Carson Falls

Date: 4/12/2018

Location: Carson Falls Trail, Bolinas, CA

Coordination: 37°58’35.5″N, -122°38’45.6″W

Elevation: 1060 feet

 

Directions: 

Site description:

Carson Falls is located in Bolinas, CA and is the perfect place for peaceful hiking and sightseeing. There is a variety of habitats in this site including  Chaparral, serpentine. This site includes a beautiful waterfall, which is about 40 feet. Due to the recent rain, this site was also very muddy and the cold weather affected blossom timeline of some plants. This site offers many trails for hiking and taking beautiful pictures. The  plant communities offer varied habitats for living creatures found in this sire. This site is home to high proportions of native plant species including lots of larkspurs( Delphinium) and phacelia (Boraginaceae).

 

Species description:

 

Family: Montiaceae
Common name: Little spring beauty
Species: Claytonia exigua

 

Overall plant and its habitat: fleshy annual herb with a  stems up to about 15 centimeters tall.

Leaves:  thick leaves are linear in shape, hairless and waxy.

Flowers:  five lobed petals each a few millimeters long and in shades of pink, white, or pink-streaked white.

This plant was found in the middle section of our hike.

 

 

Family: Ruscaceae
Common name: Starry False Lily of the Valley
Species: Maianthemum stellatum

 

Overall plant and its habitat: woodland herbaceous perennial plant

Leaves: parallel venation and elliptic shape

Flowers : 6 petals and has a raceme inflorescence

This plant was seen in the middle section of our hike.

 

 

Family: Convolvulaceae
Common name: Smooth Western Morning Glory
Species: Calystegia purpurata

Overall plant and its habitat: perennial herb growing from a woody caudex and grows up to 70 centimeters.

Leaves:  leaves are up to 5 centimeters long and generally triangular in shape.

Flowers: 5 centimeters wide, in color white, pink, purple, or white or cream with purple stripes.

This flower was found in the earlier section of the hike.

 

Narrative:

We left USF around 1 pm on Thursday 4/12. The weather was chilly but got sunny later that day. It took us around 1 hours to get to Carson Falls. This site was surrounded by gorgeous views and we were able to see many species of plants and review some we had seen before. We stopped to take pictures when we got to the beautiful fall and got to enjoy the view but the hike was a little intense because of the uphill and slippery downhill trails. Overall, we were able to enjoy this hike and learn about more species of plants.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *