Not a berry

They looked like berries. Tiny, black, bumpy berries, growing where no berries should be, above a clump of grassy leaves clinging to a dripping cliff face.

See them? Mostly, they blend into the black background.

I scrambled up the side of the cliff as far as I dared; it was slippery, and there were no firm handholds. But I got within arm's length of the clump.

Not grass, but a sedge. A tiny sedge.

I picked a few stems and brought them home to get a better look at them.

Sedge in an old Coke bottle.  Under a good light, and dried off, they're no longer black. The computer screen makes a good background.

It's a sedge. The stems have edges; as the mnemonic goes, "Sedges have edges, rushes are round." The largest head was I cm across. I had picked them from the base; the leaves grow from the lower end of the stem, and the fruiting heads stand above them. The tallest plant is about a foot tall.

But I hadn't seen these before, so I searched E-Flora BC for a local sedge. I never knew there were so many species! 28 distinct sedges here in BC!

The only one that looks like it might possibly be a match is Carex macloviana, Falkland Island sedge, although the photos are iffy. Most of the others have much larger heads, or long or drooping heads. Or they grow on the far side of the mountains, in drier country.

Close-up of heads. The sprinkles below are seeds.

Drawing from The Ilustrated Flora of British Columbia

Found on Berry Creek Road, about half-way to the first switchback.

Curves and reflections

Because I like the patterns:

Rushes growing in Echo Lake, Hwy 28

Echo Lake is the first small lake on the highway from Campbell River to Gold River, on the opposite coast. It is home to rainbow and cutthroat trout; on a brief stop, I saw the fingerlings, among the stalks of rushes along the shore.

Brown flowers, blue flowers, and white bird poop.

More Boundary Park photos; the details. Around the lake, first:

Cattails and stripy green water

Rushes. I used to make braids out of these, supposedly to use for something, but I never got that far.

Cross spiders use the rushes as framework for webs hanging over the water. Good mosquito control.

"Sedges have edges; rushes are round." I always have trouble sorting these out, so I was glad to run across this mnemonic, referring to the cross-section of the stems. Rush stems are also pithy, whereas sedges have solid stems.
 

Tall sedges, against the sky.

And up the hill under the trees:

On the floor of the evergreen "forest". (It's about as tiny as the lake below.)

Back yards merge gently, unfenced, into the mowed grass between the houses and the wild bush. This hydrangea is nearing its sell-by date.

Bird "whitewash" and rust spots on salmonberry leaves.

Blackberries are red when they're green. The black ones were delicious.