Stars underfoot

The coastal forests at this time of year are sprinkled with white flowers.

Starflower, Trientalis latifolia.

These perennials may have from 5 to 9 petals. The name originated because the flower stalks are so fine that the flowers seem to be floating in the air above the plant.

Such glossy leaves! Western lily of the valley, Maianthemum dilatatum.

The flower stalks stand above the layer of leaves, one per pair of leaves.

Prickly! Our native blackberry, with Oregon grape leaves.

The Oregon grape spines are hard and sharp. The blackberry's spines are soft, insidious. They don't pierce a glove (Oregon grape does), but can embed themselves in bare skin.
 

Trailing blackberry, a native. Rubus ursinus. Male and female flowers are on different plants, the male flowers slightly bigger, sharper-petalled.

Thimbleberry. Not a ground-dweller. The shrub grows up to 2.5 metres tall. Rubus parviflorus.

All the thimbleberry flowers I looked at near Lake Roberts were hosting a collection of bugs, mostly tiny brown beetles.

Yummy pollen! The beetles look like tiny rove beetles; their jackets leave the last half of the abdomen bare.

Also seen; foam flowers, vanilla leaf, chickweed, all white, all blowing in the wind.