Under wraps

On the dry meadow tucked between the Oyster Bay shore and the highway, life goes on in layers. High above, swallows swoop and wheel, chattering as they go. A heron flies by on his way to better fishing grounds. Treetops tremble in the wind.

Down at my level, in blistering sunlight unrelieved by any hint of a breeze, butterflies dance; cabbage whites and purplish coppers. Grasshoppers lead me in a merry (for them) chase, some hopping, others darting here and there over the gumweed until they settle again, just out of sight. Bees hurry through the gumweed; so much to harvest, so little time! Something keeps up a constant, raspy chirp, more grasshoppers, probably.

From my ankles down, there is a bit of shade, a slightly cooler microclimate, full of busy life. I find a clear spot and sit on the moss. It is crispy and hot on top, but an inch below the surface, there is moisture and the roots are soft. Ants and spiders dash about between the stems of the plants; wild strawberry, fragrant yarrow, grasses, mini-clover and silver burweed.

There's one plant I don't recognize. It's hard to see clearly, short stems surrounded by leaves all tied up in white wool, hiding their shapes. There are no flowers.

Wooly plants, in context.

The leaves are opposite, toothed, or maybe palmate. There may be a bud in the centre top.

Old leaves dry up and turn charcoal grey.

I took the first two photos in July. After I couldn't find them in any book or website, I went back this afternoon to get a better look, hoping for flowers or new growth.

After a week of rain, they're leafier; green leaves covered with white wool. No flowers, no flower stalks.

I've gone through every page in my guide, Googled and Googled and Googled again, thinking up new search terms. No luck.

Does anyone out there recognize these?

The arrows point to the shore. The meadow is where the highway veers off from the shore.

So soft!

The path through the protected area at Oyster Bay Shoreline Park is lined at this time of year with pale, pinkish, fuzzy balls, about the size of beans, held ankle height on stiff stems. Down on my knees, they looked like a clover, but no clover I'd ever seen before.

Mini cotton candy flowers

Yes, definitely a clover.

It isn't in my Plants of Coastal BC, but an image search on Google found it quickly. It's commonly named hare's foot clover or rabbit foot clover, obvious choices for names because of it's soft hairiness. Or stone clover, which seems a misnomer.

It's scientific name is Trifolium arvense, which means "three leaves in the field". It's an introduced plant from Europe, but has spread throughout the world. it likes dry, sandy soil like the Oyster Bay dunes.

Growing, in this field, in close company with wild strawberry. A bit confusing. The leaves of the hare's foot clover are small and narrow.

Wild strawberry, without the clover.

There will be no post tomorrow, I hope: weather permitting, I'll be going to Tahsis for a couple of days. I'll be back with more Oyster Bay plants Thursday. (And another couple hundred photos to sort, I'm sure. I'll never catch up!)

Almost, but not quite

Lying between the shady coastal rain-forest environments of the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island, stony, dry, sunny Mitlenatch Island is an oddity. Some of the plants I saw were old favourites, like the salal or the stonecrop, but many were like, but not quite like, the ones I'm familiar with just a few kilometres across the water, nor, with the exception of the prickly pear, were they like the dry country plants of the Chilcotin. I kept asking our patient guide, Christine, "What's this? And this?"

On the government list of rare plants of BC, 8 are found on Mitlenatch Island. Three of these are aquatics, two unusual clovers (tomcat clover, white-tipped clover). There's Carolina foxtail grass, a subspecies of California broomrape that parasitizes gumweed, and Gardner's yampah, in the carrot family. I don't think I saw any of these, but next time I'll come prepared, knowing what to look for.

In spite of the pictures on the information kiosk and local websites, a few of the plants I saw on Mitlenatch Island were hard to identify. I need help with these:

It looks like one of the carrot family, Apiaceae, but is missing the fringe at the top of the stem. I should recognize it, but I don't.

The information board shows the orchid, Ladies tresses. This is similar, but the florets don't seem to be arranged in a spiral. Another orchid, maybe?

Update: this could be Piperia elegans, the hillside rein orchid. Also present on Mitlenatch.

Christine identified this for me. Indian celery, Lomatium nudicaule. Aka Indian consumption plant.

Hooker's onion. The three petals and the flower sheath make this easy to identify. Likes dry places.

At least this was easy; common plantain. Grows anywhere. But what is that beautiful, feathery grass behind it?

A volunteer in the bottom corner of a failed photo of something else. Saskatoon (serviceberry) flowers, past their sell-by date. The fresh flowers are white, the berries a deep purple-blue, and often delicious, depending, I think, on the soil the shrub grows in.

(5th in a series of 9 Mitlenatch Island posts. #1, #2, #3, #4. #5. #6, #7, #8)