Love on a Rocky Shore

The White Rock beach, like Boundary Bay, just around the point, is mostly flat sand, reaching far out into the bay. It's ideal for children and dogs scampering across the sand, splashing knee-deep far out into the water; I have even seen a few horses running there at low tide. But at the west end, there are rocks. This is the direction that we take, on most of our visits; there's something fascinating about just plain rocks. And myriad sea creatures find safe harbour under, beside, on top of them.

The tail end of the sand, with rock intrusions.

Looking east. Small rocks, and some very big rocks in the distance, snow-capped.

Scattered rocks on sand, Laurie poking at seaweed on the incoming tide.

Sea lettuce  and rockweed "wigs" on the rocks. The rockweed turns black as it dries.

More black rockweed.

Rockweed further from shore doesn't get baked as long; at least the winged bladders stay green.

On a dry rock, black lichen and sun-baked clam shells, the remains of gull dinners.

Blue mussels sheltered in a crevice

The tide brings welcome relief to drying seaweeds and the animals hiding beneath them.

Not a rock. A two-toned stone, with barnacles.

That's love! The rock is covered at the top of mid-tide, and the letters are carved into the stone after the seaweed and barnacles were scraped off.

Shoes and feathers

Our family party season has begun; we have birthdays coming up regularly from now till September. The second in the series, this afternoon, involved 19 very happy, extremely energetic, third grade kids who only stopped shouting and singing and playing the piano to eat. Blessed (relative) quiet!

Abandoned mask, after the dress-up session.

Some of the shoes.

"Nest" with chocolate eggs for the treasure hunt.

I am tired. And there are more festivities tomorrow. I'll take a break here, until Monday, I think.

Molly, waiting

A grizzled old dog by the railroad track sat ignoring us, just a step away taking photos of wildflowers. Her companion had gone back to collect his bike, and she wasn't going to take her eyes off the path he would return by.

And then they went off down the tracks, man, bike, and Molly.

Heart of stone

On the White Rock beach today, someone had carefully placed two small stones on a flat rock above the tide line.

Interesting mix of purple, red, and cream.

I didn't notice until I looked at the photos, that the red stone has an engraved heart. Look on the right side of the photo, near the "neck". A heart for Clytie!

I'm glad I got a bit silly and added some more stones that fell to hand.

Hard-hearted sunbather

There! The heart is now in the right place, on the sun worshipper's left side.

Workaholic hair

Tonight I watched one of the large hermit crabs steal a partially-digested snail from the anemone's mouth, then dash away before his larger companions could snatch it from him. He ran, at top speed, the full length of the aquarium. Backwards.

I couldn't do that. Not without stumbling, not unless I had eyes in the back of my head.

In the morning, the hermits are quiescent, some apparently sleeping (with their eyes open) in the corners, some stacked on top of each other like sleepy kittens, some meditatively grooming their antennae, some picking at a morsel of seaweed or a barnacle. I drop the day's ration of shrimp pellets into the other end of the tank. The scene changes, even before the pellets have sunk to the tank floor; all the hermits are running, scrambling out from the bottom of a hermit pile, dropping from the seaweed. The crab appears from his hidey-hole behind the abalone shell, but he's already out-done by the hermits; they have collected their breakfast, and are hauling it out of reach. He has to mug a slower one for his meal.

How do they do that? They couldn't see the food; they barely had time to smell it, let alone identify and locate it.

Grainy hand hermit, waving assorted antennae and mouthparts.

Their senses are different than ours. Not better, not worse; just different. Their eyes are compound, on stalks, and arranged so that they look both forwards and backwards. One may be looking at me through the glass wall, but at the same time, he's watching his back, in case of a visit by the crab. Handy trait!

As for smell and taste, the hermit has all the bases covered. He has four antennae; the smaller pair, the antennules, is a sensitive "smeller". Besides that, his legs are covered with sensory hairs; he can smell things just by stepping on them. And this covers a deficiency in his sight. Although he can see backwards, he can't bend those stalks down, so he can't see under his own feet. Not a problem when you can smell the ground under you!

A hermit can identify, by smell, a useful snail shell buried in the sand; he can pick out the species that he likes best, also by smell or taste. The hairs on his legs and pincers are multipurpose sensors that also distinguish temperature, touch, and water current.

