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Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Weather Winding Trails:
Watch
Cave Junction
Thursday, Aug 14
Partly Cloudy
high -- 85 Low -- 55
Friday, Aug 15
Clear
high -- 90 Low -- 58
T ry
r osie ’ s
PIZZA
Saturday, Aug 16
Clear
high -- 92 Low -- 59
Sunday, Aug 17
Clear
high -- 92 Low -- 59
Monday, Aug 18
B Y -T HE -S LICE
Clear
high -- 93 Low -- 60
Today
Clear
high -- 95 Low -- 62
Tuesday, Aug 19
Wednesday, Aug 20
Clear
high -- 95 Low -- 63
415-0517
OPEN:
MONDAY & FRIDAY
aT C hevron in CJ
11 AM - 7 PM
SATURDAYS
aT G ranTs P ass
G rowers M arkeT
following are the high & low temperatures,
and rainfall recorded at the end of the Road
in o’brien by cheryl & harry Johnson:
Aug
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
High
Low
99.9
98.6
88.2
92.5
91.9
93.2
96.1
53.2
55.2
60.4
56.7
60.6
54.0
53.8
July Rain: 0.00” ytd Rain: 48.11”
average yearly Rain total: 72.00”
Deadline for Labor Day
will be
Thursday, August 28
at 5 p.m.
Thank you!
by Al Hobart
thursday, August 13, 1964 – Illinois Valley News, Cave
Junction, oR –
Never Neglect a Mountain or Canyon
Ten years ago, on the densely wooded, nearly brushless
shore of Kelly Lake, on the Indian Creek drainage below Poker
Flat, I found an odd little saprophyte growing in the forest mold
that somewhat resembled the snow plant, except that it was
whitish instead of red. I brought it home, picked it apart under
my magnifying glass and determined that it was the fringed
pinesap, Pleurocospora fimbriolata. This is a different plant from
the hairy pinesap found here in the Valley, which is Hypopitys
lanuginosa.
Until this spring I had never run across another one of these
strange plants. Then one day, I decided to investigate a couple
of my near mountains that I had never climbed before, Chicago
Peak and Little Sanger. Near the top of both of these mountains
I found a number of fringed pinesaps hiding in the woods near
the rocky summits.
Another little stranger that I found near the 5,200-foot top
of Little Sanger is Howell’s draba, an attractive little yellow-
flowered member of the mustard family. In Abrams’ Illustrated
Flora of the Pacific States the type locality of this wee draba is
given as Preston Peak and that is the only place I had seen it till
I climbed Little Sanger. And the 4-inch high Siskiyou fritillary,
with its large dark-purple, yellow speckled nodding flower and
few broad whitish-green leaves that I have seen before only near
Tennessee Peak, is in bloom on Little Sanger. On both Little
Sanger and Chicago Peak I found the rich waxy-red snow plants
just pushing up through the forest duff. I really hit the jackpot on
these two peaks, and in the future I’ll try to remember the lesson
they have taught me: never neglect a mountain or canyon just
because it happens to be in your own backyard
There is something extremely fascinating about these
saprophytes, flowering plants that thrive in deep shade where
ordinary flowers can’t grow. Some are very colorful, and
because of this, are strikingly attractive in the “shadowy forest”
where they are usually found – the beautiful, red, snow plant
sometimes found pushing its way up through the snow; soft-
yellow, translucent pinesap, and the gleaming white Indian pipe.
All are examples of living beings springing from and thriving
upon the dead, the rotting vegetable matter beneath the trees and
shrubs. With the funguses, a lower, non-flowering order of plant
life, the saprophytes are scavengers of the forest, doing their small
but helpful bit toward cleaning up the decaying cast-off material
that yearly cumulates on the forest floor. In the forest this debris
is almost constantly falling: dead leaves, twigs, and-bits of bark
are gently raining down; often large branches, sometimes entire
dead trees fall to the ground; high winds uproot live trees and
add them to the accumulation of forest litter that nature must
somehow dispose of. This is accomplished in various ways. The
dreaded forest fire is by far the quickest operator, but it destroys
the living as well as the dead, and, uncontrolled, is an enemy of
all living things. The slower but friendly bacteria break down
the discarded vegetable matter and make it available as plant
food; the fungi do their helpful part.
But the really glamorous members of the forest’s shadow-
dwelling understory friends are the saprophytes. And what they
may fail to supply in impressive results they make up for in the
sheer beauty of their often startling colors and artistic forms.
The North side of Little Sanger Peak.
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770 Caves Hwy • Cave Junction