Recently I was copied on some communications between John Game and Matt Guilliams, co-author of the Calyptridium treatment in the Jepson Manual 2nd Edition, regarding a species that John, Jeff Greenhouse, Heath Bartosh, Jay Sullivan and I had seen near the summit of San Gorgonio in 2010. At the time we had thought it was Calyptridium pygmaeum, since that was on a list for the summit area. Matt was kind enough to look at our pictures and suggested that what we had seen was likely one of the perennial species C. umbellatum or monospermum. He also mentioned that he and Gina Richmond of the US Forest Service had found a population recently of the actual C. pygmaeum, and it was to see and photograph this taxon that I drove up the hill to meet Gina, who spent a couple of very enjoyable hours with me tramping through some beautiful woods where a good few species were still in bloom. We were in the vicinity of the Castle Rock trail off of Mill Creek Road (2N10) not far from Bluff Lake. The Calyptridiums are appropriately called pygmy pussypaws, and although they do grow to somewhat greater height, the ones we saw were in the 1 to 1-1/2 cm range. Later I poked around on the Pine Knot trail which begins at the Aspen Glen picnic area on Mill Creek Road.and found some other nice species in bloom. I went back a few days later to the same area to hike the Castle Rock trail and picked up a number of other things while almost losing my backpack and Jepson Manual. The symbol ^ is for a species that was new to me when I photographed it on this field trip, and an asterisk indicates a non-native taxon. |
