I revisited Bush Park today to tour the other areas of camas. I began at the “Picnic” area, south side of the park at its upper level and worked my way own to the flower garden area. For years Willamette Students and teachers have been restoring and tending to this area that used to be full of blackberry brambles. Now its mostly oak trees, camas and low bushes, snowberries, that overlay much of the area. The camas is thick under and on all sides of the snowberries. I wish there had been some variety in the berry plants they planted here rather than just snowberry.
exceedingly thick in here
Then I continued on the southside of the stadium to the next camas area. This is a lower elevation. The camas here are again under oaks and they were quite a bit shorter, only thigh high. Whether its the soil or a different variety its unclear. But they also seem like an early variety, some already going to seed. It was a lot less thick in this small patch. There is a thick patch of buttercup in here.
The next area is quite extensive the largest area of camas by far in the park, the area has paved and improved trails for runners, bikers, walkers, a playground and a baseball diamond. The camas area is riddled with trails. The camas is at least waist high here, much larger than the last patch. I found one lavender and one white camas in this area.
The white blossom above was full of ants. Ants may be one of the main pollinators here, I did not see a lot of bees out, probably because it had just rained vary hard. Also, most of the camas had their pollen washed away. The Camas here are doing very well, they seemed to thrive better under the oaks. Several patches had no oaks and all of these camas are much shorter. They seem to not prosper in full sun.
Notice how the camas seems to hug the areas with oaks. This could be because they like the oaks, or it could be a symptom of the mowing pattern here, where clear areas are well mowed and under story areas are not.
This small patch is in full sun, it matured and went to seed faster, the majority are in seed.
Lots of camas on the creek trail and into the parking area on the north side.
And an observer of my activities, a squirrel under a root wad.
