Pocket Botany: N - Moist Coastal Sage Scrub

Moist Coastal Sage Scrub

April 2014

It has been a while since I posted a Pocket Botany entry, but the botanizing with baby has been continuing.

Just this past weekend, we took some time to visit the coast near Half Moon Bay, California. While the baby slept, we found beautiful Trilliums, exquisite Columbines, some horsetails, and this simple yet sophisticated Mitrewort.

Also known as Fringecups, they bore three-foot flower spikes across from a running stream. Thank you, Mother Nature, for the rain! Aren't they fascinating and beautiful?

These Saxifrages, meaning "stone-breaker", are amongst our favorites and range as far south as Monterey, north to Alaska, and generally stick to areas in and between the coast and the fog belt.

By the time the baby had awakened from his nap to demand a trip to watch the trains arrive at the station, we even had time to photograph and record the range extension of one of the Trillium species. Alas, we will have to wait until next year to properly prepare a vivarium specimen.