Cowiche canyon uplands shrub steppe plant walk - Botany 410 Preview

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parking lot

parking for the upland trail

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bitterbrush - Purshia tridentata

Purshia tridentata is a deciduous shrub growing to a height of 1–5 metres (3.3–16.4 ft). It has slender three- to five-lobed leavesCream-colored, tubular, short-lived flowers are solitary at the ends of short branches. The semi-evergreen leaves are deeply three-cleft and roll inward in scorching weather, exposing the grayish, densely hairy underside

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ridgid sage- artemisia ridgida

ridgid sagebrush is a native, deciduous shrub. It is low and spreading with a conspicuously woody base. The base is often heaved from the soil by frost action. The trunk is very irregular, spreading above the base in a dense cluster of short, rigid, and rather brittle branches up to 16 inches high. Vegetative leaves are 0.4 to 1.6 inches (1-4 cm) long, with a narrow base and 3 conspicuous, narrowly linear lobes forming a trident

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Big sagebrush- Artemesia tridentata

coarse, many-branched, pale-grey shrub with discoid erect yellow flowers and silvery-grey foliage, which is generally 0.5–3 m tall. strong pungent fragrance (especially when wet) due to the presence of camphor, terpenoids and other volatile oils. The taste is bitter and, together with the odor, serves to discourage browsing by many herbivores.This shrub has leaves that have 3 teeth- distinguishable from its sister plant artemesia tripartida because the leaf lobes form teeth NOT 3 distinct lobes like partita. leaves are densely hairy

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bluebunch wheatgrass - Agropyron spicatum

this grass is the washington state grass1.5 to 4 feet tall and seed spikes are 3 to 8 inches long. The auricles (ear-shaped appendages where leaf blade and sheath meet) are pointed and semi- clasping to nearly lacking. Leaves are lax, flat to inrolled, 4-6 mm wide and green to blue in color.

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green rabbitbrush- chrysothamnus viscidflorus

perrenial shrub with alternately arranged simple leaves. leaves are linnear ang glabbrous/waxy often spiraling inward. Flowers are a spike of yellow flowers

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cheatgrass - bromus tectorum

annual or winter annual, softly downy to short-hairy throughout, and generally 10- 60cm (4- 24 in) tall. plant is typically rusty-red to purple at maturity. a winter annual grass native to Europe, southwestern Asia, and northern Africa, but has become invasive in many other areas. It now is present in most of Europe, southern Russia, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, North America and Asia.