Olympic Mountains

[David Sellars]

Anne:

If I can get some seed of Collomia debilis I will give it a try.  I have not grown Allium crenulatum either.  I collected some seed of Phacelia sericea last year in our local mountains and now have five vigorous plants growing in pots with lovely silvery foliage. Have you tried it in the garden?  I understand it is a challenge.

I like the word soboliferous.  I looked it up and it was not clear to me the difference between soboliferous and stoloniferous.  Is there a simple explanation of the difference?

[Lori S.]

Fantastic plants and scenes, David!

According to Harris & Harris' Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary (an excellent book, IMO), a sobol is "a shoot arising from the base of a stem or from the rhizome", while a stolon is "an elongate, horizontal stem creeping along the ground and rooting at the nodes or at the tip and giving rise to a new plant".  That description, and the illustrations, imply that stolons are above-ground rooting stems (e.g. like on a strawberry plant) while sobols are below ground.

[David Sellars]

Thanks Lori.  That certainly fits how they grow in the wild.  They are not a spreading plant but rather pop up randomly in the loose scree.

[stephenb]

Just seen these magnificent pictures - amazing that there are such sights in August! What kind of elevations were these pictures taken at? Loved the Erytronium meadow and Allium crenulatum - anyone succeeded growing this one?

[McDonough]

David, glorious plants and photos, it almost seems like one is actually there seeing them in person, the Collomia and Petrophytum views particularly compelling!  It is my one biggest regret, in the 4 years that I lived near Seattle Washington, that I never made it out to the Olympics; instead making numerous trips to the dryland central and eastern parts of the State, with my favorite haunt being the Wenatchee Mountains.

Just seen these magnificent pictures - amazing that there are such sights in August! What kind of elevations were these pictures taken at? Loved the Erytronium meadow and Allium crenulatum - anyone succeeded growing this one?

Allium crenulatum 'Olympic Sunset'
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=31.msg181#msg181

[Spiegel]

Anne:

If I can get some seed of Collomia debilis I will give it a try.  I have not grown Allium crenulatum either.  I collected some seed of Phacelia sericea last year in our local mountains and now have five vigorous plants growing in pots with lovely silvery foliage. Have you tried it in the garden?  I understand it is a challenge. /
It's pretty easy from seed and quick to bloom stage.  It seems to want scree but getting it to stick around for more than a couple of years is the difficulty here.  I think the summer mugs are not to its liking.  Knowing where it grows that's hardly surprising.
Good luck.  Should you ever have extra seed of Collomia debilis v larsenii, I'd love to have a little.  Every time I've seen the collomia it was growing on a steep scree and that's where I'd try growing it.

[David Sellars]

Stephen:

The photos were taken over an elevation range of about 1800 to 2000 m. The deep winter snow cover in the Olympic Mountains takes a long time to melt in some years.  This year, 2011 was unusual in the Pacific Northwest with a cold wet spring and cool early summer and the road to Obstruction Point was not free of snow until the first week of August. Some alpine areas in the North Cascades are still snow-covered which is frustrating for hikers in our area.

[stephenb]

Thanks, David!

I remember being astonished to find the high elevation Lodgepole Pine forest in the Sierra Nevada (California) deep in snow in August one year and I understood this was simply due to the enormous amounts of El-Nino related precipitation that winter. I wonder how the trees cope with this?

[Hoy]

Thanks, David!

I remember being astonished to find the high elevation Lodgepole Pine forest in the Sierra Nevada (California) deep in snow in August one year and I understood this was simply due to the enormous amounts of El-Nino related precipitation that winter. I wonder how the trees cope with this?

If the soil is not frozen solid under the snow the trees have no problem. They can transport water through their tissue and grow well. I have often seen birches leafing out in deep snow.

[DesertZone]

Awesome pics, awesome post.

[Howey]

Hi David:  Have never been to the Olympic Mts. but used to enjoy watching them across the water from Victoria - some days they weren't even there but on other days they were so large and clear you felt you could almost touch them - quite a sight.  They, along with the native Dogwood, were frequent subjects for local artists.  Our high school sport teams were called Cascades, Selkirks and Olympics - and I was an Olympic.  A trip on the ferry (Kalakala or Chinook) to Port Angeles and Lake ?  was and probably still is a popular excursion for the folks out there.  Fran

Frances Howey
London, Ontario, Canada
Zone 5b

[Howey]

Just remembered the name of the Lake near Port Angeles (Olympic mts.)  - Crescent Lake.  Sometimes it takes a bit longer to remember things than it used to.   Guess Cape Flattery is a fertile spot for botanizing?  Fran

Frances Howey
London, Ontario,Canada
Zone 5b

[David Sellars]

Fran:  It's years since we went out to the coast on the Olympic Peninsula.  We always head straight up Hurricane Ridge as the road access to the alpine areas is superb and there are lots of hikes in the area.  We have also hiked up Mount Townsend at the east end of the range.

On this last trip we had a good view of Victoria and Vancouver Island from the top of Elk Mountain - though not as good as the spectacular view of the Olympics from Victoria!