Botanising in Malvik, central lowland Norway

[Stephenb]

Yes, they were delicious....

Just found this picture of Cloudberry in flower from the Lofoten Islands in early June:

[cohan]

nice flowers and shot...it looks like cloudberry has a range just slightly to the north of me.... i will have to try to find some sometime...
we have lots of R arcticus and pubescens? the latter of which produced far more flowers than usual this year, and more berries also, though the berries are small in this sp...

[Magnar]

Very nice postings, Stephen. Excellent photos, and fun to read the comments about our native plants.

I just came beack from the mountain cabin with 29 kilos of cloudberries. Luckily I could use a row boat to get to the car. 

[johnw]

I just came beack from the mountain cabin with 29 kilos of cloudberries. Luckily I could use a row boat to get to the car. 

Magnar - You would be declared worthy of sainthood in Newfoundland.  Many Newfoundlanders make the long trek to Labrador via boat and car to collect cloudberries when in season.

johnw

[Stephenb]

Very nice postings, Stephen. Excellent photos, and fun to read the comments about our native plants.

I just came beack from the mountain cabin with 29 kilos of cloudberries. Luckily I could use a row boat to get to the car. 

Impressive! I can vouch for the fact that the Aspaker household has no shortage of the orange berry. Both times I have visited I have been offered cloudberries! The last time, in June this year, I arrived at 8 a.m. as I had to catch a plane south at 11. Magnar's wife spoon fed me with berries as we wandered around the garden so that I wouldn't waste plant watching time (I hadn't had time for breakfast) - many years since I was last spoon-fed.

[cohan]

Impressive! I can vouch for the fact that the Aspaker household has no shortage of the orange berry. Both times I have visited I have been offered cloudberries! The last time, in June this year, I arrived at 8 a.m. as I had to catch a plane south at 11. Magnar's wife spoon fed me with berries as we wandered around the garden so that I wouldn't waste plant watching time (I hadn't had time for breakfast) - many years since I was last spoon-fed.

now THAT  is impressive! that is some serious 'guestfriendliness'!

[Stephenb]

Another batch, starting with some larger herbs:

1. Cicerbita alpina (Blue Sow Thistle) is one of Norway’s more garden-worthy plants. I noticed that Simon showed a nice plant yesterday from Bulgaria I think (it’s range is Scandinavia, the Alps and a few others - see here http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/astera/cicer/cicealpv.jpg). It grows in richer woodland habitats and can spread to cover large areas where it is happy (the first picture was taken in Northern Norway in June).  It was formerly an important vegetable to the sami people (lapps), but has a rather strong taste to the modern palate. Maybe it’s less strong when fermented in a reindeer stomach – let me know if you have a go!
2-3. Fantastic in flower, particularly when seen en masse.
4. This curious Cicerbita turned up on the Saturday, lacking the flower stalk.
5. We found the latter in woodland next to this remote farm. We botanised in the fields hoping that there might be some unusual meadow plants as we were told by the farmer that they hadn’t used much fertilizer on part of the land.  However, we didn’t find much of note.
6. Angelica sylvestris (Wild Angelica) is the commonest of our two species (Angelica archangelica is commoner in the mountains)
7. Blechnum spicant (the Hard Fern or Deer Fern)
Now, a few smaller flowers:
8. Pyrola minor (Common wintergreen) is one of several species in the Pyrolaceae in our area. The Sidebells Wintergreen (Orthilia secunda) is the commonest.
9. The orchid flowering season is mostly over. The most interesting find at the weekend was a Dark Red Helleborine (Epipactis atrorubens). The one in this picture is much more difficult to spot and photograph due to its size, although it’s not rare, a Lesser Twayblade, Listera cordata.
10. The Eyebrights (Euphrasia spp) are a difficult group to identify – we collected material for an Eyebright specialist to look at.

[Stephenb]

This is the last group of pictures showing some of the fungi/lichens that we saw.

1. Reindeer Moss (Cladonia stellaris)
2. One of the Coral fungi (difficult to identify in the field)
3. Amanita regalis, the Brown Fly Agaric
4. Porcini (Boletus edulis) – one of my favourite wild fungi; in a good year I can collect more of this than Magnar’s cloudberry haul… I dry them so that I have a supply until the next good year; we had an Italian girl with us at the weekend and she couldn’t resist - this is her haul (incidentally I was just reading that nowadays almost all commercial porcini in Italy comes from abroad (notably China and eastern Europe), but is sold as Italian Porcini!

[cohan]

grr..i typed a message and it was lost...lol
i am enjoying seeing the similarities and differences in our flora, stephen..
nothing quite like the Cicerbita here; quite true that modern/western palates are rather more delicate it seems, certainly in the case of strong tasting greens/vegetables, and i bet north americans even much worse than europeans!

here the most common wintergreen (very very common) is P asarifolia; Orthillia is common, but still a distant second, with other species much less common...

[Ragged Robin]

Wow, that haul of Porcini mushrooms looks tempting 

[Anthony Darby]

Another batch, starting with some larger herbs:

1. Cicerbita alpina (Blue Sow Thistle) is one of Norway’s more garden-worthy plants. I noticed that Simon showed a nice plant yesterday from Bulgaria I think (it’s range is Scandinavia, the Alps and a few others - see here http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/astera/cicer/cicealpv.jpg). It grows in richer woodland habitats and can spread to cover large areas where it is happy (the first picture was taken in Northern Norway in June).  It was formerly an important vegetable to the sami people (lapps), but has a rather strong taste to the modern palate. Maybe it’s less strong when fermented in a reindeer stomach – let me know if you have a go!
2-3. Fantastic in flower, particularly when seen en masse.
4. This curious Cicerbita turned up on the Saturday, lacking the flower stalk.
5. We found the latter in woodland next to this remote farm. We botanised in the fields hoping that there might be some unusual meadow plants as we were told by the farmer that they hadn’t used much fertilizer on part of the land.  However, we didn’t find much of note.

I notice that Cicerbita macrophyla still grows in what is left of the meadow where the new nursing home (Randolph Hill) on the Perth Road, Dunblane is built. They have left a metre or so of uncultivated ground between a few alder trees and the boundary wall for about 50 metres and it is still there. It is called the 'Common Blue Sow thistle', but is anything but common.