holyoutlaw: (picture icon iv)

Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanum)
Skunk Cabbage (Lyshichiton americanus)
Let’s start off with one of my favorites, skunk cabbage. It’s called that because of how it smells, but I’ve never noticed a bad smell to it. It smells skunky to attract its pollinators, flies and beetles. I like that it shoots and blooms so early, and that its leaves are so large. This is the same plant as the one I photographed last week. This plant is in a very accessible location, so I should be able to photograph it weekly.

We also saw plenty of new skunk cabbage shoots throughout the park, so my fears of it being too easily disturbed are partially calmed.

Osoberry (Oemlaria cerasiformis)
Osoberry (Oemlaria cerasiformis)
A different plant than I photographed last week, but you can sill see the bud developing.

Red flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum)
Red Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum)
New this week, red flowering currant. Another early bloomer, very popular among hummingbirds and early-waking bumblebees.

Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis)
Salmonberry (rubus spectabilis)
This is by far the dominant native shrub, very common, holding back (if not fighting off) the blackberry. You don’t have to worry about bushwhacking through it, it’ll grow back.

Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa ssp. pubens)
Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa ssp. pubens)
There are groves of this shrub in the park. It can grow quite tall and solid.

Red Huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium)
Red Huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium)
One of my all time favorite plants in the park. I like its delicacy, the leafing pattern, and the way it grows in nooks and crannies. It likes rotting wood, and grows in a number of the stumps. This particular example was planted in fall, 2011, and appears to have survived the August-September (2012) drought. In fact, this was the plant that boosted my spirits last summer when I got one of my periodic sads about the seeming invisibility of the restoration work in the face of the task left to be done.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.

holyoutlaw: (picture icon iv)

I went for a walk in North Beach Park last Sunday. The park looked like a mess, there have been alder trees falling down, bindweed coming up in places it hasn’t before, knotweed and some other things coming back after supposed eradication. Volunteers can’t work on the slopes (except for survival rings) or in the stream, so we’re kind of hemmed in. I felt pretty discouraged until I saw this.

Red Huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium) berries
Red Huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium) berries

This was planted last fall. Seeing the berries on the new planting made me feel a little better. So did this.

Successful ivy ring
Successful ivy ring

Look at how bushy that is! That means the ivy was getting enough sunlight to probably sets fruit every season. This survival ring will have several benefits: Cut down on the Ivy seed rain, if infinitesimally so. The snag, now clear of ivy, will provide habitat and food for woodpeckers; when they move on, smaller birds will take over. Without the ivy, the snag will stand longer, and when it falls, it will be a nurse log.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.

Photos!

Mar. 11th, 2012 12:11 am
holyoutlaw: (Default)

Here are some bud, shoot, and seedling photos from North Beach Park:

Red huckleberry (Vaccinium parviflorum) buds
Red huckleberry (Vaccinium parviflorum) buds


Inside-out flower or duck’s foot (Vancouveria hexandra)
Inside-out flower or duck's foot (Vancouveria hexandra)
One of the common names for this plant is the duck’s foot flower, because the leaves have three rounded lobes that look like… wait for it… a duck’s foot. If you look closely, or click through the larger size, you can see that the leaves already have a duck’s foot shape as they emerge from the bud. Vancouveria is very rare in Seattle, supposedly extirpated (locally extinct) but here it is. There is also vancouveria in Carkeek.

Indian plum or osoberry (Oemlaria cerasiformis) buds and flowers
Indian plum or osoberry (Oemlaria cerasiformis) buds and flowers

Here is the entire set of North Beach Park photos (getting rather large). The photos I added today are towards the end.

ETA: The best spell-checker funnies for this time was “Malaria conformist” for “Oemlaria cerasiformis”.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.

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