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| Site location (click to enlarge) |
Rod's goal for the day was to complete some partial samples he took way back in 1974 near the Lake Entiat section of the Columbia River. After the long drive from Seattle, it sure was glorious to be on the river, even if it was a dammed up section. The groves of flowering fruit trees along the river were also a sight to behold, although their fragrance was powerful to the point of being almost overbearing.
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"Lake Entiat" section of
the Columbia River |
After spending some productive sampling time on a tiny parcel of public land alongside the river, then again in the sagebrush-dominated shrub-steppe just above, we drove further inland and higher in elevation into Pine Canyon.
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| A pine grows in Pine Canyon |
I am happy to report that Pine Canyon is as advertised: ponderosa pines (
Pinus ponderosa) do indeed grow there. (You can never be sure with place names!) I collected 4 spiders and 3 species from an unrecorded number of tapped ponderosa cones. Two of the species were
Euryopis formosa (Theridiidae) and
Pholcophora americana (Pholcidae), the species we find most frequently in fallen cones in eastern Washington. The third,
Xysticus locuples (Thomisidae), is no stranger to ground-level microhabitats.
For further details about our trip, check out Rod's
post!
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| Ponderosa cone in a patch of bluebells (Mertensia longiflora) |
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