Home»Gallery»Portola Valley Ranch, Windy Hill, Etc.»7/21/2021 Eagle Trail (with Mystery Flowers)

Corte Madera Creek still flows clear. Its headwaters spring from springs higher up, nourished by heaven-sent moisture beneath stately Coast Redwoods and Douglas Fir, itself renewed by drops condensed from the morning fog cascading down the ridgeline. Along the creek it is cool and moist. Some flowers hang on, well after they have gone to seed or berry elsewhere -- such as the Hairy Honeysuckle. Others go to seed -- the Giant Trillium, so common along Eagle Trail, fades into drying leaves and bursting seed pods. Preparing for the dry months ahead, many plants are pulling back their nutrients from leaves, pumping it into seeds to sprout in the next wet period, and storing the rest underground, in roots, bulbs, tubers, corms, or rhizomes.

There is one flower I do not know -- worse yet, Helen does not know it either. Please check it out and leave us a comment on a photo with an ID or a hint!

On the way to Eagle Trail, we see plump Elderberry berries, a young vibrant Valley Oak in full green foliage, and a Soap Plant, seeds nearly ripe, dessicated leaves collapsed on the ground. Coming home, we see the first few Tarweed flowers -- the vanguard of the carpet we expect to cover our grasslands with fragrant, sticky plants, white flowers dancing in the breeze: our late-summer flowers.