Trail brighteners

Spring is on its way. The snowdrops are up in my garden, the bluebells have pushed their green tips above the soil. And along the trails in the forest, still green with moss and sword ferns, the first leaves of warm-weather plants sprout from damp soil. These three were all on a half-buried burnt log, in deep shade beside the trail along the river banks.

Siberian Miner's Lettuce?

Going by the pink stems and the leaves, and the location, I think this is Siberian Miner's Lettuce, which in the summer borders the paths with masses of tiny white or pinkish flowers wherever the sun manages to filter through.

Fringe cup, Tellima grandiflora?

Another common path liner. In a few months, it will raise tall stalks with tiny, greenish to pink frilly flowers. The Latin name is a misnomer; "grandiflora", big flower. But the flowers are tiny, up to 1 cm. long.

And the ever-present Herb Robert, Geranium robertianum.

This one is a bit of a nuisance. It's an imported plant, escaped from gardens. The leaves and the bright pink flowers are pretty, but it soon grows leggy and will cover any exposed area, smothering native plants. It self-seeds, by means of exploding seed pods, so extends its coverage quickly. I used to rip out great armloads that threatened to take over my garden. Fortunately, the roots are shallow.

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

Estamos viendo señas de la primavera. En mi jardín, las campanillas de invierno, las que llamamos gotas de nieve, ya abrieron sus flores blancas; los jacintos levantaron sus primeros brotes verdes. En el bosque, verde por los helechos perennes y los musgos, las primeras hojas de plantas invernales brotan en el suelo húmedo.

Estos tres crecen en un tronco medio cubierto de tierra, al lado de un sendero en la sombra a la orilla del rio.

Fotos: 

1. Claytonia sibirica, "la lechuga del minero", creo, por los tallos color de rosa y la forma de las hojas, además del sitio. En el verano sus florecitas blancas cubren los bordes de los caminos entre el bosque dondequiera que entran los rayos del sol.
2. Tellima grandiflora; otra planta que crece al los bordes de los caminos. Más adelante alzará tallos altos llevando muchas flores de un verde claro, volviendo color rosa mientras maduran. El nombre scientífico no le queda bien; "grandiflora" pero las flores son pequeñas, midiendo apenas 1 cm.
3. Y la hierba "Robert", Geranium robertianum. Éste llega a ser algo nocivo. Es una planta importada, que escapó de jardines domésticos. Las hojas y las flores, de un color rosa fuerte, son bonitas, pero luego se vuelve rojo y se alargan los tallos, llegando a cubrir todo el espacio libre, ahogando las plantas indígenas, esparciendo semillas por medio de vainas explosivas. Hace tiempo, yo arrancaba grandes cantidades que amenazaban con colonizar mi jardín. Por suerte, las raices crecen cerca de la superficie del suelo.

Vision enhancer

"Said to be eaten by woodland elves to improve night vision."*

A useful bit of info. Slowing down, coming in close, crouching, improves day vision of these.

Slowed down. A patch of fringecups, Tellima grandiflora.

And crouching.

New flowers are white; they turn pink as they age.

The Latin name, T. grandiflora, means "large flowers". They're not. They're 4 to 8 mm. long.

*(From Pojar & MacKinnon)

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

"Se dice que las hadas del bosque las comen para mejorar su vista de noche." (De Pojar & MacKinnon)

Y para mejorar tu vista de dia, deténte, agáchate, acércate.

La flor se llama "fringecup", taza con flequillo. Tellima grandiflora, es su nombre científico, que significa "flor grande". Lo que es algo diferente de la realidad; las flores miden de 4 a 8 mm.. 

Nuevecitas, son blancas; maduras, se vuelven color de rosa.

On a sunny shoulder

The sunshine was blazing down, a nice change after several rainy weeks. I went exploring.
Down an access road beside the highway, home to logging trucks, pickups, and potholes, I stopped to look at some horsetails, and found roadside flowers, tiny and not so tiny.

Fringe-cup, Tellima grandiflora

Although why they call it "grandiflora", big flowers, when they are so very small, I don't understand. A large flower; stalk, cup, and fringe; may be only 1 cm. long. Big enough, if you're a bee.

One flower.

