This month we’ll explore a whole genus of plants rather than single species. They’re the Erythroniums and there are species that grow in a wide range of habitats all across the country. I first learned them as Dog-tooth Violets in the mid-Atlantic forests. Various members of the genus are also called Trout Lily, Adder’s Tongue, Fawn Lily, Glacier Lily, or Avalanche Lily. No matter what you call them they are members of the Lily family. Continue reading
Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest, which came out in 2006, continues to sell well. Its in at least its 5th printing and has sold over 17,500 copies as of December 31, 2009. If you don’t have a copy yet, or want to give one as a gift, you can order autographed copies from me online at pnwflowers.com/buy. It’s also available at most local bookstores, from Amazon or direct from the publisher, Timber Press. 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.
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Red-flowering Currant is one of the showiest and earliest blooming of the currants and gooseberries. The Latin name, Ribes sanguineum, also reflects the red of its blossoms. In the warmest and sunniest locations red-flowering currant starts blooming in March most years. The flowers last about three weeks.
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We’ll get to the Camas in a bit, but that was a surprise find, not what I went looking for today.
Last weekend when I was down to the Columbia Gorge searching for Garrya I spent a few minutes at Catherine Creek to check out the earliest flowers, including Grass Widows, Olsynium douglasii. Today Natalie and I headed down to Pass Island at Deception Pass State Park in search of the same flower. Pass Island is one of the earliest spots in our region where the flowers start blooming. It has thin, rocky soil similar to what you find at Catherine Creek and the open slopes face south and west where they can bake in the afternoon sun.
Based on the number of Grass Widows in bloom today I’d say our season is nearly a month advanced from last year. Of course, last year was a cold winter and everything was late. This has been a warm winter. I guess it all works out in the averages over a century.
In any case there were lots of Grass Widows in bloom. They aren’t really visible from the bridge but as soon as we stepped out from under it on the island the bright magenta flowers came into sight at the expected spots.
We continued walking along the path toward the east end of the island, checking out whatever we could find in bloom. There were many bright splotches of yellow Spring Gold, Lomatium utriculatum with its broad umbels nestled among finely divided bright green foliage. There were tall stalks of Western Saxifrage, Saxifraga occidentalis, foliage of Western Buttercups, a single blossom of Beach Strawberry, swelling buds on the Madronas, and new leaves emerging everywhere. Broadleaf Stonecrop, Sedum spathulifolium, rosettes of foliage carpeted many rock faces and masses of Licorice Fern waved gently in the warm breeze.
But the real find was this precocious single stem of Common Camas, Camassia quamash, growing at the side of the trail in a protected spot at the edge of the woods. We hardly saw any other Camas with buds; most of the foliage was still pretty short. I can’t recall ever seeing Camas in bloom this early. Usually it comes out after the Grass Widows are finished. This specimen wasn’t in the most photogenic location as it was coming up through the dormant stems of a shrub I didn’t bother to identify. I cleaned out the dry grass stems, but the shrub had to stay. But it’s the first of the season!
When you visit the same place over a period of years you get familiar with where to look for certain plants. This Red-flowering Currant on the cliff just above high tide has been there for years and is always one of the first to bloom. There’s no way to get close to it and enjoy the fragrance of the blossoms, but I’m sure the bees and possibly the hummingbirds find it just fine. I made this image with my 70-200mm lens zoomed most of the way in. The sun was playing in and out of the clouds and I shot it both ways. This is the sunny version, which I like a bit better because it brings out the color of the blossoms better.
The rest of today’s photos were made with my 100mm macro lens. I used a collapsible diffuser when the sun was out and the natural clouds when it wasn’t. As usual my camera was on the tripod for everything.
Natalie pointed out foliage along the trail that I think may be the first leaves of Chocolate Lilies, Fritillaria affinis. They certainly grow in the area, but I haven’t seen them blooming on Pass Island so I’ll have to check back later in the season and see what the foliage turns out to be.
The other flower we saw in several locations on Pass Island was Small-flowered Prairie Star, Lithophragma parviflorum. The name is a bit of a misnomer because the flowers are actually bigger than those of the other common species in the northwest, Bulbiferous Woodland Star.
After we’d seen all we could find in bloom on the island we headed to West Beach and walked along the dunes trail. Not much was blooming there except the Spring Whitlow Grass, Draba verna and an occasional blossom on Beach Knotweed, Polygonum paronychia. It will be several weeks before there’s much blooming in that part of the park.
I’ll be leading a field trip to Pass Island for the Koma Kulshan chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society on Saturday, March 20. I’ve already had some people sign up, so let me know if you’d like to come along and enjoy these flowers and more in person.
