Catherine Creek in March
Normally, this website is dedicated to the Bethany Wetlands just south of the Claremont Greens Townhomes. This page is different, showing wildflowers found at Catherine Creek in Washington on March 22, 2023. Around Claremont the daffodils and crocus are flowering. But 72 miles east of here a different set of spring flowers can be found.
Catherine Creek Natural Area is near Hood River but on the Washington side of the Columbia River.
This photo of the Columbia River was taken from Catherine Creek. Rowena Crest viewpoint is on the right. Massive slabs of basalt (from ancient lava flows) are sliding into the Columbia River (over very long periods of time). Around 50,000 years ago the Missoula floods came down the Columbia River washing away all the soil (and everything else) below 1,000 feet of elevation. The wildflowers at Catherine Creek grow on thin soil that sits on these massive slabs of basalt.
This photo shows some of the terrain. At places the basalt is visible, forming fields of rock. This suggests that the basalt is moving, forming fresh rocks. The land is terraced with occasional small streams and ponds. Being east of the Cascades the climate is dryer and the scattered trees are often oak and ponderosa pine.
We came here hoping to see Grass Widows (Olsynium douglasii) and they were blooming. They are one of the first wildflowers to bloom and are often found in patches.
Grass widows are in the iris family. The top flowers seem to be eaten. Each flower has three petals (in the front) and three similar sepals (in the back). There are three stamens holding yellow pollen and one white anther that is forked at the end like a snake's tongue. Pollen from a different plant should be deposited on the anther where the pollen will send a shoot to the ovary which you can see behind the flower. A couple of the flowers have shriveled and seeds are forming.
Less common were Yellow Bells (Fritillaria pudica), each flower about 3/4 of an inch long. Although yellow bells are in the lily family the flower parts are similar to the grass widows. Perhaps a significant difference is that the ovary is located inside the flower rather than behind the flower on the stem. Notice the basalt rocks in the background. A natural rock garden. Yan's photo.
Mystery leaves. With no flowers they are hard to identify. Later in the year flowers like the one on the right emerge. These flowers can be almost three inches across. What is strange is that when the flowers emerge the leaves have often shriveled up making it hard to connect the flowers to the leaves. See photo on the right.
A Bitterroot flower (Lewisia rediviva). Photo taken in May of 2019. Notice the lack of leaves.
Salt-and-pepper (Lomatium piperi) is such a small plant that it is easy to miss. In a few weeks it will be gone. This is in the carrot family.
Flowers consist of five very small petals that curl backwards.
Spring Whitlow-grass (Draba verna). Few people who go to Catherine Creek see this flower because it is so small. You must get down on hands and knees. A magnifying glass is helpful. Each flower has four petals which are split making it look the there are eight petals. Seeds are being made; Look at the flower in the upper left corner.
A twig on an Oregon White Oak tree (Quercus garryana).
There were thousands of grass widows but only one cluster was white.
A massive slab of basalt has slipped into the Columbia River creating a valley. On the far side of the valley is a basalt arch, a very unusual structure. Most of the trees are Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa).
The dead branches of the Ponderosa Pine are often covered with Wolf Lichen (Letharia vulpina). Lichen is very hard to identify. Experts use a collections of chemicals to see how the lichen reacts. Experts may taste the lichen and observe how it changes when wet and dry. Microscopic examination is used. But Wolf Lichen is so distinct I assumed that I could recognize it just by the color and where it was found. Then I found a research paper where someone had performed DNA analysis on hundreds of herbarium samples of Wolf Lichen and concluded that there were two different lichen species mixed together. They look the same but are not the same species. Since we don't have access to a DNA sequencing machine we will just call it Letharia vulpina.
A closer look.
Columbia Desert Parsley (Lomatium columbianum). The purple flowers make this easy to identify.
Well, a Yellow Lomatium. These lomatium are in the carrot family.
A closer look at the Columbia Desert Parsley flowers. In a way the flowers look like exploding fireworks. The flower has a number of branches and each branch then explodes into another group of flowers. The flowers then wrap their five petals backwards.
Dried grass in the sunshine
Wallace's spikemoss (Selaginella wallacei). This is not a moss. Moss is not able to transport water from roots to the leaves but spikemoss can. That makes spikemoss similar to ferns, which have roots and move water thru stems to the leaves.
This basalt rock is covered by lichen. Under the right conditions a spore will land on the rock and start to grow, often forming a circle that grows over time. Some lichen will grow 2 inches in diameter in 100 years. To me, this area looks like new rocks are being formed and slabs of basalt are sliding into the Columbia. Since gigantic earthquakes are known to happen in our area about every 500 years these Cascadia Fault earthquakes may be what forms this terrain.
A closer look. No unoccupied space.
Maiden Blue Eyed Mary (Collinsia parviflora). Few people see this flower because it is very small. We would not have seen it except that it was near a different flower that we were photographing. After getting down on the ground Yan noticed it. The flower shape is unusual. Botanists describe the flower as having two top lobes and three lower lobes. Non-botanists say that there are only two lower lobes. There is a third lower lobe that is located under the two obvious lobes.
We found clusters of these Woodland Star flowers (Lithophragma glabrum). How many petals are there? Just five. Each petal has at least three branches. We thought that these flowers were pink but the description says they are white or pink-tinged. Bulblets (small bulbs) will sometimes grow on the stem near the flowers. These bulblets can fall off and start new plants. I did not find any bulblets in my photographs.
In a month our exotic daffodils and crocus will be replaced by exotic tulips and hyacinth. The native flowers at Catherine Creek will have also changed.