Root

I am intrigued by rainforest tree roots. So tall the trees, so heavy, so busy 'way up top in the sunlight, and it's all held in place by a few metres of roots grabbing the bit of soil coating the rocks that make up our mountains.

And sometimes they fail.

When young, Douglas-fir establishes a taproot in the soil. The taproot continues to penetrate into the soil for the next ten years. As the tree ages, it produces a slew of lateral roots. The main lateral roots breach the soil at a sharp angle. The depth of the root system is related to the soil structure and texture. In areas that receive abundant rainfall, the roots may burrow 60 to 100 cm into the earth, with some progressing even deeper. On well-drained soils, the lateral roots may reach up to 1 meter beyond the crown. (IronTreeService)

Another site says that the roots may extend themselves up to 3 metres vertically and laterally. That's not a lot of root for a tree that reaches up to 60 metres high.

I am perpetually amazed at this world we live in.

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Las raices de nuestros árboles del bosque pluvial me fascinan. Tan altos los árboles, tan pesados, tan activos allá arriba donde calienta el sol, y ¡todo se mantiene en su lugar con unos cuantos metros de raiz agarrándose a la escasa cobija de tierra que cubre las rocas.

Foto: y a veces no es suficiente.

"Cuando brota, el abeto de Douglas establece una raiz primaria en la tierra. Esta sigue penetrando dentro del suelo por los próximos diez años. Mientras crece el árbol, produce una cantidad de raices laterales. Las raices laterales principales cortan el suelo en un ángulo agudo. Lo hondo del sistema de raices depende de la estructura y la textura del suelo. En sitios que reciben lluvia abundante, las raices pueden enterrarse de 60 a 100 cm. dentro del suelo, con algunas que se extienden aún más hondo. En suelos con buen drenaje, las raices laterales pueden alcanzar hasta 1 metro más que la corona." (De IronTreeService)

Otro sitio web dice que estas raices pueden extenderse hasta 3 metros tanto vertical como lateralmente. No es mucha raiz para un árbol que se alza hasta 60 metros al aire.

Siempre me quedo asombrada ante este mundo en que vivimos.

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.

At every turn of the road

Study in greens:

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

In the woods.

(A bit of a rant here, a whine. Forgive me.)

Some days I need to find an open road and drive, drive, drive. To escape the rush and noise, the signs; "buy this! you need this! can't live without this!"; the barges carrying plastics, so useful until they end up in the bellies of our birds and fish; the constant reminders of problems to be dealt with, of impossible solutions, of problems being conscientiously made worse.

I took the highway north again. Passing Lake Roberts, I saw a small sign, half hidden in the bushes, and followed a pot-holed gravel road down to a parking lot and a trailhead. The trail led to the lake and a picnic area. There was no-one about; a parked motor home was dark and silent.

The path wound downhill, through evergreen forest, dark and cool, carpeted with ferns and moss, sprinkled here and there with starry white flowers. Overhead, the wind rustling in the branches masked the distant sounds of the occasional car on the highway.  Near the lake, I finally came to a halt in an opening among the trees, knee-deep in ferns, fragrant, green-scented.

So quiet!

For a moment, I was transported back in time, to when, as a child, I wandered in similar forests on the far side of the island. So peaceful, so safe! I could breathe here!

But it was different back then. The forest was eternal; it had been there long before we showed up, it would be there long after we were gone. It was secure, and in it, I felt that security.

Now, there is fear. The forests are dwindling. The birds and the bears are fading away, the steady march of the seasons has failed. And the chainsaws and haulers are busy; along the roads, the logging companies have left a green belt, but the sun shines through the trees from mountainsides just beyond, devastated, empty of anything green or moving.

Sometimes I am so disheartened that it is hard to go on.

There is healing in the forest. There is hope, maybe. All is not lost; life goes on, building on the ruins of the past.

Nurse stump. Rotten and crumbling, it supports and feeds a new tree; as the stump disappears, the tree will send its roots down to the ground below.

Squirrel table. They've eaten the seeds from fir cones, and left the husks. Some of the seeds will have been scattered, uneaten. Some will become new trees.

Woolly bear sleeping on a fence.

I went on, came down to the lake, found columbines and bugs, took photos of those starry flowers. I can't stop our "progress", as we call it, towards a barren earth, but at least I can record the beauties of our world as it is now. Maybe, someday, we'll learn to live respectfully.

And the forest had one more reminder for me. "Laugh!" it said.

Do fuzzy yellow dogs climb trees?

So I laughed and went home.

Dripping

The rain had used up the water reserves in the clouds, and was reduced to a sporadic sprinkle when we started on the moss walk. That was out in the clear; under the trees, masses of moss overhead substituted for clouds, holding the water for a while, then dropping large blobs on our heads - splat!

