Educator • Author • Ecologist
Original Publication DATE: 6/17/2014
There are celebrated regions of the Klamath Mountain–preserved and maintained for our enjoyment as monuments or wilderness–and there are others with little or no designation beyond National Forest land. How does the outdoor enthusiast find these little-known places? In the case of the isolated botanical areas of the Scott Mountain Crest, the main route in and out is on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Original Publication DATE: 3/23/2014
Walker Ridge has been on my plant exploration list for many years. I had repeatedly heard about the rare plants, serpentine landscape, and epic wildflower displays that could be found along the ridge and in the adjacent Bear Valley. I also read about a proposal to designate the region as Serpentine National Park which, at the time, was a radical approach to try to halt a major wind turbine project slated for the ridgeline. I was excited to finally explore this place and to locate what has been called the largest stand of McNab cypress in the world. What I found was something entirely different.
Original Publication DATE: 1/19/2014
Part two of whitebark pine negative reports in the Trinity Alps Wilderness
As mentioned in my last post, part of last summer’s whitebark pine conservation assessment and mapping project involved predicting location where the species might occur but was not yet documented. While I found success with some predictions, others turned into negative reports with “ground-truthing.” One negative report was in the Trinity Alps Wilderness around Stonewall Pass, another was in the Foster and Lion lakes region where I based my prediction on the significant landmass above 7,500′.
Continue reading “Foster and Lion Lake – Trinity Alps Wilderness”
Original Publication DATE: 1/2/2014
Part of last summer’s whitebark pine conservation assessment and mapping project involved predicting location where the species might occur but had not yet been documented. While I found success with some predictions, others turned into negative reports with “ground-truthing.” One of these areas was in the Trinity Alps Wilderness around Stonewall Pass where I predicted WBP would occur because there is significant landmass above 7,500′.
The geology of the Stonewall Pass region is built from a majority of mafic and ultramafic rocks. Granite and Gibson peaks are themselves granite, but the remainder of the landscape is composed of serpentine, which makes survival difficult for many species. Interestingly, whitebark pine are found on the serpentine of the Scott-Trinity Mountains around China Peak and Mount Eddy, but it turns out they are absent from the Stonewall Pass serpentines. Whitebark’s absence on the granite of Gibson and Granite peak is most likely due to the size of the inhabitable area offered by the small granite plutons here as well as the increased competition from granite-loving species like mountain hemlock and Shasta fir.
Original Publication DATE: 8/13/2013
Timbered Crater has been on my list to visit for some time now. Exploring the Medicine Lake Highlands at the end of a week of field work searching for whitebark pine (more coming soon on this one), I found myself close enough to justify a stop here on my return to HWY 299 and ultimately the coast. It is a difficult place to find in many ways, since signs are all but non-existent, but the extent of the Baker cypress groves (7,000+ acres!) make the trees easy enough to find with a small amount of adventure.
Timbered Crater is the type-locality for Baker cypress, an exotic location for relict vernal pools, and ultimately a crossroads for Cascade and Great Basin species. Read more by Todd Keeler-Wolf in his Research Natural Area report. It is also recommended as a wilderness study area–probably because of the lava flows make penetrating road-building nearly impossible. Hopefully wilderness designation will come to fruition, especially since there aren’t too many topographically flat wilderness areas–anywhere.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Joyce Mary Mary
DATE: 8/13/2013 4:12:43 PM
Michael,
These pictures are great. You have chosen to live such an interesting life. You mother must be very proud of you!
With love and admiration, Mom
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Michael E. Kauffmann
DATE: 8/14/2013 2:18:41 PM
Aw, geez, thanks Mom.
Original Publication DATE: 1/19/2013
On the divide between the South Fork of the Eel River and Mattole River exists a place I had repeatedly mapped while creating the images for for Conifer Country. I knew there was a small patch of serpentine in this isolated location because of the occurrence of two tree species that are uncommmon on the North Coast outside of the Klamath Mountains proper. In the past I had asked regional ecologists about this location and the common response was “its is somewhere out near the Mattole River.” I knew that already, but how could I find the exact location?
The mystery was solved when Kyle and Dana Keegan, offered a “visit to the Salmon Creek watershed which is a tributary of the South Fork Eel. We have an especially unique diversity of plants and trees here due to a complex melange of geologic features with what we believe to be the largest, most westerly stand of Jeffrey Pine in the state, as well as vast stands of Incense Cedar. Kinda like an isolated westerly chunk of the Klamath Siskiyous–with it comes a whole host of serpentine endemics.”
