The Sierra Nevada: Of the Parasitic and Fallopian

save yourself

I was weary from my life at sea level, and so took to the mountains a couple weeks ago for a writing retreat offered through San Francisco State’s Sierra

on Highway 49 between Sattley and Bassetts

Nevada Field Campus. Yes, there is such a thing (isn’t that cool?), and it’s only a quick ride away from the Greyhound station in Truckee. This facility/refuge is a gem; more people should know about it, and not just for the opportunity to take an outdoor shower in the midday sun at the edge of the north fork of the Yuba River — one of the simplest soul-satisfying treats around — but because the classes are kickass: everything from fungi to bats, spiders to flora, geology to photography, sketching in nature journals to conjuring the written word to gazing at the night sky. Basically, everything good save metal and beer! Concurrently with the writing retreat was a course on insect identification and another taught by John Muir Laws, who has been quoted by Phyte Club more than once, about how to draw Sierran birds. Muir’s talents as an artist and a naturalist were indispensable to my plant ID on this trip, considering he published an all-encompassing guide to the 1,700 species found in the Sierra accompanied by an astonishing 2,710 original watercolor paintings.

Because we were “writers” on a “retreat,” after three hours of stream-of-consciousness scrawling each day, we were free to explore life in the 6,500′ range, all punctuated by the warm citrus smell of pines. This allowed me to note about 49 species of plants, mainly wildflowers and not including the conifers, which were appreciated but I wasn’t inspired to count needles or get cross-eyed staring at bark on this trip. What was most significant to me up there, as an amateur botanist, was an increasing ability to encounter an unfamiliar species and at least recognize its family, if not the genus. This is what practice being a flower nerd will do for you.

Of these four dozen species, there were two that I’d been especially wanting to meet for a long time.

a good 2" in diameter, and 8"-9" tall

see how the individual flowers spiral up the stem?

Snow Plant was a fat stick of red flowers thrusting out of the piney duff. Its scientific name, Sarcodes sanguinea, alludes to its color: “sanguine” describes an optimistic and confident person, and in ancient Greek physiology it was thought that having blood as predominating fluid ruling a person’s temperament made them consequently red-faced and cheerful. Snow plant, having no chlorophyll to call its own, is entirely sanguine. How does it do this? Like the broom-rape from Anza-Borrego I described in early spring, it is a parasitic plant. (If you go to this past post, look at how the growth form just pushes up through the sand, sans leaves, much the same way as the snow plant emerges from the forest soil. You can start to recognize these moocher plants, even in very different habitats.) Allow me to draw upon the explanation in Laws’ book for a minute:

“Some species of plants lack the green pigment chlorophyll required to synthesize sugars (plant food) in sunlight. For many years it was believed that these plants fed upon decomposing matter in the soil as fungi do. Such plants were called Saprotrophs ["sapro"=rotten; "troph"=to feed]. Recent studies have shown that the plants do not feed upon matter in the soil but are parasites on soil fungi. These fungi may in turn be connected to the roots of green plants with which they exchange sugar, water, or nutrients. These mycotrophic (fungus eating plants may receive sugars from the photosynthetic work of neighboring plants through a fungus bridge. While both the host green plant and the fungi benefit from their mycorrhizal (fungus-root) relationship, the odd reddish plants are freeloaders.”

Sarcodes sanguinea stats:

part of the Ericaceae (Heath) family, a huge grouping that also includes manzanitas, madrones, heather, and blueberries. This lineage is evident from the “urceolate” (urn-shaped) flowers
found at 4,000′-8,000′
native perennial
4″-12″ tall, growing as a solitary stalk or in clusters
May-July, following the snow melt. Snow plant likes the thick humus of coniferous forests (usually red fir), which makes sense because there tends to be a lot of fungi also living in the acidic, decomposing needles.

parasite emerging

I *think* these red scaly ribbons are the leaves. they aren't green, remember, because there's no chlorophyll!

waxy rosy bells, totally Ericaceae

The other odd little species I was lucky enough to encounter — it seems I was pretty good on this trip at looking over at just the right time, though the ones I missed I’ll never know — was from the poppy, or Papaveraceae, family. It was teeny tiny, only about three inches high, at most; the blossom was solitary, only about half-an-inch at the widest, and was pale pink like fresh angel organs. I was able to guess its genus from its redwood forest relative, Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa), which has the same sweet, oddly shaped flowers and matte green, pinnately divided leaves. It was always found close to a melting pile of snow.

Introducing Dicentra uniflora (=”one flower”), commonly and lovingly known as “Steer’s Head.” Throw some horns!

holy fallopian tubes!

For a heathen with a strong faith in flowers and females, it was requisite to always get down on my knees to the dirt altar and say an appreciative petite prayer.

woman created in a flower's image, or vice versa?

"Ram's Head and White Hollyhock-Hills," Georgia O'Keeffe, 1935

note the two "reflexed sepals" (=bud covers); there weren't enough for me to feel okay about taking one and dissecting it, so can't comment too much on the morphology....

Snow plant and steer’s head were the “fuck yeah!” species, but a few worthy others included:

Corn lilies (Venatrum californicum) grew taller than me in moist meadows, with broad, parallel-veined leaves like their namesake and three-petaled star flowers.

just a few representative stems from a field of five-foot-tall corn lilies

Sori like potent pixie dust lining the edges of the leaves of this cliff-brake (Pellaea bridgesii), found edging the dry soil along small granite boulders in the Loch Leven Lakes parking area.