A handful of wet moss can feel almost dry, until you squeeze it; then water gushes out.

I was glad I was carrying only the pocket camera; it's easier to keep dry, and cheaper, in case it's ruined. Within five minutes inside the forest, I had to start drying the lens between shots; many were blurry. And before we finished the circuit, the camera just plain refused to take any more photos. An hour in the warmth beside a wood stove, with its innards exposed to the air, fixed it; it works again. Whew!

This sampler of moss photos are no-name-brand; I haven't been able to identify them with any confidence.

The woods were hairy, dark, and deep. (Sorry, Robert Frost!)

And lumpy.

A different variety of lumps. With leaf lichen and infant Cladonia in the open spaces.

Wet country. Even the sign is wet.

Dead but still standing; a tall stump carries the black shelf fungi that killed it. One of the naturalists on the walk is properly dressed for the weather; Tilley hat and rubber rain gear.

Another stump, well rotted, full of woodpecker holes, with a crown of dangling moss.

At least three different mosses here, with last year's maple leaves, and fresh new buds on a twig.

Almost looks like electrified cats' tail again. With leaf lichens.

Leafy moss with sporophytes. The ripe ones are red; green sporophytes are immature. Raindrops run down some of the stalks. (Aka setae.)

Wet and wild

I spent much of my childhood in the rainforest. The wet, dripping rainforest. And still, so many years on, it calls to me.

I went to see what was happening at the upper end of Woodhus Creek, where last summer we basked on the warm sandstone in the bed of the river, where caddisfly larvae rested in the pools and fallen leaves spun lazily in the eddies. Now, after the recent rains, it is a tumultuous, thundering torrent.

From the end of the road, a path cuts through the woods to the creek. I dawdled there, looking and listening.

Almost the end of the trail. The sign reads, "WARNING Stay off fishway. The fishway can be extremely dangerous." (About that, later.)

It had rained in the morning. Out in the open, at least on paved roads, the ground was dry. Not here, under the trees; everything dripped. Everything glistened. Drops fell from above, leftover rain. Wandering about down side trails, I was soon soaked from the knees down.

Moss on a stick. The green twigs are huckleberry branches.

It is dark under the trees, even on sunny days. On a fall afternoon, the sun reaches in almost horizontally, touching and highlighting a branch here, a wet leaf there.

Stretching out wet arms towards the light.

And there is a strong sensation of silence. Odd, with the continuous roar of the creek, its bass notes audible even from the far end of the trail. But still, the drops falling from the branches overhead played a silvery tune, "ping, ping, plop". Leaves rustled wetly as I passed. There are no other sounds. In between the swishes and the pings, a profound stillness hangs over the wood.

Lichen hair caught on bare twigs.

Fallen salal branch, turning red as it dies.

In every direction, trees hem me in, stretching out restraining arms.

Mossy branches. The moss collects the rain, so it falls to the forest floor in easy installments, like timed-release supplements.

At the foot of a tree, a mushroom pokes through the wet moss.

Another mushroom, well past its prime. I thought it was interesting, the way it has split from the centre, while the gills are still intact.

A small green caterpillar makes his way over a wet rock. About half an inch long.

A clump of hair lichen on the ground. This grows on the branches, but often falls off.

Dripping and bedraggled fern. By spring, it will have crumbled into the ground, fertilizer for the next generation.

Coming out of the wood, I was somehow surprised to find the sky clear, the car dry. I got in and turned on the heat to dry my feet.

Two Boat Pond

Now this is just strange.

A few miles out of Gold River, there is a pond beside the highway. Just another of hundreds of nondescript water holes in the rainforest; half swamp, half brownish water, shallow enough to wade if the bottom is solid, which I doubt. There's no pathway to the edge, anyway; the water starts somewhere under a hardhack thicket. It's probably full of leeches or mosquito larvae.

Last March, I was driving by slowly, rubber-necking, looking for ducks, or I would never have seen the boats. There were two of them; foot-long, two-masted, flat-bottomed wooden boats, anchored at either end of the pond.

In March, the hardhack was bare, the grasses brown. Dead trees line the pond, their roots drowned in the wet winters.

We passed the pond again a couple of weeks ago. I had to stop and see if the boats were still there. One is. The other has disappeared; foundered and buried in muck, stolen by a curious bear, retrieved by someone in hip waders?

Boat # 2, in June. The grass is green, now, and the hardhack has leafed out. Otherwise, nothing has changed.

I took a series of photos to make a panorama of the ghostly trees on the far shore. There were too many conflicting colours, too many variations in the light as I turned. A black and white is closer to what I saw than a colour photo.

Boat # 2 is at the far left. Last March, boat # 1 was in the corresponding position on the right.

Who put the boats there? Why? How? I wonder.