There aren’t a lot of native shrubs that bloom in the winter. One that does is Fremont’s Silk Tassel, also known as Bearbrush, Garrya fremontii. This species has the northernmost range of any of the Garryas as far as I can determine. Even so, it doesn’t get very close to where I live in Bellingham.
So yesterday I took a road trip down to the Columbia Gorge in search of this shrub. I was armed with location data from the University of Washington Herbarium, so I wasn’t wandering around aimlessly. Even so, it was a bit of a long trip essentially for a single species. By the time I got home I’d put 670 miles on my truck and was gone from 7 am to 11:30 pm. Just a day trip.
The lowest elevation herbarium record said I might find the shrub near the bottom of the southwest slope of Wind Mountain, which is just east of Home Valley along Washington Route 14. I parked, walked around a gate and across a meadow choked with weedy Scotch Broom to the base of the talus and looked up. There, about 30 or 40 feet up the loose rock was a single shrub that looked like it might be the Garrya. I scrambled up and determined that it was indeed what I’d come to find.
This specimen was a female, with its red pistals sticking out all around the dangling tassel that gives the plants its name. I looked around some more but didn’t find any other specimens nearby. It was growing adjacent to a Vine Maple and near Douglas-firs, all somewhat stunted on this loose south-facing talus.
I returned to my truck to get my camera gear and scrambled back up the loose rock. It seemed that every time I planted my foot I knocked rocks loose. I was glad no one was below. Since I’d come so far I spent quite a lot of time photographing the plant. Ultimately I pruned one small stem and carried it to the base of the talus to shoot details in a more controlled environment. One of those is what you’re seeing here.
Bearbrush Silktassel is the only member of the genus native to Washington state, although Coast Silktassel, Garrya elliptica, is cultivated in gardens and there’s a hybrid of the two, Garrya x issaquahensis that is also cultivated. The male plants are grown more often because their tassels are showier.
Here’s the male Bearbrush Silktassel catkin. I found this specimen at the top of a road cut near the junction of Willard Road and Cook-Underwood Road. I was on my way to Willard and beyond where another herbarium specimen had been collected. This plant was at about 1000′ elevation and the male flowers had not yet completely opened. I believe that when they’re fully open the stamens will be showing. I made lots of images of the male plant and then continued up the road.
At around 2200′ elevation, 5.5 miles above Willard on Forest Service Road 66 at the edge of Big Lava Bed, there were many specimens of Garrya fremontii at the edge of the road and in the open woodlands. It was still cold up there, with patches of snow on the ground, so none of the plants were in bloom. I didn’t even see much evidence of buds, but perhaps they’re just small and not very showy.
Big Lava Bed is an interesting geological area, about 20 square miles of lava that oozed from the earth’s crust some 9000 years ago. Most of it is forested with stunted trees and shrubs growing from among the cracks in the lava. The ground is covered in a dense carpet of mosses and lichens. It shows prominently on the DeLorme Washington Atlas if you’re inclined to visit.
Photographic tools used for the Fremont’s Silk Tassel included my 70-200mm, 24-105mm, and 100mm macro lenses. I used a polarizer to cut the glare on the foliage in most of the full plant shots. For some of the male plant foliage photos I bounced fill light in with a big silver reflector (those photos aren’t in this post) and for the closeups I softened the light with my big diffuser. I carry a lot of stuff in my pack and I used much of it on this trip.
After I finished with the Garrya I headed a few miles further east to Catherine Creek, between Bingen and Lyle. It’s one of the best early season wildflower spots in the Gorge and I wasn’t disappointed. The Grass Widows were going strong, along with Piper’s Desert Parsley and Western Saxifrage. As the sun dipped below the ridge I headed for home.
Natalie announced after lunch today that she wanted to go for a hike and suggested the Stimpson Family Nature Preserve near Lake Whatcom. We hadn’t been out there for a while and the 3-mile loop trail makes a nice walk on a wet day. The rain stopped and the sun came out so we had a pleasant early afternoon walk.
It’s still pretty early in the season, so not much fresh was coming up, but these evergreen sedges were thick in several of the pocket wetlands near the top of the ridge. If you’re a wetland specialist and know what they are, please leave a comment and let me know. I’m still pretty poor at identifying sedges.
One plant that had started to grow is Stinging Nettle, Urtica dioica. When they get just a little bigger it will be time to harvest some (but not from the Stimpson Preserve) and cook them up for a tasty spring vegetable. Some folks say you can eat them raw if you curl the leaves just right to avoid the little spines that inject a chemical soup that gives the plant its name, but I’ve never been successful at it. For details on the chemicals in nettle sting see Be Nice to Nettles Week.
