Anza Borrego State Park - March 6 - 13, 2016
By Dee Wong, Field Trip Chair
Co-leaders Patricia Evans and Joe Cernac took 17 hearty souls (including CNPS fellow Sally Casey, age 94) on a trip to the desert, despite forecasts of rain. After arriving in Anza Borrego on Sunday March 6, the trip started in the rain Monday with a stop at the visitor center. Two days of sunny hiking followed in Palm Canyon and Culp Valley. Many of the highlights were seeing the desert peach, desert apricot, and desert almond all on the same day. We also saw five bighorn sheep which the state park is partially named after, Borrego, and hundreds if not thousands of sphinx moth caterpillars of various instars (molting phases) devouring the brown-eyed primrose and sand verbenas. Dee Wong even saw one that was digging a hole in preparation for pupating.
Hike #2 was to see the progression of drought effecting Stile Ranch. There were 11 attendees including the co-leaders Stella Yang and Dee Wong, and Ken Himes as sweep. As the weather heated up without much winter rains, the grasslands along the trail had already started drying out and turning gold and silvery in color. The native grasses such as Elymus glauca, Melica californica and Melica torreyana had begun to set seeds. With most spring wildflowers finished flowering, the summer flowering plants that were in bud (during hike #1) were now flowering, such as the Monardella douglasii, Streptanthus glandulosus var. glandulosus.
The intention of having a three-part series of hikes to the same location over the course of the year was to see the changes of diversity of one particular area.
Dee Wong, Ken Himes, and with the help of Paul Heiple and his wife, Linda (who helped shepard the group to be keep the pace going) successfully co-led the Santa Clara Valley Chapter field trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park from Monday, July 14 through Thursday, July 17. We camped at Summit Lake South and Warner Valley to see geological and botanical wonders that are unique to this area. Including the co-leaders, there were 19 participating CNPS members mostly from our Chapter, along with Deanna Giuliano, president of the Santa Cruz Chapter who was also there, and made it all so fun.
