Alberta Wanderings

[cohan]

Wow, how I envy you being able to just walk out from your house into something approaching wild lands!  (I'd have a long walk from here, darn it!  )

A reflection on common names... I found it interesting that to you, "cowslips" is Caltha palustris.  To me, growing up on the prairies and learning common plants from my parents, "cowslips" was Lithospermum canescens... and then, of course, I eventually found that the name referred (first, presumably?) to Primula veris... Well, at least the flowers are all yellow - though that's probably almost all they have in common.  No wonder people get confused! 

In your second set of photos, the one you refer to as "prob an agircultural weed" appears to be Descurainia sophia, or flixweed - yes, an introduced agricultural weed.

Nice to look forward to spring, though chances are it will be a bit delayed this year, with more snow than usual.

tks, lori-- yes, that closeness to nature is the best thing here
lithospermum i dont think i know at all, i will have to look it up; i didnt know until much later that 'cowslips' was a name long in use across the pond, here it seemed reasonable enough, as the flowers and the cows could often be found in the same habitat! i forgot to mention before that this is (in my family) a traditional mother's day bouquet, and or for my mother's(and her twin's!) birthday, at about the same time; i also added petasites to the bouquets for fragrance, and if the caltha was out, the petasites was; in good years, white and blue violets might both be out, also; not last year, though..
tks for the tip on the weed, i will look that name up; i'm pretty sure i will have flowering pictures of it later in the files..

here are two views of my sunset yesterday--the first is taken almost literally from my front door, the second from the end of our driveway, looking across the neighbours land...

[cohan]

Enjoyed your willow pics very much although I immediately got a bad attack
of hay fever. It seems the pollen was carried over with the photos. 
Gerd

we better not let the customs people hear about that! they might shut down the site: if pollen can get through, who knows what pathogens might!

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Great thread Cohan !
Very interesting to discover what is growing in this beautiful part of the world !

[Gerdk]

Enjoyed your willow pics very much although I immediately got a bad attack
of hay fever. It seems the pollen was carried over with the photos. 
Gerd

we better not let the customs people hear about that! they might shut down the site: if pollen can get through, who knows what pathogens might!

At least some kind of virus is transferable - I hope not the same which affects bulbs. 

Gerd

[cohan]

Great thread Cohan !
Very interesting to discover what is growing in this beautiful part of the world !

tks luc--stay tuned, it should get more exciting as i get farther into the season..lol
gerd--i think the only virus you can get on the forum is the 'PAV'
--plant acquisition virus!

[cohan]

hi again, all,
i thought i'd veer off the topic of plant portraits a bit, to show you a few other sights in my area:
this is again in May of 2008, 8-9, we had a fairly heavy snowfall, luckily it didnt last long;
some of you may associate bison with the north american west; these are on a farm which i pass on the way to work (i work in a town around 30km away, towards the mountains); they are advertising bison meat for sale, i have no idea if they sell much or not...(being vegetarian, i have not tried it..)
the last shot is just outside of the town i work in, on the way home; you can see the mountains in the distance, about an hour's drive from there..

[cohan]

ok, so, nearing the end of May, 2008, and our sluggish spring is starting to gain some momentum

sprouting up all over, and i do mean all over: all around my yard, outside high traffic areas, in light to moderately heavy woods, from roadsides to the edges of wet areas, you see first the coiled leaves, gradually unrolling, flowers to come a little later-- the 'wild lily of the valley'
Maianthemum canadense
now flowering,before its overshadowed by later growth, also all over my yard, from edges of woods, to anywhere it can get a little space..
Viola adunca
this particular cropped shot is to show that nearly every flower of any species that i photographed for the whole season had some kind of critters on or in them! often too small to see until shots were enlarged onscreen..
the above species mixes with, but usually surrenders to
Viola renifolia
just at the edges of woods where wetter areas begin, similar spots to where we saw Vaccinium and Ledum
next, a couple of flowering shrubs
Amelanchier alnifolia
the deservedly famous Saskatoon berry (serviceberry, in some other areas..) in flower now, fruit later on..
and, presumably,
Shepherdia canadensis
Buffalo berry or Soap berry, with near microscopic, hard to photograph flowers, i will have to try again this year; plants are male or female, and the tiny female flowers (only males in this shot)will give rise to red, edible, but not very tasty, berries; i need to take more pics that show the whole bush, this year--it is a sprawling affair, with a sort of expanded candelabra shape
finally, i need to get to know the non-flowering plants better, but this i guess is one of the many forms of
Equisetum
major players in the forest, and graceful at pretty much all stages..

