August22_2010

Botanical Glossary - Home - References Cited

Both the Okanagan and the Similkameen valleys run roughly parallel, bridged at the desert town of Osoyoos by the Richter Pass. Similkameen, a former gold-mining area now given over to cattle ranching and horse farms, tends to attract rugged individualists, mavericks who march to the beat of their own drum.

Photos - An old two storey farm house with a lean-to on the west side that is slowly loosing its roof due to the erosion of weather and time. This and other outback buildings are beside Highway 3 in the Similkameen Valley at Cawston BC.

Photos - The lovely yellow blossoms here in these photos in the Similkameen Valley are Sisymbrium Loeselii (Loesel's Tumble-mustard) and are actively invading the whole valley. This is a European introduced annual which will grow to about 4 feet tall with many branches and hairs on lower parts. The leaves near the base are coarsely lobed (with large arrow shaped end lobe) with withering basil leaves by flowering time. Flowers are in small conical clusters at branch ends (4 petals) bright yellow color. Usually found in cultivated fields or roadsides in low to middle elevations in drier areas of the interior.

Photos - The Similkameen River along Highway 3: Looking north toward Cawston area (frames left and center), and looking south over Rocky Ridge Vineyard. Peller Estates has invested heavily in the region, creating the sixty-five-acre Rocky Ridge Vineyard on a former alfalfa farm owned by local Roger Hol. Actually, it’s more a case of reinvesting, since the company — formerly known as Andrés Wines — was one of the first wineries (as early as the 1960s) to try to grow grapes in this hot, arid, windswept valley. You may recall a wine they made called Similkameen Superior.

Click here for more photos of Highway 3 for this day.