Do they hear? Yes; those four antennae do that. How well, I couldn't find out. (Should I play some music to mine, and see if they respond?)

Zooming in, to show facial detail.

And then there are those long, long antennae. In this hermit, they're orangey-red. They are feelers, the equivalent to our fingers. The shorter pair in between the eyes are called antennules. The hermit flicks them continuously, waving and spreading the hairs on the flagella (that blue "flag"), capturing scent and taste from the surrounding water.

In the photo above, two of the three pairs of mouthparts are visible. These are always difficult to see, since they're constantly moving. There is a lower pair, green with orange, hairy tips; these manipulate the food and move it into the mouth. Just above these are a set of long spines, also hairy. I can't see what's behind them.

I don't know if all these mouthparts are sensory organs. I would think so, but haven't found any real info.

The idea of hair in the mouth makes me shudder, but then, I'm not a hermit crab.

Faded

Tulips in the rain, through a fogged-up window:

No fair!

We went to the beach, and didn't even get out of the car.

Because, when we got there, this was the view.

A couple of kids arrived just after us, clutched their jackets around themselves, pulled up their hoods, gave up, and left.

Too wet, too windy, too cold.

Front row seating. Free.

Last week's stranded boat, now getting tossed about.

We took a few photos out of the windows, getting the cameras (and ourselves) wet each time we rolled them down, then left; there would be hot tea and coffee waiting for us at Tim's.

As we drove away, the clouds lifted, and the sun came out. By the time we got home, it was blazing down on us out of a clear, blue sky.

The weather gods hate us.

Begonia

No words needed.

Mouse tail plant

Shopping for perennials for my shade garden last week, I happened across a tiny plant that looked like a mouse hiding under the leaves:

Arisarum proboscideum, mouse plant.

A very small mouse; the entire flower stalk (without the tail) is barely two inches high. I couldn't resist bringing it home.

The plant tag says it is a

Rhizomatous perennial. ... Green, arrowhead leaves may go dormant in summer. Can be invasive. ... Blooms early spring. Grows 8" tall, with an indefinite spread. Plant in woodland and rock gardens.

I don't have a rock garden; my soil is too wet to hold the rocks. But my deep shade probably counts as woodland. The plant likes moist soil, not wet. If the soil dries out, it may go dormant earlier than usual, but it will come back the next year.

It is a native of Spain and Italy, where it grows wild in moist woodlands.

It is an aroid, a relative of the skunk cabbage, with the same general structure; a thick, fleshy flower stalk in the centre, (the spadix) covered by a hood, or spathe. In this flower, though, the spathe completely hides the flower stalk. It wraps around, leaving a small gap in front, where insects can get in to pollinate the flowers.

Skunk cabbage, Gunderson Slough, showing spadix and spathe.

Another aroid: the peace lily. Image from Wikipedia

The mouse flower is said to smell like a mushroom, although I haven't noticed that yet. In its native land, it is pollinated by fungus gnats, attracted to the mushroomy smell. I don't know if we have insects that will respond the same way.

About the species name: A. proboscideum. "Proboscis" refers to a nose or snout, or in invertebrates, to an extended mouth part, such as a feeding tube.

... from Latin proboscis, the latinisation of the Greek προβοσκίς (proboskis), ... which comes from πρό (pro) "forth, forward, before"... + βόσκω (bosko), "to feed, to nourish". (Wikipedia)

This seems turned around; the English name, "Mouse tail plant", or "Mouse plant" suits the flower better.

I've planted it, for now, in a small pot by the door, where I can see the tiny "mice" as they grow.

Baby slipper

This hooked slipper snail turned up in my aquarium three weeks ago, on a hermit crab's shell.

Crepidula, either fornicata or adunca

Shortly after he arrived, he moved to this snail shell. A few days later, he was on the thermometer, where he has stayed ever since, crawling up and down the face of it. Either he likes the glass, the algae growing on it, or the current in that location.

Slipper snails are born male, but after a couple of months, they start turning to females. Once they're full grown, they breed, and raise their young under the shell. (UPDATE: adunca only; fornicata releases the larvae. Thanks, Olivia!) When the youngsters are like miniature adults, the mothers push them out into the water, where they sink to the ground and start looking for a new home.