Yes please…
Continue reading “Serpentines of the Salmon Creek-Mattole River Divide”
Original Publication DATE: 3/29/2013
I have always been a fan of the opportunists. If I had to pick a favorite bird it would be the noble turkey vultures—who soar thermals from coast to coast, contemplating a smorgasbord of fetid and rotten treats for daily sustenance. Douglas-firs are one of the most ubiquitous western conifers—taking purchase on high mountain peaks, coastal sand dunes, temperate rainforests, and sterile serpentine soils. However, some species are so specialized that, without proper and specific biotic and abiotic interactions, they would have long-gone extinct or never evolved at all.
In ecology, the term endemism defines when an organism is unique to a certain region like an island or mountain range. Endemic species are either newly evolved to fit a changing landscape (neoendemic) or a relict of a once broader existence, now restricted to a smaller region (paleoendemic). Neoendemics are species that have adaptively radiated from an older one through vicariance–with an ecology sculpted by edaphic, climatic, and topographic isolation in “recent” history. Relative to other conifers, some of California’s cypresses are an examples of this type of endemism. Through microsite isolation new species have evolved from a common ancestor where new traits are selected through ecological release to fit specific environments. Paleoendemics, like the Redwoods, Monterey cypress, Monterey pine and Santa Lucia fir once had broader ranges but are now restricted, through climatic changes, to environments which mimic those of the ancient past.
Continue reading “Conifer Endemism on the Central California Coast”
Original Post DATE: 2/10/2013
The internet is an amazing thing. It opens up lines of communication that were unheard of in the past. Case in point–I got an email from Richard Moore who lives in Callahan, California. He knows the Salmon-Trinity Mountains well, as he has been exploring them since he was a young boy in the early 50’s. It turns out that in the early 1980’s he discovered a small stand of western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) in the Russian Wilderness. He knew about the famous square mile wherein 17 conifers species had been found. He also figured the junipers he discovered were within–or at least very close to–that carefully shaped square mile. He had told John Sawyer in person about 2 years ago; but never relayed the location of the trees. John and I made the trek into Sugar Creek and I climbed to the ridge trying to predict where the juniper were – and missed them by a few hundred yards and a wall of granite. Now I was back to find the 18th Conifer in the Miracle Mile.
Turns out, in the summer of 2012 his brother bought him a copy of Conifer Country and he was re-inspired to try to get the word out about his discovery. He borrowed his son’s camera (which he readily admits to have taken some poor photos), put together a PDF with the pictures and GPS coordinates with the help of his son, and also got that file in an email to me. What we now have is the evidence (minus a specimen) of the newest addition to the botanical legacy of the Klamath Mountains. I plan to meet Richard this summer and collect some specimens for the Humboldt State University Herbarium. Below is the link to the file with photos and GPS coordinates that Richard sent to me.
A list of conifers within the Miracle Mile:
Original Publication DATE: 8/3/2012
The northern portion of the Siskiyou Wilderness represents an area of great botanical diversity resulting from its unique geographic position (proximity to the coast and extreme vertical relief) and complex and diverse geologic composition. Chester A. Ground (1972) identified 343 species of plants in 3 square miles around the mountain my college buddies and I decided to climb in late July 2012. Just like my childhood fictional hero Sam Gribley, we escaped to a place near and dear to my heart, and–though not for an entire winter–for enough time to share space and time with the unique and diverse biota of the Klamath Mountans. We were in for a treat as the weather was cool and clear, plants were in bloom, and wildlife was active.
Original Publication DATE: 9/9/2012
This story also appeared in EcoNews and Darlingtonia.
Dancing with raindrops from car to porch on any number of oft-spectacular Humboldt Bay days, I was hungry for a lunch date. As I shook my hands dry, the push of a bell initiated the shuffle of feet, a crack of the door—and soon after—a long, sincere, chuckle. The opening door revealed a smile to go with the laughter. It was the same way every time, and I always loved it. John’s spirit was contagious and he always brightened my day.
Original Publication DATE: 10/27/2012
“Wilderness has a deceptive concreteness at first glance. The difficulty is that while the word is a noun it acts like an adjective. There is no specific material object that is wilderness. The term designates a quality ( as the ‘-ness’ suggests) that produces a certain mood or feeling in a given individual and, as a consequence, may be assigned by that person to specific place. Because of this subjectivity a universally acceptable definition of wilderness is elusive. One man’s wilderness may be another’s roadside picnic… Wilderness, in short, is so heavily freighted with meaning of a personal, symbolic, and changing kind as to resist easy definition.”
