Favoritos de oceanf

Reaches up to 4.5 m in the north Pacific. This female was estimated to be about 3 m long. At several sites within Barkley Sound these normally deep-water sharks can be encountered at depths well within scuba range.

Keyed from Jepson:

1. Bractlets on pedicel subtending calyx 2
2. Inflorescence and flowers generally buff to ± pink, corolla lips white to pink or lavender
3. Corolla 13–30 mm, lips 4–10 mm
4. Inflorescence of elongate, generally unbranched, ± raceme-like units; flowers ± separated, more regularly-spaced
5. Flowers pedicelled throughout; bracts lanceolate

organisms found on the Warm Spring Unit, part of Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Fremont, California. These sites are closed to the public, but open on a limited basis for tours and BioBlitzes. If interested, PM the admins of our project - we'd be happy to invite you to one of the events.

Many thanks to @dgreenberger for finding this and teaching us a bit about quillworts. I had no idea they could be found along seasonal creeks, but apparently one looks for small, grass-ish looking things radiating from a central point, with droopy leaves, on the edges of creeks. ID hinges on how much translucent membrane covers the sporangium, the lumpy bit underground. I didn't capture that here but David got good shots at https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/26660996

Succulent leaves with a 3 “leafed” clover like formation on the ends. I’ve been told by one of the town’s residents that it’s a plant native to the area. She was cultivating a few specimens, but this one was found wild.