Life on the Outer Coast

Thursday, September 27

Unexpectedly sunny, it was rather cool in the morning, but it warmed up nicely in the afternoon. There was a dusting of new snow on the Sisters and Bear Mtn. I guess I finally have to give up on poppies for this year.

The Edgecumbe class started a practice run of the DNA extraction procedure. One group worked on Gentiana douglasiana and Trichophorum caespitosum. The other group on Cornus suecica and Carex pluriflora. I had hoped to have Coptis trifoliata and Triantha glutinosa in the run as well, but for some reason the students preparing those roots didn’t freeze any. Guess I need to watch more carefully. Live and learn. Fortunately it was a practice run and it is relatively easy to get more roots. We used a relatively simple procedure, NaOH, 10 minute incubation at 90C, followed by HCL and HCL + Tris and another 10 minute incubation at 90C. The last step is a brief centrifugation and dilution in a buffer.

The sunny day provided a nice window for re-sampling the plants. It was a pleasnat change heading outside without the driving rain. We wanted to have a set of samples that we could be reasonably sure wasn't misidentified or mislabeled. The lack of variety of frozen samples was another good motivator.
This time we collected Triantha glutinosa, Coptis trifoliata, Rubus chamaemorus, Kalmia polifolia, Ledum groenlandicum, Carex livida, Carex pluriflora, Trichophorum caespitosum, Empetrum nigrum, Cornus suecica, Vacciniium caespitosum, Gentiana douglasiana, and Sanguisorba menziesii. The easiest to collect were Carex livida and Trichophorum, they both have abundant root systems. The Gentian was a pest because of the senescent plants and the Ericaceae because of the long woody rhizomes and few fine roots. Sanguisorba has large taproots that are between 5 and 8 inches deep in the muskeg. The most effective way to obtain them was to remove a cylinder of soil about 5 inches in diameter and soak the excess soil off. It seemed a little destructive, but at least we got a good sample instead of killing the plant and not obtaining the sample.
The variety of root systems that occur in the muskeg is kind of interesting. The plants with a lot of xeric adaptations, e.g. narrow leaves with waxy cuticles don’t have much in the way of fine roots, while those that lack any visible water loss adaptations have the most abundant fine roots. . Doesn’t seem like much of a surprise, but I hadn’t dug up a lot of muskeg plants before this fall. The Ericaceae do have some fine roots, but not much in comparison with some of the sedges or ephemeral herbs. I’m still wondering if the winter conditions are controlling factor for the evergreen herbs and shrubs. The lack of consistant snow and frozen soil would seriously limit water uptake in the winter. Not a problem for plants like Gentiana or Drosera, but seems like it would be an issue for the Ericaceae.
The Cornus and Rubus were providing some nice red fall color and the golden brown sedges make a nice background.

Back down to the car by noon. Dropped the samples off in the refrigerator and went over to Alice island to eat my lunch and look for birds. I’ve been looking for the mourning doves off and on for the last week, but haven’t seen them. There are still a lot of robins, juncos and a nice mixture of sparrows. One lone Cackling Goose was hanging out in the center island. Found some nice Capsella bursa-pastoris in fruit in one of the lots. I always liked that name. I’m fairly certain that it is my favorite weedy crucifer, probably because it is easy to identify.

From there drove out Blue Lake Rd to collect some plants for the park. I should have more than enough alders if people stop trying to kill them. Stopped at the waterfall just past the turn to the campground. Found a bit of summer still hanging on. Geranium erianthum, Aquilegia formosa, Sanguisorba canadensis, Claytonia sibirica and Campanula rotundifolia were still blooming. The Sanguisorba was especially nice. Also found an interesting variety of plants including Saxifraga ferruginea, S. mertensiana, Romanozoffia sitchensis, Adiantum aleuticum and Urtica dioica. I climbed up the creek for a ways looking for small plants in vulnerable positions to collect. Vulnerable in that they were partially washed out or in small gravel. Collected several Aruncus, a few Sanguisorba and Geranium from the slopes. Also brought back a few Erigeron from the road side. Collected some Ribes bracteosum fruit for seed from this site.
Decided to plant all of this batch of plants in the area in the upper parking lot because of the number of weeds in the collection area. There are already so many weeds in that site, that a few more won't matter. I hope to move some of the plants in the late spring to the lower beds. I would like the slope above the curved walk to eventually look like a meadow. The Harbor-Gavan trail was inspiring. Not sure if I can pull it off, maybe with alot of time, luck and patience. Finished up this round of the garden project by going over the lower beds one last time for weeds, I had hoped to put seaweed on the beds, but that idea didn’t get a good reception.

I was happy that Geoff agreed with the spruce grouse call. He thought that it was a new bird for the park (at least in the records). I do wonder how many grouse are out wandering, it was a total fluke to see that one. I probably ought to sit still more often.

Saw the petrel on my way home tonight (didn’t see it on the morning commute). It flew along with me in the bow light for a short distance.