RHH's photos with the keyword: serpentine

In southwestern Oregon and northwestern California lie the Siskyou Mountains, a sub-range of the Klamath Mountains whose underlying rock is largely serpentine, a green and black rock full of heavy metals. In these serpentine areas a unique flora can be found including several orchids and the carnivorous plant known as a Cobra Lily. While still in California we explored some of these areas in the Siskyous and I took this photo of an outcrop along a forest service road.

The Siskyou Mountains in southwestern Oregon and northwestern California are a sub-range of the Klamath Mountains. The underlying rock contains serpentine, a rock full of heavy metals and the area supports a unique flora. We spent most of day driving the forest service roads in this area looking for orchids and Cobra Lilies.

The Cobra Lily is named for the resemblance of its leaves to the head and fangs of a cobra. It is a carnivorous plant that grows only in serpentine areas of northern California and southern Oregon, i.e., areas that have high concentrations of heavy metals, nickel, cadmium, etc., due to the underlying serpentine rock. The plant itself, shown below has an opening below the "hood" which insects enter and attracted to the little translucent windows in the plant, are unable to find their way out again. These were photographed in several different areas where the plants are protected. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/08/orchid-hunting-in-siskiyous.html

Cypripedium californicum is one of our rarer native orchids and does not grow in Washington State, but only in a very limited area of southern Oregon and northern California. It is also one of the most interesting of the native Lady's Slippers, first because it grows only in serpentine areas (serpentine is a green and black rock rich in heavy metals like nickel and cadmium), and second, because it can bear as many as twenty flowers on a flower spike. The plant grows to about four feet tall and the individual flowers are around two inches in size. They are often found growing with a carnivorous plant, the Cobra Lily, Darlingtonia californica, and are usually in wet seepage areas, just where we found them along a Forest Service road near the California-Oregon border. They do not all have the pink color around the opening of the pouch. and the flower color varies from the bronze-green color of these flowers to a yellowish-green. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/08/orchid-hunt... nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2012/07/t... nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2012/07/c...