Chocolate Lilies, Calypso Orchids and Camas

Wildflowers April 1-10

The season is moving quickly now. Each week more and more species are blooming. We took two trips to the Gorge and were delighted with what we saw.

 

April 3, 2013

 

Our first trip was to see if the Chocolate Lilies had bloomed. We made four stops all within a couple of miles of the Memaloose Hills.

Our first stop was to the Memaloose Rest Area on Interstate 84 at milepost 71.  On the trail not too far from the parking area there is a small clump of “Dutchman’s Britches."
(Click on any of the photos to enlarge them.)

Dutchman's Britches- (Dicentra cucullaria) J-161*.

These small dainty white flowers look something like their cousins the Bleeding Hearts. The flower’s white luminance makes them difficult to photograph accurately. They tend to become a white blur.

The Photo. Let’s talk for a moment about how this photo was made.The First step is positioning the camera.  I try to get down to the level of the flower, “Face-to-face”. The next step is to get as much of the flower as possible in focus. This means getting parallel to the plane of the flower. In this case that is easy: it is the plane of the stem. All of the britches are an equal distance from the camera.

Now the camera is a couple of inches above the ground. Luckily the sun is coming in behind us and so illumination is no problem. In order to increase the area that is in sharp focus I close the f-stop as low as possible, f/16 in this case. This picture was quick and easy.

Mission accomplished. We went over to the Historic Columbia River Highway, HCRH, and the Rowena Loops.  In our favorite patch of Garry Oaks the Chocolate Lilies were in full bloom, surrounded by emerging Poison Oak plants.

Chocolate Lily (Fritillaria lanceolata) J-27*

The deep purplish brown flower is mottled with a yellow-green. It sometimes has multiple flowers on a stalk.

The Photos. Positioning for these Chocolate Lily photos is the same in each case. I try to get slightly lower than the bell-shaped flower in order to see inside. I also try to get to one-side of the drooping stem so the viewer can see the flower’s structure. The problem with this position is trying to focus. Poison Oak is all over in this environment. I bring a garden kneeling-pad to kneel on. The LCD panel to see the camera’s view is essential, since looking through the view finder is not practical. My LCD folds out so I can look down on it. An alternative is to use a mirror to see the LCD screen.

I focus manually for these chocolate lilies because the camera gets confused about what to focus on. And once again I use the lowest possible f-stop, in this case f/22. That will increase the depth of field.

If you are just trying to record the fact that you saw these flowers it is possible to use a telephoto lens. That way you don’t have to get “down in the weeds”. But the problem is that often the depth of field is only a fraction of an inch deep. That means the front of the flower is in focus and the back is blurry.

Although I avoided the Poison Oak on this trip, I had not been so lucky in late March. Apparently I contacted it on my left hand and now, three weeks later, the sore is finally healing.

We moved on to the top of the Rowena Crest and stopped at Tom McCall Nature Preserve. There I found delphiniums or larkspur 

Larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum) J-135 *

The deep blue-purple flowers are difficult for many digital camera sensors to see. The result is often an out-of-focus picture. Focusing on a flower center can side-step this problem.

After this brief stop we were off to the Memaloose Overlook, just a few miles west on the HCRH. As the crow flies, the Overlook is just above the Rest Area where we started out down on I-84. There were several new blooms of Indian Paint Brush. This plant was recently reclassified in the Orobanchaceae family, the same family as the parasitic Broomrape. It is believed that it gets some nourishment from the roots of nearby grasses. Thus, it is considered partially parasitic.

Indian Paint Brush (Castilleja miniata) J-521*

April 9

Our second trip was to a favorite place of Russ Jolley, the “Camas Patch” near Carson.Washington. We had heard that the Calypso Orchid (Calypso bulbosa) (J-50) was in bloom here. And the rumor was correct. It looks like a good year for this pink beauty.

Calypso Orchid (Calypso bulbosa) J-50

Photo. Most of the orchids we saw were 3-4 inches tall. Since my tripod would not set up that low, I set it aside and rested the camera on the corner of a ground cover. I could hold the camera still with my right hand and activate the shutter with a cable release in my left hand. (If you don’t have a cable release, use the camera’s self-timer.) I set the f-stop at f/22. The shutter speed was 1/60. For the next picture, I zoomed out to 18 mm. With Calypso Orchids particularly, the automatic focus gets very confused. I use manual focus and aim to get the “tongue” in focus. In post-production I use Photoshop to sharpen the focus even more.  

It is amazing that a pink flower can exist among the brown dead leaves of the forest floor and yet be so difficult to spot. Still this ability to remain hidden is a liability when it is stepped on. Any attempt to move or pick these flowers almost always kills them. They have tiny hair-like roots which are easily broken.  Among the many plants we found was this "bouquet."

The star attraction of the Camas Patch is the Camas Lily. The flower is two to three inches in diameter with delicate flower part. To photograph it, it is important to get the camera parallel to the petals.

Common Camas (Cammasia quamash) J -19*

Camas was an important plant to Native Americans. Its bulb was a food source and, when boiled, contained fructose for sweetening other foods.

Uprooted Camas bulb about one inch long

We found this bulb floating in a puddle in a recently disturbed area. 

*Refers to citations in Russ Jolley, Wildflowers of the Columbia Groge.

Copyright 2013 Tom Nelson

All Rights Reserved

Please ask before you use my photos