Jepson Prairie

Jepson Prairie Preserve is a unique ecosystem on the western edge of the Sacramento Valley, managed by Solano Land Trust. It features claypan vernal pools and the associated plants and aquatic life that have evolved to survive in that ecosystem. Vernal pools form from rainwater but dry up in the Central Valley hot dry summer.

I like to visit Jepson Prairie once each year during the wildflower season, but it is worth more than one visit. I visited a couple of weeks ago when there was a docent-led tour and enjoyed it immensely. It was an informal tour but great fun to have an expert there to identify plants and relate more info.

When you see masses of flowers like these Goldfields it is stunning, but when you look more closely you see so much more.

Sometimes that means getting on hands and knees. It was fun to walk around with people who were interested enough to look closely like this.

White hyacinth.

Baker’s Navarretia.

Vernal Pool Popcornflower, endemic to California vernal pools. Flowers are only 1/4” across.

This flower is only showy when it is in fruit. What looks like white petals are the pappus at the top of each seed. The green objects in the lower right corner are Blow Wives flowers—the small yellow flowers are inside the green part.

There are several species of Downingia at Jepson Prairie and it sometimes takes close observation to tell them apart. Cupped Downingia has long anthers and the bees that pollinate the flowers have to hang upside down to gather pollen.

Vernal Pool Goldfields.

You can see Popcorn Flower and Navarretia here, but do you notice that round pale green plant? Those are flowers called Woolly Marbles. I read that later the leaves fully enclose the flower and it really does resemble a woolly marble.

Another Downingia flower that looks a lot like Cupped Downingia, but is a paler flower

Yellow Mariposa Lily (Calochortus luteus).

Downingia, Goldfields, Navarretia, and Brass Buttons.

At the time of this visit many flowers had dried out, but the goldfields were still striking. As the water in the lake evaporates, different flowers bloom.

Jepson Prairie is home to more than pretty flowers. At the start of the tour one of the docent volunteers shared creatures he had dipped from Olcott Lake (to be put back after the tour). This is the immature California Tiger Salamander. These salamanders spend most of the year underground in rodent burrows.

I enjoyed my time here so much that I went back on the next Sunday (a week ago). Stay tuned for more photos.

More Wildflowers at Table Mountain

About a week ago I shared photos from our first visit to North Table Mountain Ecological Reserve. We returned earlier this week and explored part of the Reserve that we had not seen last time.

This view isn’t far from the parking lot. We followed the trail that heads to South Mesa.

That trail heads through more of the oak woodland before breaking out onto the mesa.

On the mesa we had a view of the Sacramento Valley and the Sutter Buttes. We wanted to follow the trail marked on our map as the Many Waterfalls loop, but maybe the key word in the description of this route was “cross-country”. There doesn’t seem to be a very defined trail that isn’t just another cow trail. But we knew we wanted to head to the rim of the mesa and follow that rim to see the marked waterfalls.

We saw expanses of yellow on the mesa.

This flower is Dwarf Stonecrop.

It is a relatively small flower but en masse it is quite impressive. It is the dominant species in the bright yellow strips. Goldfields makes up the more orange parts.

Goldfields interspersed with Tidy Tips and lupines.

This is the Tidy Tips up close.

Another view of the valley and the Sutter Buttes. We’re getting closer to the edge of the mesa and Table Mountain.

This is a panorama view of the same location.

We came across useful signs occasionally but it would have been good if we had an app to show us exactly where the GPS coordinates were. We’ll have to figure that out for next time. We missed some of the trails that we had planned to take because in some places it was hard to know where there was actually a trail. We ended up hiking about 8-1/2 miles instead of the 11 miles marked on the map.

The sign above is describing this formation, appropriately called Crevice Falls. Surprisingly there was still some water in some of these. There must be water flowing from springs that run through the basalt layer.

I realized that Ladder Falls was not named for the creek bed of the waterfall but because there is this old pipe ladder to enable people to access the trail.

This trail took us back through more oak woodland grazing area. There are some very large old oaks throughout this part of the reserve.

After our last visit I bought a book that describes the flowers and ecology of North Table Mountain. That was helpful in identifying some of the photos I took. This is a poppy species called Frying Pans.

Kellogg’s Clarkia.

White-headed Navarretia.

I knew I had to find this flower when I saw it in the book. It’s called Cowbag Clover and if the photo was better you could see that, yes, it looks like an upside down cow udder.

This flower is known as Butter-and-Eggs. That is one I already knew from having seen it in other areas.

We spent a beautiful day hiking here and I look forward to returning next winter and spring.

Wildflowers in Northern California

Last week we explored a place that was new to us. Dan had ridden his bike through this area in the Wildflower Century in past years, but had seen it only from the road. This is North Table Mountain Ecological Reserve, 3300 acres owned by the state, 3 miles north of Oroville. The state purchased the land to preserve the unique Northern Basalt Flow Vernal Pools and the rare species of plants that grow here.

There is a parking area but people were already parking along the road because the lot was full. We parked along the road and walked to the Reserve. This was our first view of the spectacular wildflower display and this wasn’t even part of the Reserve.

I am so used to visiting National or State Parks that have complete visitor centers and well-defined trails that I was surprised to discover that there are lands accessible to us that are not part of the park systems. There were a few signs that indicated the direction and distance to a few waterfalls (surprising to me in this area) but no other interpretive signs.

I read later that this area has been grazed by cattle for at least 45 years and that grazing is part of the current management strategy to help control non-native species and maintain the ecology of the area.

This is one of two panoramic shots I created.

There were great swathes of purple and yellow and orange. These are lupines and I’m not sure which yellow flower this is—Great Valley Buttercup or Goldfields? I’ll need to pay better attention next time I’m there instead of assuming that I’ll remember each flower in my photos.

Lupines and I think poppies and popcorn flower.

Purple Owl’s Clover.

Poppies, but I can’t tell you which poppy—there is more than one on the list of wildflower species that occur here.

Sierra Mock Stone Crop. This flower seemed to be growing right out of the rocks—certainly with minimal soil to sustain it.

This one is called Dark-stained Prettyface.

Purple owl’s clover and poppies

The flowers are beautiful individually and close-up, but what looks at what you see at a distance:

It was a suprise to me that there are several waterfalls here, short-lived as they are in this climate, especially with the minimal amount of rainfall that we’ve had this year. I don’t suppose the will last long this year.

We plan to return here before the flowers disappear this spring.