The flowers of Herb-robert (Geranium robertianum) range in colour from pink to reddish-purple. I have to admit that lately I’ve been spending a great deal of time looking at small weedy flowers. My walks out to the Courtenay Airpark have proven it to be an excellent place to find all sorts of exotic plants from Eurasia. This week I’ve focused …
Flowers
At First Blush
The beautiful pink flowers of Sea Blush (Plectritis congesta). Earlier this week I headed out to Woodhus Slough to do some birdwatching and ended up botanizing instead. The slough provides access to a number of different kinds of habitats, and thus different plant communities. This week, the gravel dyke that separates the slough from the ocean was in full bloom. …
Garden Mustards
Kale (Brassica oleracea) flowers are quite beautiful. A couple of days ago I found some Field Mustard (Brassica campestris) down by the Courtenay Estuary and in photographing the plant I got to thinking how similar the flowers looked to the flowers on the kale (Brassica oleracea) that overwintered in our backyard garden. At this time of year the kale have …
Pass the Field Mustard
The terminal flower cluster of Field Mustard (Brassica campestris). While I love finding interesting, rare, and unusual plants sometimes it’s fun to take a closer look at some of the common weeds that grow in urban areas. The walkway around the Courtenay Airpark is a place where introduced species are common. I’ve found a cosmopolitan collection of Eurasian plants, garden …
Lyall's Anemone
Lyall’s Anemone (Anemone lyallii) showing the typical deeply lobed and coarsely toothed set of three leaves. One of the spring wildflowers to look for in the coastal forests of Vancouver Island at this time of year is Lyall’s Anemone (Anemone lyallii). If you’re walking quickly it is easy to miss this beautiful little plant. The flowers are small and very …
Purple Dead-nettle
Purple Dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum) forms carpets over the ground. Last summer I wrote about some of the invasive species of plants that I was noticing on my walks around the Courtenay Airpark Lagoon. This area was heavily altered by human use and at one time it was a sewage lagoon. The number of invasive plants that grow along the pathway …
Pink Fawn Lilies Down by the Tsolum River
A cluster of Pink Fawn Lilies (Erythronium revolutum) showing a variety of different shades of pink. This time of year is excellent for spring lilies and there is a short trail near the Courtenay Exhibition Grounds that loops through prime lily habitat. The river edge near the Tsolum River floods regularly depositing fine river sediment and sand throughout the forest …
Red Listed Pink Heart-Cockle
While out walking at Miracle Beach Provincial Park yesterday I was extremely fortunate to find a single blooming Pink Heart-Cockle (Dicentra cardii). This plant is on the red list in British Columbia and is rarely in flower. It has a brief “blink and you miss it” blooming period in late March/early April after which it withers away. Miracle Beach was …
Something Smells at Elk Falls
There is a distinctive aroma in the air at this time of year, especially in the wet and soggy places on Vancouver Island. I took the kids out to Elk Falls Provincial Park near Campbell River this week and did the loop trail to the falls viewpoint and then followed the river up to the second parking area near the …
Signs of Spring on Lily Lane
I love this time of year for the amazing new growth and early flowers here on the West Coast of Canada. On the southern part of Vancouver Island things are already well on the way to spring and here in the “north” I’m seeing more and more species of flowers coming into leaf, bud and flower. Some of the earliest …