Life on the Outer Coast

I knew that this week was going to be busy, but I didn't quite realize the extent of "busy". Monday seemed calm enough until I went home and found a message about buying tickets immediately or losing the grant money. After a rather frantic night and morning, managed to spend the grant money and be reimbursed for my purchases. Purchased tickets for Mary Willson, Kevin White, Alexia Stevens, Jonathon Goff and two tickets for John Hudson. I suppose that I should be grateful for the adrenaline rush and the motivation to complete a tedious task.

Tuesday
Gave a lecture and led a walk through Totem park with an elderhostel group. I need to remember to update some names and check some spellings, perhaps also not to babble so much. I'll blame the crazed night before the lecture for any lapses. We saw a nice array of gulls, widgeons, and a kingfisher. After their early morning intertidal walk and morning lectures, the group was rather done in. The chums and pinks in the river were a definate hit.

Was inspired by some photos to straighten out the Saxifrages in my mind (again). It seems to be the scapose ones that I can get tangled. The term scapose is bad enough, for some reason I perpetually tangle that one up as well.

The interpretation of the leaf base is rather important for identification. Some cuneate leaf bases look alot like petioles, especially those of S. lyalli.

Cordate leaf base:
Saxifraga mertensiana: broadly rounded lobes with 3 teeth each

S. nelsoniana: no teeth on the lobed leaves with stamens that may or may not be clavate.

Cuneate leaf base: any slightly broadened petiole-looking thing counts

S. lyalli: clavate filaments, inflorescence is stipitate glandular and often more than 10 flowers per inflorescence.

S. ferruginea: filaments linear, sepals reflexed. leaves are rather strap-shaped.

The species with cauline leaves seem to a little more straightforward. I was surprised by the S. eschscholtzii find on Bear Mtn. I checked the records for this species through the online database from the UAF and UBC herbariums and couldn't find a record from our area. Mary Stensvold has it listed as extreme north in rocky alpine areas. She didn't know of any collections from southeast. I'm anxious to talk to Brad when he returns to see if it is a new record for our area. Definately makes me antsy to climb more mountains.