Comox Valley Nature

From an email by Jocie to the Botany/Mycology Group on May 17. Click a photo to enlarge it.

Last week we took a walk along Cumberland Marsh from Jumbo’s cabin to the coal hills above the old Japanese townsite. Many blooming shrubs and other lovely plants. If anyone has the answer to the “mystery plant” (#11 and #12) let me know.

Thanks to Véronique for the photos!

A few highlights: 

1. Cascara (Frangula purshiana). The well-defined veins of the leaves give it a “washboard” appearance. Doesn’t have toothed edges like the red alder. Bark used to be stripped and sold for its laxative properties. Old-timers remember harvesting from our area.

2. Black twinberry (Lonicera involucrata). Twinned yellow flowers develop into twinned black berries (not edible).

3. Red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa). Sprays of white blooms. Bright red non-edible berries coming soon (birds eat them).

4. Red huckleberry (Rubus parvifolium). Inconspicuous green bell-like flowers.

5. Vanilla-leaf (Achlys triphylla). Spikes of white flowers are appearing now.

6. Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi).  Likes drier sunny sites, as seen here on the edges of the coal hill.

7. Marsh cinquefoil (Comarum palustre). Likes to have its feet wet: look for it in marshes, bogs and along pond edges.

8. Western yellow pond lily (Nuphar polysepala). I was out in the canoe recently and noticed just how many insects, spiders and birds use lily pads as landing platforms. The lilies support a whole ecosystem above and below the surface.

9. Western yew (Taxus brevifolia). An often overlooked tree….most that we see are small and scraggly, but in an old-growth forest they are larger and more conspicuous.

10. Western yew bark: peeling and a reddish mahogany colour, reminiscent of arbutus.

11. Everyone loves a plant mystery….there are quite a few gone-wild garden plants in the Cumberland marsh area which are remnants from the old townsite. This one had us stumped, maybe some sort of saxifrage??

12. Mystery plant flower close-up.

From an email by Jocie to the Botany/Mycology Group on April 19. Click a photo to enlarge it.

We had a wet and cold walk in Roy Morrison Nature Park on Monday April 17 (should I have canceled?) Nonetheless, 7 intrepid botanists showed up. All the plants looked wonderfully fresh in the rain. The “cabbage patch” was magnificent, and it seems to be a good year for trilliums.

Here are a few highlights. Thanks to Véronique for being our “designated photographer.” No one else wanted to take out their camera in the downpour!

1. Wet botanists! (but appropriately attired).

2. Skunk cabbage patch (Lysichiton americanum).

3. Detail of the small flowers dotting the spadix (central column) of skunk cabbage.

4. Black gooseberry (Ribes lacustre).

5. Detail of black gooseberry (note the golden spines all along the stem).

6. Water purslane (Ludwigia palustris). This semi-aquatic plant likes to hang out in ditches, swamps and pond edges. It is in the evening primrose family (Onagraceae).

7. Western trillium (Trillium ovatum). After pollination, the white blooms turn pink or maroon coloured.

8. Catkins of black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa) are larger and more purple-toned than red alder. The catkins are packed with male flowers.

9. Oval-leaved blueberry (Vaccinium ovatifolium). Though more common in the subalpine, blueberry is found sporadically through our lowland forests (and more common further north along the coast). The little white bell-like flowers, which bloom before the leaves, stand out in early to mid-April.

10. Blueberry flower closeup showing the red twigs that differ from the green twigs of red huckleberry.

11. Green false hellebore (Veratrum viride). Another plant that’s more common in the subalpine. There is some along the edges of Morrison Creek. Very poisonous!

12. Stream violet (Viola glabella), likes the floodplains of creeks/rivers.

Notes and photos by Alison M. distributed to the Botany/Mycology Group on April 13. Click a photo to enlarge it.

Spring is a little slow again this year! A few of our early flowers are reluctantly appearing…

On Tuesday at that tiny little park at Ships Point, which is nicely sheltered from the arctic winds and south-facing, we did find a couple of Erythronium oregonum (photo 1) in bloom, as well as some Berberis aquifolium (photo 2) with part of the flower head open.

The Fritillaria affinis – chocolate lily – was still in bud form, but should be out soon. And in the conservation area along the dike, a few Rubus spectabilis (photo 3) were highly visible in the bright sunlight.

On our stretch of the Tsolum floodplain the Erythronia are still in bud, but the Petasites frigidus – sweet coltsfoot (photo 4) – has just pushed its way through the silt and opened. Some years I have found it in January!

And on the Sunday walk in Cumberland we passed by the area behind the Japanese townsite where there is a substantial spread of Petasites japonicus – Japanese butter-burr (photo 5), which goes back to the time when the Japanese planted it as one of their early spring greens (fuki). In both species the flower heads appear first, and the leaves develop later, so at this point the leaves are still very small.