Pincushions, Yellow Umbrellas and Prickly Greeks

[cohan]

i couldnt resist throwing in a title in homage to our bulgarian connection
this is a recent day trip to southern alberta, in search of native cacti, among other things..
i'll probably only just get this started now, continue later..
first post is a bit dull, just some background:
 i am in the mixed forest zone where boreal forest meets aspen parkland, and as you go east and south--this trip had lots of both--you move more and more away from the forest into drier more open country, and the vegetation changes a lot...
first just a few shots from the car, starting near home; of course much of this farmland, so there is a lot of clearing in my area, just notice that there are bands of forest around fields and anywhere not cleared; once you are much farther south/east, there are trees only in low/wet areas and around homes where they have been planted; even wild growth in roadsides becomes much lower as you go ..

[cohan]

the town of drumheller, worldfamous for dinosaur fossils, is in the Red Deer River Valley; this river passes not far from here, in the city of red deer, our nearest city, around 90,000 population; but up here, the valley is forested;
in the south, much drier and warmer, the valley shows many many features of erosion, and has a vibrant xeric plant community on the slopes, and other things in lower areas where water collects, and near the river; some spots are nearly barren, most have many plants taking advantage of the clayey soil, which presumably holds what water there is fairly well... some cling ot precarious spots among the rocks...
here's the first stop we made, just at the edge of town limits, near the smaller town of Nacmine..

note large patch of wild roses in the second shot; wild flax in the fourth shot..

[Paddy Tobin]

Cohan,

Amazingly open and bare countryside. I would miss the presence of trees and I say that living in Ireland which has quite a very low percentage of land given to afforestation. I imagine that in your own garden you plant plenty of trees to clothe the ground.

Interesting photographs and report. Many thanks, Paddy

[Lvandelft]

Amazingly open and bare countryside.

Cohan, that is exactly what I was thinking. We have seen many pictures here on the Forum from Canada with beautiful places and plants,
but this area seems to be rather dull, isn't it?
Must not think of driving hours on such sraight on roads 

[Lori S.]

It wasn't always so dull... intensive agriculture has cleared vast areas of what was formerly rather interesting mixed forest and deciduous parkland, and has also put to the plough huge expanses of what used to be rich environments of long-and short-grass prairie, and replaced it with the monocultures you see now in those introductory photos...  

[Lesley Cox]

Watched an old Rick Stein programme last night. He was in Greece and compared Greek cuisine to that of Turkey. BOY!!! were those Greeks prickly.

[Paul T]

While the plants themselves would be different, so many of yours pictures could have been taken in Australia, Cohan.  Very similar countryside to assorted parts of Aus.  I'd never thought of Cactus as growing up in Canada, but it does make sense when you think about it.  I think Kristl has talked about them at various times, but the link is only just penetrating into my thick skull.    I tend to lump Canada into the "cold" idea in my mind, much as most people probably think of Australia as "hot", when in fact there is such a wide variety of climates within the country that you can find everything from topical (OK, I am not expecting real tropical in Canada, given how far north you are  ) to alpine regions and cool rainforests etc.  Given you in Canada stretch from warmer coastal to glacial I have to refix in my mind just how variable you are.  Seeing topics like this really does help, as it puts new "pictures" in my mind of Canada, if you know what I mean.

So thanks so much for the re-education. 

[cohan]

thanks for looking, all..
luit--as lori points out, much of this landscape has been severely altered by agriculture--for me the 'worst' part is maybe about halfway from here to the drumheller area--- this area would be partly grassland with some woods in the sheltered and moister areas between hills, but much of that has been cleared, and the grasslands have mostly been put to the plow in favour of large expanses of cultivated crops and some forage areas; this is the most monotonous area, with little interesting flora visible on the roadsides--mostly escaped forage crops and grasses..
once you get farther south, there are more rough gullies that are not suitable to plowing, and some drier places better for grazing than crops--then you get more remnants of the native prairie flora, which is actually quite interesting--many of those fascinating small things you need to get near to appreciate...

to be fair to the 'bare' lands, these are just snapshots through the car windows, on a mostly bright day giving high contrasts and not very nice images; when you are in those places, the vast expanse of land and sky--usually not flat, rather long rolling hills and sudden dips are more common-- has its own beauty..

