A couple of weeks ago I went to look at the cliff faces along the shore of Upper Campbell Lake again, wondering how the rock-dwelling mosses and other plants had weathered the heat wave.
Not well. The moss was brown and crispy, crumbling when I touched it, even the moss in the ditches at the bottom where they could hope to find moisture. Ferns near the top were toasted and shrunken. Here and there curled, brown leaves clung to cracks in the stone.
 |
| A few green leaves surviving near the foot of the cliff. |
 |
| Ocean spray, crispy. |
And yet, and yet ...
 |
| Some small plants are managing to find water down there somewhere in the cracks. |
Up top, where the cliff levels off, the forest stays green.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hace un par de semanas fui a mirar otra vez los precipicios rocosos al lado del lago Upper Campbell, queriendo saber como habían aguantado los musgos y otras plantas durante la reciente ola de calor.
No muy bien. Los musgos estaban tostados, color café pardo, crujientes; se desmoronaban al tocarlos, hasta los que crecen al pie de la roca en la zanja donde normalmente se puede encontrar un poco de humedad. Los helechos allá arriba estaban quemados y encojidos. Esparcidas entre las grietas quedaban hojas muertas, secas y quebradizas.
Primera foto: todavía había una que otra hoja verde al pie de la roca.
Segunda foto: Rocío oceánico, Holodiscus discolor, achicharrado.
Pero sin embargo ...
Tercera foto: algunas plantitas de alguna manera han encontrado un poco de agua allí en las grietas de la roca.
Allá arriba, donde el cerro se aplana un poco, el bosque permanece verde.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'm having to moderate all comments because Blogger seems to have a problem notifying me. Sorry about that. I will review them several times daily, though, until this issue is fixed.
Also, I have word verification on, because I found out that not only do I get spam without it, but it gets passed on to anyone commenting in that thread. Not cool!