Where there was nothing ...

 I'm going to start here with a modified map.

Google map.

This is the inner pond of Oyster Bay. When I first saw it, in 2009, the area I have tinted pink was not there; the land ended at the tip of the breakwater and the pond was open to the sea. Year by year, tide and storms have brought in sand and pebbles and even fist-sized stones to build a long arm that now almost reaches the shore at low tide. Logs have piled up on the top, at high tide level, and I noticed this week that uprooted kelp and other seaweeds are starting to accumulate on the outer edge.

And where back in 2009, there was just plain sand, now there's a thriving patch of pickleweed. It's starting to spread onto the new spit, too.

Pickleweed, aka  glasswort, sea beans, sea asparagus ... Salicornia depressa.

Green stems, turning pink.

These are flowering plants: the leaves are tightly attached to the stem, making them look jointed. And the flowers at the tip are tiny and mostly hidden by the bracts, also closely wrapped around the stem.

The tips turn red towards the end of summer.

Pickleweed is salt-tolerant; at high tide, these plants are sometimes within reach of the waves. The plant filters out the salt from the water and stores it in specialized vacuoles; when they become too saturated, they drop off. 

The names it has collected: pickleweed, sea beans, sea asparagus: remind us that it's edible. Fresh, right off the plant, or lightly boiled, or pickled. I picked a handful of green and pink tips, washed them well and scalded them lightly. They were still crunchy, and very salty. A nice nibbling snack, or they'd make a good addition to a salad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Empiezo con un mapa de Google, modificado.

1. Esta es la laguna en el extremo de la Bahía Oyster. Cuando la vi por primera vez, en el año 2009, el area que he marcado con color de rosa no existía. La tierra terminaba donde acaba el rompeolas, y lo que es la laguna ahora estaba completamente abierto. Año tras año, las mareas y las tempestades han traído arena y piedritas y hasta piedras del tamaño de un puño para construir una lengua de tierra larga que ahora casi llega a tocar la playa opuesta a bajamar. Troncos flotantes se han amonotonado encima, al nivel de altamar, y esta semana vi que algas marinas muertas se empiezan a acumular en el lado expuesto a las olas.
2. Y donde en 2009 había solamente arena, ahora hay un jardín floreciente de Salicornia. Y ya empieza a extenderse sobre la nueva lengua de tierra.
3. Salicornia depressa.
4. Empieza a volverse roja hacia el final del verano.

Estas son plantas que producen flores; las hojas se adhieren fuertemente a los tallos, haciéndolos aparecer segmentados. Y hacia el extremo del tallo, las flores son pequeñas y casi completamente escondidas tras las brácteas, que también encierran el tallo.

Salicornia es una planta halófita, o sea, que tolera la sal. A marea alta, estas plantas pueden estar al alcance de las olas. La planta separa la sal del agua y la almacena en vacuolas especializadas; cuando la concentración de sal llega a cierto nivel, estas vacuolas se mueren y caen al suelo. 

Es comestible; de allí los nombres que recibe en inglés: frijoles de mar, espárragos, etc. Se puede comer fresca, al cortarla de la planta, o se puede hervir ligeramente; también se puede preservar en vinagre. Yo corté un manojo de tallos, verdes y rojos, los lavé y herví brevemente. Seguían crujientes, y muy salados. Un buen bocadillo, o quedarían bien en una ensalada verde.

These made me happy, Part 3.

 Again, I'm looking through my "Things that make me Happy" folder. 

I didn't know the title of this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, and just found it now, looking up the quote.

Happy Thought

The world is so full of a number of things,

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

Anyhow, here's today's batch of photos, again in no particular order.

Rotten pilings, Oyster Bay tidal lagoon at low tide.

New pickleweed, Salicornia pacifica, on the Oyster Bay breakwater.

Reflections: a tiny anemone at the corner of my aquarium, reflected doubly in the surface of the water and the adjacent wall.

Just a rock, tumbled down from a cliff beside Buttle Lake, exposing its white "innards".

An old Ford, rusting away.

The baby monkey tree outside my window, under fresh snow.

Woodpecker snag. There are faces in those holes! Trapped dryads?

Cedar bark, branch tips, and cone, and my winter gloved fingers. Tyee Spit.

That's all for now; tomorrow I'll go on to look at lichens and moss. But I'll come back to this folder from time to time, now that it has a proper name and location on my hard drive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Otra vez con la carpeta de cosas que me hacen feliz.

El poeta Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) lo dijo en un pequeño poema de dos lineas, al que le dió el título de "Pensamiento Feliz":

"El mundo está tan lleno de tantas cosas,

Yo sé que todos seremos felices como los reyes."

Bueno, aquí están las fotos de hoy, desorganizadas como siempre.

