I had a great weekend in the Pope Valley in Napa. The wildflowers were spectacular & I learned all about star thistle. I never really dealt with it before, it's a soft silvery dandelion looking thing right now then in late spring it bolts & develops thorns & seeds. Last year's growth is visible as 12" gray bare stalks. The thorns fall off by now & it's easy weeding. The nice thing is where I was working the richness of the remaining native flora made it easy to make a weedy looking bank into a delicious meadow full of gorgeous sparkling perennial grasses & wildflowers. Bees, birds & butterflies everywhere. Very rewarding! Of course I haven't seen it when the yellow star thistle comes in & all the natives are brown. It gets hot there in the summer.

There were quite a few hundred acres (in bits & pieces) of valley floor that are undisturbed at least for the last 30 years or more. Not even much grazing lately.

Suddenly it's hot real estate & vineyards are bursting forth everywhere. People are knocking down vintage Valley Oaks with bulldozers & plowing the wildflower gardens under. 15 years & it'll be transformed from a largely pristine California valley into a pesticide clouded industrial zone.

I don't know many of the grasses & flowers but you can tell what's native just by looking at how it fits in elegantly with the mix & by noticing how certain things are more abundant in disturbed areas & some things like all the many beautiful grasses are only at their best in the less disturbed areas. There is surprisingly little of the European annual grasses.

Plants we saw...
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(the first few I've never seen before)

Linanthus bicolor (or similar species) Bright Baby Stars, in the local vernacular, annual. http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=7914&one=T 

Linanthus parviflorus? Common Linanthus, annual. http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=7958&one=T  except the one we saw was a fantastic blue, not pink.

Something bigger & pink that looks like a clarkia with some fuzz in it & inconspicuous ferny leaves. 5 petals with a central white sex organ. Most with a white center & some with a dark pink center. Annual. * possibly Sidalcea diploscypha [yes] http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=10512&one=T  It looks much different than the perennial Checkerbloom I'm accustomed to.

Two kinds of Triphysaria eriantha (or similar species, Butter & Eggs, annual. http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=19895&one=T  * possibly T. eriantha ssp. eriantha, and T. versicolor ssp. faucibarbata;

Calochortus amabilis, Golden Fairy Lantern, Golden Globelily or similar species http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=18818&one=T 

Whole mountainsides covered with Tritelia laxa, Ithuriel's Spear

Blue Dicks, Dichlostemma capitatum

Indian acorn grinding stones.

A lovely, delicate Blue/ Purple Clover kind of like this one but a prettier blue: Trifolium willdenovii, Tomcat Clover http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=10911&one=T  * possibly T. obtusiflorum, especially if growing in a damp area http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=10908&one=T 

Filago californica,California Cotton Rose http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=16970&one=T ""California Cotton Rose" is one of a number of species once comprising the "grass" all over the state, in the days before European contact... a common [where natives are still 'common'!] inconspicuous member of the Asteraceae. Mary Bowerman [The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Mount Diablo, California] calls it "California Cotton Rose" -- I appreciate her attempts to come up with appropriate common names. From observations made in the early 30s, she describes its habitat, occurrence and flowering season on Mount Diablo as: "Open grassy knolls and cherty flats, in the shade of shrubs, upon the edge of chaparral, and on chaparral-burns. >From the base to the summit. Frequent. March to May." She notes its associates: "Variable, including Tillaea erecta [Crassula connata], Astragalus Gambelianus, Lotus sp., Trifolium sp., Phacelia distans, Plantago erecta, Psilocarphus tenellus."  Micropus californicus also seems [similar] from the drawing in Jepson. It is noted as even more common than Filago californica in Bowerman, with about the same associates."

Jeffrey Caldwell

Delicate annual Lupines, in mass

Blue Larkspur * Delphinium variegatum and D. uliginosum grow in this area, among others

Amsinckia menziesii Common fiddleneck, or similar species http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=6318&one=T 

Huge clumps of Mule's Ears, Wyethia (Sunflower)

Goldfields & other pretty annual yellow Composites

Small, yellow Lotus, Phacelia californica, Yerba Santa, Eriogonum, Indian Warrior, Castilleja: paintbrush & Owl's clover, *probably also Castilleja exserta or C. densiflora in this area. Collinsia, Chinese Houses, Yellow Mimiulus, Blue eyed Grass, Melic Grass, Needle Grass, Iris macrosiphon, Lomatium & another larger, coarser wild parsley like plant, a "White Hyacinth" Muilla?, Chlorogalum, shooting stars, Dodecatheon, Fritillaria, Mission Bells, Goldenback Fern, Indian Lettuce and poppies.

Trees/Shrubs
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Valley Oak, White Oak, Black Oak, Live Oak, Scrub Oak...
Digger Pine, Toyon

Weeds
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Grapes would be better if grown with native cover crops.

Yellow star thistle, Centaurea solstitialis -worst case is  a 10 acre meadow filled with it solid. They tilled & tilled & stopped all the sudden without doing anything about it. Some people burn or mow but you have to mow early before it becomes a fire hazard to run equipment -moves into bare soil between bunch grasses & disturbed areas too. -leaves the ground devastated. Can be out competed & doesn't move into the poorest soils. * now estimated to affect 20 million acres in cismontane California, the most widespread invasive plant

~

Vicia sativa, Spring Vetch Agricultural cover crop & a weed in pristine areas I think... although it has brilliant purple flowers & was covered in bees, it tends to swamp native things.

Loliums, Rye Grasses Lolium multiflorum, Italian Rye Grass or Lolium perenne, Perennial Rye Grass?  *both are widespread. I looked these up after I got back & I'm afraid much of what I thought was beautiful native grasses when I was up there is in fact these two invasives or something similar. Short lived perennials considered excellent forage for
cattle & very desirable for ranchers.  This is the stuff that's popular for aerial seeding after wild fires that destroys the native flora. I'm still sure much of what I saw was native but I really don't know.

Oats

Bitter Dock, Rumex

Salsify, Tragopogon

--
Paul Furman http://www.edgehill.net native plants - slope design

*additional comments by Peter Warner
 

A reply to the initial email above: 

Hi Paul,
My husband and I were in Pope Valley yesterday, and it is still as you
describe it. We have been going there for 50 years, and always look for our
favorite vernal pools which are as blue as lakes with downingia. This year
the downingia was there but trampled earlier by cattle so it was sparse.
Next year grapes, we feel.
The valley was a quiet agricultural valley until a few years ago, but now we
are upset at all the corporation vineyards going in, replacing the local
farmers. There are two large, new damned lakes which will bring unlimited
water to these corporate vineyards. We think the whole valley will be in
grapes before long, with absent landowners and all the water they demand.
The farmers in the central valley have some kind of law suit going on about
Pope Creek watershed being controlled, reducing the water they have always
had via Berryessa and Putah Creek. Don't know what will happen with that...
Elly Bade
Berkeley