Lion's tooth

 They're pests, but so beautiful!

The common dandelion, Taraxacum officinale.

Each petal is a separate flower, and produces a seed, which flies away to set a new plant in your neighbour's lawn. One plant can produce 5,000 seeds a year.

But the seeds are beautiful, too.

Waiting for a breath of wind.

The flowers, greens, and roots are edible. I always intend to make dandelion jelly, and never get around to it, so the seed heads get harvested carefully and trashed before they take to the air.

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Son una plaga, pero ¡tan hermosos! Son los muy comunes dientes  de león, Taraxacum officinale.

Cada pétalo es una flor y cada flor produce semillas, que se lanzan al aire y van a sembrarse en el césped del vecino. Una sola planta puede producir hasta 5.000 semillas al año.

Y las semillas tambien son bellas, con su "paracaídas" tan ligeras.

El diente de león es comestible, tanto las flores como las hojas y hasta las raices. Siempre me propongo hacer jalea de flor de diente de león, y siempre se me pasa el tiempo, y termino cortando con mucho cuidado las cabezas de volantes, y echándolas a la basura antes de que se van volando.

Fluff monsters

Dandelions are stubborn. And sneaky.

My patch of "lawn" here in Campbell River is about one third grass, half hawkweed, and the rest dandelions. I'm working on digging out the hawkweed, mowing the grass, and cutting down the dandelions as they appear. But the dandelions cheat.

Some of the dandelion heads stand tall, waving defiance. Most of them, though, slide along the ground under the grass until they're ready to go to seed. Then they pop up, toss their fluff into the wind, and sneer at attempts to harness them.

Dandelion seeds, brought inside where they won't reach the lawn. I hope.

A cut dandelion, left lying to die, will go to seed as happily as if it were still attached to its roots. A pollinated dandelion flower cut in pieces will still make seeds. A composted dandelion will leave seeds that can still germinate years later.

Yesterday afternoon, I mowed the lawn short, then walked back and forth, digging out dandelion stalks hiding under the grass until I couldn't find any more. In the evening, when I came home, half a dozen seed heads were standing tall. I collected them, and found another handful of hidden stalks. Today, there were three handfuls of flowers ready to go to seed, all hidden under the grass.

It's discouraging.

Not only do the seeds fly everywhere, they're equipped to hold on tight once they've landed, and maybe gain a bit more distance by sticking to animal fur or feathers. Or my shoes.

The seeds are covered in hooks.

One seed, ready to fly.

Zooming in. Six long ribs on this one, each with dozens of sharp hooks. A seed may have up to 12 ribs.

This species is a somewhat prolific seed producer, with 54 to 172 seeds produced per head, and a single plant can produce more than 5,000 seeds a year. (Wikipedia)

Yikes!

Diatoms and dandelions

At the edge of the Horseshoe Slough parking lot, a middle-aged man stood staring intently at a dandelion gone to seed. After a long while, he lowered his hand and blew away the fluff. We stopped to chat for a minute or two, standing looking down at the chocolate water of the slough. He asked if we knew what made it that colour. I had a vague idea that it was algae, but no more information. He mentioned several other sloughs he had seen with similar colouring.

He started me wondering. So I've been Googling.

Brown water can be a result of several things; golden-brown algae, a conifer-dominated watershed, peat run-off, oxygen depletion, acidity. (I think there is some cross-over in that list.)Brown water in a ditch near the slough.

I Googled golden-brown algae. They grow in fresh and salt water; Horseshoe Slough would be brackish -- freshwater with an occasional influx of salt at high tide. They include thousands of microscopic species, and are an important foundation of the food chain. They include beautiful diatoms, which are said to be responsible for a large proportion of global CO2 fixation.

So: good stuff, it seems.

What may make this slough so unusually chocolaty is that it is a part of the Richmond bog system, which covered at one time about half of Lulu Island. The creek that feeds the slough runs down from the ancient bog, now mostly cranberry and blueberry fields, but still based on red-brown peat.
Browns and greens.
A trail follows the creek back into farm lands. Those are stinging nettles at the left, burdock at the right. Left to themselves, they would close off that path in short order. Behind them is a wild cherry tree, loaded with still-green cherries. Bird heaven!
And smaller weeds. I don't know what these pink flowers are. Some of the leaves look like creeping buttercup. Next: tiny blue flowers, hiding in the grass.

Dandelion fluff

... among the flower stems, waiting its chance to sprout.