Try saying the title three times fast. If you’re not up on your botanical Latin maybe the words don’t quite roll off your tongue.

Anyway, what do these have in common? They’re all members of the rose family, Rosaceae, they’re all in bloom right now, and they all have tasty edible fruit later in the season.

The Amelanchier alnifolia, commonly called Serviceberry or Saskatoon, is a large shrub with masses of flowers with shaggy white petals. It’s native on both sides of the Cascades, smells sweet, and is showy along roadsides right now. My friend David Perry collected some for a bouquet over around Spokane a week or so ago and wrote about it on one of his blogs, A Fresh Bouquet. David is an exquisite photographer with a keen eye and discerning taste. If you’re not following his blogs you should be.

There are other species of Serviceberry in other parts of the country. I learned the name of this plant, pronounced “sarvisberry,” as a kid in West Virginia. Out there the species is Amelanchier arborea. Whatever you call it, the flowers will be followed by small dark purple fruit around mid-summer. I usually leave them for the birds, but they’re edible and often used for jams and jellies. Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago I was over to Ellensburg for the semi-annual board meeting of the Washington Native Plant Society. It’s an all-day business meeting dealing with important affairs of the organization, but not near as much fun as getting out and poking around among the plants.

The next day Don Knoke, one of the most knowledgeable plant guys in the area, led a field trip along the Old Vantage Highway with stops at Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area and a couple of places in Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park. We ambled among the grasses and sagebrush, meandered across the lithosol, and threaded our way among the plants on the sandy dunes along Wanapum Reservoir on the Columbia River.

This photo was made near the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park visitor center at Vantage, just a hundred yards or so off the road toward the river. Showy Phlox, Phlox speciosa, and Carey’s Balsamroot, Balsamorhiza carreyana, are what’s blooming here. In mid-April you’ll find Showy Phlox carpeting the hillsides in many places throughout central Washington. It truly lives up to its name. Carey’s is just one of several species of Balsamroot. Just over the hill to the west of Ellensburg you’re more likely to find Balsamorhiza sagittata which has somewhat fuzzy leaves and distinctly hairy bracts below the blossoms. Continue reading →

Thursday I drove across Washington from Bellingham to Spokane to speak on wildflowers at The Inland Empire Gardeners Club meeting. I could have stuck to the freeway and made it across in about six hours, but I chose a more leisurely route and spent about 9 hours. The photo above was made just east of Davenport along US 2. I’m not sure why this thin grove of Douglas-firs was growing in the middle of the wheat field but they caught my eye as I headed down the highway. Conveniently there was a small road running along the field so I could get off the highway easily. The sky was dramatic with big billowing clouds so I shot with my widest 16-35mm lens to include as much sky as possible. It’s still very early in the spring on the east side of the mountains so the winter wheat is just starting to green up and begin growing. Continue reading →

Sex was in the air all over Pass Island and West Beach at Deception Pass State Park this weekend. Bright red female Douglas-fir cones standing tall on branch tips were calling out to the pollen-laden male cones hanging below. “Hit me with some of your dusty golden pollen,” they seemed to be saying. And with every stiff branch-shaking breeze (or human hand) the air would blaze with the pixie dust so essential to the Pseudotsuga menziesii mating ritual.

Courtship among trees is obviously a bit different than it is among more mobile species, but the basic process is the same. Sperm and egg come together, fertilization occurs, and a new member of the species begins to grow. The female, carrying the eggs, somehow has to attract the male. Plants have evolved myriad ways for this to happen, often involving third parties like insects or other animals.

Conifers are wind-pollinated. Look closely at the Douglas-fir bough. There are just a couple of red female flowers near the branch tips while there are many more males hanging down below. Since cross-pollination, mixing genes between individuals, is valuable in a long-term evolutionary sense the species has developed a mechanism to keep self-fertilized embryos from completely developing into viable seeds. I don’t understand just how that works. Try a web search on “Pseudotsuga self fertile” if you want to figure it out.

The female cones are standing upright, presumably to make it easier for the wind-borne pollen to be ensnared as it drifts by. Once the flowers are fertilized then the cones will turn downward, which is the way we usually see Doug-fir cones on the tree.

This weekend was the first time I’d noticed Douglas-fir in bloom after nearly 20 years of seeing this most common of northwest conifers. Why hadn’t I noticed it before? Probably just not in the right place at the right time. I know I’ll be looking for them in the future.
Continue reading →