Mostly green

The colours of April, here in the north woods. In town, the streets are lined with pink and purple, yellow and white. Deep blue bluebells, red-flowering currants, daffodils and crocuses, white-blossomed wild cherry trees, even a few red rhododendrons. A few minutes beyond city limits, however, the theme colour is green. With brown as an accent colour.

These are a few random shots taken here and there.

Just another nameless logging road.

Big-leaf maple, adding a hint of yellow to its greenery. Brown's Bay.

In a bleached log, two species of moss, Cladonia lichens, and Lichen Agaric mushrooms (Lichenomphalia umbellifera). Oyster Bay.

A bit of the north woods, tamed, but still green. Brown's Bay.

Nose to the bark; Cladonia lichen squamules.

And brown:

Bird's nest fungus, with "braided" red cedar leaves, dried.

And a small, brown mushroom.

There's always another trillium. Cumberland area.

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Los colores de abril, aquí en los bosques norteños. En la ciudad, las calles corren entre jardines pintados en color de rosa, morado, amarillo, blanco. Hay jacintos, en tonos de azul fuerte, grosellas, las que llevan flores rojas, hay narcisos y crocus, cerezos resplandecientes con sus flores blancas, hasta unos cuantos rododendros con flores rojas.  Pero saliendo del pueblo, apenas a una poca distancia, el tema es verde. Todo es verde, con el color café como color de contraste.

1. Un camino de madereros, sin nombre.
2. Arce de hoja grande, vestido en verde/amarillo.
3. Un tronco podrido, blanqueado por el sol, con su "jardincito" de musgos (dos especies), líquenes Cladonia, y los hongos/liquen Lichenomphalia umbellifera.
4. Un tramo del bosque norteño domesticado, pero sigue pintado de verde. Brown's Bay.
5. Escamas de los líquenes Cladonia sp., vistas de cerca, en el tronco de un árbol.
6. Y el color acento, café: aquí un hongo "nido de pájaro" con hojas secas del cedro rojo.
7. Un honguito color café.
8. Y siempre hay otro trilio.

High water, green forest

The highway on its way out of town runs alongside the river, usually a tame ripple glimpsed through the trees. But yesterday, the water was higher and wider than I'd ever seen it, rampaging along, white-foamed. I abandoned my planned route and went to look.

View from the trail. The second channel, entering below the islet, is usually not visible.

It had been raining earlier, and for days before; everything was wet, and very green.

Moss everywhere. And Licorice ferns, Polypodium glycyrrhiza.

I followed the trail to my usual stopping point, and took a side trail to the edge of the water, which the trail had veered away from. The side hill is covered with evergreen ferns; below, salmonberry and huckleberry bushes fill the low spots, and all around are the trees, the alders and maples standing bare-armed against the sky, the evergreens providing a sheltering wall. The air on my skin was cool and felt wet. The only sounds were the chattering of the rushing water and, occasionally, the plop of a drip falling from soggy moss overhead. A faint whiff of wood smoke blended with the green scent of the evergreens. For a minute, there, I was a little girl again; for an instant, I could have run, shouting for delight, through the knee-deep ferns.

The moment passed. The years have run on, and my gimpy knee was threatening to go on strike. I turned and took the trail back to the parking lot. But I went slowly, stopping often, just to stand and stare.

Fantastic shapes on a moss-covered branch.

Quiet trail.

Mossy trunks

Just wondering; why does moss sometimes completely cover a tree, skip the next, then coat only the foot of another?

 

Moss and lichen on a broken log.

And it's raining again.

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La carretera, saliendo del pueblo, pasa al lado del rio, que se ve detrás de los árboles, una linea azul, tranquila. Ayer, en cambio, el agua había surgido a sus límites, y corría agitadamente, formando olas y espuma. Abandoné mis planes y fui a mirarlo.

Foto: La vista desde el sendero al lado del rio. El brazo del rio que entra al otro lado de la islita, normalmente no se ve.

