Azalea State Natural Reserve

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It's April, so time to check on the azaleas. The web page for the reserve says they should be blooming in April and May. I wasn't expecting much. The listing for Rhododendron occidentale on iNaturalist does show an increase of observations in April, but the majority are May, June, July. The number of observations marked "flowering" lags a little with "budding" coming up most in April and May, but only about 16% of observations have had anyone bother to mark them at all. I didn't find much. They might be leafing out to try to identify them from the nude sticks, but none were ready to flower and none of the leaves I photographed were them. I did find other flowers as I toured the loops in exactly the same order. It had been a nice order.

twin tube flowers in yellow with a red ring — Twinberry honeysuckle was green buds, a pair all yellow, and this pair. I spotted some berries in Colorado and wanted to see the twin flower to go with the twin berries.

tiny leaves looking like flower buds — The budding leaves can be quite beautiful too.

white flower overhead — There's lots of these that seem tall enough and with something like the right sort of leaf. Osoberry?

Someone had been cutting back a few things by the trail. I got around the corner to find that someone had done a bunch of work on the area. Really, they'd worked it over. Stumps a few inches off the ground, the biggest about a foot across, and wood chips and one lone trillium in the blazing sun. The ivy appeared to be gone too, but just from that section.

devastation for a few feet all around — So why did there need to be a mini clear-cut?

Around the next corner, it was all back to normal. Ivy and all.

huge skunk cabbage — The skunk cabbage is showing off its notably large leaves.

shady under the conifer branches — A little section under the trees.

big, white flower — Some of the trillium were looking just a little bit pink.

more twinned yellow flowers — Another twinberry honeysuckle.

I started around the second route. I found some of the twinberry honeysuckle way up high before coming to the ivy and the other vine that seemed to grow a lot like ivy but would put out branches and had much wider leaves. Oh, and the berries sticking up from it all. That's also ivy. The mature branches take on that different morphology.

high above like pink tents — The outer petals, probably bracts, are the more visible on these more mature twinberries.

tiny yellow flowers — Tiny redwood violets have found some space not occupied by ivy.

I spotted a lot more of the grand firs now that I knew what they were. There's much more than the one down at the bottom. In spite of all the work that had happened below, the tree was still across the path at the top of the trail.

long branches of ivy now sticking up — The ivy was still rather green on the fallen tree, too. Who would have thought ivy would strech out such long branches. Okay, some people knew it does.

thin white petals in a two layer ring — Some of the invasives are a little less choking of the rest of the vegetation.

cones with fringes — A very sappy Douglas fir. There's no getting away from them.

So I came to the same conclusion of the hike as before. No azaleas in bloom to see, but I thought it was still a bit early.

©2021 Valerie Norton
Written 11 Apr 2021

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Comments

Chris Valle-Riestra said…

Early June is the time for azaleas up Camp Three Rd. out of Somes Bar, but that's much higher elevation.

12 April, 2021 17:21

Valerie Norton said…

Yeah, there's a good bunch of the azaleas on the hill going up to Summit Valley from South Kelsey Trail that I found in early June last year. It's definitely June for the majority of them. I think the problem is Eureka has a rhododendron parade on the last Saturday of April so that's when they think they bloom. I found some pages describing this rhododendron, and it's short with stubby leaves compared to the native one. The common rhododendron that everyone likes to have in their yards fits the description and does bloom April-May. The headquarters for the area state parks is at Fort Humboldt, so Eureka people, putting stuff on the web sites based on their experience with a European import instead of the local ones. Rhodedendron occidentale (the ones here) are very solidly best in June with a fair bit to see in May and July and Rhododendron macrophyllum (the ones under the redwoods) are about the same with a little better display in May, judging by the peak of people posting observations on iNaturalist.

12 April, 2021 21:40

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