Summer blooms

 Seen in passing: wildflowers, water lovers.

Fireweed, near the beaver pond.

Goldenrod, on the edge of a small pond near McCreight Lake.

Hedgenettle, on the shore of Roberts Lake.

Hedgenettle again. Find the butterfly!

Queen Anne's lace, producing seed. Baikie Island.

More Queen Anne's Lace, unopened flower head.

Water horsetail, Equisetum fluviatile. They produce spore-bearing cones. In the beaver pond.

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Algunas flores silvestres. Casi siempre se hallan cerca del agua.

1. Aquí la llamamos hierba de fuego. Epilobio, Chamaenerion angustifolium.
2. Solidago canadensis. Vara de oro. Aquí está en la orilla de una laguna llena de lirios acuáticos.
3. Stachys sp. Al lado del Lago Roberts.
4. Y la misma planta, pero con una mariposa. ¿La ves?
5. Zanahoria silvestre, Daucus carota. Aquí la llamamos Encaje de la Reina Ana. Esta está llena de semillas.
6. Otra, con las flores todavía sin abrirse. En la isla Baikie.
7. Y Equisitum fluviatile, Cola de caballo de rio. Los conos de esta planta producen esporas. Crece en aguas no muy profundas. Estas están el la laguna de los castores. 

 

Biodiverse

This is the meadow at Oyster Bay Shoreline Park. It is a protected area; the sign towards the centre warns people to stay off. I stick to the few paths across and around it, or sometimes take one careful step to the side to dodge people coming the other way or to take a photo of a plant.

Looking towards the ocean, from beneath the old apple tree.

At this time of year, the main plants growing here are the yellow gold stars, red sorrel, wild strawberries, hare's foot clover, assorted dune grasses, and yarrow (all those white flowers, but some are pink.) Later, the yellow flowers will be gumweed; now, at the end of June, the plants bear small green, sticky buds.

Around the edges, various wild fruit trees and shrubs border the evergreen belt. Yesterday I found and ate a handful of huckleberries, the first of the year. There are wild cherries, a few escaped apple trees, saskatoons, hawthorns, blackberries (native and imported), wild roses and ocean spray, salal and kinnikinnick. The trees are maple, Douglas fir, hemlock, cottonwood and alder.

Wild rose, Rosa nutkana

And under everything, in the woods and in the meadow, a crispy blanket of moss and lichens.

Overhead, there are birds and bugs. Bees, flies, butterflies. Swallows and crows and gulls and eagles. Purple martins. A kingfisher, sometimes. Assorted peeps down on the shore (to the left here). Ducks and Canada geese at high tide, or crossing overhead. Chickadees and juncos and, of course, sparrows.

Very tiny grasshopper. I couldn't see him once he settled down, so I just pointed the camera in his general direction.

And every time I visit, it has changed. So I keep going back.

Maple "wings".

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Este es el campo protegido en Oyster Bay. Un caminito lo cruza; otros siguen los bordes. Pero en el area central se prohibe entrar, para dejar crecer la vegetación natural; hay algunas plantas que se ven raramente en otras partes.

Hice una lista de las plantas que se ven hoy en el campo. Hay fresas silvestres, estrellitas de oro, acederilla, hierba de goma, rosas silvestres, perejil bravío, poaceas de las dunas, tréboles. En el bosque alrededor, árboles frutales nativos e importados; manzano, cerezo, rosa silvestre, moras, y muchos otros. Muchas de estas plantas no tienen nombre en español, pero las voy a estar presentando una por una en los días que vienen.

Y siempre hay pájaros; golondrinas, gaviotas, águilas, cuervos, patos, gansos, gorriones, juncos, carboneros, y muchos más. Y abejas y mariposas, claro.

Y cada que visito, algo ha cambiado. Así que vuelvo frecuentemente.

La tercera foto es un saltamontes muy pequeñito. Cuando se aterrizó ya no lo podía ver, así que no más apunté la cámara en la dirección hacia donde saltaba. La cámara ve lo que mis ojos no alcanzan.

La cuarta foto son semillas de maple madurando en el árbol. Cuando estén listas, caerán pero dando vueltas con el viento como si tuvieran alitas. Así no caen directamente bajo el  árbol progenitor.

Just daisies

Among the logs at Oyster Bay.

One daisy

Five and a quarter daisies

Wrapping up July

Kitchen sink post.

While I've been focusing on discoveries on the road to Tahsis, the "Other" file has been filling up. So here, in no particular order, are a selection from that box.