—Wilderness and the American Mind, Roderick Nash, third edition; pub. Yale Univ. Press, 1967.
My expectations for wilderness wavers too. As I sit at home with my creature comforts I hope that others are out enjoying the majesty of the wilds–connecting with the natural world and progressing as stewards. When my turn comes to plan a wilderness adventure, destinations are chosen based on where I will find solitude. This was the original, anthropocentric idea behind wilderness–a place that would retain primeval character and guarantee solitude. I am a proponent for more people visiting wilderness (walking in under their own power) so that they might have more authentic experiences in nature, care more, and develop a closer connection to the Earth.
Continue reading “The Cry of the Wilderness (and C. nootkatensis)”Original Publication DATE: 11/7/2012
A sequence of five elevated marine terraces along Jug Handle Creek in coastal Mendocino County constitutes a nationally and internationally famous ecological staircase. So outstanding is the combination of canyons, terraces and ancient dunes, tall redwoods and firs, bishop pine forest and dwarfed pines and cypresses that…It has become a Mecca for naturalists, botanists, ecologists, pedologists (soil scientists), geographers and nature-oriented laymen. It is being praised as the best preserved ecological showplace of coastal landscape evolution anywhere in the northern hemisphere.
–Hans Jenny 1973
Throughout the Pleistocene, as the climate fluctuated, sea levels rose and fell in conjunction with the size of the polar ice caps thus allowing oceanic wave-action to cut coastal terraces around the world. Subsequent tectonic forces then slowly pushed these terraces upward. What we now witness in coastal Mendocino County is, as Jenny states, the best preserved ecological showplace of coastal landscape evolution in the Northern Hemisphere.
Through other dynamic processes, beach materials like sand, gravel, clay and other rock have been deposited on the terraces at varied depths. Directly adjacent to the Pacific Ocean on the first step, wind sculpts coastal scrub and grassland on coastal bluffs or “Bonsai” beach and bishop pine forests just inland. A bit further up the staircase, out of reach of the salty air, ample precipitation, Pleistocene and Holocene sand dunes, and deposition of nutrient-rich conifer needles offers the abiotic needs for trees with deep roots and tall shoots. However, the most amazing staircase story begins just to the east of the ancient dunes.
Continue reading “The Ecological Staircases of Mendocino County”Original Publication DATE: 7/7/2012
Rising from the lowlands at the edge of the Mojave and Great Basin deserts, the Spring Mountains are renowned for flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. This endemism occurs because these mountains exhibit extreme vertical relief, temporal isolation, and a geographic position on the boundary of two deserts. Charleston Peak, the highest mountain in the range at nearly 12,000′, is a stark contrast to the desert 9,000′ below. Vertical relief is a barrier to migrations and, as a result, relict species have persisted and new species have evolved. It is postulated that at least 25 species (15 vascular plants, 1 mammal, 9 invertebrates) are endemic to the Spring Mountains (Spring Mountain Conservation Agreement 1998).
Continue reading “Bristleconing: from Charleston to San Francisco”
Original Publication DATE: 6/10/2012
In the southern Siskiyou Mountains, around the headwaters of Bluff Creek, a discovery was made a few years ago that I was intrigued to see for myself. Kirk Terrill, a Forest Service Botanist, found an unusual flower on an isolated ridgeline of serpentine. In 2010 these plants were determined to be Lewisia kelloggii and, thus far, this is the only documented population in the Klamath Mountains. Elsewhere it grows sparsely in the high country of the Sierra Nevada. In the Siskiyous it grows under and among another regional rarity–lodgepole pine. Driving up the forest service road from Highway 96 toward Cedar Camp I knew these trees would be the key to finding the rare lewisia, which only blooms for a short time in early June. Upon finding the lodgepoles and the serpentine, I unsaddled and walked the stark ridgeline. Within half and hour I had succeeded in my own rare-plant treasure hunt. Read about the one that inspired my journey, written by Carol Ralph of the North Coast Chapter, Califiorina Native Plant Society, HERE. Continue reading “Southern Siskiyous or the Annularity of Rarity”
Original Publication DATE: 3/17/2012
Work occasioned a trip to southern California which, of course, also required me to spend some time with a few regionally endemic conifers. I had never visited the Torrey pine or Cuyamaca cypress, so in planning the trip to Palm Springs for a conference, Allison and I took a few extra days–looping south toward the Mexican border–to see North America’s rarest pine and cypress.
