Alberta Wanderings

[cohan]

still the same date, end of may 2008, and just a bit farther afield, a short distance from my acreage on the main farm which belongs to my uncle;
Corydalis aurea
a not uncommon plant, and very widespread, yet not  major visual player in the landscape--does most of its work early, while it can get the sun--you see it here growing at the base of a poplar, with a Ribes (gooseberry) bush overhead, besides, and in the open soil of a mound made by a pocket gopher-these little bits of disturbed soil are very popular with early colonisers, such as this, a chance to get some sun and growth free of competition--for a couple of growing seasons at best! these little plants will be very shaded by grass, other forbs and trees, shrubs by midsummer, so you can see one of these already has seedpods at this time, which is early for here, where many perennials arent even emerged yet in mid-late may!
Ribes
with an ant, pollinating? or just plundering?
Glechoma
the same colony i showed flowering right out of the snow; after a few warmer weeks, it shows itself to in fact have colonised a number of metres in every direction, not just the few stems i saw at first..still welcome colour for early in the season..

[Gerdk]

Nice little Corydalis - like the colour of the flowers and the foliage!

Gerd

[cohan]

Nice little Corydalis - like the colour of the flowers and the foliage!
Gerd

thanks, gerd--i really like this plant, especially because it overwinters little rosettes (usually biennial, i think) which are among the few green things when the snow first melts, and i like that glaucous foliage, also..
i'm going to try moving some to my garden, where i think they should do very nicely, not having to worry about being outcompeted by grass etc..i'll try those overwintered seedlings, and if they dont move well, there will be seed later anyway..

[cohan]

Carex sp
this one growing in full sun, in a spot at least seasonally wet
i've just started to get an appreciation for Carex and similars, of which we have a lot, you need to get close to enjoy the flowers, but you can see the surrounding structures are dark, as are seed heads often--brown nearly black, reddish on some, and swathes of these make wet 'grassy' areas very pretty in summer; wisely, they do their flowering early before grasses etc have grown much, the mature height of 'grass' in these areas varies from knee to shoulder height or more by midsummer; most of the carex are flowering at a foot or less in height, though most continue growing after
Caltha
in the sun, they put on a much better show than in shady spots
Brassicaceae
havent sorted these out yet, but this would be one of the plants that showed a tiny colourful overwintering rosette; probably annual/biennial

[cohan]

if i remember correctly, these shots are from right in my yard/'lawn' [lawn= areas which are regularly mowed to keep the forest at bay]
the everpresent
Fragaria/wild strawberries
--plants and flowers are abundant, berries less so, but still common, needing the right coincidence of factors/conditions for fruit development..
i noticed in the photos a big difference between the flowers, if it were only the stamens, i'd have thought it was maybe the age of the flowers, but sepals are also very different; leaves seem different too(first has longer leaflets), but that could be natural variation, or age of leaves....any thoughts?
and, for Gerd, a
Viola adunca
these are all over the yard, a most happy 'weed'

[cohan]

note: message edited to correct viburnum name, so viburnum photo will now probably be at the botttom.. cohan

Viburnum edule
this a planting by nature, just at one edge of our mowed area, semi open woods, it would get sun part of the day; its a really nice grouping with some other shrubs--ribes, i think, i forget what else, now..
Carex sp
forming seeds; now we are just over the fence into my uncle's land
Amelanchier alnifolia
saskatoon berry; a young shrub, just a couple of metres tall; they are quite showy, though flowers are very short lived..
Antenaria sp
they prefer sunny spots, though this species does well in semi-open areas, with a more open mat than those in exposed places; all the species here do well with grazing by cattle, as the plants are too low to be eaten, it just removes competition/shade; not sure if cattle eat the flower/seed stems..
view
of the general area, artificially open woods, gradually growing back in; grazed, but not heavily; by mid summer the grass and forbs will be at least knee height

[cohan]

same day as last set, end of may, 08;
here's a spider doing ballet on the end of  grass stem..

[Onion]

Cohan,

it is possible that the Viburnum opulus is Viburnum erosum. Species from America. See it two years ago in the Forest Botanical Garden of Tharandt near Dresden. Think at the first moment it was V. opulus.
Looks the same way as V. opulus but with larger leaves than V. opulus. They build a new collection of north american plants and collected seeds in different parts of north america in the nature.

[Lori S.]

It seems that Viburnum erosum is an eastern Asian species (China, Japan), rather than an American one.  The viburnum species that occur naturally here in Alberta are limited to V. opulus ssp. trilobum (high bush cranberry, which is circumpolar) and V. edule (low bush cranberry).

[Maggi Young]

This site gives Viburnum edule as the HIGH bush cranberry : http://www.cwnp.org/photopgs/vdoc/viedule.html    I'm confused..... again!!

[Lori S.]

Hmm, probably the usual common name problem...  Just to add to the confusion, here's a site that refers to V. edule as both high-bush AND low-bush cranberry.   
http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/range/RangeID/Plants/VibuEdul.html

(The common names I quoted in the previous post were those used in Flora of Alberta, Moss and Packer.  Heights are given as 1-2m for V. edule and 1-4m for V. opulus, so neither is exactly tiny!)

Hmmm, that made me start to wonder if the species had been "lumped" or otherwise fiddled with, unbeknownst to me, but it seems the USDA still lists both as unique species:
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=VIOPA2
http://plants.usda.gov/java/nameSearch

[Maggi Young]

Hmm, probably the usual common name problem...  Just to add to the confusion, here's a site that refers to V. edule as both high-bush AND low-bush cranberry.   



(The common names I quoted in the previous post were those used in Flora of Alberta, Moss and Packer.  Heights are given as 1-2m for V. edule and 1-4m for V. opulus, so neither is exactly tiny!)

Hmmm, that made me start to wonder if the species had been "lumped" or otherwise fiddled with, unbeknownst to me, but it seems the USDA still lists both as unique species:
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=VIOPA2
http://plants.usda.gov/java/nameSearch

Diabolical, isn't it, all this name fiddling ? Is there any wonder I'm confused??

[Lori S.]

And, looking more closely at the photo, I believe it's V. edule.

[cohan]

i was by no means certain of the names on the Viburnum, and was going just by the one photo of mine, with flower cluster not fully open, and the one reference i have, which does not have full views of the leaves; i was thinking that in the royer/dickinson book, the leaf of edule did not seen lobed enough, although their description does say lobed. but the photo looks quite oval, which mine did not...
and since the flowers were just opening, i was unsure about the seemingly larger flower cluster in the picture of opulus..
(the dangers of trying to name with limited references...lol)..all that being said, it is quite possible that it is V. edule...i was hoping to come across photos from a bit later with the flower clusters more fully open, but havent yet;
certainly there are no plants of the species here that reach 4 metres, but then both species list a lower range of 1m--id say most plants around here are well under 2m, though many may be in a grazed area, this one in the photo is not..

on the common names--here we refer to whichever it is that we have (i doubt we have both; by range maps, we more likely have edule, though those maps are not exact) as highbush cranberry--not contrasting it with viburnum, but with vaccinium--'bog' cranberry, which is a very low bush indeed!

[Onion]

Sorry Lori is right.
I mean V. edule and not V. erosum!
That's the problem after 55 hours of work in the last week. At Friday a lot of names running across your head and changed the names of plants without controll.