By Susan Palmer
The Register-Guard
Posted to Web: Sunday , Apr 12, 2009 11:34PM
Appeared in print: Monday , Apr 13, 2009, page B1
Photo by Kevin Clark/The Register-Guard
Consider the coast fawn lily, its demure pink petals curving upward even as it turns its face toward the soil.
Botanist Tobias Policha invited a group of almost 40 native plant enthusiasts to take a closer look at the spring-bloomer nestled beneath the firs in Eugene’s Hendricks Park.
Policha spread his arms in a broad arch that mirrored the petal shapes as he shared the plant’s story on a cloudy Sunday afternoon, the wind sighing in the tree branches high overhead.
The coast fawn lily was once common in the Coast Range, but sightings of the plant are rare these days, Policha said.
They are nestled in a part of the park that once was home to a more formal garden with many nonnative species. But the irrigation that those imported plants required harmed the firs, so gardeners have replaced them with species native to Oregon such as the fawn lily that don’t need extra water in the summer, Policha said.
It was just one of many stops along the trails in the park with Policha bringing the plants alive as he shared both his passion, his broad knowledge and his humor.
Stopping at the yellow blooms of an Oregon grape, a tall broad bush that once caught the attention of explorers Lewis and Clark, Policha took time to mention the plant’s smaller cousin, which grows among the Ponderosa pines in the rain shadow of the eastern Cascades. The distant plant became present in the imagination as Policha crouched down, his arms waving as if he himself were becoming the vining species.
No bloom too tiny
He took time to point out the tiny unobtrusive blooms of the candy flower, giving it as much attention as the bright blossoms of the much larger red flowering currant.
“I thought it was called candy flower because it was so good to eat, but that’s not why,” he said. “It’s called candy flower because of the petals’ pink stripes.”
Asked about the flavor of the nearby currant’s berries, he was diplomatic. “Of all the currants you could eat, this is not the first one I would go to,” he said.
Policha also took time to share his knowledge of plants that some would consider weeds, such as the lowly English lawn daisy poking up through the grass around a picnic shelter.
Asked whether it is invasive, he said: “Only as invasive as lawns and concrete.”
More than rhododendrons
The two-hour walk was sponsored by the nonprofit group Friends of Hendricks Park.
This time of year, the park’s bright and bold rhododendrons often overwhelm many of the other botanical gems, but the rhody garden takes up just 15 acres of the park’s 78-acre forest, said Joan Kelley, a Friends of Hendricks Park board member.
“People think that the rhododendron garden is the park, but it’s much more,” she said.
Good location
The group sponsors such hikes on a regular basis — the next one is next Sunday — and they have proved popular in recent months, Kelley said. She said she thinks the park’s location just south and east of the University of Oregon makes it an easy choice for people looking for something inexpensive to do.
Botanist Tobias Policha shares his extensive knowledge about native plants on a tour at Hendricks Park on Sunday.
Photo by Kevin Clark/The Register-Guard
