This Sunday field trip on the Upper Sacramento Ditch Trail brought out eight souls willing to brave initial temperatures below 40 degrees. Starting at Shasta Dam, the first few hundred yards of trail had many non-native plants including silver wattle (Acacia dealbata), Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius), and Spanish broom (Spartium junceum), as well as the more common invasive plants—everything from Klamath weed to dogtail grass—but the farther we went, the fewer invasives we found.
This trail has many canyons shaded by California bay (Umbellularia californica), which is a basal dicot (an early-diverging flowering plant group (basal angiosperms) that branched off before monocots and “true” dicots (eudicots) evolved). Although it was not in bloom at this time, its flowers have six tepals, which is a characteristic found in more primitive plants.
These shady canyons also have banks of ferns, including both the Shasta and common maidenhair ferns (Adiantum shastense and A. jordanii, respectively), rock polypodium (Polypodium calirhiza), western chain fern (Woodwardia fimbriata), and goldback fern (Pentagramma triangularis). We also noted an abundance of various fungi.
Along the sunny areas of the trail, we found many Brewer’s oak (Quercus garryana var. breweri) and the shrub form of interior live oak (Quercus wislizeni var. frutescens), as well as common chaparral shrubs, including a few very large whiteleaf manzanita.
This is an easy trail for almost all skill levels and, as it is an out-and-back trail, you can make it as long or short as you want. We walked about 3 miles in total, although one couple went on to do over 5 miles. ~David Ledger