Site Description for Blog by Brandon Jenkins

Site Description of Eaton Canyon Area by Brandon Jenkins

Location: Eaton Canyon, around a quarter-mile northwest up the main trail

Habitat: Chaparral, San Gabriel Mountains, Pasadena, CA

Dimensions: 30 paces wide, 40 paces long

The area that I viewed for this site description had a lot of different plants and varieties in feel, comparable to mostly the rest of the trail which did not have very much variety in plants or anything else. The ground cover was mostly one plant. It was very dead and dry looking, but that must be a normal state for it because the pictures on the Eaton Canyon Website show very similar pictures. The shrub that covered was of the ground was called the Black Sage (Salvia mellifera). It looked very dried up and dead and since it covered most of the ground, it gave the site a very dead and dry overall feel and look. But, some parts did have vegetation that looked very much alive, like the Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia). There were three of these trees, and they looked in good shape, except for their dropped leaves. The leaves on the trees were green and fine, but under these trees, there were many dropped dead leaves that were brown and dry like the Black Sage. These dead leaves covered up a lot of the ground near and under the oak trees, and since the oak trees were exceptionally large, the leaves covered up a sizable amount of the site. A small part of the ground cover also consisted of dead Red Willow (Salix laevigata) leaves. The three Red Willows in the site, however, looked in good shape, and did not drop very many leaves. The canopy of the area consisted mainly of the Coast Live Oak tree branches, and also the Red Willow branches. Other than that, the area was full of sun. There are a few other different plants in the site and on the way to the site, like the Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia littoralis). There was only one cacti in my site, and it looked alive and well, but it did not have the "Prickly Pears" on it. There were some cacti that did have them a ways up the trail, but this one did not. The only other plant that existed in the site was green grass, and it was very thin, meaning it was not luscious. I could pick out one piece at a time, because each grass leaf was so far away from each other. I could not find a specific scientific name for it, but it did look a little like Annual Bluegrass (Poa annua). Of course there were rocks scattered throughout the site. Moving on the animals, there were not many seen. I heard a Woodpecker (Picidae) off in the distance west. I spotted two Great Basin Fence Lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis lonipipes) in total. They ran away as soon as I got near them. But, I did see three Mule Deer (Odocoileus Hemionus). They all looked fully grown, and I could not specify if they were male or female. They also ran off east once we got too close to them.  I did not see any tracks or leavings of any other animals.