Perfect!

Definitions are strange things, sometimes. Take flowers. Perfect flowers. Like a rose.

Perfect flowers are flowers that include both male and female parts within a single flower. Imperfect flowers are flowers that have only male or only female parts.

A complete flower contains sepals, petals, pistils, and stamens. An incomplete flower is missing one of those parts. 

Incomplete flowers can be perfect or imperfect flowers. Perfect incomplete flowers have both stamen and a pistil present on the same flower, but lack sepals or petals. Imperfect incomplete flowers lack either the stamen or the pistil on the same flower but have sepals and petals. (Study.com)

 So what is this one?

False bugbane,Trautvetteria caroliniensis.

This flower has no petals. Where we expect to see petals, it has from 50 to 100 stamens, the male organs. And there are 15 pistils, the female parts, so that makes it a perfect flower. But incomplete.

Nootka rose, rosa nutkana.

The rose, whether it's a wild rose, with its 5 petals, or one in your garden, with up to 40, is perfect and complete. It has petals, sepals, stamens, and pistils.

False lily-of-the-valley, Maianthemum dilatatum.

And these are both perfect and complete, too. Or maybe not. What looks like petals are tepals, which means they couldn't figure out whether they were sepals or petals. And a complete flower has both.

False lily-of-the-valley flowers. Photo by Alpsdake.

But then, there are several types of definitions; in my everyday language, all these flowers are perfect, absolutely complete, and delightful.

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Las definiciones de algunas palabras son algo extrañas. Por ejemplo, hablando de las flores; ¿qué se entiende cuando decimos que una flor es "perfecta"? Una rosa perfecta, digamos.

Las flores perfectas son flores que incluyen partes tanto masculinas como femeninas en una sola flor. Flores imperfectas son flores que tienen solamente partes masculinas o partes femeninas.

Una flor completa contiene sépalos y pétalos, pistilos y estambres. A una flor incompleta le falta una de esas partes.

Una flor incompleta puede ser perfecta o imperfecta. Flores perfectas pero incompletas tienen tanto el estambre como un pistilo en la misma flor, pero le faltan o los pétalos o los sépalos. A las flores incompletas e imperfectas les falta o el estambre o el pistilo en la misma flor, pero tienen los pétalos y sépalos. (Study.com)

1. Y esta, entonces, ¿qué es? Trautvetteria caroliniensis. Esta flor no tiene pétalos. Donde esperamos ver los pétalos, se encuentran los estambres, desde 50 a 100 estambres, los órganos masculinos. Y hay 15 pistilos, que son femeninos, lo que hace que la flor sea una flor perfecta. Pero incompleta.
2. La rosa, sea una rosa silvestre con sus 5 pétalos, o una en tu jardín, con hasta 40 pétalos, es perfecta y completa. Tiene los sépalos, los pétalos, los estambres, y los pistilos.
3. Y estas, Maiathemum dilatatum, el falso lirio de los valles, también son perfectas. ¿Completas? Tal vez no lo son. Lo que parece ser pétalos, son tépalos, lo que quiere decir que no pudieron decidir si eran pétalos o sépalos. Y una flor completa tiene que tener ambos.
4. Las flores del falso lirio de los valles. Photo de Alpsdake, Wikimedia 

Pero estas son definiciones científicas; hay otras. Para mi, estas flores, todas, son perfectas, totalmente completas, y un encanto.

A sight for sore eyes

 I was searching through the woods beside the Eve River, looking for mushrooms after a few days of rain. I found only one, and not the species I was hoping for. But there are false lilies of the valley, and they are holding up their mottled green and red berries; that was enough.

Maianthemum dilatatum

The riper they are, the redder.

Some First Nations people ate them, but according to the guide book, "they were seldom highly regarded as food." But the leaves and the pounded roots were used by various groups to heal sore eyes. I should have brought a few leaves home with me for after a long session on the computer.

