Eleven of us climbed over the cattle fence to hike the pastures and ditches around the red rocks. The grasses were Ireland green and laced with small flowers. Among them were several yellow members of the sunflower family (Asteracea) which I thought was Madia but now I don't think so. We need a yellow flower expert, my books aren't clear. We also saw several Alliums (onions in the lily family) and Brodiaea, which is also a member of the same family. Some found a fuzzy mophead type plant that is a chaparral Clematis, actually the only one in our wildflower book on Placer and Nevada Counties. One that we couldn't think of was caterpillar phacelia. Another occasional wildflower was the larkspur (delphinium genus).
We hiked a total of 5.5 miles. Next week the group plans to go to Pendola Ranch near Camptonville.
First 4 pictures by Maureen.
from Frank:
Just for the fun of it, I tried to trace the farm ditch that we were walking next to. It appears to go to a small lake just below Smartsville next to highway 20. Our hike is shown in red, the ditch that we did now walk is shown in yellow.
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