In all the years we've lived in Fort Collins, we've almost never gone hiking on the City of Fort Collins and Larimer County trails. Which is inexcusable and unexplainable, since the city and county have invested such a lot of money and effort into preserving the natural features that define the experience of living in Northern Colorado.

The city's and county's efforts represent more than just protecting "viewsheds", although they do that, too. One of the primary reasons driving preservation is to create community separators, so that the cities and towns in Northern Colorado remain distinct from one another and true to their individual histories and evolutions. Preservation of natural heritage also counts. It goes without saying that 100 years from now the residents of Northern Colorado will look with awe, respect and gratitude upon the natural areas that the city and county have set aside in the last 20 years.

But meanwhile, my daughter and I decided to hike to Coyote Ridge, which is located on Taft Hill Road, just south of the intersection with Trilby.

I think Coyote Ridge Natural Area is still located within Fort Collins city limits. My daughter said she'd been there once before – when she was in first grade and had attended a birthday party for a friend. Apparently, the friend's mother had taken four girls to Coyote Ridge. They hiked the first mile of the trail, up to the cabin. My daughter said that she and the other girls hadn't liked it much.

My daughter is now a junior in high school and 17. I won't deny that I was very happy when, today, she agreed to go hiking with her Dad.

The hike is a total of four miles up-and-back, which isn't far. I picked up my daughter from her mother's at 10:30 am, and we were home by 2:30 in the afternoon. The trail up to the ridge is mostly a gentle uphill walk and nowhere near as arduous as the trail up to Horsetooth Rock. We hiked to the ridge (the crest of a hogback), admired the view, and then hiked back to the cabin, where we had lunch. Unfortunately, we had to rely on a cell phone to take pictures.

What's special about the Coyote Ridge Natural Area is how it includes the transition zone between the prairie and mountains. A series of hogbacks rises up from the prairie, like higher and higher waves. At the crest of the highest hogback, you look across and see the lower-elevation montane ecosystem. Before you get there, though, an interpretive sign describes a restricted area adjoining the trail as being a rare plant sanctuary for Bell's twinpod.

Bell's twinpod (Physaria bellii) belongs to the mustard family (Brassicaceae) and is thus related to broccoli, other cole crops and to several forage crops. Bell's twinpod is endemic to the Northern Colorado foothills and even occurs abundantly in some places. Still, it's a rare plant because its habitat is restricted to Jefferson, Boulder and Larimer counties. In the mid-2000s (or was it in the 1960s when the plant was first discovered?) the Colorado Natural Heritage Program estimated there were only twenty populations of Bell's twinpod, and those populations were threatened by residential development and limestone quarrying.

My daughter asked how that could be. After all, there are hogbacks and foothills stretching all the way up from southern Colorado to Wyoming. As we stood on the trail, and looked at the sign describing the plant sanctuary, it didn't make sense that this plant would be restricted to such a small piece of a very extensive landscape.

As it turns out, Bell's twinpod loves a habitat where other plants die: the soil derived from the shale outcroppings of the Niobrara and Pierre geologic formation. Shale soils are notoriously inhospitable to plants because of nutrient deficiencies and aridity (and probably for other reasons). Such soils are often barren, and yet, in Northern Colorado shale soils are where Bell's twinpod thrives. This tells us how unusual the physiology of Bell's twinpod is. We can't help but respect the plant and see value in making sure its special properties persist and remain available.

Included below is a photograph of a plant rosette, which we saw growing along the trail, not far from the plant sanctuary. The rosette grew on a north-northeast-facing exposure, and it measured approximately 1⅓ Arrowhead water-bottle-labels across (approximately 1¾ inches). You can tell from the photo the soil was rocky and inhospitable. Was the plant Bell's twinpod? Probably not. Was it the closely related (and more widely distributed) roundtip twinpod (P. vitulifera)? I don't know. But, I'm going to send the photo to someone who might know, and if they reply with an interesting answer, I'll share it.




UPDATE, Tuesday, March 22, 2011: Woo hoo! I sent an e-mail to Crystal Strouse, who's the Botanist with the City of Fort Collins Natural Areas Program. I asked Crystal if she thought the plant in the photo could be Bell's twinpod. Her positive response is reproduced below.

Subject: RE: Bell's twinpod at Coyote Ridge?
From: xxx@xxx.xxx
Date: Mon, Mar 21, 2011 12:42 pm
To: '3D' <3d@3dsoundblog.com>

Hi 3D,

You were certainly at the right place to see Bell's twinpod and it looks like you found it from the picture. The real test is in the seed pod, which will be out in late June and early July. I've attached a PDF about Bells' twinpod and in the look-alike section you will see how these plant species differ from Bell's twinpod.

As a side note... my friend has been checking all of the Jefferson County reports of this plant and it is looking like those populations were misidentified. If that is the case then that means that Bell's twinpod only occurs in two counties in Colorado and in the world for that matter. Pretty cool! You will probably see Bell's twinpod blooming in a couple of weeks if the weather stays nice, if it isn't blooming already.

Crystal