[cohan]

okay, still at the end of may, 2008, and right at the back of my acreage, where mixed/coniferous woods give way to wetter area, mostly overgrown with willows
Chrysosplenium sp
i guess there are a couple, and i didnt catch this in flower, so i cant say which;i remember there being tons of this when i was a kid, last year i hardly found any--dont know why--its a wet area plant, and its been wet...maybe less grazing in recent years has left it crowded out, though that doesnt apply much in these shady wooded areas it favours; this year i will look again and try to get seeds or cuttings--it is charming in large clumps in full flower--all aglow in yellow green..
Caltha palustris
this is how it looks in shady areas, leggy and sprawly, still flowering though less densely; this is natural for it, as no spot here remains unforested apart from open water or human altered areas...
an overview of the area; even more closed in in summer as the willows leaf out; i've been harvesting dead wood from the willows for firewood, so it should be getting less tangled...
not sure what this stuff is in the last shot, but its nice to see the bright green from earliest spring in wet spots...

[cohan]

details same as yesterday's post...

the tiny
Viola renifolia
leaves only about 3inches high at this stage, flowers less; the leaves only shot shows typical habitat: wettish open forest, usually at the base of trees, or on other little mounds--i guess it can be close to moisture, but keep out of the water;
NOTE: although these areas are wet in spring, and have remained wet all summer last couple of years, all of these plants from wettish areas other than open water, are adapted for potentially dry midsummers--all during my youth, these areas would have been totally dry in summer--though prob moist not too far below the surface..
the view shows the area-thats not a stream, just an old cattle path--now a wildlife path, with standing water
the ubiquitous but charming,
Mitella nuda
an almost everpresent creeper, with very exotic flowers, not open in this shot; i think it would be great in a shady bed where it could really spread out; i'm thinking to use pieces of mossy branch/trunk etc in the manner of a crevice garden...

[Gerdk]

Thank you for this detailed description of a violet habitat!

Gerd

[cohan]

you're welcome, gerd!
we have 3 species here on the acreage--renifolia, adunca and canadensis; on the whole farm there is one more:nephrophylla (presumed)..

[cohan]

location/date still same as above
a couple of Ribes, cant say i exactly have these clear, yet, first perhaps
Ribes triste
plant similar to a high bush cranberry, Vaccinium, flowers very different, of course
second perhaps
Ribes oxyacanthoides
though there are are something like 11 species in the province; this one is an early coloniser of disturbed areas, and especially places like brush piles (where logs/smaller trunks, branches and sod, soil etc are pushed up when land is cleared for grazing or other purposes)
Carex
many many of these and related genera--scarcely begun to get to know them, but really liking them--these tiny things (maybe 4-8inches tall?) are flowering early when not much is yet; many others are larger and/or growing in masses to make themselves noticeable, especially in wet areas, where the colours of stems, flowers or seed heads can colour large areas (different shades of greens, black, brown etc) making interesting colour patterns in apparent 'grass' areas...
the same Carex, and Caltha, each with visitors...
this was the only caltha flower on a plant with a half dozen flowers with this ominous looking, but tiny visitor;

[cohan]

last couple of shots from this area;
 i never really knew what this plant was, but came across it in a book--in the sandalwood family--sounds very exotic! and apparently is semi parasitic; to make things more fancy, it can carry a fungus(blister rust)which turns plants variegated, and  which also affects lodgepole pines--we dont have pines right here, mostly they start about 20 miles frther east, so i dont know what the fungus does to them, but you can see the odd mottled leaves in the second photo;
then two views--one shows the edge of the area these photos have been from--this clearing faces north, and you can see very little activity so far, no greening yet; the second view is not too far away, on the main farm (really, probably only several hundred metres away) but on the south edge of the woods, and grass is already greening; next photos will be from that area..

[Lori S.]

Very interesting, Cohan.  I was not at all familar with Geocaulon lividum... It's described in Moss and Packer as "reticulately veined, bright green to often yellow-variegated".  The plants in your second photo seem to be show the reticulated veining  - I wonder if that is a basic but variable characteristic, or an effect of the blister rust?  Royer and Dickinson seem to attribute yellow-streaking or variegation to the rust but don't comment on the veining at all.

[cohan]

the royer /dickinson book is the same source i saw; you know, i think its a fairly common plant, but it grows in the same places as blueberries etc, and i had always thought it was one of those--of course the flowers are quite different, but i had not looked that closely/consciously, i guess..
so when i got this book i was going through front to back and when i saw the entry, i recognised it right away, and thought: 'oh! thats what that is!' and i had noticed the variegated forms too..
my feeling is that the veining is always there, , but the variegated, fungus form makes it much more conspicuous..