1. Pilotes viejísimos de un muelle ya bien desaparecido en la laguna mareal de Oyster Bay.
2. Brotes nuevos de Salicornia pacifica, planta que crece donde le llega a cubrir agua salada de vez en cuando. En el rompeolas de Oyster Bay.
3. Reflejos. Una anémona en mi acuario, reflejada en la superficie del agua, y también en la pared que se une a la suya.
4. Una roca cualquiera, caída del precipicio al lado de Buttle Lake, rota y mostrando su relleno blanco.
5. Un Ford antiguo, oxidándose lentamente al lado del bosque.
6. Mi pequeño piñonero (pehuén, Araucaria araucana, árbol nativo a Chile) bajo nieve recién caída.
7. Un tronco excavado por los pájaros carpinteros. Dentro de las excavaciones se ven caras. ¿Serán dríades?
8. Cedro: corteza, ramitas y cono. Y mis dedos en guantes por el frio.

Y eso es todo por ahora: mañana vuelvo a mirar líquenes y musgos. Pero volveré a esta carpeta de vez en vez, ya que ahora tiene su nombre y su sitio en mi computadora.

 

Salt lovers

At Oyster Bay, water currents, over the last 5 years or so, have built up a long spit at right angles to the breakwater, gravelly on the higher portions, pure sand at the inner edge.

The new spit almost encloses the bay (to the left). At the lowest tide, it is almost possible to walk to the mainland from here.

The spit, so far, is almost barren of plant life, but at the upper end, a healthy population of pickleweed is settling in happily.

Pickleweed, aka glasswort, sea aparagus, samphire, Salicornia pacifica.

Pickleweed is a halophyte, a salt plant.

The word derives from Ancient Greek ἅλας (halas) 'salt' and φυτόν (phyton) 'plant'. (Wikipedia)

Whereas salt kills most plants, some Salicornias can't survive in fresh water. It is a land plant; it needs to be out of the water at some point during the day; but where there is no salt, whether from tidal waters or salt spray, it will not grow.

At the very end of the breakwater, the tide comes in, bathing the growing pickleweed. This whole area, rocks included, will be completely underwater at high tide.

Salt, however, is a problem in plant tissues. The concentration has to be contained within certain limits: if there is too little, if the cell juices are too watered down, in these plants that live in salt water, osmosis draws the water out into the more highly concentrated sea water. It's as if the plant were living in a desert.

But if the salt concentration in the plant tissue is too high, the normal functions of the cell are disrupted. Pickleweed deals with this by concentrating salts in the terminal segments of the stems; eventually these tips turn red and fall off, taking the salt with them.

Flowering tips of pickleweed

The plant is a succulent; it has fat, leafless stems, each with a knobby tip, sometimes pink or red, sometimes green. The flowers are found on these knobs, but are extremely small, clustered in groups of 3 in the joints. They are wind-pollinated, and will produce one seed per flower.

Zooming in, to show the pale yellow flowers.

A curious discovery: I had walked out to the end of the new spit, and was returning, hurrying to beat the incoming tide. At the spot where the spit meets the breakwater, (the third photo above) the water was already ankle deep. But the current was moving from the inner bay to the outer ocean.

In the photo above, the water comes from the open strait, but once it breaks over the spit, the direction changes; water goes down to the end, into the bay, and out into the strait again, washing the bay as it goes. With time, this may change the muddy, stinking character of the inner bay. Something to watch.

Happy as kings

“The world is so full of a number of things, I ’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Funny how you miss things when you think you're paying attention, because there is just too much to see. Laurie and I tramped over this area of Oyster Bay Shoreline Park several times, even stopping to take photos (of the moon in daylight), but hurrying to get across it to the shore. And since I've been living here, I've been back a half-dozen times, seeing everything, I thought. And now I find that I have to go back again to look for a few supposedly obvious details that somehow I didn't notice.

At least wild strawberry is easy to recognize.

Yarrow and wild strawberry.

Yarrow in bloom.

And moss, as long as I don't ask too many questions.

Tiny, hairy moss. Greenish when damp, brown, but still hairy as it dries.

And pickleweed, growing on the sand just beyond the protected plant area.

Pickleweed, aka glasswort, sea asparagus, Salicornia pacifica. Doesn't mind salt water.

Flowering spikes. The miniature flowers are hidden in pits on these spikes.

A closer look.

Caterpillar looking for a bit of salty salad. The leaves are visible (barely) in this photo; they're reduced to scales at the joints of the stems.

Still here.

And if the weather holds. I'll be there tomorrow, looking at berries and smelling leaves.

While the sun still shone

It has been raining, desultorily, without enthusiasm; too damp for gardening, too cool for bugs, too grey for photos. Most of my flowers are gone anyhow. Even the begonias and winter pansies are hanging their heads under the weight of rainwater.

It's good, then, that I'm still sorting September photos, full of bright, warm, sunshiny flowers and critters.

Our neighbour's sunflowers.

Banana flower and green fruit. Beach Grove.

Flies and a beetle on goldenrod. Mud Bay Station.

Unidentified seed pods. Possibly peppergrass* (a Mustard). Mud Bay, growing through the  rip-rap.

Gumweed and Cabbage white butterfly. Mud Bay.

Tiny succulent, Beach Grove.

