How you doing my name is Riley Bieber, I work for the US Forest Service here in
the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.
Today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the natural history and plants
around the Gorge here.
So right now we're in the west end of Gorge, here at Wahkeena falls
and the area we're in right now is considered a temperate rainforest.
The reason why it's a temperate rainforest is all the moisture we get from
the Pacific Ocean, it comes all this way and the mountains create a rain shadow
that draw a lot of moisture out. Just a matter of 50 miles down the road
we go into an arid landscape and that's because of the rain shower too.
So this Gorge is one most drastic rain shadow examples you can see in the
world. As I mentioned earlier the Columbia
River Gorge is a very wet climate. In this area alone we can get up to 75
inches or more of rain a year, it's the middle of July and we can still
see the stream is flowing really hard right now
and you look around too the vegetation is still green and lush
and it supports a lot of the native species you see around here.
The temperate rainforest is a pretty rare forest around the world,
so we're pretty lucky to have it here in the Pacific Northwest.
Some of the dominant tree species you can see here in the Gorge and
the temperate rainforest here in the Pacific Northwest are the Big Leaf
Maples, Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock, Western Red
Cedar and some Vine Maple, it's just some of
the main dominant tree species to name a few.
Right here we have two examples, one right here is the Vine Maple.
You can tell by its small leaves and they grow with like
10 to like upwards more stems coming out
and they can grow thickets in the understory.
Another tree growing right next to it is the Big Leaf Maple.
You just tell by it has a really big leaf.
So for this part I'm gonna talk about some common plants you're gonna find
here in the understory. Here in the Gorge a very common
plant we see is Thimbleberry. Thimbleberry you can tell has very
soft leaves, they produce a little red berry on
them, you can see this stalk left from the berries earlier in
the season but they resemble a small like red
raspberry. They're pretty good and they grow
in thickets all along the trails around here.
This is the red little berry it has it resembles something that looks like a
small raspberry.
So here in the Columbia River Gorge you're pretty much guaranteed anywhere
here in the understory to find these plants right here. Some common ferns
you're going to find is the Maiden Hair.
One way to identify this one they have a long black stem running down the middle
and they also have these spores underneath the leaves right there.
And then right next to it is the Sword Fern, these ones are very
really common too, they can get really big
and they have a bunch of spores underneath the leaves too.
The reason why ferns like these are so common here in the Pacific Northwest
is because all the moisture we get from the coast and also we have a lot of
shade here and the understory too.
Another unique and beautiful plant here you can find an understory is Ocean
Spray, the way you can find it or ID it is they
have these really puffy white flower clusters
and they also have lobed leaves that are kind of soft.
One thing that comes to mind when I think about the Pacific Northwest
is the thick blanket of moss you can find
all around here.
So I'm gonna talk about another plant here in the Pacific Northwest you should be very
very careful of, this one is Poison Oak and it's growing all along this
hillside that we see right here. One way to identify it is like how shiny
it is, it looks really glossy it looks kind of fake.
The leaves are lobed, but they can sometimes also be jagged,
and another key identifier is that the leaves come in threes.
See all these leaves have three have sets of three on them.
And they can they can be a small shrubby plant or they can turn into a
vine too and climb up trees. So please don't go off trail, you know
going off trail you risk being exposed to Poison Oak a lot more.
So here in the Columbia River Gorge we have a lot of beautiful and special
flowers that grow here in the understory too.
This plant for example is called Fireweed,
it comes from when fire comes through as you can see this log right here
the eagle creek fire was only about two or three years ago
and a lot of these wildflowers still grow and sprout every year.
Another cool unique plant you can find growing along the Columbia River Gorge
is the Foxglove. They have many different colors this one's early in the
bloom, and another fun fact about this plant
it's extremely poisonous so uh don't eat it!
So another common flower we can find around here is the Red Columbine.
The Red Columbine has a few different types but you can also find the purple
one which is really common. This is near the late end of its
season blooming, it's usually one of the first ones to
bloom in spring and they're really common all along here in
the Columbia River Gorge.
Just want to say thank you guys again for tuning in and I encourage you all to
come to the Columbia River Gorge different times of the year and check
out the local ecology and plants!