Comox Valley Nature

From an email by Jocie to the Botany Group on January 1.

Happy New Year! 

I don’t like to begin the year with a “bad news” story, but I’m obliged to report the first bloom of the year, which belongs to gorse (Ulex europaeus). I’m sure you are all familiar with this formidably spiny invasive species. 

A few days ago, I went for a walk at Woodhus Slough (near the Salmon Point pub, which is in the process of being rebuilt). It was a gloomy grey afternoon with fading daylight, and the gorse stood out defiantly in a blaze of yellow blooms. 

Strangely, the next day I opened Edith Holden’s classic The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. Every now and then I open this book to see what Edith was up to on a particular day. I flipped to an entry with a fine illustration of gorse, and a hand-copied poem “Lessons from the Gorse” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Browning, it seems, admired this spiny, tenacious winter-bloomer. 

Gorse is native to western Europe, and flourishes in open areas with poor soils that are often sandy or rocky. It was introduced as an ornamental to coastal Oregon in the late 19^th century, and has since spread along the coast from California to BC. In BC, it is most prevalent on the southern half of Vancouver Island, the southern Gulf Islands and the Vancouver area. Populations have also been found around Skidegate on Haida Gwaii.

Gorse is in the pea family, and the yellow blooms resemble scotch broom, but gorse, unlike the latter, is extremely spiny. The flowers smell sweetly of coconut. Hairy black seedpods produce thousands of seeds that remain viable for up to 40 years. When the pods split open the seeds are shot out a metre or more from the plant. 

When a patch of gorse is removed the battle isn’t over, since the plant can regenerate from root fragments and cut-off stalks. A mature stand can have an accumulation of 100 million seeds in the soil beneath it. Efforts to fully eradicate gorse take continual effort over a period of time. 

Gorse is also known as “furze” from the Anglo-Saxon word for fire. Gorse contains volatile oils which makes it a fire hazard. In Europe, it was sometimes used as firewood. In 1936 the town of Bandon, Oregon burned to the ground causing the death of 14 people. The fire was fueled by large areas of surrounding gorse. 

Gorse is not very widespread in the Comox Valley. There is some along the Comox waterfront, and at Little River Nature Park. I’m hoping that in 2021 we can have some work parties to remove patches of gorse and other invasive plants that threaten native plants and habitat. Let’s do it!

From an email by Jocie to the Botany Group on December 21.

Happy solstice! Here is the last quiz before Christmas, featuring local conifers. All of these are found at low elevation except for #9 which is mid to high elevation in this area.

#10 is just for fun…see if you can guess the species of this Christmas tree (a particularly nice one I had a few years ago). It is one of the previous 9.

Thanks for being a sport with these quizzes!

[Click a photo to enlarge it.]

You can download the answers here.

From an email from Jocie to the Botany Group on December 7.

Here is Alison’s 2nd instalment of the toothed fungi. [See this post for the first instalment.]

Alison’s notes

[Click a photo to enlarge it.]

Next on the list is in the Sarcodon genus, the dark brown cap with scales  of Sarcodon imbricatus,  looking not unlike an aging Hydnellum aurantiacum. The photos #1 & 2, showing cap and underside, were taken by Jocie in the Merville Woods at Williams Beach Road. It can also be found up in the Park (e.g. Divers Lake area). There is another similar species found locally – S. scabrosus distinguished  by darker underside and dark bluish coloration at the base of the stipe. A third species – Sarcodon fuscoindicus – is a stunning purple/dark blue, which could have been included in the “Blues and Greens” note. I found it in 2016 in the forest at Nymph Falls, but at the moment my photo is MIA, so here is a link to an image by Michael Beug in E-Flora.

Another toothed fungus that has sometimes been confused with the hydnella is the Phellodon genus which is common in the valley and up to the subalpine. Photo #3 from the Comox Lake Bluffs Ecological Reserve is Phellodon tomentosus, which has a beige to brown centre and off-white margin on the cap, and beige on the underside. Phellodon atratus is also found here – with a dark centre and lighter margins on the cap and greyish/purplish teeth on the underside.  

A quite different fungus in the tooth category is Hericium abietis (commonly known as bear’s head). It is usually found on dead conifer trunks, sometimes still standing, more often horizontal (photo #4). Its species name suggests that it is specific to true firs (Abies genus) but it can also be found on Douglas Fir – as in the photo. The cross-section on my kitchen table (photo #5) shows the spiny “teeth” more clearly – it is a choice edible (sautéed to a crisp and mixed into a garlicy hummus is my favourite.). 

One of the most intriguing fungi in the forest falls into this category, namely Auriscalpium vulgare or earpick fungus (photos #6 & 7).  Far from “common” (= vulgare) in its appearance, this tiny (5 cm high / 2 cm across the cap) fungus is often hard to find in the late fall, growing on its fir-cone on the forest floor – it blends in perfectly with the browns of dead leaves and fallen cones.

Finally a PS on the weather. It has been so mild this fall, apart from one short spell of sub-zero temps, that many shrooms are continuing to appear.   There has been a second flush of large Lobsters on our property and on December 2nd I picked some rather large, perfect chanterelles  – 15 cm in length and 12 across the cap.  This is the latest I have ever picked chanterelles in good condition, not softened by frost. This Fall has produced bumper crops of chanterelles, hedgehogs and many other species edible and otherwise. After three seasons where conditions were far from ideal (long hot summers lasting into October), this year has been optimal in terms of temperature and moisture at the right times. Fungi are highly sensitive to their environment!!!  It is a pity that this year we have not been able to conduct fungus ID sessions in the field and forest – photos are a poor second best.  Next year we hope….

From an email by Jocie to the Botany Group on December 5.

Here is quiz #2, featuring all native shrubs in autumn. [Click a photo to enlarge it.]

You can download the answers here.

From emails by Jocie to the Botany Group on December 1 and 5.

To keep you on your toes, here is a short quiz featuring deciduous trees in autumn (large and small, and a few that may be classified as shrubs) that are common in our area (all of these are native). I’m realizing that I didn’t include anything that would give a sense of scale…so this might not be as easy as intended! Next up will a more challenging quiz with shrubs and smaller plants in various states of decay.

The quiz is “open book” so look things up if you need to. Have fun! [Click a photo to enlarge it.]

You can download the answers here.

From an email by Jocie to the Botany Group on November 29.

My family enjoys pancakes on a Sunday morning, but I didn’t expect to find pancakes in the woods. Wandering about in the Miracle Beach Park campground, I came across a cluster of large, rather plain looking brown shrooms and wondered what they could be. Flipping through my books didn’t help much, until I read this description: “the mature caps look remarkably like pancakes” which clinched it for me.

Reading on… “white gills, and a stout white stipe attached to a mat of pale mycelium” fit the bill also. Though I will now always recognize this as the “pancake” its official name is the brown leucopax (Leucopaxillus gentianeus). They look like they might taste good with butter and maple syrup…but this is not the case. They are in fact “inedible and extremely bitter.”

[Click a photo to enlarge it.]

Nearby, there were some dinner-plate sized white shrooms with decurrent gills (gills extending down the stipe) and broad white caps. These are another member of this genus: the large white leucopax (Leucopaxillus albissimus). Though I’ve spent considerable time in Miracle Beach Park over the years, this is the first year I have seen either of these in the park. This little park is always yielding new and unexpected things!