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One of the things about Lighthouse Field that bugs people with dogs is the foxtails that ripen in the summer. These nasty grasses -- also called wild barley -- make sharply barbed seeds that can really wreak havoc on a dog's nose or ear or eye. In the summer, parts of the field are covered with them. Other parts are covered with another exotic, wild oats.
This year there's something different going on. Perhaps because of the very wet winters we've been having, and the bonus rain we had after the rainy season was over, we've got a different balance of grasses. There's always been a wide variety of grass species in the field, which I have meant to study before this, but not having any real knowledge of grasses to start with I was reluctant to dive into Jepson cold (Jepson is not really so great for actually identifying plants. It's better for getting to understand the general way that plants are related, and ranges, and stuff). The foxtail colony this year is pretty small, and the wild oat colony even smaller, and the rest of the field seems to be overtaken by --
I think it's poa secunda, a common native with many ecological forms that intergrade, like wild irises do.
I think I have identified it correctly. It fits the description, and it fits the range and the habitat.
What's really interesting about this, besides the fact that a native has edged out an invasive exotic, is that it's doing this and staying green much later in the year. There are swathes of bright green grass out there today, and it's the solstice: by now we expect all the hills to be golden or peachy with ripe and dying grass. Little Sir John having grown his long, long beard, and looking so pale and wan, you know. This year even the hillsides have green stains on them.
Historically, the mediterranean grasses got their hegemony over much of California during an extended drought at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the native populations were heavily stressed. It sort of looks like, to me anyway, that what went on was that these mediterranean grasses ripened earlier than the California grasses, which gave them a reproductive edge. And I think they might ripen earlier under California conditions because in the lower elevations there's no snow season, so as soon as the rains get going the mediterranean grasses are free to grow (I would have to test this by watching next season to see which grasses come up first, which I think might entail learning how the grasses all look as babies!). As I was thinking about this, I was thinking that there was some way all this could lead to the exotics losing their edge when there's more rain.
On another front, I've been plagued by an idea for a story about gender engineering, probably because I'm reading the Tiptree anthology, but it's only ideas, no character, conversation, or plot, and it's almost as annoying as the painful lump growing below the hairline on my neck.
This year there's something different going on. Perhaps because of the very wet winters we've been having, and the bonus rain we had after the rainy season was over, we've got a different balance of grasses. There's always been a wide variety of grass species in the field, which I have meant to study before this, but not having any real knowledge of grasses to start with I was reluctant to dive into Jepson cold (Jepson is not really so great for actually identifying plants. It's better for getting to understand the general way that plants are related, and ranges, and stuff). The foxtail colony this year is pretty small, and the wild oat colony even smaller, and the rest of the field seems to be overtaken by --
I think it's poa secunda, a common native with many ecological forms that intergrade, like wild irises do.
I think I have identified it correctly. It fits the description, and it fits the range and the habitat.
What's really interesting about this, besides the fact that a native has edged out an invasive exotic, is that it's doing this and staying green much later in the year. There are swathes of bright green grass out there today, and it's the solstice: by now we expect all the hills to be golden or peachy with ripe and dying grass. Little Sir John having grown his long, long beard, and looking so pale and wan, you know. This year even the hillsides have green stains on them.
Historically, the mediterranean grasses got their hegemony over much of California during an extended drought at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the native populations were heavily stressed. It sort of looks like, to me anyway, that what went on was that these mediterranean grasses ripened earlier than the California grasses, which gave them a reproductive edge. And I think they might ripen earlier under California conditions because in the lower elevations there's no snow season, so as soon as the rains get going the mediterranean grasses are free to grow (I would have to test this by watching next season to see which grasses come up first, which I think might entail learning how the grasses all look as babies!). As I was thinking about this, I was thinking that there was some way all this could lead to the exotics losing their edge when there's more rain.
On another front, I've been plagued by an idea for a story about gender engineering, probably because I'm reading the Tiptree anthology, but it's only ideas, no character, conversation, or plot, and it's almost as annoying as the painful lump growing below the hairline on my neck.
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