Nettle sting lasts for a remarkably long time. Hours later as I write this my thumb still tingles from very lightly brushing against a single leaf this afternoon. Spores from the abundant Sword Fern will often take the sting away, but for some reason I didn’t think of that this afternoon and just put up with the annoyance.
Out near the trailhead where there was more sun the Indian Plum was starting to open, but I only noted flower buds and no open blossoms. Perhaps at lower elevations the first blossoms are out, but I haven’t seen them yet this spring. Skunk Cabbage was starting to grow in the wetlands, too, but it will be close to a month before it’s in full bloom. Maybe a little earlier this year since January and February have been so warm.
One of the first things you come across at the Stimpson Preserve is a large beaver pond, which is really a shallow marsh. There’s an overlook along the trail. This was the view today, with the sun backlighting the dry sedge foliage out in the water. Again, I don’t know the species.
I photographed today with my Canon S70 pocket camera. I braced it against a tree trunk and zoomed in for the brown sedges in the pond. For the nettle I used macro mode, wide angle, and came in close with the focus point set on the leaves at the top of the frame. The wet marsh at the top of the post was also a wide-angle shot, with the camera held as steady as I could for the 1/13 sec shutter speed in the dark woods. I would have liked to have a tripod for that one, but I almost never carry one with my little camera.
One of the first of our northwest native shrubs to bloom is Tall Oregon Grape, Mahonia aquifolium. It also goes by the name Shining Oregon Grape because its foliage is a bright glossy green. Continue reading
On our walk to Little Squalicum Beach last weekend Natalie and I looked at more than just the willow buds I included in the previous post.
This one is Black Cottonwood, Populus balsamifera ssp. trichocarpa. The buds are quite a bit larger than the willow buds and slightly resinous. That is, when you feel them they’re a little bit sticky. You can see that the terminal bud, the one at the end of the twig, is considerably larger than the others. There’s no scale in the photo, but these are substantial buds — over 12mm (1/2 inch) long. Another point in the key is that the lowest bud scale is directly above the leaf scar.
Black Cottonwood is common along streams and in moist areas of lowland forests west of the Cascades. The name, cottonwood, comes from the masses of white cotton-like fluff attached to the minute seeds later in the spring. Sometimes the ground will be covered with cottonwood fluff, looking a lot like a thin covering of snow. But for now we just have to enjoy the buds on low branches of this tall tree.
The background here almost looks like a painted studio background, but it’s just a bunch of dry grasses and shrub stems very out of focus behind the cottonwood twig. The twig is close to the camera and the background is much farther away.
Perhaps the most common deciduous tree in our lowland forests is Red Alder, Alnus rubra. It establishes quickly on disturbed sites and is an important species because it is a nitrogen fixer. That is, it takes nitrogen from the air and with the cooperation of symbiotic fungi on its roots, adds it to the soil in a form other plants can use.
Red Alder is another early blooming tree, but these buds are still closed tight. You can see the dry “cones” from last year behind the catkins. They’re not true cones like you find on conifers, but they resemble them.
Alders, like other members of the birch family, bear separate male and female flowers on the same tree. The catkins here will be male flowers, which open bright yellow and will hang 2-3 inches long. The smaller female flowers will become the cones. You can see the female buds just above and behind the male catkins.
Both of the willow and alder buds were photographed with a 100mm macro lens. For the cottonwood my camera was on a tripod and I carefully controlled the composition, working with a broken branch that I placed in a convenient location with a neutral background. The alder was photographed on the tree while I was standing on the steep hillside. I don’t usually employ autofocus with my macro lens, but with both me and the branch moving around I couldn’t keep up focusing by hand. I shot a lot of frames and tossed out the ones that weren’t sharp. That’s not my usual procedure with plants, but sometimes it’s the only thing that works.
The Pacific Northwest is home to many species of willow. Some are shrubby, some grow to be fairly substantial trees, and some can be either a shrub or a tree depending on where they’re growing.
This afternoon I photographed the winter twigs on three species. At least I think I identified three separate species. The list is long, as given on the Washington Flora Checklist. I hope I’ll be able to find, identify, and photograph all of them this year.
My afternoon jaunt, with Natalie accompanying me, was to Bellingham’s Little Squalicum Beach. We hadn’t been down there for several years and this felt like a good time for a visit. The tide was going out, the light was golden in the late afternoon, and we had a little fun with a winter twigs key.
The first willow we encountered was Pacific Willow, growing here at the base of the bluff at the back of the beach. It’s pretty distinctive, with bright yellow twigs that glow in the sunlight.
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