Wheldon Wagon Road, May 6, 2025
It was a sunny, warmish Tuesday when I set out up the trail. I had in mind finding the striped coralroot I found last year when I was here, and more on top of my mind was looking for and finding the clustered lady’s slipper, that I had read were here somewhere along the trail. As I hiked up the hillside (the trail rises 1290 feet in about two and a half miles), I found the coralroot just where I remembered it from last year. It is still a striking plant for me. There were lots and lots of barestem and nine leaf desert parsleys, so many that there were little meadows seemingly of nothing but desert parsley plants. Very yellow!! As I hiked on, I came to the fields on my right full of arrowleaf balsamroots.
The hillside was filled to overflowing with arrowleaf balsamroots.
The trail passes through small white oak stands, so there is shade available, not just open fields of hot sunshine. There is one place where there is standing water lined with seep monkeyflowers, and another where a small stream flows down the hill, thick with grasses and monkeyflowers. These were where I was expecting the clustered lady’s slipper to be, as they like being near water.
Wrong!! Not at either place.
I was only able to hike up to the sign announcing the Natural Resources Conservation Area, 1.57 miles up the trail. My back still gives me fits, so I couldn’t finish the trail. As I headed down back to the trailhead and parking area, I continually searched for the elusive lady’s slipper, but much to my chagrin, I didn’t find any. I did come across a new small flowered nemophila, so I can add this to this website.
Discovering new wildflowers is still a big joy for me, so finding this little one helped to assuage the bit of disappointment on not finding the lady’s slipper. I was nearing the trailhead and parking area, back into the forest of pine and fir, near where I had found the striped coralroot ion the hike up. I had kind of given up being lucky enough to come across this other new plant. I had just tossed my hands into the air, saying not today, wrong day, wrong time. And damn, if that wasn’t the instant that there it was, kind of hiding behind a fallen log, in a moist area in the shade of the forest.
A lovely flower, with a curved stem, notice the hole in the flower. There were three flowers on this plant, though in this picture, one is hiding in back and not as visible as the other two. I jumped for joy at this surprise.
Also near the trailhead, I found another little flower that I had been looking for, the western starflower.
All in all, a good day on the trail.
