Green lifer

I was taking photos of leaves, seeing how their veins line up, how they're attached to the stems, whether they're hairy or not ... I thought a little green lump on one was a gall.  Got closer. Look!

Tree frog on red-osier dogwood leaf. A big leaf is about 10 cm. long.

I moved the leaf to get a better view; the frog stayed put.

Cute little long, brown toes!

 

On my way back to the car, an hour later, I looked; the frog was still on the same leaf.

Another lifer for me at the beaver pond.

UPDATE: NIce name! It's been identified on iNaturalist as the Pacific Chorus frog, Pseudacris regilla.

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Estaba en las orillas de la laguna de los castores, sacando fotos de hojas, examinando las venas, viendo como se distribuyen, como se fijan las hojas a los tallos, si tienen o no vellos ... Creí que una protuberancia chiquita sería una agalla. Me acerqué. ¡Y mira lo que encontré!

Fotos: Una rana arborícola, Hyla sp. en una hoja de Cornus sericea. Las hojas más grandes miden hasta 10 centímetros, lo que da una idea del tamaño de esta ranita. Se quedó quieta en su hoja, hasta cuando yo las movía para verla  mejor. Cuando pasé una hora más tarde, regresando al coche, la rana seguía en la misma hoja.

Es la primera vez que veo una de estas ranitas.

White, white, white

 More on the theme of "everything blooming out in the bush this week is white": now I'm looking up. These four are shrubs or small trees.

Saskatoons, aka serviceberry, Amelanchier alnifolia.

These are everywhere right now. Later, they will have delicious purple berries.

Red elderberry, Sambucus racemosa.

The flowers don't last long; this is one of the first plants to produce their red berries, a great favourite of the birds, domestic and wild. The bears and raccoons and squirrels like them, too. For humans, they're sort of edible, cooked, although they're bitter. The flowers, though, are fine; Dad used to make pancakes with a whole inflorescence dipped in batter, a spring treat.

The flower head, ready to harvest.

Red osier dogwood, Cornus stolonifera, another relative of our provincial flower.

I think these are bitter cherry flowers, Prunus emarginata. Too bitter to be edible. For humans, at least; the bears like them.

These are plants native to the region. Driving along the highways, I see them, on the slopes, in the valleys, along river banks: speckles of pure white among the spring greenery. What am I missing? Mountain-ash, crab-apples and salal, Indian plum, Pacific nine-bark, Devil's club, thimble-berries; all natives, all with white flowers in bloom now.

And now, blotches of yellow are showing up; the horribly invasive Scotch broom, not a native, not following the "rule": this is the month for whites. How dare they?

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Sigo con el tema de "todo lo que florece esta semana en el bosque lleva flores blancas"; ahora alzo la vista y veo cuatro arbustos.

1. El Saskatún, o fresa de junio, Amelanchier alnifolia. Se ven por todas partes ahora. Más tarde, llevarán bayas moradas, deliciosas.
2. El saúco rojo, Sambucus racemosa. Estas flores no duran mucho; este arbusto produce sus bayas en poco tiempo. Son favoritas de los pájaros, tanto domésticos como salvajes, así como de los osos, los mapaches, y las ardillas. Para los humanos, cocidas son apenas comestibles, muy amargas. Pero las flores si se pueden comer: mi papá las bañaba en masa de crepas, y las cocía en un sartén; una delicia de primavera.
3. La inflorescencia del saúco rojo.
4. Cornejo amarillo, Cornus stolonifera. Otra planta del género de nuestra flor provincial.
5. Y creo que estas son las flores del cerezo amargo, Prunus emarginata. Demasiado amargo para ser comestible. Para los humanos, por lo menos; a los osos les gustan.

 Estas son plantas que son nativas en esta región. Pasando por las carreteras, las veo en el bosque, en los cerros, en los valles, a la orilla de los rios. Estas y muchas más; fresno de montaña occidental, manzana silvestre, salal (Gaultheria shallon), Indian plum (Oemleria cerasiformis), Pacific ninebark (Physocarpus capitatus), el garrote del diablo (Oplopanax horridus), thimbleberry (baya dedal) (Rubus parviflorus): todas especies nativas, todas con flores blancas abiertas en el momento.

Y luego veo las manchas amarillas de la retama negra, horriblemente invasiva. No es originaria de Canadá, no se adhiere a las reglas del lugar, la regla no oficial que manda que las flores de este mes sean blancas. ¿Cómo se atreve?

More beaver pond plants

Our hot spell has broken. We had a couple of flashes of lightning this evening, a quiet roll of thunder, and maybe half a dozen raindrops, with more to come in the morning, "they" say. And five or six days of normal island temperatures ahead of us. Our forests breathe a great sigh of relief.

Rain or shine, hardhack is happy, as long as it has its feet in the water.

Hardhack, Spiraea douglasii, spp. douglasii. Grows in thickets, along stream banks. This one borders the road across the beaver pond.

Most hardhack flowers in tall spikes, but this one may have been bitten off by a browsing deer, and flared out. Busy bee collects hardhack pollen.

Red-osier dogwood also likes wet feet.

Fruits of R-O dogwood, Cornus stolonifera. A white berry when ripe, inedible.

Why only some of the berries have developed, I don't know. Maybe it's too hot, maybe it's just an off year. Maybe the rest will ripen a bit later.

And a bit further from the edge of the beaver pond, but still on damp soil, a few Black Twinberry shrubs add their colour to the greenery.

Lonicera involucrata. This is a twin, but the second fruit hasn't developed.

The twins that give the plant its name. The red bracts give it its Latin name, L. involucrata.

We used to call these pretty berries "loco berries", and were warned not to eat them. The Kwakwaka'wakw (speakers of the Kwak'wala language, a local tribal group) thought that if you ate one, you'd go dumb, unable to speak. Paralyzed by the horrible taste, probably. I never dared try.