Orange-brown sandhill skipper* on sea rocket. Centennial Beach.

Pickleweed, Salicornia pacifica. The white "spines" are salt crystals. Salicornia gets rid of excess salt by moving it up to the tips of the stems, which turn red and eventually drop off. Mud Bay tide flats. 

Another pickleweed plant. This one is just starting to accumulate salt at the tips.

It's raining harder now. I wonder if it's going to rain all month long, to make up for our warm September.

*Thanks to biobabbler, Katie and Jodi for the IDs. (See discussion in comments.)

Snubbed by gulls

We arrived at Sliammon beach close to low tide, and walked out, almost to the edge. At first glance, it seems barren; stony, with a few rocks, a scattered dusting of seaweed; a flat, empty expanse under a big sky.

Looking northwest.

At closer range, though, we saw that most of the larger stones hold tiny barnacles. Underneath them, periwinkle snails and purple crabs wait out the dry hours. I found a few limpets.

A forward-leaning limpet, with an eroded peak.

Along the sides of a creek bed cutting down into the intertidal zone, where salt water mixes with fresh to lower the salinity, healthy clumps of pickleweed (Salicornia) are growing, bright splashes of green in the stony landscape.

Succulent stems of salicornia make a good salad vegetable. (Recipe)

Far out at the water's edge, a flock of gulls dozed and preened lazily. I had a pocketful of bread for them; not the best diet, but as an occasional treat, it's good and our gulls love it. I walked out towards the flock, but they moved away long before I got there, so I stood, tossing bits of bread into the air.

On the White Rock beach, this would have been enough to get me mobbed by the whole shrieking flock, circling and swooping to grab the bread before it hit the ground. Not here. One gull looked in my direction for a moment, then flew away. I walked a few steps closer, and the whole flock lifted off and moved to the next section of beach. I gave up.

Truly wild gulls, not fond of humans.

A Skywatch post.

Red Samphire, Salicornia var. rubra, pickleweed, saltwort...

... or you may know it as "swampfire" or "sea asparagus".

I like "swampfire"; that is what it looks like, from a distance.

Driving from Kamloops to Merritt, three summers ago, we passed an area of low-lying ponds and marshes fringed with tall green grasses, a welcome sight in that dry country. And by one of them, a long spill of blood-red. There was a gate in the fence, and a parking space; we stopped and walked down.

I had expected flowers. Or at the least, red seed pods. Not this: segmented, leafless, fat stems, red from the ground up, up to about 8 inches tall. Like a succulent, but not like any one I had seen before. I pulled up a few, roots and all, to take home for identification.

We couldn't find it in any of our BC books, but it showed up in a Canada-wide reference book; it grows, the book said, in the prairie provinces, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. (I have since found it in a BC Online guide, E-Flora BC. And it is common in Australia.) It grows in alkaline and saline soils, near sloughs and salt marshes.

I didn't realize how well aclimatized it was to the salt, until I ran into another variety of the same plant, Salicornia pacifica, on the beach at Boundary Bay. Reading up on this, I found that, not only does it tolerate salt, it needs it to survive.

The plant has a unique way of dealing with the salt; some salt-marsh plants secrete the salt to the surface of the leaves, leaving them covered with shining crystals. Salicornia, instead, moves the excess salt it takes from the soil into vacuoles in the stem tips, where it is contained behind a protective membrane. When the salt content becomes too much, the cell dies and drops off. Which is a good way to get rid of it, but so efficient is saltwort at this job that it needs to replenish the supply. In technical terms, it is an obligatory halophyte.

Samphire, both red and green, is edible, a good source of vegetable oil and can be used as a flavourful addition to salads; Googling around, I found that it is sold in the UK as a vegetable, which can be simply boiled up and eaten with butter, or added to recipes. Market gardeners irrigate it with sea water.

And from my old blog, I copy this recipe, from "Cooks Afloat":

SUMMERTIME WILD PEA-SAMPHIRE-ORANGE SALAD

1 cup sea asparagus
1 cup shelled beach peas
1 orange, peeled and chipped
2 tbsp toasted pine nuts

Dressing:

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Dijon mustard
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp sugar.

Sea asparagus, known as American glasswort or Pacific samphire (Salicornia pacifica), is a succulent, salty-tasting plant with leafless jointed stems. The blue green plant grows around tide flats and salt marshes.
Beach pea (Lathyrus japonicus or littoralis) is a perennial herb that grows on sandy beaches. The leaves are rounded and japonicus has tendrils. American vetch has similar seed pods-but is toxic.
In early summer, gather only the tender upper stems of sea asparagus, wash thoroughly to remove salt. Cover with water, bring to a boil and drain immediately. Add a small amount of fresh water. Steam until tender-crisp, about 5 minutes. Drain well. Steam the beach peas for 5 minutes.

Toss beach peas with asparagus and let cool. Arrange on plates and top with orange and nuts. Toss dressing ingredients together and pour over salad. Serves 2.

Sounds good, but I think I'll try the samphire on its own, first.