Rancho Sierra Vista
- Poison Oak
- Morning Glory
- California Poppy
- Bolus
- Wild Cucumber(ID by Petra)
- Coast Live Oak
- Western Scrub-Jay (ID allaboutbirds.com)
- Sycamore (ID by Petra)
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| Poison Oak |
One of the first things we encountered on our adventure was a creek bed overgrown with various flora, one such species that I was sure to point out to my companions was a small bush of Poison Oak tucked innocuously in among several Coast Live Oak tree stumps. We noticed that the Oak trees appeared to be in bloom, with small tufts of long brownish tassels hanging from the branches with flowers so tiny they hardly looked like flowers at all.
The large quantity of flowers on the trees most likely increase the chance of fertilization and then acorn production, leading to a higher chance of a sapling growing after the acorns have been distributed.
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Coast Live Oak with
new, old, and dead leaves
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One of the next things we encountered on our journey was a large grassy field, filled with grasses, flowers, bugs, and birdsong. A particularly persistent Blue Jay was constantly doing rounds of the meadow, making sure to keep a sharp eye on us, and catching the abundant insects who were buzzing just above the long grass.
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Western Scrub-Jay
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| Small purple, pink, and white flowers |
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Small brown beeetle
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In addition to the Jay the meadow contained small purple, pink, and white flowers and crawling on the long grass were various beetles, the most abundant being ladybugs and brown beetles the size of my finger nails.
There were small pockets of California Poppies close to the trail, the vast majority without flowers, further up the trail however the Poppy in full bloom could be observed in abundance. The broad flat branching leaves grow close to the ground and outward, this allows the poppy to gather as much sunlight as possible while preventing any nearby competition from getting enough sun to grow enough to endanger the Poppy plant's sunning habits.
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California Poppy
(Normal top, in bloom bottom) |
Under a Coast Live Oak We found a small bolus, about the size of a golf ball, sitting in the leaf litter that Dr. Karsten has explained to us is a wasps nest of sorts. The Cast Live Oak and the wasp have evolved next to each other to form this symbiotic relationship, with the tree creating a bolus to keep the small parasitic grubs away from the main body of the tree, and the grubs eating the spongy foam that the bolus is made of until it is ready to metamorphose into a wasp and join the rest of the hive. Another bolus was found on the tree, except this one was much larger (about the size of a small bowl) and still attached to the tree, although by the holes present it is obvious that the young wasps had left.
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| Various Boluses |
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| The Morning Glory's Hostile Takeover |
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Morning Glories
(vine top, in bloom bottom) |
A shared trait between the Morning Glory vines and the Wild Cucumber is the tight corkscrewing tendrils. These tendrils wrap tightly to whatever structure is closest to them at the time of growth and are incredibly difficult to remove from whatever the vine has attached to. This tight corkscrewing tendril appears to be used to help the vine get optimum sun. The vine is able to "climb" up whatever higher structure is nearby, be it a fence or a bush, the tendrils make sure the vine is not knocked down when the first gust of wind blows by. By "climbing", the vine can get higher than the surrounding plants and drown them in the shade. This includes any unfortunate bush they happen to be attached to which results in the death of the host due to lack of sunlight.
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| Previously Unidentified Vine from Charmlee |
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Wild Cucumber
(ID : Petra) |
In addition to identifying the Wild cucumber Petra kindly pointed out a large Sycamore tree that was growing alongside the trail. If she had not pointed it out I most likely would have walked right by without a second glance and would have never noticed the interesting looking seed puffballs that a Sycamore has. Looking at how the balls were arranged reminded me of a hydrocarbon chain, I wonder if there is a certain stability associated with that particular arrangement?
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The fuzzy leaves of a Sycamore
and its fluffy seed-balls
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Throughout the entirety of our adventure we were surrounded my multiple facets of life, however it is probably the one spot of death that I found most fascinating, for atop the burned out branches of a bush were the climbing vines of the Morning Glory and beneath it lay several dark slate gray lizards all puffed up doing push-ups and chasing one another over and under the blackened twigs in what I assume is a dominance display to fight for the best patch of dirt under the burnt out bush.
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| The only spot of Death |
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| Fierce Lizard Doing Push-ups |
I really enjoyed your thoroughness in identifying the different species seen on the trip. It gave the entire post a very "scientific" feel, and greatly contributed to the reader's mental picture of what you saw on the trip. The abundance of pictures of each species also aided in providing some insight to the species you encountered. Overall, I'd say your post's strongest aspect is its command of knowledge of area species. If nothing else, I learned a lot just from this component of the post. It inspired me to do some more work on expanding my own knowledge so that I can do some similar caliber of work regarding identification on my next trip.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the level of detail you put into describing the relationships of all these creatures was impressive. The way you described the puffballs of the Sycamore tree as being similar to a hydrocarbon chain brought into play an interesting take on analyzing large and small-scale phenomena in context of each other. Your knowledge of these more specific components of species behavior and chemical/biological makeup contributed greatly to this component of the assignment. Just the hydrocarbon chain portion, for example, was a great use of metaphor. I think I would like my own posts to be more scientifically informed in the future.
I think that, writing-wise, your post may have benefited from a bit more personal reflection on what was happening. While you do a great job at detailing what is going on in nature, maybe you could have done more to reflect on how these smaller incidents connected to the larger-scale trends and ideas discussed in class. Content-wise, my advice would be similar. I think making connections and using quotes from readings we have used in class would have also been beneficial here. My suggestion for the future would be to incorporate connections and quotes from class readings, and then providing some personal reflection to synthesize these more philosophical points with the more tangible nature of observations from your trip.
Overall, though, this was an interestingly scientific take on the assignment! Way to go.
This was an excellent blog Makena! It was very enjoyable to read the mixture of classification of the various specimens you observed and the narrative of the adventure as well. An observation that I thought was very intriguing was the tight corkscrewing tendrils of the Morning Glory vines and the Wild Cucumber. I thought it was very fascinating how difficult it is to remove this vines because of how tight they wrap around a plant. Also, I had no clue that the vines actually kill the host plant because they keep it from receiving any sunlight.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your use of pictures throughout the blog. It is very nice as a reader to have visual representations to back what we are reading. A prime example of this for me was when you described the small bolus under the Coast Live Oak. I would have no idea what to picture a bolus like in my head just from reading, but because of the pictures below that passage, I was able to identify with your blog much greater. I also liked how you used analogies in describing relationships between flora or fauna.
One thing in my view you could have added to better develop your post was incorporate some of the readings from class. When describing a relationship or a phenomenon in nature that you observed, try and relate it to a quote that a naturalist that was going through a similar situation to you said. Adding a quote from a natural scientist or anyone we have read in class will better develop your blog and give it a more academic feel. Overall though great job, it was very well done!
-Austin Cole