On a gloomy overcast day in the mid 50s I spent a good chunk of my day figuring out how to get to discovery park and then another good portion of my day doing some natural history at my location in the park.
Upon arriving at Discovery Park thanks to a friend, I followed one of its trails that went further into the park via a map they give out there. To be honest I was lost for a short period of time, do to poor direction skills but finally managed to reach my destination. There were two major things that I immediately notice about this area. One side was a dense forested area, while the other side was more of an open field area with a few trees and shrubs. All of this separated by the trail. On the dense forest side the surrounding flora consisted of some stinging nettle, tons of sword ferns, and mostly large big leaf maples. On the field side, it was mainly grass (quackgrass), red clover, one small alder tree, and a few large trees in the distance that consisted of western red cedar, douglas fir and again some more big leaf maples. Besides the two distinct sides I also notices that Himalayan blackberry were very common throughout most of the park, and seems like it has and/or is an issue at the park. I say this because as I was walking to my location there are piles of uprooted and chopped Himalayan blackberries laid in many places off of the trails. Much like the restoration process that is being done at the Union Bay Natural Area, Discovery Park seems to be doing similar things to get rid of the invasive species. Also near my location I walked directly by what seems to be a military facility called Fort Lawton, and thought it was very strange place for a fort to be. Back to my location. On the field side of my location I also observed that there were several baby trees (seedlings) that had been seeded in the ground. As I approached the seedlings I noticed they had pines, and that the pines were also very soft, but not fuzzy. Being a pine/coniferous seedling, I assumed that the seedlings were western hemlocks by the looks of it. Near the seedlings in the field I also spotted several patches of scotch broom, another invasive species. Unlike the scotch broom that I saw at Pack forest, these ones had bloomed their yellow flowers and were common throughout the park and not just in my location. Some uncommon species that I could hardly find were Pacific madrones. In my location I spotted one madrone, and ratio-wise, there weren't very many pacific madrones in the park to start with. Something I found very odd in my location was actually the location of where one species of plants grew. On the side with the dense forest, right before you entered the "dense" area there was a large field of lupine in full bloom (pictured). However there were none on the field side of this location. I had no idea why this had happened, but took note of it to do some research later. With attempted research I couldn't find a viable reason to explain why the lupines were only on one side, but one can just assume it was something to do with dispersal.
Overall having a certain, and almost contain location really makes one think about the different factors and characteristics of an area, and with my location I really enjoy the two diverse forms of vegetation and the challenges and knowledge that natural history can bring.

Posted on June 5, 2012 02:44 PM by jinam22