Roadside delights

Third week of April. Some of the flowers along the roadside above the river.

Miner's lettuce, Claytonia sibirica. Great masses of these line the upper road.

The bleeding hearts are blooming! Dicentra formosa.

More.

Down on the flats, in the shade. A stray ray of sunlight highlights a fawn lily, Erythronium revolutum. Its leaves are the mottled ones on the right. The deeply-veined leaf on the left is a False Lily of the Valleyy, Maianthemum dilatatum. They had no flowers yet.

Not exactly flowers; common horsetail, Equisetum arvense, a fertile shoot, with the spore-bearing strobilus. The leaves wrapping the stem belong to a new thimbleberry cane.

Not a flower, either. New coiled leaves of the evergreen sword fern, Polystichum munitum.

All those tiny blue butterflies that flitted and fluttered over the flowers and refused to sit for a photo?  I saw another today on the beach, and this one sat still for me.

Echo azure butterfly, Celestrina echo. In flight, it exposes the blue upper side of the wings.

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Estas son algunas de las flores vistas esta tercera semana de abril, por el camino al norte del rio.

1. Claytonia sibirica.
2. Dicentra formosa, el corazón sangrante.
3. Cada planta produce muchas flores.
4. Cerca del rio, en el bosque, un rayo del sol alumbra un lirio "venadito", Erythronium revolutum. Las hojas moteadas a la derecha son las de estas flores;  la hoja con venas marcadas, a la izquierda, pertence al lirio del valle, Maianthemum dilatatum. Todavía no aparecen sus flores.
5. No es precisamente una flor. "Cola de caballo", Equisetum arvense. Este es un tallo fértil, con su estróbilo, donde produce las esporas. Las hojas que envuelven el tallo son de thimbleberry, Rubus parviflorus.
6. Pues estos tampoco son flores. Los brotes nuevos del helecho de espada, Polystichum munitum.
7. ¿Y esas maripositas azules que bailaban por encima de las flores y no se dejaban fotografiar? Vi una hoy en la playa, y esta sí se detuvo por un rato. Es la mariposa azul eco, Celestrina echo. Al volar, se ve la cara superior de las alas, azul con un borde color café.

Azure

It's butterfly season again. Along the Oyster Bay dunes, these tiny, brilliant blue butterflies were dancing.

Spring azure butterfly, Celestrina ladon.

These are tiny butterflies, about half the size of the cabbage whites. They are very shy; they perch on a flower or leaf, resting, but as soon as I move, even though I'm several metres away, they take off. I tried pretending to be a stump, until my feet started to sprout roots; it didn't work. They knew better than to trust a stump with a camera. None came near me.

I hid behind a fence for this one. It looked brown, as in the photo, but as soon as it started to fly, the wings shone out blue again. She may be a female; their wings have a brown edge.

The legs are striped, like hairy hermit antennae.