but my real objective in this trip we are just getting to:  the river valley, carved deep into that prairie landscape, steep slopes of clay and stone--sandstone, petrified tree boulders, ironstone gravels with artemesia and cacti and hymenoxis and eriogonum etc etc.. definitely not flat, sometimes barren, but in many areas full of species adapted to the harsh conditions..

paul--we all tend to simplify distant lands to a few basic ideas, and canada's are probably snow, wheat and coniferous forests...lol; but yes, we range from a basically mediterranean wet winter dry summer zone 8 or so on southern british columbia coast, to true desert in southern b.c. interior, and near desert/desert look in southern alberta, mountain rain forest, dry montane valleys, many zones of plains and prairies, boreal forest, endless bogs and muskegs to the (once) vast deciduous forest of the east--where it may not be the tropics, but sure feels like it in summer with 30+degrees and high humidity..

paddy--my gardening is mostly about trying to REMOVE  trees...lol, remove roots for every inch of soil i want to cultivate, try to find some sunny patches, constantly mow and pull suckers, and weed out tree seedlings
i grew up with the forest near/around, and love it dearly, but many years in the shadow of skyscrapers in big cities has given me a  GREAT appreciation for open spaces and uninterrupted sun! my ideal spot would have forest behind some smaller trees shrubs to the sides for shelter, and open in the south to the sun!

[cohan]

plants from the first site, near nacmine, alberta;
note the state of most of the plants--fairly plump and green--they've had a reasonable amount of water; as we went farther south/east along the valley, it naturally becomes drier, and definitely this year: note pulsatilla at this site, fit and green, farther along, it was half shrivelled...
like everywhere, lots of compositae, not least of which the
Artemisia
(i havent sorted them out) and similar---silvery sage brush, large and small, emblematic of dry areas in the north american west.. green foliage is fine, but the silvers and greys, glaucous xeric foliage are among my favourites...
with new input from lori-thanks--i still think the main bush in  1 is likely an artemesia; the close-up is
Eurotia or Krascheninnikovia! lanata
which is in the goosefoot family! and valued as winter forage, so called 'winter fat' neat
Packera cana (Senecio canus)
also with silvery leaves, and typical yellow senecio flowers..
common amongst grasses and other forbs and shrubs
Linum perenne
the blue flowers happy at this site, rather dried up later on;
also note in the previous post a large drift of wild roses in flower, this was the one floral constant in the
trip, from home all the way south, the floral emblem of alberta was in full swing...
less expected in a site like this, a tiny
fern sp
havent been able to tie this to anything in the book i have; roots in the shade, importantly, but fronds out in full sun...
one that i missed flowering on
Phlox hoodii
prickly little carpets, still greenish now, when i went a bit later last year, they were near dead looking
not fully happy with the id, but dont have a better one.
Symphoricarpos occidentalis w/ Achillea sp
both general are very widespread in alberta, species i'm less clear on..
another spring bloomer, and seemingly as ubiquitous as Achillea
Viola sp prob adunca

[Paul T]

Cohan,

Well you've added one extra in there for me for Canada.... I didn't realise you had true desert either. 

[cohan]

paul--i will try to look up a link and send it--in the southern interior of b.c., there is a patch of desert that is an extension of the great (forgetting actual name here) desert that extends from mexico north!

on with plants of site one:
there are many lovely flowers in this area, but a real part of the charm is the range of textures and colours of foliage;
i thought these were artemisia-turns out they are not even compositae--Chenopodiaceae!
Eurotia or Krascheninnikovia lanata
these just look so soft and touchable; interestingly, i didnt--rushing to the next shot and back to the car...lol
Juniperus horizontalis
not as big a feature in the landscape as in foothills/mountains, but still common; not in the very driest spots..
leaves of
Pulsatilla patens Geum triflorum phlox hoodii
Galium boreale
i can become blase about this species, it is so common here, forming nice clumps in the ditches; down south, more restrained
another yellow 'daisy'
Hymenoxys richardsonii
this charmer was widespread, often in the harshest spots, clinging to overhangs, slopes, rocks; interestingly for a daisy, it has a woody base from which the thin seasonal stems sprout; rather caudiciform...
the first appearance of our yellow umbrellas,
Eriogonum flavum
one of the highlights of this trip, as i had never seen eriogonums in person before (prob leaves, but i didnt know!)..

