Warriors gone wild at China Camp

Marauding bands of warriors are sweeping through the forests at China Camp State Park. Screaming red, arms raised high, and three inches tall. Indian warriors, one of my favorite wildflowers, have begun to bloom in vermillion carpets at this San Rafael parkland--and elsewhere throughout Marin. I saw uncountable "warriors" poking up when the trail looped through their favored habitat, underneath the smooth tan trunks and spreading branches of native madrone and smaller, rust-trunked manzanita, which has distinctive peeling bark. I came home to read more about Indian warriors, and was faced with the harsh reality that this personal favorite of mine is as welcome as a tick.

My grim discovery began with my seeing inordinate numbers of this wildflower always growing in the same place: under madrones and manzanitas. I got all excited when I discovered the Cal Academy of Sciences California Wildflower ID tool--you can just click on a button and it gives you a bunch of possible wildflowers--but alas I just ended up with the equivalent of "does not compute," even when I put in descriptors (frilly red flowers, dark feathery leaves), and the Latin name (Pedicularis densiflora). So I did a little more poking around and cobbled together the facts that those feathery flowers are really just leaves pumped full of red chlorophyll, and the plant grows where it does because it actually latches onto root systems of members of the heath family--you got it, manzanita and madrone--and takes what it wants. Kinda like sticking your straw in somebody else's milkshake. Or having him pay for gas and filling up your car. I still like the plant even if it doesn't sound socially respectable.

Spring Awakening

Living in a land of live oak and redwood, bay tree and Douglas fir, it's easy to think that Marin doesn't really shed many leaves. While it's true that a vast amount of our mountain (and meadow) greenery is evergreen (hangs onto needles and leaves throughout the year) versus deciduous (goes bald in the fall), we do have some pretty spectacular seasonal shedders. A stunning example grows right outside my front door. The crown you see here is of a tremendous heritage oak--a valley oak--that towers above my home in north San Rafael. It was here long before my house sprung up; it will (hopefully) be here long after--these magestic monsters, which can soar to nearly 100 feet and have branches as big as tree trunks, can live for six centuries. That means the acorns of "my" tree, a staggering number of nuts that clatter to the ground each fall, once fed Miwok Indians, and probably foraging grizzly bears, both long gone from this region. But the oak lives on. I give you a shot of its elegant crown right now--within a week or so it will be floating in a lime-green fuzz of new growth. A ancient and glorious harbinger of spring.