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Andaba en un bosque al lado del rio Eve, buscando hongos después de unos dias de lluvia. Encontré solo uno, y no era de los que esperaba hallar. Pero los lirios del valle falsos llevaban sus bayas verdes salpicadas de manchas rojas; me di por bien servida.

Fotos: bayas de los lirios del valle falsos, Maiathemum dilatatum. Entre más maduran, más se vuelven rojas.

Algunas de las Primeras Naciones (los indígenas de esta región) las comían, pero según mi libro guía, — Pocas veces se consideraban como alimento muy bueno. — Pero usaban las hojas y las raices machucadas para curar ojos adoloridos. Debería de haber traído algunas a casa para usar después de horas delante de la pantalla de la computadora.

All decked out in pink and green

I walked this afternoon along the trail beside the Campbell River. It's mostly deep shade, under the shadow of steep banks, covered overhead by tall evergreens. Later, it will be darker; for now, the maples are still leafless, and the forest, under the canopy, is still open. New leaves of budding salmonberry and huckleberry shrubs glow where they catch a ray of sunlight.

And the floor is patterned in pink, white, and green; the first spring flowers are blooming while there is still some sunlight. Pink fawn lilies are everywhere; there are bleeding hearts and trilliums, delicate pink and white slender toothworts, huckleberry buds and salmonberry flowers.

A mixed patch.

In this patch I see pink fawn lilies, piggy-back plants, false lily of the valley leaves, cow parsnip, fairy bells, herb robert, evergreen ferns, and one other plant that I should recognize but don't at the moment. Of these, only the fawn lilies are blooming; the others will be along soon.

Hooker's fairy bells, getting ready to flower.

Piggy-back plant, Tolmiea menziesii, in bud.

Piggy-backing leaf

Cow parsnip leaves. Below, bleeding heart leaves.

The cow parsnip will be a large plant, overshadowing the earlier-blooming flowers.

Tomorrow; trilliums and more pink fawn lilies: there are so many fawn lilies!

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Caminé esta tarde al lado del rio Campbell. Este terreno está por gran parte del año en la penumbra; el cerro, muy empinado, limita las horas en que le llega el sol, y los árboles de hoja perenne, allá arribe, mantiene todo en sombra. Por ahora, los arces de hoja grande siguen sin hojas, así que dejan penetrar un poco de sol; en el sotobosque las hojitas nuevas de los arbustos de mora de salmón y de huckleberry (arándano rojo) brillan como lucecitas donde les alcanza uno que otro rayo de sol.

Y el suelo lleva un tapete de colores; blanco, verde, y color de rosa. Las primeras flores de la primavera se apuran a salir mientras todavía hay sol. Hay lirios de cervato, color de rosa, por todas partes; están en flor los corazones sangrantes y los trilios, y las tiernas flores de toothwort ("hierba de dientes") en rosa o blanco. Un poco más arriba, se ven las flores de salmonberry y huckleberry.

Fotos:

1. Un grupo mixto de plantas: lirio de cervato, Tolmiea menziesii (piggyback plant), lirio del valle falso, pastinaca de vaca, campanas de hada, hierba roberto, helechos perennes, y una planta que debo reconocer pero en el momento se me escapa.
2. Campanas de hada,Disporum hookeri.
3. Tolmiea menziesii, con botones de las flores.
4. Otra, con su hojita nueva de cuestas.
5.  y 6. pastinaca de vaca, Heracleum lanatum.  Éste va a ser una planta grande, dejando los demás en la sombra.

Mañana habrá foto de los trilios. Y más de los lirios de cervato. ¡Hay tantos!

Spring on the hard drive

It's April and my hyacinths are perfuming the entryway, the tulips are almost ready to open, the forsythia is dropping yellow petals on the lawn, and the first hairy cat's ear (grrrr!) has dug itself in. (And I dug it out.) There are bluebells on the way, and mock orange, and Dutchman's breeches. I've been out cleaning up, trimming the hydrangea and weeding around the hollyhocks. Ah, spring!

