Worth the look

The forest floor where the highway crosses Eve River is blanketed by step moss, over a thick layer of discarded evergreen needles. I took the trail from the rest area to the river, followed the river to the bridge, and cut back through the woods, following my nose. I was looking for cat's tongue mushrooms. I have found them here before, in January of '21, but others have found them in the same area from June to Novermber. It was worth a look, after a week of rain.

And there were none. But there was one big brown, scaly mushroom hiding in the dark. And tiny red bunchberries.

Eve River, looking downstream from the bridge.

The mushroom.

Bunchberries, Cornus canadensis. Something, probably a snail or slug, has been eating one.

I'll be back. Looking at maps, trying to find a name for the mountain in the photo, I discovered a nearby picnic area on the far side of the river.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

El suelo del bosque donde la carretera hacia el norte cruza el rio Eve lleva una alfombra de musgo de escalera, Hylocomium splendens, sobre un bajo alfombra hecho de agujas (hojas) de los abetos. Seguí el caminito desde el area de descanso hasta el rio, y luego seguí el rio hasta el puente. Desde allí, entré al bosque y dando vueltas sin sendero, regresé al estacionamiento. Buscaba los hongos llamados "lengua de gato", Pseudohydnum gelatinosum. Los he encontrado aquí antes, en enero de 2021, pero otras personas los han visto entre junio y noviembre por este mismo rumbo. Valía la pena buscarlos ahora, después de una semana lluviosa.

Y no los encontré. Pero hubo un hongo grande, café, escondido en las sombras, y las bayas pequeñas de Cornus canadensis.

Fotos:

1. El Rio Eve, mirando desde debajo del puente.
2. El hongo.
3. Las bayas. Alguien, probablemente un caracol o una babosa, ha tomado una buena mordida de una.

Regresaré. Buscando en las mapas del area, tratando de hallar el nombre de la montaña, pero sin éxito, vi que hay un sitio para recreación al otro lado del rio.

After the rain

 After a long, dry summer, it is finally raining. It rained all day Friday, steadily. Saturday everything was dripping, trees, shrubs, my flowers (half fallen over under the weight of the water), eaves of houses, even the occasional cloud. I went to patrol the museum grounds looking for mushrooms; in other years there has been a good crop of a great variety. I found two in the grass, dime-sized, slug-bitten, and some starting up in a crack in the donkey engine base logs. I'll try again next week.

But there was more to see.

One of the first big-leaf maple leaves to come down. A small big leaf. The tiny green specks are new sprouts responding to the rain.

Bunchberry, Cornus canadensis. The berries were few and a bit shrivelled.

It has been too hot for our native rainforest berries. The birds may have a hard time of it this winter. I have noticed that even our invasive, but so, so productive blackberries bore a skimpy crop this summer.

Common snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus. Usually these shrubs are loaded with berries, this year, even in the woods, I saw few, mostly a couple or three per bush. We don't eat them; the birds do, towards spring, after they have frozen and thawed.

In the museum's patch of native species, under trees but still exposed to morning sunlight, the berries on the Oregon grapes were all shrivelled and hard.

Deeper in the woods, there were still a few fresh berries.

Hardhack, Spiraea douglasii, going to seed. I hope the birds will eat these.

Grouse apparently eat the dried spikes and other wildlife consume the seed filled capsules. (USDA)

 

And another fallen leaf.

More findings to come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Después de un verano caluroso y seco, por fin está lloviendo. Todo el dia viernes llovió constantemente. El sábado todo goteaba, los árboles, los arbustos, mis flores (medio caídos con el peso del agua), los techos de las casas, a veces hasta las nubes. Fui a buscar hongos alrededor del museo; en otros años había un gran número, de muchas especies. Encontré solamente dos honguitos blancos, como del tamaño de una moneda de diez centavos, ya muy mordidos por las babosas. Y en una grieta en los tronco que sostienen el antiguo burro de vapor, están brotando hongos anaranjados. Habrá que tratar otra vez la semana que entra.

Pero había más.

1. Una de las primeras hojas caídas del arce de hoja grande. (Una hoja pequeña, comparada con las que caerán más tarde.) Los puntitos verdes son brotes de una hierba en respuesta a la lluvia.
2. Bunchberry, Cornus canadensis. Las frutillas eran pocas y algo secas. Ha sido demasiado caluroso para nuestros arbustos nativos, acostumbrados a la lluvia. Puede ser que sea un invierno difícil para los pájaros. He visto que hasta las moras tan invasoras, pero tan fecundas, han producido poca fruta, y esta pequeña, este verano.
3. Frutilla de la nieve, Symphoricarpos albus. Casi siempre este arbusto lleva mucha fruta; este año hasta en el bosque, vi poca; tal vez dos o tres manojitos por cada arbusto. Nosotros no los comemos, pero los pájaros si, cerca de la primavera, después de que se han curado, congelándose y descongelándose.
4. Mahonia, o uva de Oregon, Berberis aquifolium. En el jardín del museo, poblado por especies indígenas, protegido por grandes árboles, pero expuestos al sol de la mañana, toda la fruta de esta planta estaban secas y duras.
5. En el bosque atrás del museo, en constante sombra, había unas cuantas frutas todavía jugosas.
6. Spiraea douglasii, una planta de terrenos húmedos, produciendo semillas. Ojalá los pájaros puedan comerlas. Se dice que "el gallo silvestre comen las ramas secas y otras especies de vida salvaje se comen las cápsulas llenas de semillas. (USDA)"
7. Y otra hoja caída.

Siguen más ...

On shrubs and subs

In the cities, we plant floral borders to our walkways. Alongside our human paths in the deep forests, where we've cleared away the duff and rotting branches, the borders plant themselves. Seen this trip; lichens and mosses, wild strawberries and the tiny native trailing blackberry, vanilla leaf and wild columbine. And the tiny twinflowers and tidy bunchberries.

Twinflower, Linnaea borealis

These little flowers stand less than 4 inches tall. I went through my guide to wildflowers twice, page by page, from lilies to broomrape; the twinflowers weren't there. I checked the index, which I should have done first, but never do, and there they were, among the shrubs.

I always think of shrubs as being larger plants, smaller than trees, but at least knee-high. And the twinflower doesn't look shrub-like. But a shrub is defined as a woody plant, usually multi-stemmed, usually under 20 ft. tall. No lower limit.

The twinflower has woody stems, but they trail along the ground, sending the short flower stalks up into the light above. Each stalk ends in a Y, and bears two bell-like flowers. Look at the photo above; a half-dozen or so "clappers" dangle below their "bells". The leaves are evergreen, to match the forest above.

Bunchberry, Cornus canadensis, aka Dwarf dogwood. With twinflower for size comparison.

If the twinflower is a shrub, why isn't the bunchberry? It has trailing, somewhat woody stems, is in the same genus as the Pacific dogwood, a tree, and the red-osier dogwood, another shrub. Maybe it's that the stems are only somewhat woody. Wikipedia calls it a subshrub.

The actual flowers are small, greenish yellow, with purplish centres; four bluish white bracts at the centre of the leaf whorl upstage them, at least to our eyes. The bees aren't fooled.

The leaves are semi-evergreen, and the fruit is a red berry, edible, they say. I haven't tried them. Yet.