The nomination period for Comox Valley Nature’s Trees of the Year event for 2024 open on February 1. Some key features of the event:
Any resident of the Comox Valley can nominate one or more trees, not just CVN members.
We have an online nomination form to make nominating easy.
Starting this year, we are promoting appreciation of all the nominated trees rather than having a vote for a single winner.
Tour routes will be published for the nomination phase to help you find interesting trees to consider (in addition to routes to find the nominated trees later).
You can nominate a tree any time between February 1 and March 31. Visit our Trees of the Year page to learn more about the event and to access the nomination form. There you will also find some details of the nomination rules. Or, on February 1 and after, go directly to the nomination form here:
After nominations close, we will publish an illustrated list of the nominees on this website, along with maps of their locations. We encourage you to visit as many as you can, preferably by cycling or walking.
We welcome your feedback on this year’s event. You can use the comment link below.
The nomination period for CVN’s Trees of the Year 2024 runs from February 1 to March 31. If you do not already have a tree in mind, we have suggestions for where you can look for one (or more). This year we have prepared suggested tour routes to lead you to some of the prime spots in the Valley where you can find interesting and special trees.
Browse through the maps of five such areas (and one combined map) listed in the table below. Then go out and find a tree to nominate. At the same time you might discover some natural areas that you didn’t previously know. We encourage travel by cycle or walking to visit these areas.
Please respect private property boundaries and owner privacy by viewing the trees from public land.
The maps
We have three ways for you to access the route maps using the links in the table below:
The route maps (with written directions) were implemented on the PlotARoute website (plotaroute.com) which has multiple viewing options. See some tips below the table.
If you would like to have printable information, you can download a PDF version of the plotaroute map and directions.
If you like Google maps, the five routes are shown on one here.
The five routes constitute a plotaroute collection and appear together on the combined map. Select the one you want to see in the table below the map.
Expand a map to full screen using the crossed arrows at the top right of the map.
Play an animation using the play icon at the bottom left of the map.
Zoom in or out using the + and – icons at the top left of the map.
Use the menu at the top right of the map to access various types of information. The Directions option includes notes that describe tree-centric points of interest along the route.
The length of the route is given in the bottom margin of the map.
We are grateful to TOTY team members Roger Chayer, Fred Newhouse and others for all their work preparing these maps.
We welcome feedback on your experience with the touring routes and related information. You can use the comment link below.
Title:Seed-based Restoration for Urban Settings on Vancouver Island Speaker: Kristen Miskelly (Satinflower Nurseries) Date: Sunday, February 18, 2024
If you missed this event or would like to see it again, CSEB has made the recording available here. To access it you will need to provide your name and email address.
For more information about this talk, see the announcement in our earlier post.
A new addition by Loys Maingon to our occasional series of long-form articles examines the implications of the discovery of a microorganism in Strathcona Provincial Park that appears to be new to science.
Comox Valley Nature is holding our Annual General Meeting on February 25, 2024 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in the Main Hall of Comox United Church, 250 Beach Drive in Comox.
The public is invited to learn about CVN and join the Society. The meeting will introduce leaders of the different interest groups who will give short presentations. The interest groups include Birders, Botany, Marine and Shoreline, Nature Photography, Nature Walks and Habitat Restoration. For more information about CVN, see this page and the rest of this website. Also see our Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Some examples of our activities: The Birders Group has weekly field trips and posts its observations on eBird (see this recent example). They also participate in the annual Christmas Bird Counts and Trumpeter Swan counts in the area. The Botany/Mycology Group had a recent outing to Kitty Coleman Park to view fall fungi – see images of their amazing finds here.
CVN’s habitat restoration teams do important work at Courtenay Airpark, Little River Nature Park and other locations. As part of our educational mandate, we host guest speakers who share their expertise on natural history and environmental issues.
General meetings and lectures are normally held on Sundays (most months) and are open to the public, including children and youth.
The AGM is a good chance to join us and get involved in our activities.
Posted inNews|Comments Off on Members and public invited to CVN’s 2024 AGM on February 25
Jocie says “Now that you’ve all digested part 1, here’s part 2 of Alison’s late fall & winter fungi review: the fabulous Polypores!” Click a photo to enlarge it.
Notes on polypore fungi in the Comox Valley, late fall into winter 2023-2024
Polypores are much tougher and more durable than gilled fungi, even the annual ones such as the Trametes species. Many have a shelf-like or bracket/hoof-like growth pattern, others have stipes; some are hard (Fomitopsis, Ganoderma spp.), others leathery and pliable (Trametes, Stereum), others quite soft (Postia and Phlebia). Some have shallow pores on the spore-bearing underside, others are wrinkled, still others smooth. A few have what look like “gills” (see Gloeophyllum below).
Picipes badius, blackleg (formerly Polyporus badius), is found on dead and downed wood, with a smooth, leathery bright orange cap, white underside with small shallow pores, and a stipe that is mostly black (caps and one underside show in photo 9.)
