Oh Baby, it's a Wild World

We all gotta come to terms with it. 

Sometimes the world is a little wilder than others.

Bay Laurel, Umbellularia californica, in Bloom (HIking Edgewood)

California Bay Laurel
Umbellularia californica
 is in bloom now at Edgewood Nature Preserve

I was surprised to find that California Bay Laurel already in bloom at Edgewood on a New Years Day hike at that preserve. I could have sworn it didn't bloom that early last year.

Below are some historical human uses I gleaned about this noble plant, when I prepared a field trip report for the California Native Plants class at Cañada College last year.

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I’ve met several people who substitute California Bay Laurel leaves for the Mediterranean Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis) . Kozloff (p. 248)  agrees with this practice saying “They (the leaves) can be used for seasoning but have a stronger flavor than L.Nobilis.”

However, in 1976 then UCSC Environmental Studies professor Ray Collett[1]told his students, of which I was then one, that the leaves of the California Bay Laurel were poisonous and should not be used to flavor food. Toni Corelli[2]takes a middle ground saying that “Leaf oils may be toxic to some people.”

Corelli also says that native people used the leaves “medicinally to cure headache and as a tea for stomach ailments. Oils from the leaves were rubbed on the body to ease rheumatism. Leaves were also spread on floors to repel fleas; boughs were buned to fumigate lodgings and to fight colds. The nuts were roasted, cracked and eaten.”

The Ohlone weren’t the last people to use the leaves against bugs. At UCSC in the mid 1970’s my college roommate used the leaves to attempt to rid our room of fleas.  Ray Collett also suggested that students who suffered from bedbugs try the leaves.

Modern use, other than firewood, includes woodworking. Woodworkers, include environmentally contentious landscape refuse salvagers, use the wood for a variety of wood craft, including these lovely little Dryad flutes.[3] The makers of the Dryad Flute says, “It is valued by woodworkers for its beauty and the variety of figure and coloring in its wood.  It is considered a tonewood by luthiers (luthiers make guitars as well as other lute-related instruments) for its ability to reflect the sound wave without deadening the tone. “

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[1] http://members.cruzio.com/~rayc/about.html

[2]Toni Corelli  Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve Second Edition 2004 Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay CA

[3] http://www.dryadflutes.com/205BayLaurelinA.html

New Bloom for a New Year: Dirca Occidentalis (Hiking Edgewood)

Please Click on the Illustration Above
For More Beautiful Detail

I always like to start out the year as I mean to proceed through it.

What better way than an afternoon's Bloomin' Hike at Edgewood Nature Preserve?

Can you believe the Leatherwood is already in bloom?

A good omen for 2013, if ever I saw one.

Sinuous Los Trancos Creek

Click on the illustration above
for an up close and personal view
of Los Trancos Creek

The trail up Windy Hill has more than it's share of moments.

Hillside Gooseberry Setting Fruit (Hiking Edgewood)

Click on the illustration below for the full fruity details

Lizards 'n Lyme (Hiking Edgewood)

(Click on the illustration below to get up close and personal with this Californian's favorite lizard)

As an Edgewood docent I ask others, "Why do you think it's important to preserve nature, beyond beauty, mystery and all that other sensory, emotional stuff?". Of course the answers vary. I've been tempted to go off on my own ideas about increasing bee-hive health with a diverse plant offering, versus the monoculture imposed by modern agricultural methods, but that's another blog posting all together.

Turns out that the Western Fence Lizards that have been scampering around under my feet like crazy lately (I think it might just be high-hormone mating season for Sceloporus occidentals) is Ma Nature's way of curing Lyme disease. Am I the last to learn this?

Apparently in California, where these lizards abound, the deer ticks that transmit Lyme disease bacteria loose their Lyme-oomph when they bite the lizards. This article from the CA Academy of Sciences explains it all. I've been told, but cannot find a reference on the web, that the result is, that only about 1-2% of deer tick bites where Western Fence Lizards roam produce Lyme disease in humans, versus the over 80% in other parts of the country. Don't quote me on that, however, since I can't find a source for you.

Wikipedia also has an article about this Lyme-disease link.

An Edgewood Promise

California Once Upon a Time: Purple Needlegrass

Planning a little time travel jaunt, back to the days when bunch grasses like this grew all over California......

 Click on the illustration below for maximum viewing pleasure

Once upon a time the California bunch grasses, like this purple needle grass, flourished along with masses of spring wildflowers. With the invasion of Europeans and European grasses in the mid-eighteenth century most of our grasses and wildflower meadows began to look like some other continent.

This purple needle grass continues to grow in Edgewood Preserve, because it grows on serpentine soil (1% of California has serpentine soil, 10% of the entire planet) and also because of determined Weed Warriors and local research scientists who work in the park to eliminate invasive plants and improve the habitat for native wildflowers and grasses.