Calochortus invenustus

Can someone please explain disjunct population dynamics to me? Like how does a species end up growing in the Bay area, and also in the far South of California with a population appearing for some reason in the Bodie Hills of Nevada? Yet not having a contiguous range even though the habitat of sagebrush, chaparral and fir woodlands  extend throughout the region. Is it a predation thing? Maybe a soil/fungal interaction that doesn't exist throughout?  A soil type? Rock underlying base? I could spend a lot of time hypothesizing but for some reason no one puts any money behind research into something I find so fascinating.

Calochortus invenustus
Sony A6300, Nikor 105mm Macro at 2.8 iso 100,  on a tripod in the greenhouse. 

Or at least i'm assuming this is actually invenustus, with the strange population dynamics, and this form having unusually blue anthers as well as a blue shaft on it's trifid stigma. This one is said to be somewhat intractable in cultivation and hard to grow outside of it's native range. Ha! outside of it's strangely disjunct native range? I guess if you can recreate the conditions of the  bay area, and San Diego and a low range in Mono County complete with ghost towns and abandoned gold mines then  you can probably grow this flower.

For some reason they call it the the plain mariposa but it is anything but.

I am really excited to be able to photograph these with a great lens finally, I picked up a smoking deal on a dirt cheap 30mm F3.5 sony lens that I'm gonna use for the backpacking I plan to do into the wildlands at somepoint and If all goes according to my well laid plans, I'm gonna pick up that 90mm F2.8 macro Sony makes and then I'm gonna start taking the best pics ever!

Cheers,

Mark

The Rock Garden at Illahe

 Just back from a super fun trip to see some great friends married right on the shores of Lake Tahoe, it was sunny, the snow capped mountains rimming the lake with it's turquoise glow. It was hard to leave.

The Penstemon collection is going off and P. barrettiae is the king among them. 

The rock garden is coming into its own, and I'm still learning photography so somehow I ended up with an unintended vignette.

So just a few shots for the posterity sake of it, mostly I wanted to make a comment on the weather, it hasn't rained in 3 weeks, and look how fine the rock garden is doing, It's all about plant selection when you factor in climate change and an increasing concern about drought and water usage. 

The Calochortus are just starting to bloom so let the fun picture taking begin!

Cheers, 

Mark

Airports and blog entrys

I'm sitting in the Portland Airport writing this blog post and I suddenly realized how awesome it would be to be a traveling botanical blogger. Pretty much fly around the world and take flower photographs and write about them. Waiting for flights would give one plenty of time to post process the images. And the flight would allow plenty of time for writing about them.

Columbines in the rock garden

 I think I mentioned I was able to borrow a high quality lens from a friend of mine and I've been having a wonderful time shooting some high quality photo's. I really wish I had invested in good equipment a few years ago now. These shots were taken with a 105mm Macro lens, shot at about 8:30 at night using a tripod. I ended up taking a pretty long shutter speed, and stopped all the way down to the lens value of 2.8.

Columbines in the rock garden

 I'm super greatful for the loaner lens because now I think I know what I want to get, i'm saving for the sony 90mm macro, I originally thought I was going to want to go with a wider focal point lens but after seeing what you can do in low light because of the increased focal length I think it really makes sense to increase it a bit. I figure if I ever end up doing the travel thing, having the ability to do some handheld stuff and in low light seems very necessary for the changeable conditions encountered during travel.

Fritillaria biflora var. ineziana

The last of the Fritillaria are starting in now and the above is the final one to start into bloom. The calochorthus will be along shortly and I'm super excited to get some high quality photo's of these species with the borrowed lens or perhaps I will strike it big in Reno and I'll be able to get that Sony lens.

So I'm off to a wedding of two very special friends in lake tahoe this weekend, I left the camera at home but maybe I'll run into something photo worthy.

I can't not mention the weather, It hasn't rained for three straight weeks and if it does hit 89 degrees today it will break a record, things are very, very dry and the plants haven't had a chance to harden off the new growth so everything is flagging. Expect to see a remarkbly dry and painfully hot summer. Fingers crossed the weather gods are just bluffing this time.

Signing off from coach class row 9 seat D.

Mark