I've lived in Everett for 23 years or so now, and for most of that time, when driving south on I-5 I've looked longingly westward across the Snohomish Delta towards a distant fringe of obviously wild vegetation on the edge of the Bay. A ragged edge of salt-wind-blasted Sitka Spruce at the near end of land in this estuary. It looks really wild. But how to get out there ?

Well, as noted in my previous post, there is a public walkable access out there on Smith Island. It just gets to a little corner of this habitat. But what's there is amazing.

The end of the 'Cedar Grove Trail' puts you right where the saltmarsh grades slightly upward to a grove of small, maybe 30' tall Sitka Spruce, or Tideland Spruce as it is aptly known as. But between the level of the upper Spruce trees and the lower saltmarsh vegetation of grasses, sedges, and rushes - in that transition are 'islands' of logs. Basically they are saltmarsh 'nurse logs'. These old logs ,stranded at the highest tide level, support a very interesting population of plants. A single log might have a crowded community of Salal, Nootka Rose, Twinberry , Pacific Crabapple, Sitka Spruce ,plus numerous herbaceous plants. Out in this harsh environment the plants are dwarfed - bonsai log gardens! Cool!

What is really amazing though , are the Junipers there. Many folks are probably familiar with Juniperus scopulorum (Rocky Mnt Juniper ) in western Washington in places like Washington Park in Anacortes, various places in the San Juan Islands , the Gulf Islands ect., typically on dry rocky ground. I've never seen ,nor read about these trees growing on estuary nurse logs. But they are here in this last edge of tree life on the Snohomish Delta. Looking north across Steamboat slough I could see more specimens - also obviously on nurse logs- over on the Tulalip Reservation side. The largest of these Junipers was maybe 12' tall. It would be very interesting to see how old they are, growing in such challenging conditions.

Searching a bit more online led me to find that as of 2007 the ' maritime' Junipers of the Puget Sound and near areas have been described as a new species - Juniperus maritima. This is based on complex taxonomy that only a junipers mother might care about, but it seems that this maritime species got separated from its more 'dry side' relatives in the Pleistocene and developed into a separate species. California has all those wierdo isolated Cypresses, I guess now we have our own wierdo Juniper. Whatever it is, it's a cool plant.

A point I'm getting to here, is the need for better communication about such ' discoveries' as my 'Lost Junipers'. This segues into the previous posts about the threatened budget cuts for the State DNR's Natural Heritage Program. If you hav'nt checked out this program , you might . For one thing you can find out about all the wonderful habitats that have already been preserved - places of very high quality habitat, the loss of which could not be 'mitigated' . Also, who am I going to report my 'discovery' to ? I don't know if the existence of this Juniper population is documented already or not. The Natural Heritage Program would seem to be a good place to find out, as long as it still exists. I'm going to write some letters as suggested in the other tweeters posts. I would hope this program is not cut.

Jeff Gibson, Everett Wa