Simmons/Mickey O'Brien/Cataract Trails - 09 April, 1995
Simmons/Mickey O'Brien/Cataract Trails - 09 April, 1995
This is a very shady
hike. Overall, there were lots of early spring flowers, like Milk Maids and Hound's Tongue
and Shooting Stars that are already gone in other places. I wonder if its the elevation that
makes the difference? At the beginning of the hike I started writing down the flowers I saw near the parking lot. A young lad, Tom Horton, came up to me and asked if I was doing research. It turns out that he's doing research at Berkeley on the symbiosis between fungi and plants (Douglas-fir, Manzanita and Bishop Pine). I'm hoping to con him into a walking teaching tour sometime soon! It starts off at Rock Springs lot, moves to the Benstein Trail, and very quickly dumps you on the Simmons Trail. The first bit goes across grassland, then very quickly into mixed evergreen. There were even mushrooms here and there.
Here's what we saw:
Reptiles & Amphibians, etc.
Banana slug, Sagebrush Lizard.
Shrubs
(Scrub Oak),
Manzanita,
Caeanthus,
(Chemise),
(Huckleberry).
Trees
Douglas Fir,
Sargent Cypress,
Coast Live Oak,
Tan Oak,
California (Bay) Laurel,
Toyon,
Madrone.
Wildflowers
Star Lily,
Checker Lily,
Calypso Orchid,
Spotted Coral Root,
Miner's Lettuce,
California Buttercup,
California Poppy,
Milk Maids,
Woodland Star,
Coast Sanicle,
Henderson's Shooting Star,
(Starflower),
? California Phacelia,
Baby Blue Eyes,
Hound's Tongue,
Popcorn Flower,
Indian Warrior,
Red-stemmed Filaree.
