Comox Valley Nature

Kin Beach

It was a  cool blustery spring day, but that did not deter two dozen of us spending a productive two hours in the Park under Helen’s guidance.   Kin Beach Park has an amazing array of plants with TINY flowers, of which we saw ( on our hands and knees) a broad range.  One that stood out against the green was the delicate red  Tryphysaria pusilla (dwarf owl clover).  Collinsia grandiflora  (large  blue-eyed Mary)  and  Crocidium multicaule  (gold star) in bloom together always provide a colourful carpet on the sandy duff.   Many of the larger showy flowers, such as Menzies larkspur and seablush, are not yet in bloom.

We saw all 5 of the park’s species of Claytonia – I have included illustrations of four.  C. perfoliatia  (miner’s lettuce),  C. parviflora  (streambank springbeauty)  C. rubra ( redstem springbeauty)  and C. exigua ( pale springbeauty) .  There is an extensive patch of the miner’s lettuce near the campsite , together with  non-native Anthriscus  caucalis ( bur chervil) which has lacy leaves  like garden chervil, but tastes more like parsley – providing a healthy salad for early campers in the Park.  The fifth, C. Sibirica   (Siberian miner’s lettuce) seems to have been too common to merit a photo!

Another tiny plant seen near the shore is Crassula tillaea  (mossy stonecrop).     Sorry, there is no scale in the photo, but the succulent-like leaves are about 10 mm in length.  This plant was first noted by Terry Taylor during the AGM fieldtrip to Kin Beach in 2016.  It is an exotic, originally an old world plant native to the Mediterranean basin, but seems to be making its way north from the USA west coast.

One or two mushrooms were spotted – ADM is working on their ID!

Next Month

On May 7^th we will have Mandy Vaughan guide us through the Comox Bluffs Ecological Reserve.  Since this is a highly sensitive area, the group will be limited to 10, and so we will have a sign-up process.  If lots of you want to attend, then we will organize a second outing.  I will send out a call-to-sign-up later in the month.

Also on the horizon :   a trip down to Mt Tzuhalem Ecological Reserve, in mid May and Karen Franzen has offered to lead a group around parks on Gabriola, late May.  If anyone in interested in either or both of these, please let me know.  Both would require organizing a car-pool.

An identification tool/app:

For those who would like a source for identifying plants through your own photograph, you might like to try Plant Net  :  http://identify.plantnet-project.org/query/canada/

Thanks to Jocie for her photos and to Ruth for passing on the Plant Net URL.

Alison

Greetings, Members of the Botany Group

As Spring advances lots of plants are coming into bloom: coltsfoot, salmonberry, yellow stream violet, blue-eyed mary and more.  Attached are photos of  Petasites palmatus (coltsfoot) on the Tsolum floodplain and Erythronium oregonum (white fawn lily) seen on the Ripple Rock trail on Saturday (March 24^th).  Anywhere along our shorelines or riverbanks from now on will be worthy of repeated visits for the succession of blooms.

Outing to Seal Bay, March 5^th

Although we were thwarted in our attempts to have a moss walk in February because of the snow, it was well worth the wait. March 5^th was perfect, if perhaps a little dry for mosses, but Randal came equipped with a spray bottle to perk up the specimens.  The array of mosses seemed overwhelming, but through Randal’s energetic instruction we were well drilled in the identification of seven of the most common ones on the forest floor and lower tree trunks, and equipped with an excellent handout for reference.   Illustrated in the attachments are Ruth`s photos of Buckiella undulata (wavy cotton moss), Hylocomium splendens (step moss) and Dicranum scoparium (broom moss).

Jocie won the prize for spotting a species not in the List of Bryophytes for Seal Bay.  It was Dendroalsia abietina, or Plume Moss, not commonly seen in the Valley.  For an illustration of plume moss, check E-flora.      Randal has added more than 20 to the original 38 (see attached updated list) .

Randal spotted various liverworts including  Lophocolea cuspidata. He sent a photo of it in “full bloom” in his local woods with star shaped antheridiaphores. ( See attached photo.) Another one of interest was Metzgeria conjugata  in amongst festoons of Neckera on a Maple trunk.   Check E-flora for photo.  Next year we will have to slate a walk concentrating on liverworts.

Other news – Little River Nature Park

Helen reports that she “took a walk along the river and between the river and the fence at Little River Nature Park, and counted 34 Piperia elegans  (elegant rein orchid) plants, but there are probably twice that.  They do not bloom for another month or six weeks.  I also walked along the beach towards the ferry, looking for emerging yellow sand verbena leaves, but it is still too early.  There is more than ever habitat destruction by the homeowners (2) adjacent to the ferry maintenance yard, so I don’t know if they have dug deep enough to totally destroy the sand verbena plants or not.”   You may remember that Helen raised concerns last year about the damage to natural vegetation  on the beach by some of the homeowners in the Harwood Estates.  Murray Little of  the Wetland Conservation Group has indicated that CVRD’s Debi Lister is trying to ensure that the residents of the estates are made aware of the ecologically sensitive area  and endangered plants in their “backyard”.

Next Gathering  :  April 9^th – Kin Beach – 11.00 am.

We had our April gathering last year at Kin Beach, so this will be an opportunity to compare and contrast what is or is not in bloom from one year to the next. There are picnic tables at the park, where we can have lunch after our foray.

Enjoy our spring displays,  Alison