They usually attach themselves to other snails, most often to other slipper snails. Often they are found piled one on top of the other, in tall towers, the larger ones at the bottom. I've only seen stacks of three or four, on Crescent Beach. This one came from Boundary Bay, where they're not so common.

Hermit with two slipper snails, from a muddy spot on Boundary Bay. The large one would be female; the one on top is probably still male.

They grow to about 1 inch across. This one is a youngster, then, only about a quarter inch long, and probably still a male. I hope I find him another male by the time he's female; I'd love to see babies.

Boat at mid-tide

Boundary Bay, as the tide comes in . . .

Looking southeast, towards the US border marker at the edge of the intertidal zone, from somewhere near the middle. The tideflats go out almost a mile here.

A Skywatch post

Blogroll surfing

I haven't been able to settle down to anything today. I've been a scatter-brain, starting tasks and dropping them, reading half a short story and abandoning it, burning my soup, sorting a few photos and giving up, idly checking random blogs. At least that was productive; I found some interesting posts on my blogrolls. Check these out:

• Adrian Thysse's new gallery: On the Head of a Pin.

My favourite, I think, is this one.

• Canada goose nesting site with a view. Rock, Paper, Lizard. 

• Robin Andrea looks at very pink rainbows. Sunset Rainbow.

• Redpoll, Osprey, and Mink, by PSYL in Peterborough.

• Blackmailing half-grown chicks. 10,000 Birds. I think I've seen something like this behaviour in crows.

• "... a sky full of poo ..." Christopher Taylor on Dung Beetles.

• And Julie Zickefoose feeds a bat. With video.

And here's one of my very tiny orange-limbed hermits:

"Punkin" in an algae-covered periwinkle shell, on a base of broken barnacles.

When will we ever learn?

The old Pete Seeger song has been echoing in my mind as I've been reading today's news*, foreign and domestic.

I brought it up on YouTube, and found this version; Marlene Dietrich, singing in English. Seeger's version is beautiful, but almost soothing in its gentleness; I was moved by Dietrich's face and voice, tragic and angry by turns, as the song really demands.

Sometimes the lyrics are changed; "they" becomes "we". I think that's better; there's no passing the buck.

*Sample news from the last few hours: Canada, US, Syria, Iraq, Cuba. And on and on and on it goes. When will we ever learn?

Narrow escape!

Run! Run for your life!

The Kraken wakes!

Don't look back, just run!

Actually, it's not what it seems. The hermits had just been walking all over Val, the anemone. She doesn't mind. When they finish cleaning up her spilled food, they leave, and she limbers up with a few stretches.

Small wonders

April, between showers . . .

Red-stemmed moss.

Plume moth, sleeping on the wall by the door

Robin, pulmonaria, and daffs. And a few leaves of lettuce, still surviving cuddled up to the pulmonaria for protection from the slugs.

The young raccoon, back again for a drink, keeping his eye on me.

He needs a nail clipper; look at that thumb nail!

Raccoon fingernails. I'm not volunteering to trim them for him.

And the first rhododendrons we've seen this year.

And the cup mushrooms are out in force! But each time we've seen them, so far, it has been pouring rain.

Spring is dandelions

In a shady corner in Beach Grove . . .

Dandelion

Pre-dandelion

Darwin's dust, dumbells and mini-volcanoes

Fossils are formed when organic structures are gradually replaced by rock. In one scenario, groundwater, loaded with minerals in solution, seeps into the dead tissues. Gradually, the minerals are deposited, filling the dissolving plant or animal structures. The process takes thousands or millions of years, and only a tiny minority of living creatures end their lives in the right conditions for it to happen.

However, many plants jump the gun, starting the replacement of organic material with minerals while they are still living. The structures they form from silica are opal phytoliths, "plant stones", and they are recoverable from the plant remains whether they are newly harvested, or tens of thousands of years old.

They can be baked at 1000 degrees without losing their shape; they are released in the ash of forest fires. They resist dissolving in groundwater, unless it is extremely acidic or alkaline.  They can be powdered without being destroyed; the phytoliths themselves are tiny enough to survive, at 5 to 100 micrometeters long, or about the width of an average human hair.

