Sphagnum Bog, a marshy area along the western boundary of the park, hosts several insectivorous plants such as two species of sundew (Drosera anglica and D. rotundifolia) and the butterwort(Pinguicula vulgaris).5 Tiny insects get stuck on the Sundew surface of their leaves or showy parts and are “digested” right there. This gives the plants a source of nitrogen, a substance not found in high supply around boggy areas. I hiked out there to find the sundews and photograph them, but not until later did I realize I had butterworts among the sundews in my pictures! A somewhat similar area is Thousand Springs, an area south of Sphagnum Bog, where I found the aster fleabane (Erigeron peregrinus var. callianthemus), arrowleaf groundsel (Senecio triangularis), and two species of bog orchids (Habenaria dilatata and H. stricta).
Beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) was not to be found in Crater Lake National Park, or so I had read in a wildflower book.6 Being rather curious about this plant, I asked Ron Mastrogiuseppe. He answered that it had recently been located, but would not say where. Over the course of that summer, though, Ron gave me two hints about its location. One was “pre- Mazama landscape” and the other was “refugium.” I had heard of a refuge, but not refugium. The latter word appeared in a geologist’s dictionary, with the definition being “a place that had been protected in some way from a climactic event.”
After some study, I approached Ron with some possibilities for where beargrass might be found. He smiled and sent me out to locate the plants in early September. In an area only 40 feet or so square, along a small rocky ridge, I found some withered stalks!7Charlie Bacon, whose work has substantially changed our understanding of the park’s geological story, told me later that there were no refugia — that is to say, protected areas within what is now the park when Mazama’s climactic eruption took place 7,700 years ago.8 He figured that birds had deposited the seeds. Even so, it is fascinating to consider the possibility of such a refugium.
Although the park may not have been a refuge for life at the time of the big eruption, it certainly is now. When things become too hectic, I return for a visit to Crater Lake and it rejuvenates me. Crater Lake seems like home after spending seven summers of my life there, a place where one can relax and feel like they belong. That feeling has persisted for two decades in Crater Lake National Park, my refugium.
Notes
1 Edited from an interpretive slide program presented at a symposium entitled Crater Lake National Park: Still Beautiful at 90, on May 16, 1992.
2 See Roger Brandt’s article on this topic in the 1993 volume of Nature Notes from Crater Lake.
3 See Lori Stonum’s article on spotted owl survey in the 1993 issue of Nature Notes.
4 It is, however, less than a half mile from the East Rim Drive.
5 More detail about Sphagnum Bog can be found in the article by Jean Danielson and Steve Mark which appeared in the 1994 volume of Nature Notes.
6 See Elizabeth L. Horn, Wildflowers 1: The Cascades. Beaverton: The Touchstone Press, 1972 (p. 58).
7 This occurred in 1978. See Mastrogiuseppe’s article on pp. 12-14 in the 1994 issue ofNature Notes.
8 New evidence refutes Bacon’s position, but more study of Sphagnum Bog is needed.
John Simmons began his career as a park naturalist at Crater Lake and is presently stationed at Canyonlands National Park.
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