Our sixth nature journal club meetup was our biggest and (arguably) best yet! Certainly our best lunch spread—we are totally rocking the picnic buffet. Seventeen of us enjoyed perfect winter weather (70° and sunny) at charming Charmlee Wilderness Park in western Malibu. Such a joy.
Castor oil plants are having a field day around here this year — they’re crowding the roadsides and spreading in vacant lots. The plant is invasive, as well as highly toxic, and I’m not happy to see its proliferation in the Santa Monica Mountains.
However, castor oil itself has many medicinal and industrial uses. I remember it from childhood (stories, not direct experience) as a nasty laxative/purgative. Castor oil was used as an instrument of coercion under the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and by the Spanish Civil Guard in Francoist Spain. Dissidents and regime opponents were forced to ingest the oil in large amounts, triggering severe diarrhea and dehydration, which could ultimately cause death.
On the less sinister side, modern uses of natural, blended, or chemically altered castor oil products include:
• A non-freezing, pressure-resistant lubricant
• A raw material for some varieties of biodiesel
• A component of many cosmetics
• An anti-viral, -bacterial or -fungal ingredient in many ointments
• A modifier that improves the flow characteristics of cocoa butter in the manufacture of chocolate bars
• A repellent for moles and voles in lawns
Castor seeds have been found in Egyptian tombs dating back to 4000 BC; the slow-burning oil was mostly used to fuel lamps. Herodotus and other Greek travellers noted the use of castor seed oil for lighting, body ointments, and improving hair growth and texture. Cleopatra is reputed to have used it to brighten the whites of her eyes.
So there you have it. An extremely useful (and quite pretty) plant — just not one I want growing around here.
Annette noticed that these two cliff-aster-y looking plants were joined by a runner, the way strawberry or spider plants propagate. (A bit of googling led me to the botanical name for this joining structure: it’s called a stolon). I’ve seen a lot of cliff asters and other related Asteraceae but have never observed this growth habit. I don’t have a positive ID on the plant, but I’ll certainly be looking for other examples while I’m out on the trails.
Easy section this time, in one of my favourite parts of Malibu Creek State Park. It was fun to see thousands of acorns sprouting on the forest floor, even knowing that only the slimmest fraction of them will grow into trees.
The Backbone adventure proceeds apace. Five sections down, eight to go. This section is particularly enjoyable, with spectacular rock formations and awesome views. And, at this time of year, lots of fungi!
The bird bath camera continues to bring us surprises. While it’s a little tedious scrolling through the many, many house finch captures, it’s worth it when we see a new arrival. The red-breasted nuthatch is another winter visitor to our region. Like other nuthatches, these move quickly over trunks and branches probing for food in crevices and under flakes of bark. They creep up, down, and sideways without regard for which way is up. Such fun to see this one at the bath.
Seen on the wildlife camera, a new-to-us visitor enjoying a drink and a splash. We are in the winter range of the Hermit Thrush, and very happy to welcome this one to our garden, as they rarely visit backyards. I haven’t heard its lovely, melancholy song, but I’m keeping my ears open.
What a beauty! In fact, the scientific name translates as “Beautiful foliage, beautiful leaf”. There are 80+ extant species in the Phylliidae family, ranging from as far east as the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, throughout the Australasian region, to as far west as Fiji in the Southern Pacific. They are some of the most remarkably camouflaged mimics in the animal kingdom. A leaf insect doesn’t just look like its habitat; when it walks, it rocks back and forth, mimicking a real leaf being blown by the wind. And its eggs look like seeds. Amazing.
It was fun to nature journal this plant at Charmlee Wilderness Park; it was alone beside the trail, with no siblings in sight. I didn’t know what it was called till I saw Suzanne later and she identified it from my sketch.
California Goldenrod (Solidago velutina ssp. californica) has a basal rosette of leaves that are still present at flowering time. The leaves get progressively smaller higher up on the stem. Each leaf has three prominent veins running from the base to near the tip. One plant can produce as many as 500 small yellow flower heads in a large, branching array at the top of the plant. The flowers remind me of goldenbush, and in fact both plants are in the Asteraceae family.
Underwing moths (Catocala spp.) are known for having dull, camouflaging forewings, and brightly colored hindwings which they suddenly flash open if disturbed. It is believed that the patterning of the hindwings resembles the eyes of a predatory animal, such as a cat. A bird or other small predator that is not used to this display is likely to be frightened, allowing the moth to escape.
Of the more than 250 known species, slightly less than half are found in North America—mostly in the United States—while the rest occur in Eurasia.
hashiworks 