The snow plant is a perennial wildflower with a limited geographic range. It is only found in the Serra’s. Snow plant with its scarlet red color and early spring flowering is a beautiful wildflower. It is the only mycotrophic¹ wildflower in the alpine heath that is not a ghostly white color. Snow plant is uncommon in its habitat. When a fortunate hiker does come across the brilliant red scarlet plants, she will generally be greeted by several individual plants occurring as a small colony. The pictured plants are about 3″ in diameter. We saw these unusual plants in Sequoia, above 7,000′. We also some some at Tahoe, also at altitude. It was already very dry in both locales, so they seemed especially lush.
Yesterday, we took Dan and Britt out to eat at Barrio on De Mun. Originally, we were headed to Kaldi’s down the block from Barrio, but it already being afternoon, lunch sounded better than brunch. Barrio was our go to destination during the pandemic, because it had heated outdoor seating. It also has burgers, fries and shakes to die for. This menu selection is also not particularly Weight Watchers friendly, so this was the first time that we have been back to Barrio, since we started dieting. We walked, instead of driving and this might have been more of a walk than Dan and Britt had bargained for, but it was such a pleasant day. Afterwards, they headed up to Cement Land, for some drone photography. Located near the old Chain of Rocks bridge, this was Bob Cassilly’s last and most ill-fated project. Cassilly is most famous for the creation of the downtown City Museum. Cement Land is located in an old abandoned cement factory, Cassilly died in a tragic earth moving accident or maybe he was murdered. There are stories. Apparently, the place is overgrown now, making the drone photography less than optimal, but at least they didn’t crash.
- living in association with a mycorrhiza or another fungus which appears to improve the uptake of nutrients.