most cities, a book like this would begin with something like “welcome to the wildlands beyond the city’s familiar concrete jungle.” But no Portland/Vancouver resident would recognize or agree with that characterization because this is a city still firmly tied to Mother Nature. One reason for this, of course, is that often Ma Nature literally hits you in the face with rain as soon as you walk out the door—a humbling and a useful reminder of just who’s in charge here. But even when it isn’t raining, the natural world is still constantly in evidence. It’s just a short drive from anywhere in the greater Portland area to forests so wild that you are more likely to see elk than other people. On the city’s skyline sits not only Mt. Hood, the signature landmark of our region, but four other wild volcanic peaks: Mounts Adams, Jefferson, Rainier, and St. Helens. Parts of the Columbia River Gorge, only 30 minutes from the downtown skyscrapers, remain as wild today as when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark passed through the region in 1805.
But Portland is not only surrounded by wild country, it manages to include wilderness right in the city limits. The enormity of Forest Park, the largest forested city park in the world, provides country that is wilder than many designated wilderness areas. In the towering evergreens that stand in virtually every city neighborhood live gray squirrels, raccoons, great horned owls, and other wildlife. Endangered peregrine falcons live amid the downtown buildings and bridges. People even fish for salmon in the Willamette River in downtown Portland. So Portland is truly a city where you can never really escape the natural world—and that’s just the way we like it.
Every Imaginable Shade of Green: The Local Flora
I once had a friend who moved from the Pacific Northwest to Phoenix, Arizona. He liked his new environment but would constantly comment about how much he missed the color green. All the rain the Portland area gets ensures that even in the dry months of late summer it always stays green. Washington may officially be the Evergreen State, but it’s Portland that takes the honor as the evergreen city.
All that greenery is composed of thousands of plant species inhabiting dozens of different environments. Professional botanists recognize a wide range of plant communities throughout our area. The average hiker, however, won’t notice most of these because the same species are predominant throughout the region. Once you learn to recognize these relatively few species, you are well on your way to feeling like an expert and getting more enjoyment from your travels.
Bunchberry blossoms
As all of us umbrella-toting Portlanders already know, we live in a virtual rain forest. That forest is made up of a canopy of big trees with several layers of understory species.
Douglas fir is by far the most abundant species on the forest’s top floor. Point at any random conifer on most of the trails in this book and there is roughly a 75 percent chance that the tree is a Douglas fir. At lower elevations the second most common species is the western hemlock, a beautiful evergreen with tiny needles and drooping limbs. At the highest elevations of the Cascade Mountains, the hemlock family banner is taken up by a close relative, the mountain hemlock. A similar thing happens with cedars. At lower elevations look for western red cedar, while in the high country Alaska yellow cedar takes over. With the true firs you should recognize grand fir down low, Pacific silver fir and noble fir at mid-elevations, and subalpine fir up high. Other evergreen species of note include Engelmann spruce, western white pine, and lodgepole pine.
Deciduous trees are less common than conifers, but they mix with the evergreens at all lower elevations, and in some areas leafy trees actually outnumber those with needles. Especially abundant are bigleaf maple and red alder. On the drier hills you will find woodlands of Oregon white oak, while in the wet bottomlands of the river valleys there are black cottonwoods. From mid-October to mid-November both bigleaf maple and black cottonwood grace the area with their bright yellow leaves.
Get off the elevator at the second floor of our forests, and the doors will open up to a whole array of smaller tree species. Most notable of these is the vine maple, another great fall-color species. This short understory tree has many-pointed leaves that turn a striking reddish-orange color in October. Another second-story species is the Pacific yew, a fascinating conifer that lives in shady forests and uses red berrylike fruits, instead of cones, to reproduce. Pacific dogwood, with its showy white blossoms in April and May, also deserves mention. Other common small trees on the second story include Pacific willow, Sitka alder, black hawthorn, and Oregon ash.
Below these small trees is a layer of large and small shrubs. Once again, unless you want to be an expert, you need only to learn a handful of the most common species. Many of the larger shrubs are berries, like salmonberry, thimbleberry, and blackberry, all of which have tasty edible fruit in season. Other common large shrubs include elderberry (both red and blue varieties), serviceberry, snowberry, and devil’s club. Probably the most abundant large shrub at mid-elevations in the Cascades is the Pacific rhododendron. From May to early July, the showy pink blossoms of this evergreen plant put on displays that can even make clear-cuts look good—well, almost.
Moving down to the forest’s ground floor takes us to the low-growing shrubs. The most important member of this group, especially for your taste buds, is the huckleberry. From mid-August until mid-September the positively delicious berries of this abundant mid- to high-elevation plant will slow the berry-picking hiker’s progress to a crawl. Other common low shrubs include kinnnikinnick, salal, and, in the alpine zone, both pink and white heather. No list of low shrubs would be complete without mentioning one of the most abundant members of the group, the yellow-blooming Oregon grape.
The plants most closely associated with the floor of our forests are ferns. Experts recognize numerous species but, once again, the novice only needs to know four or five common varieties. Sword fern, easily the most common type, is a hardy but strikingly beautiful evergreen fern so abundant in this area that it is often taken for granted. Sunnier areas invariably feature bracken fern, while wetter places have lots of maidenhair and lady fern. The final fern species that the average hiker will want to learn to recognize is the licorice fern. This common species is what botanists term epiphytic, which means that instead of growing out of the ground like its relatives, the licorice fern grows directly out of tree trunks and rocks.
Everybody loves flowers and many people go hiking specifically to enjoy the sight and smell of blossoms. From March through September, there are always flowers to enjoy somewhere in our region. Wildflowers, however, are difficult to categorize, because so many different kinds of plants, including many listed above, produce flowers. If we restrict this group to just the smaller, ground-level types (as most people do), then you can look like an expert by knowing just a few dozen species. When hiking in dense forests, you won’t see great displays of wildflowers, but you will find scattered blooms that help to brighten the shady forest floor. Look for yellow wood violet, the relatively rare pink calypso orchid, and several varieties of white flowers, including trillium, queen’s cup, bunchberry, twinflower, and vanilla leaf.
If you want to see great wildflower displays, get out of the forest and head for the meadows. In the lower-elevation valleys, you need to find one of those increasingly rare places that has yet to be paved over or plowed under. The most striking flower in these fields is blue camas, a plant that was once an important food source for Native Americans.
There is greater variety in the mountains. Depending on the elevation, the higher meadows provide spectacular displays any time from mid-June through mid-August. Just as the snow melts, the ground comes alive with the blossoms of glacier lily, avalanche lily, and western pasqueflower. A little later, you enjoy cinquefoil, lupine, paintbrush, spiraea, shooting star, yarrow, and, perhaps most notable of all, beargrass. By the end of summer, the meadows still have some flowers, especially asters, goldenrods, and blue gentians, which bloom well into September.
The banks