Rarity is a new endeavor for the Torrey pine. Though it is the current record-holder for “rarest North American pine” it has not always been that way. It is an ancient pine, whose lineage (or at least that of a near ancestor) extends back as far as the Oligocene or Miocene with a range that extended as far north as Oregon (Kral 1993). In the Pleistocene, the species probably ranged throughout the coastal basins of Southern California but became restricted to coastal San Diego County and Santa Rosa Island over the last 12,000 years or so, during Holocene warming (Waters and Schaal 1991). Its closest extant relative is probably the Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri).
Original Publication DATE: 12/25/2011
Why, climb Mount Hilton in the Trinity Alps of course.
As I approached the trailhead the car’s outdoor thermometer read 28oF and, with the windows down, the iPod shuffled Rapper’s Delight for my auditory indulgence. I pulled into the large parking lot at Canyon Creek as the lone (semi-domesticated) representative of the human race. Donning hat and gloves, I hoisted my pack and climbed toward what I hoped would be a world-class penthouse suite. With Sugar Hill Gang resonating in my head–as other drift-less tunes have on previous trips–the lyrics seemed preposterously apropos as I progressed toward the named summit (hotel, motel, Mount Hilton…). What five-star resort could possibly compare to a perch on glacially polished granite–surrounded by sky, stars, and wilderness–with a forecast of continued high pressure and a hard freeze? None in my mind.
Continue reading “Hotel, motel, whatcha ya gonna do today? (Say what!)”
Original Publication DATE: 12/16/2011
Original Publication DATE: 8/31/2011
In the late 1960’s, after arriving at Humboldt State University as a new professor, John O. Sawyer received a letter in the mail from G. Ledyard Stebbins. Stebbins, widely regarded as one of America’s leading evolutionary biologists but also a lover of rare plants, suggested to John that he needed to visit a remote place in the Klamath Mountains known as Blake’s Fork. Here, he said, John might help verify a report for one of California’s rarest conifers–the Engelmann spruce. Stebbins hoped John could record his findings in a new database called the Inventory of Rare and Endangered Vascular Plants of California organized by the California Native Plant Society. With conifers calling, John and his friend and co-worker Dale Thornburgh went on a journey that would change our understanding of conifer distributions, plant associations, and wilderness in California.
Original Publication DATE: 8/10/2011
Conifers possess highly derived adaptations that allow them to flourish on continental land masses north and south of the 45th parallel—to the arctic tree line. They also grow in similar regions with decreasing latitude, like the various cordilleras of western North America. Though they comprise less than 1% of all plant species (~630), they define 30% of the forests on Earth. In order to survive in colder climates conifers must be able to handle temperature and moisture extremes. As a cat preens its fur, most conifers care for their needles. These waxy progeny are coddled when energy is diverted from other tree functions to maintain needles—often for many years. This heavy investment must allow needles to endure both high and low temperatures while at the same time regulating water loss during the warmer months. Also, because most conifers are evergreen, they are not inhibited by late spring or even summer frosts which might otherwise kill the leaves of a less cold-adapted species. Angiosperms–many of which are deciduous–generally inhabit lower elevations and warmer regions where they spend less time and energy in leaf production and maintenance and can therefore allocate resources to grow faster and pioneer oft-disturbed landscapes more rapidly. It it these two generalized survival regimes that had me confused on a recent backpack into the Pasayten Wilderness where there is a conifer that has blazed a unique path for survival on the edge of the Washington State alpine tundra.
Continue reading “Larix Lyallii | Derivations on a survival regime”
Original Publication DATE: 7/23/2011
As Allison and I began to map our route through the Cascades for our summer vacation I proposed that we visit Mount Saint Helens. Allison quickly agreed but jokingly asked what conifers were there that I wanted to see–I relented that I wanted to familiarize myself with noble fir (Abies procera) outside of California and this was a place recommended by Chris Earle on his epic website. What we found in the Goat Marsh Research Natural Area was a juxtaposed landscape shaped by geological forces. We ambled through some of the most depauperate and some of the most productive forests we had ever seen. The resulting plants fostered in certain locations were there based solely on the substrate. The forests on the flows of ash, mud, and rock placed here by Mount Saint Helens allowed only the heartiest plants to survive. Other forests, hidden around the edge of protective mountains and out of reach from the mud and rock flows, grew on soils which had remained undisturbed and were thus less porous with higher nutrient contents–ultimately yielding some of the grandest forests on Earth.