Herb-Robert, Geranium robertanium.

Another mysterious name. My guide book gives 6 possible Roberts it's named for, one being a house-goblin.

These grow prolifically in waste spaces. If they invade a garden, they quickly become invasive. They have a slightly unpleasant odor; before I found the name Herb-Robert, I used to call them Stinky geraniums. But they're pretty and cheerful, so I'm glad to see them.

Two flowers and a dropped petal.

Salmonberry flower. Overhanging a gravel road, the poor petals have been bombarded with fine sand. Behind it, one has already formed a berry, still hard and green.

Not a flower. The new curling tips of bracken fern, Pteridium aquilinum.

And on the shady side of the road, another sword fern.

I'll post horsetails tomorrow.

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

Salió el sol, resplandeciente en un cielo azul, un cambio muy agradable después de un par de semanas de lluvia y nubes. Salí a explorar. Me encontré en un camino de grava frecuentado por camiones madereros, camionetas, y baches como para tragarse mis llantas. Hice parada para mirar unas "colas de caballo", Equisetum sp., y encontrá además muchas flores silvestres pequeñas.

Primero: "fringe-cup" Tellima grandiflora. No sé porque la llamaron grandiflora, cuando las flores apenas miden un centímetro con todo y tallo.

Luego, un geranio silvestre, "la hierba de Roberto", o Geranium robertanium. Otro nombre misterioso: nadie sabe por cierto quien era el tal Roberto. Mi libro guía da 6 posibles, uno siendo un duende. Tienen un olor un tanto desagradable; antes de conocer el nombre oficial, yo las llamaba los "geranios apestosos". Pero son bonitas y alegres, y siempre estoy contenta de verlas.

Después viene una flor de salmonberry, muy salpicada de arena del camino. Atrás, ya se ha formado una de las frutillas, todavía verde y dura.

Y luego dos helechos: las puntas enrolladas de un Pteridium aquilinum. Estos helechos desaparecen en invierno y brotan de nuevo en abril. Crecen muy altos, hasta tres metros o más. La segunda foto es un helecho de los que se mantienen verdes todo el año, pero surgen nuevas hojas en el centro en primavera.

Mañana vienen los "cola de caballo".

Hints of spring already

This afternoon was unseasonably warm, and not even raining, so I took the chance of doing a bit of gardening, intending mostly to cut out plants that had been killed by the sudden, extreme (for here) cold spell in December. Cutting down the first one, I found new green leaves sprouting at the base. The next was better still, with flower buds forming already. And the next ...

All I had to do was clean away dead leaves and stems, and the garden is a garden again.

Hellebore bud. This one, last year, was a deep purple. It may darken as it grows.

Of the evergreen perennials, the primulas and pachysandra are already in flower; the hellebores are well on the way. The sausage vine and the bergenia which had seemed to be dying are back to normal; the salal and heather, sweet William and, of course, the London Pride, don't seem to have noticed the crazy weather. A half-dead Epimedium that I transplanted last fall seems to have been invigorated by the chill; it's better now than it ever was.

And this was completely unexpected; an Italian parsley plant that I planted as an annual, didn't protect from the cold because it was due to die anyhow, and left exposed in the coldest part of the garden, barely lost a few stems and still fills its pot, still green.

The Dutchman's breeches are poking out of the soil, and the bare twigs of the hydrangea all boast a big bud at the tip.

All this makes me happy.

A hanging pot off in a corner, where I'd planted trailing nasturtiums and lobelia, and which had housed a volunteer fringe-cup a couple of years ago, was a complete mess, a tangle of old twigs, cedar droppings, and dead, crispy stems. I cleared it all out, and found the fringe-cup coming back underneath. The usually green leaves are red, probably because of the cold.

Fuzzy stems and leaves of the fringe-cup.

A closer look at the stem. A bug would call it spiky, not merely "fuzzy".

Pink fringe

Fringe cups are unnecessarily modest plants, dangling their miniature flowers from a graceful stem, half-hidden beside shady banks and along the edges of the forest. To really see them, you have to get down to their level, and look up at the flowers.

