Camassia Nature Preserve

Make a Smilebox photobook

CCC Pauling Center Native Plant Garden

Make a Smilebox photobook

You have to click to the right on the "next"triangle...

Oregon Carnivorous Native Plant Eats Bugs!

The Darlingtonia Californica, also called the Cobra Lily, is native to California and Oregon. This plant lures insects with its sweet smell then traps them inside, digesting them into nitrogen, which it then reabsorbs. Darlingtonia State Natural Site off of Highway 101 is the only state park dedicated solely to one native species.

Here's the class pic from Camassia. I will bring more pics to school on Wednesday.

Dandelion Wine

Field of Dreams...

Dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale)

I really wanted to make Dandelion wine for my class project but it turns out that it takes 6 months to age.

Dandelion greens or dandelion salad would have been fun, too, but I don't want to kill the class.

So, here are some links to some websites where you can have fun with dandelions on your own:

Dandelion Wine is fermented sunshine...

--Jack Keller, winemaker

Dandelion Greens Recipes

Optional Events for BIO340A

Thursday, May 28 at 5:30 (reception at 5)

Kenneth Miller, professor of biology at Brown University presents:

"Darwin, God, and Design: America's Continuing Problem with Evolution"

University of Oregon, Portland campus
White Stag block (the building underneath the great White Stag neon sign)
70 NW Couch Street
Portland, Oregon

http://www.uoregon.edu/~humanctr/images/miller.pdf

Saturday, May 30 9-noon

The Great Ivy Pull

Marylhurst Campus

A "Green Team" of ivy pullers to scale back some of the invasive growth of ivy on our campus greens is needed. If you would like to participate, please email science department Chair Jan Dabrowski jdabrowski@marylhurst.edu to sign up. Bring your gloves for this one!

Quotes and Vocabulary for BIO340A

"The cult of biology"- people who believe in evolution and environmentalism, as quoted by a lawyer in a court proceeding in the late 1980s about the interests of the logging industry versus preserving the habitat of the Spotted Owl.

"Even biologists don't talk about trillions!" Bob Misley comparing the age scale of the entire universe at approximately 13.7 billion years old versus the national debt...

At the Clackamas Community College native plants garden there are steps spaced at a scale of 100 million years apart. You have to walk across the entire courtyard to get from 4.6 billion years ago when the earth was formed to today. Entire human history is only the width of a sheet of paper at the very end. At the beauty and majesty of all the geology behind biology I exclaimed, "yeah, and only 200 years to destroy it!" referencing the industrial revolution and the resultant technological pollution of the planet's biosphere. Bob said, "I am optimistic that humans will find a way to sustainability". I said, "I feel like I've been to a funeral."

"Exploding overalls" In the 1600s farmers did not realize that all that fertilizer they were getting on their clothes when they worked their fields was getting nitrogen all over them and sometimes, in the heat of the sun, their overalls would catch fire from the highly flammable nitrogen residue!

"The only thing better than being absolutely right, is being absolutely wrong!" --Bob Misley.
On the field trip to Mary S. Young park, Bob identified a plant as Coltsfoot (page 294) but later when they flowered he could see that it was really Waterleaf (page 231) as we saw at the Marylhurst native plants tour of the campus.

"Teratogen"--causes developmental mutation in the embryo. Cornlily (page 113) is one such plant that when the sheeps eat it their babies are born with mutations such as only one eye and they die early.

"Evo Devo" evolutionary development. I think Bob just made that up because it sounds cool!

"One person's butterfly is another person's moth!" Rough translation: A plant that some view as purely ornamental, others may view as medicinal or otherwise useful. Another Bobism.

"Old growth forests" what the logging industry calls the forests of Oregon because the phrase implies dead, decaying, or dying trees that nobody wants anyway, might as well make 'em into paper.

"Ancient forests" what environmentalists call the same Oregon forests because it connotes sacred, spiritual land requring conscientous preservation.

"Estacadian" someone, such as Bob Misley, who originated from Estacada.

"If you don't eat it, it eats you." general rule of nature, brought to you by Bob.

Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest by CL Hitchcock

"The public library is the most dangerous place in town."--John Ciardi

Vascular Plants of the Northwest by Charles L. Hitchcock is the classic compendium of the native plants of the Pacific Northwest. Marylhurst's Shoen library only has the Condensed version, a.k.a. the Big Book or The Botany Bible as the authoritative resource on native plant identification. Flora of the Pacific Northwest: an illustrated volume is available at Clackamas County public libraries in several cities They have the Big Book available for checkout or to look at in the reference section. The only place around here that you can find all five volumes of the entire encyclopedia of native northwest plants is at the Clackamas Community College library in the reference section.

Portland Nursery Northwest Native Plants

The Portland Nursery has a whole section devoted to Northwest Native plants. Their website has a brochure on Gardening with Native plants available for download and they maintain a list of Northwest Native plants that they have for sale. Also on their website is a list of links to places around Portland where native plants can be seen.

Portland Nursery Northwest Native Plants

Seen here is one of the most common plants native to the Oregon area, the Trillium.

We're Going to Camassia!

Wednesday May 27 we are meeting at 3 at Flavia Hall to arrange carpooling to the Camassia Nature Preserve in West Linn. To prepare for this field trip wear long pants and long sleeved shirt because of potential exposure to poison oak. Do not wear open toed shoes and when you leave the preserve go home, take off all your clothes and put them in the washing machine and take a shower. Other than that, this will be fun! More information about Camassia and directions on how to get there can be found here:

Camassia Nature Preserve

So, what's a camassia? As we learned on the field trip to the native plants garden at Clackamas Community College, the Camas was a staple food of the original inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest. Meriwether Lewis in 1806 wrote of the Camassia, "at a short distance, the colour resembles lakes of bright, clear water." Read all about it here: Camassia