Pygmy Cypress Jug Handle State Natural Reserve preventing erosion and runoff. In the arctic this species is important browse for mammals. the Ecological Staircase

Reindeer A Self-guided Nature Trail Lichen Cladonia portentosa Canada. Its clustered leaves resemble its near relative ssp .pacifica the azalea. The head of small flowers can be seen in late summer. The leaves are toxic to livestock and humans.

40. Fort Bragg Manzanita Across Arctostaphylos the gully you can see where the water has cut nummularia away the soil leaving the horizons visible. The top dark organic layer is very thin, under that is the 37. This low growing deeper light colored leached area. This horizon is manzanita grows most named “podzol” from the Russian word for ash, abundantly in the Pygmy referring to the ash colored layer. It is light colored Forest but ranges as far from hundreds of thousands of years of rainfall south as San Francisco on leaching the minerals down though the soil. Below poor soils. It has small the podzol layer and about 18” from the surface of Welcome to Jug Handle State Natural Reserve. You are standing on one of round dark green leaves the soil lies the iron hardpan. This is composed of the most interesting geological areas in the northern hemisphere. Here, time, and red peeling bark. Pink tiny iron concreted rock-like particles that inhibit geological forces and climate have all interacted to form a staircase of distinct urn shaped flowers produce root growth. A clay horizon makes up the lowest small apple-like fruit in the horizon beneath the iron hardpan. communities and associated soils, culminating in the unique Pygmy Forest. fall. The numbers in this brochure correspond to numbered posts that you will find along the trail. The trail is about 2.5 miles long and returns along the same route (round trip 5+ miles), and takes approximately 3 hours to complete. (See map inside pages.) There is no drinking water along the trail. 38. Notice the difference between this You have reached the end of the trail, follow the in the Pygmy Forest and the one you arrows until you come back to the gravel path. This brochure, new interpretive panels, and many improvements along the looked at in the Redwood Forest. This plant, when Proceed back down the same trail to the Ecological Staircase Trail were made possible through a generous grant to the growing in the Pygmy Forest, has very small curled Jughandle parking lot. State Park System from a group of anonymous donors in 1995. leaves and a height of about 3 feet; in the better soils of the redwood forest it can grow to about 20 feet A Pygmy Forest at Van Damme State Park (3 miles south of Mendocino) is with broad, flat, much larger leaves. accessible by auto. The Pygmy Forest portion of that trail is also accessible to wheelchair visitors.

c 39. Reindeer Lichen, Cladonia portentosa ssp. Text by Teresa Sholars pacifica. This species of lichen is rare in our area c Illustrations by Erica Fielder except in the Pygmy Forest. When well developed First printed by the State of California in 1998. For and untrammeled it forms dense soil mats several feet more information about the Pygmy Forest contact the across and approximately 4 inches tall. Soil lichens Mendocino Sector Headquarters at (707) 937-5804, or come by the office on Hwy 1, across from the entrance play an important role in the ecosystem by to Russian Gulch State Park, Monday-Friday, 8:00- 4:30. Posts #1 - #7 can be walked as a short 34. Red Usnea, Usnea rubicunda headlands loop trail. formed under water. As the coastline continues to 32. You are at the beginning of the Look for the red thread-like lichen on the branches of rise, it will become a new step in the “staircase.” The boardwalk. The ecological staircase ends at the the pygmy cypress. Lichens are a combination of a 1. Along this portion of the Mendocino Coast the light turquoise colored seawater, contrasting with climax community, the Pygmy Forest. The only fungus and a photosynthetic green or blue-green land has been uplifted into a series of flat terraces. In the deeper dark colored water, shows the area of place in the world that the Pygmy Forest occurs is alga. The lichens do not hurt the tree, they are just most locations along the California coast the land the new underwater terrace being formed. in a few isolated patches here in northern taking advantage of an “empty space” to attach and was raised and tilted by geologic forces forming what California. The trees and shrubs are stunted by an photosynthesize. Please do not pick the lichens we know as the Coast Ranges. Each terrace is extremely nutrient poor, highly acidic soil underlain because it takes decades for even this small quantity approximately 100,000 years older than the lower by an iron hardpan. 100 year-old trees only reach of lichens to grow. There are many species of Usnea terrace. Here at Jughandle all 5 terraces form what is 4. The North Coast Bluff Scrub community the height of a few feet . The ground and trees are in the Pygmy Forest. All Usneas have a central elastic known as the Ecological Staircase. found along the edge of the cliff is made up of covered by many species of lichens due to the persistent cord in the middle of their body. They are Here on the first terrace, known locally as perennial low growing shrubs like purple and availability of light and the suitably moist climate common on trees in mature forests. the headlands, three plant communities exist; the yellow seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus ), the yellow and clean air. The soil lichens help prevent erosion North Coast Bluff Scrub, the Coastal Prairie and the flowered sticky gum plant (Grindelia stricta ), and by water movement. Bishop or Closed-Cone Pine Forest. This entire terrace nitrogen fixing bluff lupine (Lupinus littoralis ). The Pygmy Forest is essentially a bog in was formed at the same time; the three vegetation These are adapted to strong winds and that the soil never dries out beneath the surface. PYGMY FOREST INTERPRETIVE PANEL: types reflect differences in the physical environment. ocean salt spray by growing low to the ground. Plants must tolerate low oxygen levels in the soil This rare plant community occurs only in a because when the soil is wet, water replaces They lose less water to the drying winds by being few sites where sea-cut terraces and their soil oxygen in the soil pore spaces. Since roots take in covered with many tiny hairs. The grassland or surfaces have remained flat during half a million oxygen and give off carbon dioxide, most plants prairie grows along the margin of the bluff years of geological uplift. The soils here are 1000 can’t live in soils that are too wet. 2. You are standing on the first terrace, formed community. times more acidic than soil found in the redwood underneath the sea and uplifted by tectonic forces. Rhododendron, huckleberry and salal are forest. Heavy winter rains have leached iron and common in both the Redwood Forest and Pygmy Look out at the Coastal Prairie dominated by grasses, other soil nutrients from the surface of the ground Forest. These species grow poorly in pygmy soil and wildflowers and blackberries. Most of the common Sitka Spruce and washed them down to the subsoil. The iron, in the richer soils they grow larger. Bishop pine grasses that dominate this prairie are introduced Picea sitchensis soluble under acidic conditions, combines with grows in more infertile soils through out the coastal species like sweet vernal grass and velvet grass. These eroding bedrock (subsoil) to form an iron- non-native grasses have dominated the landscape 5. At the edge of the area. The pygmy cypress, Bolander pine and Fort concreted hardpan eighteen inches beneath your Bragg manzanita tend to be more restricted to the due to past history of plowing and grazing livestock bluff stands a grove of feet. Extremely acidic conditions and poor soil by early settlers