A grand day out. We’ve been working far too hard for far too long. The hefty responsibilities of Edgewood keep Trevor and me from putting recreation on our agenda. But this one Sunday, we decided to neglect our duties and go for a hike.
Looking homeward from the Flat Iron TrailChrome CanyonKabuki on the precipice. Be careful!Vaccinium myrtilloides. I hope it will be a good berry year. This species has small fruits, but the flavour deserves superlatives.Last year’s berry crop was a droughty disaster.A photo just for the love of birchesTime for a picnic. This skinny form of Ramalina dilacerata caught our attention. No specimentaken. That would be work. No work today.Prosartes hookeriHemp Creek in its spring freshet stageA healthy colony of Cladonia chlorophaea aggr.The intriguing dark woods of the opposing slopeAnd there’s the falls. I’ve lived within walking distance of this place for 20 years, and yet this is the first time I’ve been here.The view from the top. There wasn’t time to scramble down for a view from below. As usual, we left too late and dawdled too long on route to our destination.A patch of the moss Saelania glaucescens,with its characteristic coating of diterpenes that give it a whitish tinge.I don’t know of any other moss that coats itself in such a substance. I wonder what’s its story.The wild lettuce Lactuca canadensis, which is supposedly an introduced weed in western North America. But our Wells Gray populations are all in wild vegetation (except those that grow in our garden at Edgewood), and they don’t have weedy tendencies. And there are some 19th Century (pre weed-invasion era) specimens from the west. I’m pretty sure it’s native here. Our other native lettuce, Lactuca biennis is very bitter, but L. canadensis, at least our local form, at least in spring, is very tasty and tender, as good as the famous cultivated Yedikule lettuce.There are many sylvan pools in this area. In eastern North America this would be called a “vernal pool”, but that term was first applied to completely different ecosystems in California, and should only be applied by the original definition. So “sylvan pool” should be the name, or so I say.I can’t get enough of the Clearwater Valley birch forests. So beautiful. So full of bird song at this time of year.Wild mint. The Mentha canadensis complex needs more study. There are old treatments of the group that attempted to apply names sensibly to the eco-morphotypes. In more recent times, most taxonomists have suppressed the use of the more refined treatments and instead call it all by the European name Mentha arvensis.I have no fear of splitting appropriately, but I’ve not yet had time to study the complex. I would welcome someone else to take it on.Crataegus douglasiiThe first Castilleja we’ve seen this year. Looks like C. fulva, a species that was first known from the Peace region of boreal northeastern BC, but which later turned out to be common also in northwestern BC. In both of those regions, the floral/bract colours are highly variable from yellow through orange and red. But it turns out that a red form has been spreading rapidly along the highway corridor connecting the two originally known clusters of populations and southward along the Yellowhead Highway corridor toward Clearwater. But there also are some local populations in wild habitat that may be spread there by tourists, as the one in this photo. The red form is usually assumed to be the more widespread red C. miniata, but with practice, the two can be differentiated. And to add to the confusion, there’s a mysterious hybrid swarm of Castillejas in the local subalpine meadows, which include forms that resemble wild C. fulva in its myriad-colour forms. Castilleja is a confusing genus. It’s hard to get to the taxonomic bottom of things, especially in the northern latitudes where difficulty of travel makes it hard to access enough populations of the species to really understand the whole diversity present, and where post-glacial revegetation dynamics might have mixed up species in such complex ways as to create a level of confusion that isn’t present to that degree among Castillejas south of the southern glacial limits. It is often the case among plant genera: northern representatives tend to be more difficult to sort taxonomically. It’s especially hard work to be a northern botanist.Returning,early dusk.Worn out. We were all quick to fall asleep after such a grand good day.
Thank you Curtis and Trevor (and Buki) for sharing this truly lovely venture on your Sunday outing! The photos are so beauitful! The information led to my studying several new terms I didn’t know about! We have juat come back from a botanical weekend in the Columbia Basin area; and we got to see a huge section of what was called ‘Vernal pools’ on a lovely, privately owned property. Tha5lt property is going to become a permanent reserve area; as the elderly but very spry owner has it set up to become a DNR completely protected area in the future. Her family has veen on the property for many generarions; and shared it’s reaources with a local native tribe! We saw many lovely flowers! I will have to email you some photos!
Thank you for reading, Susan! I’m so glad you got to see some of those Columbia Plateau vernal pools. I worked on a study of the vernal pools of that landscape some years ago. What exciting and beautiful ecosystems they are! I’ll look forward to seeing your photos.
Thank you Curtis and Trevor (and Buki) for sharing this truly lovely venture on your Sunday outing! The photos are so beauitful! The information led to my studying several new terms I didn’t know about! We have just come back from a botanical weekend in the Columbia Basin area; and we got to see a huge section of what was called ‘Vernal pools’ on a lovely, privately owned property. That property is going to become a permanent reserve area; as the elderly,but very spry owner has it set up to become a DNR completely protected area in the future. Her family has been on the property for many generations; and shared it’s reaources with a local native tribe! We saw many lovely flowers! I will have to email you some photos!
Thank you Curtis and Trevor (and Buki) for sharing this truly lovely venture on your Sunday outing! The photos are so beauitful! The information led to my studying several new terms I didn’t know about! We have juat come back from a botanical weekend in the Columbia Basin area; and we got to see a huge section of what was called ‘Vernal pools’ on a lovely, privately owned property. Tha5lt property is going to become a permanent reserve area; as the elderly but very spry owner has it set up to become a DNR completely protected area in the future. Her family has veen on the property for many generarions; and shared it’s reaources with a local native tribe! We saw many lovely flowers! I will have to email you some photos!
Thank you for reading, Susan! I’m so glad you got to see some of those Columbia Plateau vernal pools. I worked on a study of the vernal pools of that landscape some years ago. What exciting and beautiful ecosystems they are! I’ll look forward to seeing your photos.
Thank you Curtis and Trevor (and Buki) for sharing this truly lovely venture on your Sunday outing! The photos are so beauitful! The information led to my studying several new terms I didn’t know about! We have just come back from a botanical weekend in the Columbia Basin area; and we got to see a huge section of what was called ‘Vernal pools’ on a lovely, privately owned property. That property is going to become a permanent reserve area; as the elderly,but very spry owner has it set up to become a DNR completely protected area in the future. Her family has been on the property for many generations; and shared it’s reaources with a local native tribe! We saw many lovely flowers! I will have to email you some photos!