Greater yellowlegs. Caught at dusk (8:40 PM) on a grey, dingy landing across from Tyee Spit.

Two yellowlegs.

There were a few tiny peeps, probably the Least Sandpiper, foraging among the stones, but it was too dark for the pocket camera to find them. I'll go back another evening, a bit earlier.

Killdeer, looking worried. As usual.

Mossy trees, somewhere in the bush above the Campbell River.

Water parsley? On the Gold River to Tahsis highway.

Tansy. Tyee Spit.

Thistle. Head Bay Road.

Lighthouse, Quadra Island

Mushroom among dead leaves, bank of Campbell River mouth.

Water strider, Campbell River mouth

Cyanide millipede, dead and stiff. My son, who tends to do things like this, painstakingly balanced the millipede on a cable spanning the river.

"Tornado". Boat dock across from Tyee Spit, where the sun still shines.

And back at home, waiting for me by the door, a long-legged, bulky-pedipalped, semi-transparent spider.

I'll leave the tank critters and other intertidal beasties for tomorrow.

Better late than never

It seems strange to me now, back living on Vancouver Island after an entire adult life away, how much I missed of my surroundings, growing up, halfway in the bush as I was. I knew the berries, which to eat, which to avoid. I knew that the coiled tops of springtime ferns tasted of nuts, a good nibble as I followed the trail to school. I knew the taste of Douglas fir tips in the spring, and how to peel thimbleberry stalks for the first greens of the year, how to make pancakes with elderberry flowers in the batter. I waded in creeks lined with bleeding hearts.

I fished for "minnows" on the tide flats, never wondering what fish they grew up to be. I teased crabs and starfish, knew how to eat a clam on the beach, banging it on a rock to open it like the gulls did. I caught perch and red snapper from the wharf, and watched gulls fight over our leftover food, set out for the dog.

And I don't remember seeing mushrooms at all, ever. There were garden plots near two of our homes; there were daffodils and roses and some blue flowers that now I recognize as hydrangeas; back then, I didn't think to ask their name. The rest of the flowers and other plants in the area slipped by me, unobserved. And I never, ever saw a hermit crab or learned the names of the multi-coloured anemones on all the rocks.

Wasted opportunities. I'm glad that now I have a chance to fill in some of those gaps.

Piggyback plant, Tolmeia menziesii.

I always thought these were houseplants; now I learn that they are native to our west coast. This clump was growing at the campsite on the Leiner River.

It's growing on a moss-covered log.

The little plantlets growing at the base of the leaf will drop off and root in the soil beneath the parent plant.

False bugbane, Trautvetteria caroliniensis. Another native. From the Leiner River trail.

Two-leaved false Solomon's seal, Maianthemum dilatatum. I remember seeing these berries long ago, and knowing only that I shouldn't eat them. Leiner River trail.

Foamflower, Tiarella trifoliata. I missed this one on the trail, but it turned up in several of my photos. Very tiny, and usually only seen as spots of white on a thin stalk.

Silverweed, Argentina anserina. On the banks of a lake between Gold River and Tahsis.

We have a local silverweed here, that grows on the seashore; it's salt tolerant. A. anserina prefers inland soils.

Twisted stalk, Streptopus lanceolatus, with berries. Usually there is one per leaf. The extra one here looks like it will fall off, unripe.

This is another that I only knew as, "Do not eat." This one was on the banks of the Campbell River, just out of town, but they showed up in Tahsis, as well.

And this, I have trouble understanding; how did I ever miss seeing lichens in all those years? In a field by the Leiner River.

Lichen and nail on fencepost.

These photos taken here.

So soft!

The path through the protected area at Oyster Bay Shoreline Park is lined at this time of year with pale, pinkish, fuzzy balls, about the size of beans, held ankle height on stiff stems. Down on my knees, they looked like a clover, but no clover I'd ever seen before.

Mini cotton candy flowers

Yes, definitely a clover.

It isn't in my Plants of Coastal BC, but an image search on Google found it quickly. It's commonly named hare's foot clover or rabbit foot clover, obvious choices for names because of it's soft hairiness. Or stone clover, which seems a misnomer.

It's scientific name is Trifolium arvense, which means "three leaves in the field". It's an introduced plant from Europe, but has spread throughout the world. it likes dry, sandy soil like the Oyster Bay dunes.

Growing, in this field, in close company with wild strawberry. A bit confusing. The leaves of the hare's foot clover are small and narrow.

