Date: April 12th, 2018
Location: Carson Falls Latitude: 37°57’49.17″N, Longitude: 122°37’29.68″W, Elevation: 1,042 feet
Site description: Carson Falls is located in Marin County just north of Mount Tam. The terrain is rugged, with many serpentine soil. Carson Falls is a popular location, due to its beautiful waterfall, but also provides habitat for many unusual plants.
The starry false lily of the valley, also known as maianthemum stellatum in the ruscaceae family, may have leaves that resemble those in the liliaceae family, but are not. The leaves are oblanceolate to elliptic, acuminate, and abaxially puberulent. The inflorescence is raceme with white flowers having perianth parts of 6. The stem is typically 30-70 cm.
Narrative: We left campus at around 1:00PM and it took about an hour to get to Carson falls. The weather was sunny, but also windy. It had been a long time since I’ve seen such an active waterfall that I was happy we got to see Carson Falls. However, my ankles seem to not like walking in tall grass areas, as I fell a total of 4 times, all in the grass. Luckily, I did not slip into any mud or water. On the way back, I was scared to jump across a stream as I have short legs, and Prof Paul came back and said I could use my foot as a stepping stone. I refused because I would have felt bad squashing his foot, so I opted for a hand instead.