Relative sizes, in microns, or micrometres. Image from the EPA.

Phytoliths can be found in the plaque on your teeth (or the teeth of a long-extinct dinosaur), in gardens ancient and modern, in old fire pits and cookware, in the stomach of fossilized animals. Paleoarchaeologists look for them in coprolites, fossilized animal dung. Darwin collected dust from the sails of the HMS Beagle, anchored off the Cape Verde Islands: this dust contained phytoliths.

And here's the beauty of it all; phytoliths come in many shapes and sizes, and each plant family produces its own pattern. Sometimes the phytoliths of the leaves are different from those of the stem or roots, so that a palaeobotanist can identify a plant from a handful of ancient ashes. This helps to trace the development of some of our modern plants: for example; where did our beans come from? Phytoliths help to discover the varieties used in a prehistoric Great Plains (US) village.

Another example: what did the dinosaurs eat? Grass, among other things. Paleoanthologists in India have discovered grass phytoliths in dino coprolites.

A few sample phytolith shapes:

From Waynes' World, Palomar.edu

 Microscopic view of the leaf epidermis of crabgrass (Digitaria sanguinalis) showing a row of dumb-bell shaped phytoliths just below the scabrous (minutely toothed) margin. The toothed margin is why grass leaves can cut your skin. Photo taken of a fresh leaf at 400x magnification. One phytolith is only 32 micrometers in length.

Family Poaceae, the true grasses. From U of Bohemia.

Phytoliths typical of Cucurbita sp. (Squashes) This one is Cucurbita ficifolia, AKA pie melon. From Science Direct.

These are from modern plants; lawn clippings from Washington State. The reddish bits are ash. And you can recognize the grass phytolith by now. From MicroLab NW.

Banana phytoliths are shaped like active volcanoes, with a flat bottom and a crater at the top. Rice leaves have "volcano" phytoliths, but these have round bottoms, like those roly-poly children's toys.

More info is available at:

• Wikipedia, of course.
• About.com
• Sandstone Archaeology, answering the question, "What questions can be answered using phytoliths?"
• A sample of work being done:  Using plant microfossils from dental calculus to recover human diet: a case study from Tell al-Raqā'i, Syria: Abstract

Stones in my salad

Bananas. Corn. Spinach. Peanuts. Beans. Squash. Rice. Apart from being plant foods, what do they have in common?

Add horsetails to the list. Does that help?

Horsetail

Following up on Gary Hurd's comment, I've been reading about phytoliths. (Pronounced "feet-o-liths") The word comes from the Greek "phyte", meaning plant, and "lithos-", stone.  These are microscopic structures in the tissue of plants, made of the mineral silica.

One of the major components of soil or sand is quartz, crystals of silicon dioxide, AKA silica. This silica is absorbed by plants, and deposited in or around their cells. When the plant dies, the organic part of the plant is digested by other organisms, including us, but the silica structure retains its shape. In our food, it is in the fiber, the husks of cereals, the pectin in citrus fruit, and in the water we drink (the same way the plant gets it in the first place; hard water has a high silica content.)

Some plants have a higher silica content than others, the ones I listed above among them. Horsetail has so much that it becomes inedible, but the stiffness makes it good for scrubbing pots while you're out camping. Those sharp hairs on the grass are supported and stiffened by silica.

I looked up a variety of plant foods that some people find irritating in large servings; spinach, pineapple, peanuts, cabbage, cucumber. It turns out that they are all high in silica.

In reasonable amounts, though, silica is probably a necessary part of our diet. It improves the strength and elasticity of skin, hair, and nails, may reduce heart disease and slow aging.

There's more: phytoliths have taught us history. I'll look at this tomorrow.

A whole new topic to explore!

About that hairy grass . . .

Hairy grass, with chickweed

This is, again, why I love blogging! Gary Hurd commented on yesterday's post,

An interesting thing about "hairy" grass is that these are structured around phytoliths- opal-like silicates secreted by the grass. Different species have phytoliths with different shapes. We use them in archaeology for environmental reconstructions.

 I didn't know that, and I had to look it up, of course. And those phytoliths are fascinating! It's too late tonight to write, but tomorrow I'll tell you what I found.