Había llovido apenas hacía un par de horas, y todo estaba muy verde.

Foto: tronco con musgos y los helechos Polypodium glycyrrhiza, el helecho de raiz dulce.

Seguí el sendero hasta donde acostumbro detenerme, y luego tomé otro senderito que llevaba al mero borde del agua, del cual el sendero principal se había alejado. Allí, el declive está cubierto de helechos de hoja perennes, Polystichum munitum; cerca del agua abundan los arbustos de salmonberry, Rubus spectabilis, y arándanos rojos; alrededor, los árboles de hoja caduca, los arces y alisos, levantan brazos desnudos contra el cielo; los pinos y abetos, siempre verdes, forman un pared que nos aislan del mundo exterior. El aire se sentía fresco y húmedo. Todo lo que se oía era el parloteo del rio, y de vez en cuando una gota de agua que se caía "plop" del musgo empapado allá arriba. Me llegaba un aroma tenue de fuego de leña.

Por un instante, volví a ser una niña, viviendo entre estos bosques; por un segundo, sentí que podría correr, gritando alegre, entre los helechos.

Y pasó el momento. Como han pasado los años. Y mi rodilla mala estaba amenazándome con declararse en huelga. Regresé al sendero principal y me dirigí al estacionamiento. Pero lentamente, deteniéndome a cada rato para mirar lo que me rodeaba.

Fotos: 

• Formas fantásticas de los musgos sobre una rama seca.
• El sendero de vuelta.
• Unos troncos con musgo. ¿Porqué sería que el musgo cubre algunos árboles por completo, mientras deja otros sin nada, o con musgos solamente en la base?
• Musgos y líquenes sobre una masa de madera podrida.

Y está lloviendo otra vez.

 

Green, green, green

Even in a dry spell, the island rainforest has an almost tropical lushness. Here, on the slope above the river, where the sunlight barely filters down through the leaves overhead, everything is green, from the deep blue-greens of the sword fern, to the muted greens of drying moss, ranging from a golden glow to a deep greenish brown, the pure tones of the licorice ferns that grow in the moss, the palest of greens of lichens, to the radiant yellow-green of maple leaves above. Even the river that wends its way along the bottom of the valley shows up green.

Sword ferns, licorice ferns, moss, maples, Douglas fir, lichens, and a froth of huckleberries.

And today it rained. The ferns (and I) are happy.

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Hasta en tiempo de sequía, el bosque pluvial de la isla tiene una exuberancia casi tropical. Aquí, subiendo del rio, donde la luz del sol apenas llega a penetrar, todo es verde, desde los verdes oscuros de los helechos perennes, a los verdes apagados de los musgos, que van de un brillo de oro a un café con tonos verdes, el verde puro de los helechos de raiz dulce que brotan del musgo, o el verde tenue, casi blanco de los líquenes, hasta el verde-amarillo radiante de las hojas del arce. Aun el rio que serpentea en el fondo del valle toma su color del bosque.

Foto: vista del bosque: helechos, musgos, líquenes, arces, abetos de Douglas, y hojitas de huckleberry.

Y hoy llovió. El bosque y yo estamos felices.

Curves and lines

Hosta leaves, from ground level.

All the colours of green.

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El follaje de Hosta, desde el nivel de la tierra, mostrando sus múltiples tonos de verde.

Watching where I step

Bits of green among last year's soggy dead leaves.

Pale, fuzzy leaves catching raindrops in their hairs.

Turkey tails on an ankle-high stump.

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Entre las hojas muertas del verano pasado, bajo la lluvia, un poco de color primaveral. Retoños de una planta peluda, y unos hongos "cola de guajolote".

Ahhhh! Grey again!

The Vancouver Island paint box relies on blue, green, and grey. Mostly grey. But over this dry, smoking summer, that has changed. Lawns are yellow and crispy; the air has been brown, the sunshine orange. Distant mountains, instead of blue and purple, were a smudgy mud colour.

When the rains finally started last week, I went out to the woods to rest my eyes on the new greys.

