[Plants of the Dry Canyon Natural Area – This will be the start of a new series focused on the plants of Redmond’s Dry Canyon. I’m creating them to be posted for ‘local’ consumption on the Friends of North Dry Canyon Natural Area. It’s a City Park including about 166 acres at the north end of Dry Canyon Park which the City has identified as a Natural Preserve. The group works as an advocate with the City, on public education and helping with on the ground work projects. I’ll identify each such post here.]
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- This years new growth emerging with last year’s inflorescence dried and nearby
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- Flowering in early stages. Later the terminal continues to extend and the seed pods develop below.
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- An inflorescence displaying its almost ‘orchid’ like flowers
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- A map showing locations from which formal collections were taken as part of the Oregon Flora project
As you walk the trails below the canyon rims you will be seeing these growing scattered and in bunches. This is the Cut Leaf Thelypody, Thelypodium lacinatum. These are common where ever there’s a bit of soil between the rocks on the slopes below the rims growing amongst the tumble of massive basalt. I’ve seen these elsewhere growing in other eastside Oregon canyons with similar conditions.
These are members of the Mustard family, prolific seed producers and quite competitive. Another plant that, at least so far, doesn’t venture out into the canyon’s bottomland.
Elegant when it first starts flowering, like so many native annuals and perennials, these start declining while they proceed through their flowering season detracting from their appearance. What do I mean…each spent flower, begins to form its narrow, linear, Mustard seed capsule, quickly maturing its tiny seed and then drying, twisting and browning, while the inflorescence continues to bloom out towards its terminal end. A little messy, yes, but characteristic of these plants. We humans are relatively intolerant of such decline in our garden plants and so generally refuse them admission. Under the local wild conditions, as dry as they are, species tend to either be early flowering, when soil moisture is still most available or those like this that begin to decline before the show is over. Summer drought is a ‘cruel’ taskmaster. There are exceptions to this rule but….
GardenRiots 