California’s Flaming-Trumpet, Collomia rawsoniana

Some botanical trips take us to the most random and remote parts of California. This beautiful and elusive plant was no different! The Flaming-Trumpet, Collomia rawsoniana is truly a botanical beauty!

Floral Friday: Spanish Needle Onion, Allium shevockii

This blog post documents an adventurous quest to locate the Spanish Needle Onion, also known as Allium shevockii. Despite unforeseen setbacks like a flat tire, we eventually found the plant on June 4th. The Spanish Needle Onion is a rare species found in a limited area of the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, growing in metamorphic talus outcrops within specific forest communities. A fantastic flower to start of the “Floral Friday” blog series.

Featured Creatures of November ’22

What do sea slugs and fruiting fungi have in common? Both are poppin and full of color in Northern California throughout November of 2022. Fall and winter is full of diversity!

Frightening Fall Fungi

Witch’s Butter? Jack-O’-Lantern? Bleeding Tooth? Many fall fungi of Northern California are fruiting, just in time for the spookiest time of the year. Take a look at some of the most “frightening” fall fungi.

Oooo La La Orchids, Costa Rica Blog pt. 3

Would you travel to Costa Rica to hunt for orchids? That’s exactly what we did, and found an incredible diversity of species, structures, colors and sizes. From the 2-3 mm flowers to ones the size of tennis balls the world of orchids is one to admire and fascinating to learn about.

Fantastic Fruits of the Forest Floor

At this time of year in California mushrooms are popping out of the ground like mad! Their bright and various colors inspired me to take a look into why they are so colorful!

Unbe-LEAF-able Leaves

Sometimes little moments in nature just force you to put on the brakes and admire what you almost stepped over. This happens a lot to me, and today I wanted to share my little collection of beautiful and unique fallen leaves.

The Marvelous Millipedes of Marin County

Rummaging around in the dirt and flipping logs can reveal many natural wonders. Millipedes are often found scurrying around, so here’s a little description and photos of the common ones I’m finding while living in Marin County, CA in November of 2020.