fire follower Archives - Following Deer Creek

Within the California Floristic Province, there about 90 species of native tarweeds. Over millions of years, they developed to succeed in a variety of microclimates from sea level to mountain elevations. Tarweeds are part of California’s first native plants and are members of the sunflower family.

“Large swaths of undeveloped California are populated with all variety of tarweeds, because tarweeds have that logic in their DNA.” – Eric Simmons, Bay Nature Magazine

Tarweed, Hemizonia fitchii, is also known as tarplant, spikeweed, or Fitch’s Spikeweed.

They are part healthy grassland ecosystems. They’re also commonly found in areas where the soil has been disturbed.

Spikeweeds are annuals and drought-tolerant in the extreme. Seeds don’t require water to germinate!

Stalks and leaves are covered with fine hair and oil glands. A strong aroma is produced by the oil. Some folks claim it smells like turpentine, this blogger thinks it smells like eucalyptus. Tarplant oil may contain mosquito repellant properties.

Like other plants that make sticky oils, tarweeds attract certain bugs. Once they become stuck, they become carrion for predator insects that have evolved along with the tarplant, able to move about unhampered. Some of the carrion is eaten by predators while others may become nutrient sources for the plant.

Seeds are edible, like sunflower seeds. They can be eaten raw, toasted, or ground into flour. Native Americans used them to make mush. Birds and other animals also enjoy this food source.

At knee height, tarplants are eaten by grazing animals when they’re freshly sprouted, but later in the season when spikes are fully developed at the end of stem leaves, most grazers avoid them.

Flowers bloom between July – September.

click image to see more Life on the Creek art

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy learning about another oily California native plant – Yerba Santa – Fire Follower & Phlegm Fighter

Resources:

Calflora – Hemizonia fitchii

Discover Life – Hemizonia – more photos

Native American Food Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary by Daniel E. Moerman (Book)

Chico State – Friends of the Herbarium Newsletter (PDF pg. 3)

Native Foods Nursery (Oregon)

Research Gate – Biologically active constituents of North American Plants

Restoration Landscaping – Growing tarweed from seed

UC Berkeley – Jepson Herbaria – Bruce Baldwin

UC Davis – Weed Report (PDF)

Other Interesting Tarplant News:

Bay Nature – Weird, Ugly, Rare – Livermore Tarplant
A tarplant variety on the edge of extinction and mass botanical insensitivity.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife – Livermore tarplant

Pinus Sabiniana is native to California and Oregon and has a variety of names.

Habitat

Its habitat forms a ring around California’s ‘bathtub’ (central valley). It grows in poor soils, is adapted to hot, dry summers and usually keeps company with Blue and Live Oaks.

Common Names & Naming History

Common names include;

Ghost Pine
Gray Pine
California Foothill Pine
Bull Pine
Nut Pine
Grayleaf Pine
Sabines Pine and
Sabine Nut Pine

In published writings before the 1800’s, the tree was known as Digger Pine. According to Erwin Gudde author of California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names. “…the name seems to have been used in a geographical sense mainly in Wintu territory. With these tribes, roots are, for the great portion of the year, their main subsistence.” (Schoolcraft, Archives of aboriginal knowledge, 1860). The diggers also valued as food the green cones and the seeds of the Pinus sabiniana, whence the common designation Digger Pine.”

Like monuments and other articles of history, once the full story is understood, it often sheds light on derogatory designations and attitudes. Such is the case with the name Digger. For valid reasons, the Pinus Sabiniana has many other common names to choose from.

Cones, Nuts & Resin

Current tree distribution may be a result of human cultivation. Native populations are known to have tended to plants used for food, clearing brush and redistributing seeds.

Gray pine nuts are also important food sources for the California gray squirrel, acorn woodpeckers, rodents, and a variety of birds. The Scrub and Steller’s jay eat the seeds and move them, assisting with tree migration and reproduction.

Highly Flammable Tree

Gray pine is a prolific resin producer. The bark, cones, wood and needle sheaths contain pitch. This makes the tree vulnerable to fire damage.

Adaptations that aid in fire survival are; thick bark on mature trees and low branch self-pruning. Additionally, Gray pine seeds regenerate following fire.

“…this tree looks more like a palm than a pine,” writes John Muir in My First Summer in the Sierra. “Sabine pine (Pinus Sabiniana), which here forms small groves or is scattered among the blue oaks. The trunk divides at a height of fifteen or twenty feet into two or more stems, out-leaning or nearly upright, with many straggling branches and long gray needles, casting but little shade.”

Western Dwarf Mistletoe – Arceuthobium occidentale

Dwarf mistletoe observations in Gray Pine trees off Newtown Rd.

Though mistletoes are parasitic and pose a serious threat for forest product trees, it is a valuable part of Life on the Creek. Insects, birds and small mammals consume parts of the mistletoe. In some tree species, the parasite causes the formation of witches brooms, dense outgrowths surrounded by foliage. This provides a safe haven for bird nests and other small creatures.