Doug's Mountain Journal
A Chronicle of Natural History on San Bruno Mountain

Doug Allshouse has been writing his seasonal Mountain Journal for many years. We are very pleased to share his reflections on the natural history of the Mountain. Together with David Nelson, he wrote San Bruno Mountain: A Guide to the Flora and Fauna. The book was published by Heyday Books in November 2022 and can be purchased here.

Summer 2023

At the end of the wettest rain season in seven years I became familiar with the sight of nine-foot tall poison hemlock and five-foot tall velvet grass and wild oats, all invasive non-natives. So, on the native side it was thrilling to see super blooms of wildflowers like poppies, lupines, goldfields, and clarkia. When we think of super blooms we generally imagine wildflowers, but it was exciting to see super blooms of two shrubs, lizard tail and sticky monkey flower, in great patches dotting the steep ridges all over the Mountain.

Lizard tail (Eriophyllum staechadifolium) is also known as seaside woolly sunflower in some circles, but lizard tail is a much cooler name, and it’s what I learned to call it. It’s one of the more colorful characters in the coastal scrub community. The leaves are slightly woolly when young, becoming a bit smoother and slightly leathery, which might explain its uncanny common name. The inflorescence has five to fifteen heads of tightly-packed clusters of golden yellow disc and ray flowers that are visible at great distances. There are two invasive brooms, French and Mediterranean that are also visible at great distances. It is a huge comfort to see that the bright yellow bush through your binoculars is lizard tail.

Sticky monkey flower (Diplacus aurantiacus [formerly Mimulus]) is a perennial small shrub with dark green lance-shaped leaves that are sticky, generally when it is flowering. It has brilliant orange flowers and the shrub is usually mixed into the scrub community but can form dense thickets. In fact , there is a huge patch in the grasslands of upper Buckeye Canyon. The corolla has five petals that are fused and gives the appearance of having only two petals. It is a host plant of the Variable or Chalcedon Checkerspot butterfly. The female flower has a white bi-lobed stigma that closes in response to being rubbed by a pollinator, such as a bee or butterfly. If no pollen is detected it will re-open and continue this process of opening and closing until it is finally pollinated. The flowers were used by indigenous natives for any number of ailments or injuries.

Fog Forest is a mélange of blue-gum eucalyptus and Monterey cypress that was planted along the shoulders of Guadalupe Road, which connected Mission Street to the summit of San Bruno Mountain and its radio towers. In the late 19th Century someone planted cypress trees in the shape of an arrowhead pointing to downtown San Francisco. As these actions prove, introducing two species not native to these surroundings results in wildly-destructive reproduction that consumes native grasslands. Today the floor of the forest is packed with a cacophony of invasive weeds too large to comprehend— with one surprising exception.

It is amazing how coast red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) has flourished under the canopy. This native food source for many bird species is absolutely thriving because of the shady and very moist tropical forest conditions. Eucalyptus and cypress have leaves that are exceptional at capturing, condensing, and raining fog to the ground below them. Factor in the rich organic material that is constantly dropped and you have the recipe for sustained growth of plants that have adapted to this unique condition. I am flabbergasted about the number of new elderberry sprouts that appear to double every year. I recently counted 38 clusters of various sizes along the west side of the road and 15 clusters on the east side—hundreds of individual plants! There is one elderberry growing in the bough of a eucalyptus fifteen feet above the ground, and no, it is not a leather fern.

I walk the Old Guadalupe Trail (OGT), Saddle Trail, Bog Trail, and Day Camp Road quite regularly because they are close to home, serene, and generally sheltered from the wind. They also offer opportunities for a full range of weeding. I have wiped out poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) along the Day Camp road from the parking lot to the camp over many years of weeding. If you ever see one along this road it is because it has just popped up between my walks. The easiest way to identify hemlock is the presence of purple spots along the stem; maculatum is Latin for “spotted”. Other established natives include cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum), California strawberry (Fragaria vesca), leather fern (Polypodium scouleri), western sword fern (Polystichum munitum) seep monkeyflower (Erythranthe guttata), twinberry (Lonicera involucrata), creek dogwood (Cornus sericea), California blackberry (Rubus ursinus), horseweed (Erigeron canadensis), California aster (Symphyotrichum chilense), pink-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum), coffeeberry (Frangula californica), and wax myrtle (Morella californica). These species are worth saving even though they coexist with so many nonnative plants.

To really comprehend and enjoy what the Mountain has to offer, it is imperative that your senses remain open to the surroundings. There is a certain je ne sais quoi to the sound of pure silence, a Swainson ’s Thrush ethereal song, or the sound of Colma Creek water running under a bridge. One of the more intriguing and entertaining sounds is the pure joy of a small pack of coyotes yipping it up in the morning twilight under peachy clouds. The sounds are so random, yet they have a rhythm. It makes me wonder how an animal that size can have such a high-pitched voice. I’m listening to these sounds coming from deep down in the bog along Guadalupe Canyon Parkway. This went on for about thirty seconds and then it stopped as abruptly as it started. I walked in silence for about twenty seconds when I heard a lone coyote yelping from above me in the western end of the Saddle. What was this coyote saying? Was it mom or dad telling the kids to come home or just a territorial warning to stay away? It probably was the latter, but I’ll never know because I don’t speak coyote.

Our super-wet rainy season has kept water in a drainage ditch along the Old Guadalupe and Saddle trails and it appears that it will last well into September. Our eyes are still on Buckeye and Owl Canyons and we have secured the blessing of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to weed the lower canyons by removing hemlock and other nonnatives. There are springs that are still running here and there in both canyons.

David Nelson, my co-author of our book San Bruno Mountain, A Guide to the Flora and Fauna, and I are still working on reports covering the events leading up to and after the New Year’s Eve storm and the mudslides that decimated both canyons. Thinking back to the wildfire of June 2008 and the damage it did, I am certain that the canyons will heal just like they did the past 15 years. Stay tuned for more news.

The autumnal equinox marks the beginning of three months of shorter days, our best weather, the arrival of over-wintering birds, and possibly a rain storm or two or three—an interesting season to be surrounded by nature.

See you on the Mountain…