Lower and Upper Table Rock, April 11 and 12, 2025
We (Christine, my wife and I) took a few days to drive into southern Oregon to hike both Upper and Lower Table Rocks. These are two areas I have long heard about and read about, partially managed by The Nature Conservancy, the BLM and the Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde. The area is noted for vernal pools with rare and protected fairy shrimp, but for me, more important is the dwarf woolly meadowfoam, which grows nowhere else but these two buttes in Oregon.
The weather was absolutely perfect for both days: mostly sunny and just a little wind. Our first day was hiking up Lower Table Rock. We followed the trail up, through oak savannah and madrone forest, to the top, a long relatively flat area with the vernal pools and meadows full of wildflowers. Along the trail up were lots of larkspur, Pacific hound’s tongue, shooting stars, giant lupine getting ready to bloom, desert parsley, prairie stars, giant blue-eyed Mary, and some new wildflowers that were also reasons for the trip: red bells and Henderson’s fawn lilies.
Along the trails of both Upper and Lower Table Rock, Red bells were scattered in the forest, occasionally in large groups of them but more often just one or two growing near each other.
Henderson’s fawn lilies grow more in the southern climes than up north.
The madrones are incredibly beautiful with peeling bark and smooth trunks, many were flowering as were it’s relative, the green manzanita.
Once arriving at the top we found a large relatively flat area where the vernal pools are (or were, as most were gone this mid April and hence no fairy shrimp). To give you an idea of the size of this plateau, it used to be an air strip for airplanes. No longer used as such you can still see the tracks, but there are now an abundance of wildflowers up there. We found the dwarf woolly meadowfoam pretty easily, along with California goldfields, cowbag/poverty clover, lots of grasses, some shrubby areas of buckbrush and manzanita and rocky areas.
Dwarf woolly meadowfoam. This small plant grows nowhere else on the planet. It likes being near the vernal pools.
Our second day we went up the slightly shorter hike for Upper Table Rock. It was very much the same as Lower Table Rock, except the trail was shorter and the plateau was smaller. But it too was filled with massive amounts of California goldfield, cowbag/poverty clover, white tipped clover, California sandwort, grassy areas and the ubiquitous dwarf woolly meadowfoam. The pools here were mostly gone also. As we wandered out along the footpaths on the plateau, we walked through grassy areas, some where the vernal pools were, and found a very unusual plant: naked broomrape. I have two very thorough lists of plants of the Table Rocks and neither of them listed naked broomrape (Aphyllon purpureum). So this was a very happy discovery.
Naked broomrape, a mycotrophic plant, has no green leaves. This was a happy surprise as this is one of my favorite wildflowers.
I didn’t see any of these, fringepods, on Lower Table Rock, just Upper Table Rock, but I suspect they are there.
This is a Henderson’s fawn lily as seen from the underside, most lovely.
