Location + Site description:
Edgewood Park & Natural Preserve geographic coordinates are 37.4740ºN, 122.2785ºW. The elevation gain ranges from 357 to 682 feet surrounded by oak trees, lots of poison oak, and open grassland when you reach the top. We saw many different new species and families we never seen before from families like Rubiaceae, Phyramaceae, and Ranunculaceae. The weather was the perfect weather to go hiking. The hike was about a 2-3 mile uphill loop where we even spotted some deers! This location offers beautiful landscape views with beautiful blooming flowers of different shapes and colors.
Species descriptions + Digital collections:
1. Clematis lasiantha
Clematis lasiantha is commonly know as the pipestem clematis from the Ranunculaceae family. It is a creamy-white flowering liana vine that climbs up other plants which is found on coastal mountains in the Bay Area. This plant has leaves that are 3-lobed and grows in groups of three to five leaflets. It is notable that they have many pistils in each flower which gives it an additional yellow color to it!
2. Lithophragma heterophyllum
Lithphragma heterophyllum is commonly known as the hillside woodland star from the Saxifragaeceae family. It is typically found on coastal mountain ranges of California near a shady environment. It has a very vin naked flowering stem where leaves are located on the lower part of the stem. The flowers have five white petals where it grows in a square/boxy growth form. There is another species similar to this but has a triangular/cone growth form of the flowers! Pretty neat.
3. Quercus lobata
Quercus lobata is commonly known as the valley oak from the Fagaceae family. It is noticeable that this tree grows pretty big in height, ranging at about 98 feet. The branches have an irregular, messy spreading and arching appearance. Typically, species from the quercus family usually have matte-like leaves that are long and lobed. They also have acorns that were not currently noticeable during the spring, but shows up during fall to winter season.
Narrative:
We left the USF campus at around 1pm and got back to USF at exactly 5pm. The drive there was pretty far as it was about a 45 minute drive down towards Redwood city. The weather was very beautiful with sun shining and a light breeze. The hike consisted of a very steep uphill in the first half where we saw so many poison oak! The pace was pretty steady and noticed that this location was very popular to take a walk in. We were even able to see three deers eating some plants! Overall this location was beautiful and quite different from our previous hikes just because it had a beautiful open grassland and barely saw any oceans nearby.
