Pink and yellow

More orchids. This is the second blooming this year.

Half opened flower. The buds are a strange, curved triangle shape, like a half of a crescent moon.

Taken inside, in the orchid's favourite spot, under a yellow lamp. It grows happily here, not so well anywhere else.

Christmas orchid

When I moved to Campbell River, three years ago, I bought a baby orchid; three stalks, a handful of leaves, a few inches tall. Now it's a foot and a half tall (45 cm.), has air roots and leaves sticking out in all directions. I've repotted it once.

And now, it has bloomed. In time for Christmas!

Better than a Christmas tree.

(I'm back. I got myself in over my head in things to do, but I've recovered my sanity now. I think.)

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)

Green, red, blue, and a hidden treasure

The road from Williams Lake to Bella Coola starts and ends on steep hills; up to the Chilcotin Plateau at the east end, then steeply down (up to an 18% grade) from Heckman Pass (1487 m, or 4879 ft.) in Tweedsmuir Park at the western end. I stopped at the top of the hill, to stretch my legs before the tricky descent.

Entering Tweedsmuir Park. The road from here to the bottom of the hill (30 km) is gravel.

Green river. After the blackened forest at the summit, this was a welcome sight.

As the road climbs, clumps of red paintbrush and dwarf lupins appear along creek beds and ditches. I wandered here and there, keeping a hopeful eye out for bears, and swatting the ravenous mosquitoes and midges, seemingly attracted by my bug repellent. Everywhere, there were flowers, with their buzzing pollinators hard at work; the summer is short here, and they don't waste a moment of it.

Red Paintbrush, Castilleja, possibly the Alpine species.

Lupins. At this altitude, they are low plants, usually under 6 inches tall. These, on a boggy creek bank, are taller than most.

A couple of Alpine asters, and the stiff leaves of one of our native berries.

I had been walking for some time before I noticed the orchids. Once I found them, I realized that they were all around, their modest green and white stalks blending into the background. Look closely at the photo of the asters; do you see the orchid?

White bog-orchid, Platanthera dilatata, hidden in plain sight.

 A closer view.

And another.

These are fragrant plants, but I was wearing so much sunscreen and bug repellent that I couldn't smell anything else. Next time, I'll risk being eaten. Somebody has to feed the mosquitoes, after all.