[cohan]

lesley- here begin the prickly greeks

although i know well that there are cacti growing in canada, still, as someone who has grown cacti indoors forever, its very exciting to see them growing wild; in fact Opuntia polyacantha and Opuntia fragilis are very common down south, and make some forays much farther north--O fragilis all the way up to the peace river area in northern alberta..
i THINK  all the sites i looked at this year had O polyacantha, i did not see any real cylindrical fragilis stems, but there was a fair amount of variation in pad size; hard to tell where environmental conditions end and hybridisation begins--the two species do intergrade: last year i photographed a site with every pad form from classic large flat polyacantha to small cylindrical fragilis..
by the end of the day, i wasnt that excited about Opuntia anymore (nor will you be ) but the flowers really are lovely...
some were clinging to rather tough spots, as you might expect from cactus, but in fact more of them were among grasses and other plants, in less extreme locations; eriogonum, hymenoxys, artemisia were in the toughest places...

[Lori S.]

Great photo essay, Cohan!  Looks like they've had more rain down Drumheller way than in the Big Island/Three Hills area.  Nice to see greener and more vigorous looking examples of the characteristic flora.

paul--i will try to look up a link and send it--in the southern interior of b.c., there is a patch of desert that is an extension of the great (forgetting actual name here) desert that extends from mexico north!

Cohan, I've read that spiel too.. frankly, it's a bit of license on the part of the local chambers of commerce!  (They make the bald assertion that the Osoyoos area is part and parcel of the Sonoran Desert, but given that the characteristic plants of the Sonoran desert don't/can't occur in the area, and have ranges that are separated from that area by various geographical boundaries, the degree of exaggeration is quite appalling.)  An extension of the Great Basin Desert, sure,  but not the Sonoran!  Sorry, back to your regular programming, now that I've got that off my chest!  

Loving the photos, Cohan.  I know you have more... please continue!  

PS I believe your first two photos ("Artemisia sp")in the entry two above this one are actually winter fat, Eurotia lanata... nice find!  Lovely wooliness, I'd like to grow that out in the yard!

[David Nicholson]

I'm enjoying this post immensely Cohan, great to see parts of the world being posted by Lori and yourself that I will probably never see for real.

[cohan]

Great photo essay, Cohan!  Looks like they've had more rain down Drumheller way than in the Big Island/Three Hills area.  Nice to see greener and more vigorous looking examples of the characteristic flora.

paul--i will try to look up a link and send it--in the southern interior of b.c., there is a patch of desert that is an extension of the great (forgetting actual name here) desert that extends from mexico north!

Cohan, I've read that spiel too.. frankly, it's a bit of license on the part of the local chambers of commerce!  (They make the bald assertion that the Osoyoos area is part and parcel of the Sonoran Desert, but given that the characteristic plants of the Sonoran desert don't/can't occur in the area, and have ranges that are separated from that area by various geographical boundaries, the degree of exaggeration is quite appalling.)  An extension of the Great Basin Desert, sure,  but not the Sonoran!  Sorry, back to your regular programming, now that I've got that off my chest!  


PS I believe your first two photos ("Artemisia sp")in the entry two above this one are actually winter fat, Eurotia lanata... nice find!  Lovely wooliness, I'd like to grow that out in the yard!

thanks for the input lori--
as the photos progress, you will see it was much drier farther south--i also photographed at East Coulee and just around the corner from the official Hoodoos site, plants looked much more stressed

great call on the Eurotia, i knew i wasnt finding a match in the few artemisia i have listed, but i never would have thought to look in Chenopodiaceae; i edited the above postings to reflect the correct name; i agree its a great plant--i did take a couple of cuttings of one of the white fuzzies, cant remember now if it was this or another, we'll see if it roots for me... as a sidebar--how do feel about names in Plants of Alberta (Royer/Dickinson)? up to date? trendy? a few years out of date? they list Krascheninnikova in place of Eurotia...

oops-forgot to talk about the desert thing--i had wondered about geographical barriers, hadnt looked at a topo features map to investigate; i guess i had thought of it as looser extension of desert up through those various areas, but a specific extension of the sonoran seems harder to defend...--a series of deserts leading up to that area seems reasonable enough...

david--glad you are enjoying the trip...