We started exploring Unalaska in the company of local naturalist Suzi Golodoff. Suzi knows plants and pretty much anything to do with Unalaska and her company made this first day of exploration both fun and extremely useful.
The day was overcast, and the clouds covered the mountain tops. After getting land use permits from the Unalaska Native Corporation we drove and hiked around the island. There is much to say about all the places and plants we saw, and little time to do it. So I will keep it short, and just explain it as captions to some photos.
The bottom line is that we have found Mimulus in Unalaska!
This plant is extremely common and occurs in a variety of habitats from rocky cliffs, to bogs, to hot springs.
There seems to be two main types of Mimulus, although we do not know for sure how much of this is genetic variation or the plastic response of plants to their local environments. All plants seem to be relatively large, robust, and clonal. The two types we have documented are, first, plants with red calyces (the usually green part of the flower that surrounds the yellow corolla) and with a faint red mark in the back of the petals at the tip, and, second, plants with green calyces, and no obvious red markings in the petal tips. There is no obvious separation in habitats between the two types, and the distinction may become blurred in some populations.
Unalaska has been fantastic to us. Full of monkeyflowers, and great plants. And also wonderful wildlife including whales, sea otters, bald eagles, foxes, ravens, puffins, salmon runs, king fishers, and many more.
The town of Unalaska is also extremely interesting. A certain type of marine wild west. A frontier town that feels like a recently established village, despite the fact that humans have lived here for 9,000 years.
