From an email by Jocie to the Botany/Mycology Group on June 21. Click a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday we enjoyed a leisurely ramble along the ridge above the Trent River, accessing the trail from the end of Hatton Rd. off of Briardale Crescent.
Hard questions were asked, like “why do spittlebugs spit.” The bugs apparently excrete the spit-like substance that we see on plant stalks, which protects them from predators.
Kathryn pointed out that the flower-bearing stalks of the vanilla-leaf are free-floating, and not attached to the leaves at all…who knew!
Here are a few highlights, and I’ll be sending a second instalment with more of Veronique’s photos.
Photos: Jocie, Veronique and Isabella (people pics). Thanks for sending!
- False bugbane (Trautvetteria caroliniensis).
- Cooley’s hedge-nettle (Stachys chamissonis var. cooleyae).
- Prince’s pine (Chimaphila umbellata).
- Pathfinder flower close-up (Adenocaulon bicolor). Note the absence of ray flowers and oblong green seedpods (achenes) with tiny stalked purple glands. This plant looks quite boring at a glance, but check out how amazing the flowers are close-up! The pathfinder’s green leaves have a silvery underside, a good clue for tracking an animal or human.
- Pathfinder achene close-up (Veronique zoomed in more for a better look!).
- Purple peavine (Lathyrus nevadensis).
- Pacific sideband snail (Monadenia fidelis).
- Small-flowered nemophila (Nemophila parviflora). A more prostrate growth form than usual, and some odd looking terminal leaflets made me wonder if it was something else…but turns out to be Nemophila, which is quite common.
- Twinflower (Linnaea borealis).
- Red columbine (Aquilegia formosa).
- Salal (Gaultheria shallon).
- Twisted mossy trunks looking down to the Trent.
- Botanizing!
- Lunch stop.
- A birding moment: looking at a monstrous cowbird fledgling being fed by a tiny black-throated gray warbler!