And on my hard drive, I've been sorting spring flowers from years gone by. Here are a few of them; most I'd never finished processing.

Indian plum, aka osoberry. A welcome native.

Humble wood violets.

Back in 2009, in a patch of blackberry canes and nettles at Terra Nova, we found these snowflake flowers.

Leucojum sp.

The site had been, long ago, a homestead; there were daffodils and old fruit trees. These had been in someone's garden before the blackberries moved in.

Aka dewdrop

Lily of the valley. From my old garden in Delta.

Half hidden in the shade at the edge of the woods at Woodhus Creek, vanillaleaf in bloom. The flowers don't last long, but the drying leaves are fragrant all summer.

And it wouldn't be spring without crocuses, would it?

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Ya estamos a medio abril, y mis jacintos están derramando su perfume frente a mi puerta. Los tulipanes tienen grandes botones, rojos y amarillos; la forsitia cubre el pasto de pétalos amarillos; y las primeras "orejas peludas de gato", una hierba invasiva y nociva, se han establecido en el césped. (Y ya las arranqué.) Hay campanillas, naranja falsa (Philadelphus sp.), y Dicentra, todavía sin flores. He estado podando las hortensias, sacando hierbas malas de entre las malvas locas, y haciendo limpieza general. ¡Ah, la primavera!

Y regresando a la casa y la computadora, he estado revisando fotos viejas de flores primaverales. Aquí hay algunas que encontré, casi todas del mes de abril, pero en años anteriores.

1. Oemleria cerasiformes, llamada Ciruela India, o también frutilla de osos.
2. Violeta nativa
3. y 4.  Encontramos esta planta bajo un lío de zarzamora. Se llama "copo de nieve".
5. Lirio del valle, de mi jardín en Delta.
6. "Hoja de vainilla", una planta nativa del bosque. Las flores caen pronto, pero las hojas siguen aromáticas todo el verano.
7. Y no hay primavera sin crocus.

A promise of future blooms

It's still early in the season for the rest of our wildflowers. But they're coming!

At the base of a stump, a patch of false lily-of-the-valley leaves. At the top, a salmonberry sprout and a couplle of stalks of (I think) Hooker's fairy bells.

About the false (aka western) lily of the valley, E-Flora says:

Occurs ... on very moist to wet, nitrogen-rich soils ... on water-receiving and water-collecting sites, commonly found on stream-edge sites, floodplains ... Grows with ... Lysichitum americanum (skunk cabbage). Characteristic of alluvial floodplain forests.

Pretty much describes the Nunns Creek wetland.

Young horsetail spike. With lily of the valley leaves and ivy (invasive here).

The fertile stems of common horsetail show up early in the spring, mature and die before the leafy stalks (non-fertile) appear.

Hooker's fairy bells, Disporum hookeri. One flower is open; the rest are still in bud.

Another trillium. I think the red dot is a red velvet mite. It's too small to be sure, but the colour and size are right. Blown up to 400%, I can see the shadows of the legs.

And since they were everywhere, another pink fawn lily.

Spotty berries

Water makes all the difference. Along the river banks, and the drippy cliffs on the evergreen-clad north slopes, the soil is hidden under a soft, thick cushion of mosses and ferns. Even in warm weather, it stays wet. And where the shade is deep, we can find these curious plants.

Maianthemum dilatatum, aka two-leaved Solomon's seal. With one blood-red aphid.

These are natives here, growing in temperate rainforests, where they can spread to cover the entire forest floor. But each plant limits itself to three leaves at the most. When they are not flowering, they have only one leaf. With two or three, they send up a short stalk with a raceme of tiny white flowers. The berries start out greenish, with pink spots that spread and darken until the whole berry is red.

They are supposed to be edible, but I've never heard of anyone using them as food.