The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Snails, fish, insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located.
After our pelagic bird boat tour, Mr. Watt and I went south from Westport WA, down the coast, doing some geocaching at state parks. One of our first stops was Grayland beach on June 29th. It is a huge, flat, sandy beach with lots of washed up sand dollars and a surprisingly few shells. The beach itself seemed to go on and on and there were dunes to cross to get to the beach.
Grayland Beach State Park, south of Westport WA
Follow me beyond the tangled mat of vines growing in the sand.
Big, flat, sandy beaches are very different from what I'm used to. Up north on the outer coast of the Olympic Peninsula, the beaches are bordered by bluffs with considerable piles of driftwood, including some huge logs, to climb over to get to the shoreline. Some beaches have sand, but many are rocky.
Rocky, sandy, log strewn beach on NW coast of ONP
Back home, along the Salish Sea, beaches often consist of rocks of all sizes with very few sandy spots. It makes for tricky walking as they roll under your foot.
Pebbly beach on Discovery Bay, Salish Sea, WA
So the sandy beaches and sand dunes offered a very different environment. Of course, I got distracted by the wildflowers that could grow in the dry sand. The plants tend to be prostrate with fleshy, succulent and/or hairy leaves to conserve moisture that sand won't retain.
Enjoy the flowers!
Here's a closeup of the flowers from the sprawling mat at the top of this bucket. Yellow Verbana is a native plant that was valued for its edible taproots by the Chinook people.
Yellow Sand Verbena (Abronia latifolia)
Dune tansy gets its scientific name from its aromatic camphor smell. The Haida called it "sloppy yellow beach leaves." It is native and grows from rhizomes.
Dune tansy (Tanacetum camphoratum)
Growing along the trail to the beach through the dunes was a Mediterranean import, named for Thomas Parentucellia, founder of the Rome Botanical Gardens. It was one of the few plants that was growing upright (12 inches tall) instead of prostrate along the sand.
Yellow Parentucellia (Parentucellia viscosa)
There were mats of Sea Rocket, some several feet across. There are two varieties and I think there were both growing along the beach and I'm not sure of my ID. Cakile edentula is a native, more common, and more likely growing as a prostrate mat. Cakile maritima is non-native and can grow taller.
Sea Rocket (Cakile sp.)
Finally, the mat of lupine, only a few inches tall and hairy seemed very distinctive. Tiny tiny lupines. The roots apparently were eaten by Haida, Tlingit, and Chinook people. It had the nickname "Chinook licorice."
Seashore lupine (Lupinus littoralis)
Your turn! Any line (of succulents) in the sand in your backyards?
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