Hedgenettle – Stachys sp. (not sure, it wasn’t blooming)
Thimbleberry - Rubus parviflorus
Pacific Poison Oak - Toxicodendron diversilobum
Oregon Ash - Fraxinus latifolia
Oregon White Oak - Quercus garryanna
The park is not a pristine native landscape and there's a mixture of weeds and non-native, planted trees and shrubs.Such as: Red Dead Nettle - Lamium purpureum
-Don Boucher