From Race Point, Looking across to Quadra Island

Mist over a valley. Near Brown's Bay Road, Hwy 19.

Muted rainforest greens

"The woods were lovely, dark and deep ..." (Robert Frost)

It was pleasant there, wandering in the slow rain, under the evergreens. The air was cool and damp; it smelled of moss. The only sounds were the quiet tree conversations; creaking and whispering; and the gentle pattering of falling fir needles. Far overhead, eagles circled, crossing and re-crossing the patches of visible grey sky.

Farther north, the rain had been and gone, but the mist remained.

Deciduous trees, blasted by unaccustomed heat, basking now in a blue-grey mist.

Not everything is grey. Blackberries, still green, are red.

The blackberries this year are ripening slowly. I've tried a few ripe ones; they're acid and hard. They need water, lots of water, and sunshine; this summer has been missing both.

Unexpected emerald

In a purple petunia.

Anthers (with pollen) and stigma (glowing green)

Zooming out.

At every turn of the road

Study in greens:

In sunshine and shadow, with mosses. Iron River Road, north of Campbell River.

The neutrals

More from my collection of "someday" photos; a sampler of muted greens and browns. Designer colours, for some. Easy on the eye, but maybe too easy if you're trying to find an invisible grasshopper or a lurking spider.

Cross spider, Araneus diadematus, in her web over the water between the docks.

Grasshopper, Oyster Bay.

Lichen, Cladonia sp., Oyster Bay. Almost matches the grasshopper.

This lichen is in a log at Strathcona Lodge, on Upper Campbell Lake. The little scaly (or leafy?) cone-like buds are intriguing. (Click for full size.) I wish I'd seen them at the time. The camera's eye is better than mine.

"Eye" in a log. Strathcona Lodge. I'm pretty sure there's a spider in there.

Dippers on sandstone, Woodhus Creek. They kept running under the water in the calm spots, where the caddisfly larvae were.

Sparrows, Tyee Spit.

When the light is right, even the water is brown. Sandpipers, off Tyee Spit.

Here and there.

Brand new wings

A glittering green fly, freshly emerged from the pupa, rests in the garden while his wings unfold and dry out.

So very shiny!

When I came back a few minutes later, he had gained the use of both wings and flown away.

(He's sitting on the back of an old plastic turtle who works in the garden supporting transplants and sheltering pillbugs.)

As promised: Green, green, green

And where the sunshine filters through, a bit of yellow. That makes Cougar Canyon a good place to visit on a hot day.

Reflections on the creek, with water striders and their circles.

More reflections

Ferns and a couple of skunk cabbage leaves

Lichen and mosses

Miners' lettuce

The creek rushing over a small drop

A skunk cabbage spadix, not ripe. We smelled ripe ones, but never saw them. 

Moss, bleeding heart leaves, and a brown shelf fungus, for a bit of variety.

More shades of green

The annual re-leafing of Cougar Creek park has started. Greenish-white flowers bloom overhead, standing tall above the leaves:

Elderberry branch. The leaves, even freshly opened, are a deep green.

Clusters of tiny flowers on tall stems.

These flowers are edible. The red berries, later on, not so much, although BC native peoples ate them, and birds love them. But most people today complain of a pungent aftertaste, too many seeds, and a long, complicated processing to remove seeds and taste.

But the flowers are excellent. Dad used to dip the clusters, whole, stem and all, into pancake batter and cook them the same as regular pancakes. It made a nice springtime breakfast treat.

... or hanging in the shelter of new, green-yellow maple leaves. 

In the shade of the maples, a new forest of large horsetails is taking over the shore of the lagoon.

Spore-producing shoots (strobili). The taller, all-green, sterile stalks will appear after these have spread their spores. Most of the green leaves are buttercups.

There are always dandelions.

More red than green. Smaller maple growing in deep shade by the creek.

In sunny patches, the salmon berries are in flower, but not the Indian plum. Not yet, but it won't be long now.