Clusters ofTrametes versicolor, turkey tail, have been prolific this winter on a range of hosts; see photo 10 plus Jocie’s earlier photos. The various species of Trametes have a white underside with white tiny pores. Another common ruffled shelf polypore is Stereum hirsutum, false turkey tail, with orange cap and lighter border, while its underside is orange and smooth. The specimen in photo 11 shows both cap and underside. Unlike the Trametes species it is found only on dead hardwood, alder here, and often together with one of the yellow jelly “witch’s butter” fungi(Tremella aurantia) which parasitizes the Stereum (no photo of T. aurantia).
The Postia caesia group, blue cheese polypore (photo 12), is a soft spongy shelf-like fungus on dead conifer logs, with white and bluish-green colouration on the slightly hairy cap and white angular or maze-like shallowish pores on the underside. According to MacKinnon and Luther, edibility is unknown — it only looks like blue cheese.
(12) Postia caesia
In photo 13, Rhodofomes cajanderi, rosy conk, is just developing. It will take on the form of a hoof-like conk with zoned cap, almost black in the centre and pink round the rim, with pink pores on the underside. In the upper part of the photo there are diminutive “hoofs” in the making. The red droplets however were stunning.
(13) Rhodofomes cajanderi
Gloeophyllum sepiarum, conifer mazegill. Photos 14A and 14B show the bracket-like polypore whose underside has what look like blunt gills. The orange on the cap of this example is much brighter than the more common reddish brown.
First, the mystery shroom from the Kitty Coleman report – it looked most like a Nolanea holoconiota, so photos 1A and B show a specimen (a little more pointed that the mystery specimen), complete with its base, which is typically quite fuzzy. Photo 1B shows the spore print of the Nolanea on the right – a strong deep pink. The spore print on the left is from a Pluteus exilis (deer mushroom) which is a more salmony pink colour. The mystery shroom, given its size, might have been the latter, though the cap was paler than often seen, and the usual streaking on the stipe not clear.
(1A) Nolanea holoconiota)(1B) Spore prints of Nolanea (left) and Pluteus exilis (right)
Waxy caps
In October I circulated a photo of the bright scarlet Hygrocybe coccinea (or possibly miniata if one follows MacKinnon and Luther) from our forest (photo 2). In late December we found the yellow Hygrocybe flavescens (photo 3).
(2) Hygrocybe coccinea(3) Hygrocybe flavescens
On a walk along Rosewall Creek on January 7 we found the seldom noticed parrot waxy cap, Gliophorus psittacinus(formerly Hygrocybe psittacina) (photos 4A and 4B). The cap of this fungus starts out a brilliant green (hence “parrot”, psittakos being the Greek for parrot), but the cap within a day will fade to a dingy yellow-beige. In photo 4A there is a young cap in front, and an older cap behind, the former not easy to spot in the moss on the shaded forest floor. In photo 4B the cap on the right still retains some of its green colour. The photo in MacKinnon and Luther, p. 87, has been illuminated with a flash.
(4A) Parrot waxy cap (Gliophorus psittacinus)(4A) Parrot waxy cap (Gliophorus psittacinus)
One Mycena
Photo 5A shows the somewhat dingy cap of Mycena aurantiomarginata, but underneath the brilliant orange edges of the gills show up against a white ground (photo 5B).
However, probably the most memorable scent (excluding the spicy old socks of the pine mushroom – Tricholoma murillianum) is that of the Aphroditeola olida (photos 7A and 7B). The very strong fruity perfume of this pink fungus gives rise to its common name, pink bubblegum mushroom, though its new genus name associated with Aphrodite and the perfume ought to suggest a more elevated label. The fungus was formerly in the Hygrophoropsis genus, its form, with vase shape and decurrent gills very like the false chanterelle, Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca.
(7A) Aphroditeola olida(7B) Aphroditeola olida
One toothed fungus
Hydnellum fuscoindicum (formerly Sarcodon fuscoindicum) has a dark scaly cap that blackens with age. The cross-section of this old specimen shows the still blue flesh clearly, along with the profile of the spines. Hard to make out on the forest floor, the cap showed up better using the camera’s flash although that does alter the colour. This fungus is one of the few from which one can obtain blue colours for wool in an alkaline bath.
From an email by Jocie to the Botany/Mycology Group on January 4.
Catching up from our November 23 outing to Kitty Coleman Provincial Park….
We found a wealth of fungi — it was quite a treasure hunt. Joy said that the excitement level was “like a bunch of 5th graders.” One of the highlights was the diminutive white shroom with a hairy stem and veins beneath rather than gills, Stereopsis humphreyi. We saw lots of winter oysters (Saromyxa serotina), Lynne M. said that she used to harvest these for Christmas dinner: “we used to squeeze all the moisture out and add them in with the stuffing.”
I’ve put the Kitty Coleman fungi list and photos (33 species) in this slide presentation (PDF file, 15 MB), with a few photos from the presentation and group shots below. Most of these were seen on our November 23 outing, with a few added from my previous visits there on October 16 and November 20. Please let me know if you have any corrections for IDs etc. Thanks to Tannis B. and David O., who provided some of the photos.