Mostly, the flowers look like wrinkly, papery, green globes with five greenish-white petals, deeply slashed at the edges, escaping from the mouth of the globe. As they age, the petals take on a pink tinge. I'd never seen any as deeply pink as these that I found beside the slough in Elgin Park.

Tip of an upright stem, with more stems in background

Another stem, hanging low above the basal leaves

Zooming in.

Zooming in on the upright stem. It's broken off at the tip; the whole stems end in a bud.

"Eaten by woodland elves..."

Yesterday's post, showing a couple of photos of fringe cup flowers, got two comments; each sent me off to look up more information. I discovered some interesting facts, worth passing on.

Sarah wrote, "Wow, those look a lot like miterwort (mitella diphylla)
http://tinyurl.com/cfecjug  http://tinyurl.com/cp5thyt
Same thing, do you think?"

They did look similar. Sarah's plant has the same 5 fringed petals, the same green cups, a similar hairy stem. But hers is a Mitella; mine's Tellima grandiflora. Why the different names for almost identical plants?

They are both in the Saxifrage family, like the London Pride; plants with basal leaves, and long, hairy flower stems. The Mitella genus is named after bishop's hats; "little mitre", from the Latin mitra with the diminutive suffix -ella.

Presumably the seed capsule was thought to resemble a bishop's mitre, though one reference suggests that it looks more like "a tattered French-Canadian toque." (From Plants of Coastal British Columbia)

Mitella diphylla, Sarah's flower, is an Eastern North American species. Tellima grandiflora is a West coast plant. And it once was classed with the Mitellas.

Native from Alaska to California, Tellima grandiflora is the only member of its genus Tellima --an anagram of Mitella. ... The species was first described as Mitella grandiflora in 1814. ... compared to other species of Mitella the flowers are large. (From Arthur Lee Jacobson)

Tellima grandiflora flowers turn pink as they age.

We have several native mitreworts on the BC coast; M. pentandra, M. nuda, M. breweri, etc. These look like fringecups, but most have greenish flowers; I had some like this in my yard when I lived in the Mission area.

And fringecup is edible! I didn't know this.

The Skagit pounded fringecup, boiled it and drank the tea for any kind of sickness, especially lack of appetite. ... Fringecup was said to be eaten by woodland elves to improve night vision. (Plants of Coastal BC)

(I sort of doubt that bit about woodland elves.)

The leaves taste boringly bland and are not poisonous, but herbivores may be discouraged from grazing by the copious hairs. ... The sweet-tasting blossoms are a pleasant trailside nibble. (ALJ)

Second comment; Margy says she has never seen these. I think she probably has, without knowing it; they're extremely common in damp sites all up and down our coast, possibly even on the shore of her home on the lake. But they are also completely inconspicuous, even in full bloom; just more greenery at ground level, with tiny, lighter specks above them in season. Only from close up would you notice them.

Fringecup, flowering, mixed with other greens and dead ferns on a cliff face.

If it ever stops raining*, I'll try nibbling some fringecup blossoms.

*It will. Sooner or later. I'm just fretting because our long weekend was spent inside, looking out at the rain.

Green and white stalked cups

My fringe cup is blooming.

Loaded with flowers, but we have to get in close to see them.

5 petals to each cup, deeply fringed.

I hope they manage to reseed themselves more extensively this year.

Spring beauty. Coming soonish.

It's still raining. All day, all night.

The rain and being shut in have put me in a mood for decluttering, so I've been mucking out the storage drive. It's amazing how much stuff gets stuffed into corners to deal with "later". And how hard it is to find any particular thing when there are far too many boxes to look into. I've deleted hundreds of photos tonight.

This one cheered me up:

Fringecup. In one of my planters, April 2009

Tellima grandiflora is its Latin name. Grandiflora, meaning "big flower". An odd name for a plant about 1 foot high, with tiny flowers seen best with a magnifying lens.

It's native to this area, growing in deep shade, an inconspicuous plant, mostly green stalks with greenish flower heads, often hidden among ferns. I am always happy to see a clump of them; they make me smile, so modest and so beautiful. I brought home the seeds from a plant I found in the bush under a mixed cover of alders and cottonwood.

Another month, and I'll be looking in my planter to see if they've come back again. And this rain will help, if we don't all float away first.