Wild strawberry, without the clover.

There will be no post tomorrow, I hope: weather permitting, I'll be going to Tahsis for a couple of days. I'll be back with more Oyster Bay plants Thursday. (And another couple hundred photos to sort, I'm sure. I'll never catch up!)

Plaint

I don't know. I just don't know.

In my little patch of dirt, I dig and rake, I cultivate and weed. I provide bags of fresh topsoil and peat moss; I build compost and pour on fish fertilizer. I check the requirements; sunshine and shade, water, eggshells, bug protection; and then buy seeds that suit the spot. Or even bring home pre-grown specimens, coddled and fed for maximum vigour. I check them daily. Need more water? Sure, here it is! Don't like that bit of shade? I'll trim a branch; whatever their little green hearts desire.

And then they limp along, turn yellow, lie down and moan. Or invite in a friendly blackberry, entwining the stems and roots so that I rip apart my fingers trying to help. Some actually grow, but most just go.

And then I go out and look at a bare rock face; if there's a speck of rock dust in a crack, or a leftover fragment of moss, a seed will settle in, grow and thrive.

I don't get it.

Here's Tsuxwin Falls, just west of Gold River, streaming down a rock face.

The top half of the falls. 49.72992, -126.09537

Among the rocks beside the pool at the foot of this section, red columbines dance in the wind. And all the way up the rock face, an assortment of wildflowers and ferns cling, trembling, to cracks barely big enough for a skinny root.

An assortment of mosses, green, thready, and red-brown. A smooth alumroot, Heuchera glabra, just to the right of a deciduous fern. Above it, something with red stems, and a spreading plant with tiny leaves at the top. To the left, there are a few wood saxifrages, Saxifraga mertensiana. They like the spray zone beside waterfalls, soil or no soil. There's even a bit of grass.

At least these get watered. The rock garden a few steps down the road doesn't even get that.

Wooly eriophyllum, grass, and something with hairy arrow leaves.

And one of yesterday's photos turned out to be a Silverleaf Luina. It was growing just beyond the eriophyllum.

No fertilizer needed, thank you!

The waterfall drops into a pool beside the highway, flows through a big pipe, and drops into the Gold River far below.

The bottom of the falls, in the distance. Taken from a viewpoint down the road, in March, before the leaves got in the way.

And even in the early spring, there was no shortage of vegetation on those lower rock faces, either.

Wild and sweet

June is the month for flowers in the north woods. The growing season is short; the snow has barely melted along the higher slopes, and the days will be getting shorter from now on. Time's a-wasting! And the bears want their berries!

(I tasted my first huckleberries of the year Monday. Small and seedy, and not at all sweet yet. The thimbleberries are pale pink and hard; the blackberries are green. They'll all be ready in a few weeks.)

These wildflowers were blooming beside the lakes and rivers across the top of the island last weekend.

Red columbine, Aquilegia formosa. On the rocks by a waterfall. 49.72992, -126.09537. Hummingbirds love these.

Unidentified flowers, growing on rock face.

Does anyone recognize these? There were many of them, all growing out of cracks in the rocks above our heads, none within reach.

UPDATE: Found it! Silverleaf luina, Luina hypoleuca.

Oxeye daisies, Leucanthemum vulgare, Strathcona Lodge, Upper Campbell Lake.

"The young leaves of oxeye daisy are edible and very sweet." (Plants of Coastal BC)

I didn't know that.

Fireweed, Epiloblum angustifolium, Strathcona Lodge. Also edible.

Hardhack, Spiraea douglasii, just coming into bloom beside a swamp. They love wet feet.

Pacific ninebark, Physocarpus capitatus, beside Crest Lake,49.84377, -125.91223.

Self-heal, Prunella vulgaris spp. lanceolata. Gravelled pathway beside highway near the columbine.

These self-heal flowers were like the ones in my lawn, but about twice their size, and more intensely purple. I wondered about this, and looked them up in E-Flora.

Two subspecies occur in BC:
1. Principal stem leaves egg-shaped to oblong (averaging half as broad as long), broadly wedge-shaped or rounded at base.................... ssp. vulgaris
1. Principal stem leaves lanceolate to egg-shaped (averaging one-third as broad as long), narrowly wedge- shaped to abruptly pointed at base.................. ssp. lanceolata

The leaves on this plant are long and narrow, and pointed at the base, so this would be subspecies lanceolata, and is a native plant. The other subspecies (the one in my lawn) is an import from Eurasia.