Orange peel fungus (Aleuria aurantiaca)Fairy parachutes (Marasmiellus candidus)Bleeding mycena (Mycena haematopus)Upright coral fungus (Ramaria sp.)Observing in Kitty Coleman ParkBotany/Mycology Group at Kitty Coleman Park
Title:To Reduce the Social and Economic Damage from High Severity Wildfires, We Must Transform our Landscapes Speaker: Bob Gray (R.W. Gray Consulting Ltd.) Date: Thursday, January 25, 2024
If you missed this event or would like to see it again, CSEB has made the recording available here. To access it you will need to provide your name and email address.
For more information about this talk, see the announcement in our earlier post.
Posted inEcology, Guest Speakers|Comments Off on Recording for talk on reducing wildfire harms
Comox Valley Nature members and the general public are invited to the following free online lecture presented by CVN and facilitated by the Canadian Society of Environmental Biologists:
Title: Seed-based Restoration for Urban Settings on Vancouver Island Speakers: Kristen Miskelly (Satinflower Nurseries) Date: Sunday, February 18, 2024 Time: 7:00 p.m. PT
See the registration link below.
Reducing barriers to restoration is one of the goals of Satinflower Nurseries. Over the last ten years, the nursery has produced native seeds and worked to encourage their use on southern Vancouver Island, including in urban areas! Kristen will discuss how native seeds can be used to enhance biodiversity and create drought-tolerant spaces in our neighbourhoods and cities. She will share project examples like green roof, septic fields, and urban meadows. The talk will also highlight aspects of small-scale native seed production.
About the speaker
Kristen Miskelly (MSc) is a biologist who specializes in the flora, ecology, and restoration of ecosystems of southern Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands. Kristen owns and operates Satinflower Nurseries, a native plant nursery and consulting business that provides native plants, seeds, biological consulting, and public education/outreach. She provides ecological consultation, project planning, and implementation of various native plantings projects and is a sessional lecturer at the University of Victoria in the schools of Ecological Restoration, Biology, and Environmental Studies.
Before the rain stops and the herring spawn gets into full swing I have to share this amazing piece of work sent to my by my physics prof brother. This is a link to the YouTube introduction to the oVert project youtu.be/1VqLsNMIPmc?si=uZ7py8YfigOJdVo4(love the Grieg 'hall of the mountain king' sound track) Here is a link to the Florida Museum hosting the project results: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/overt/Huge body of work you can come back to over and over. Mind Blown. ... See MoreSee Less
🌳Comox Valley Nature holds an annual “Trees of the Year” event to identify and highlight individual trees of significant interest or importance or beauty in the Comox Valley. The goal of the event is to foster a strong connection with nature, increase awareness of cherished local trees, and raise interest in the value and protection of trees.🌳Any Comox Valley resident can nominate a tree they love within the Comox Valley Regional District boundaries. As of 2024, the nomination period runs from February 1 to March 31.🌳When nominating a tree, consider your personal attraction to the tree. Is it beautiful or eye-catching? Is it ecologically or economically important? Does it have a unique history, or is it of cultural significance? Whatever your reason for choosing to nominate a particular tree, we invite you to share its story with us!🌳Consider checking out our cycle routes for the nomination phase. These will guide you to tree-rich areas that we have identified throughout our area and linked into cycle routes. These routes offer opportunities for observation, discovery and active exploration of trees.🌳All the nominated trees will go on a map for the year, articles and posts will highlight the stories of the trees, and on June 1, one nominator’s name will be drawn at random for a small prize.🌳For more information on the history of this global event and to nominate your favorite tree, visitcomoxvalleynaturalist.bc.ca/activities/tree-of-the-year-contest/... See MoreSee Less
🌳We are excited to announce the revival of our public walk series.🌳In our inaugural walk "Incredible Trees", arborist Verna Mumby, will introduce you to the fascinating tree species growing in the Comox Exhibition Grounds natural area. She will share information about wildlife trees, danger trees and the importance of trees to this ecosystem and indeed to all of us!🌳This walk will be on flat terrain over some tree roots – approximately an hour long and 2km distance.🌳Walks are free to the public, register to reserve your spot at comoxvalleynaturalist.bc.ca/event/incredible-trees-public-walk/CV Land Trust & Conservation Partnership ... See MoreSee Less
Comox Valley Nature held its first hybrid zoom meeting, on Feb 25th, in our new venue at Comox United Church. We heard presentations from various groups such as birding, photography, habitat restoration and public walks. Thanks to all who attended, and to the group leaders for their continued efforts. It was so exciting to hear about all the hard work going on to support and explore our environment. If you haven't done so, consider joining as a member and increase your connection to nature in the Comox Valley. comoxvalleynaturalist.bc.ca/... See MoreSee Less
It was great to see so many members come to the CVN AGM on Sunday. It seems so long since the start of COVID and our last in person meetings. During my presentation I mentioned there are 42 spherical panoramas on the CVN website associated with the viewing guide. Here is a link to the alphabetical list where you can find them along with instructions to view:comoxvalleynaturalist.bc.ca/nature-viewing-guide-spherical-panoramas/Below is a sample providing a 'fly over' of Kin Beach. Be sure to check out some of the nature viewing locations. ... See MoreSee Less