Roy Morrison Nature Park walk

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 VĂ©ronique for being our “designated photographer.” No one else wanted to take out their camera in the downpour!

  1. Wet botanists! (but appropriately attired).
  1. Skunk cabbage patch (Lysichiton americanum).
  1. Detail of the small flowers dotting the spadix (central column) of skunk cabbage.
  1. Black gooseberry (Ribes lacustre).
  1. Detail of black gooseberry (note the golden spines all along the stem).
  1. 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).
  1. Western trillium (Trillium ovatum). After pollination, the white blooms turn pink or maroon coloured.
  1. Catkins of black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa) are larger and more purple-toned than red alder. The catkins are packed with male flowers.
  1. 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.
  1. Blueberry flower closeup showing the red twigs that differ from the green twigs of red huckleberry.
  1. 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!
  1. Stream violet (Viola glabella), likes the floodplains of creeks/rivers.
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