Alberta Wanderings 2010

[cohan]

soon i will get back to summer flower pics, of which i still have tons!
meanwhile, some shots from today, a few more in the arty thread...
album here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/December042010Home#

[cohan]

okay, i said i would go back to summer 
a couple of shots from june-
1-3 a patch of Lonicera dioica growing wild (among other things!) at the head of my driveway..

[cohan]

can you believe it was once this green outside? after a month of white, with many more to come, i cannot.....

[cohan]

we were talking about  forest types in the hepatica thread,
http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=6315.msg176643;boardseen#new
and i was mentioning that we do not have spring flowers in our forests, except for some violets, and if you count wet forests, caltha...
here are a few views of what our forest floors tend to look like.. sorry, there may be some repeats of old postings here, but i am grouping them together for this theme:
pic 1 a view on my acreage--immature forest, poplars mostly; left alone this would grow in with spruce mainly over some decades; i am keeping this area more open (starting the last 3 years)--i have been harvesting dead trees, and thinning out the young poplars to make it even more open, leaving native shrubs and wildflowers (epilobium, asters, geranium come later, and there is an understory below the grasses--cornus canadensis, pyrolas, rubus pubescens, maianthemum canadense, vacciniums etc..
pic 2 a site a couple of miles away- this is a fairly mature deciduous forest (this is the edge, so smaller trees) but it is still growing in with spruce, slowly; you can see that if it is not grazed by cattle, the undergrowth will be quite tall with shrubs-ribes, rosa, amelanchier and others...
pic 3 the closest we come, perhaps, to the spring flowering forests of other places--caltha palustris, only in wet forests (and wet open areas) and these are tangled places, difficult to walk through, not the 'parks' with bare ground i see in pictures from europe or eastern north america..
i'm still looking for pictures of the coniferous forest..

[cohan]

another view a few miles away--this is a fairly old mixed forest, heavily spruce and shady, but, the trees along the road edge were cut down, probably a few years ago, so the low plants at the edge are taking advantage of the extra light, before they are shaded again soon as taller plants grow in...
note--nice display here of cornus canadensis and maianthemum canadense, but these are not spring flowers, this is the end of june! at hepatica blooming time in the forests of the east, there would be nothing in this spot  except maybe a few viola renifolia or adunca....

[christian pfalz]

hi cohan,  looks very good, i like this combination.....
i wish you and your family  merry chrismas and a happy new year 2011...

best regards

chris

[Hoy]

Cohan,
I have just started reading your Alberta thread, I've been member to short and haven't had time to read it all yet. I like it very much!  It seems strange that you have no spring flowers in your wood? Even the densest spruce forests here have at least windflower (Anemone nemorosa) in the spring!

In my little woodland garden I have planted Maianthemum canadense and other of the genus but I have never seen M. trifolium!  I also have some Chrysospleniums and C.iowense was new to me too.
Picture shows C. macrophyllum in my garden. A pretty spring flower!

If possible I would like to swap seed or some pieces of the plant with you!

[cohan]

hi cohan,  looks very good, i like this combination.....
i wish you and your family  merry chrismas and a happy new year 2011...

best regards

chris

thanks, chris, and the same to you and yours! hope your yuccas are not under snow too long

[cohan]

Cohan,
I have just started reading your Alberta thread, I've been member to short and haven't had time to read it all yet. I like it very much!  It seems strange that you have no spring flowers in your wood? Even the densest spruce forests here have at least windflower (Anemone nemorosa) in the spring!

In my little woodland garden I have planted Maianthemum canadense and other of the genus but I have never seen M. trifolium!  I also have some Chrysospleniums and C.iowense was new to me too.
Picture shows C. macrophyllum in my garden. A pretty spring flower!

If possible I would like to swap seed or some pieces of the plant with you!

thanks, trond..
i have wondered about the spring flowers--i think panu in finland told me they also don't have many there;  i have not read any educated discussion on this subject; i have speculated that in the boreal forest there is no real advantage to plants to flower very early here are some of the factors i have thought about
-- spring is very variable in terms of weather, and we can get cold and frost and snow very late, easily to late may (though many warm days before)..
-- the deciduous forest mostly stays open enough to allow some light through even when in full leaf, no closed canopy as in some other places
--coniferous forests are just as shady in spring as later, and warm up slowly
--although snow melt is important moisture for woodland species (and i see a big improvement in years with heavy snow) there is little moisture in spring after the snow is gone, and it can be quite dry until rains start, usually late may or in june..
--we have no serious summer heat, so there is no rush to finish before mid-summer

however, considering that in your area some of these spring species grow into the coniferous forests, i wonder if the answer is much simpler:
those spring woodland species have simply not travelled into this area since glaciation!?

our earliest native flowers are, in fact, wetland species--Petasites and Caltha palustris; there, i presume, they have the motive to flower before grasses grow tall, and also, in sunny patches with pools of meltwater, the water may warm faster than surrounding soil..
Caltha also grows in shady areas under willows, and these ones bloom a little later as the soil warms more slowly...

roland (bulborum) was mentioning to me that Maianthemum trifolium is in the original maianthemum group, whereas M canadense, stellatum etc, were originally Smilacina, and a distinct group; so the while trifolium and canadense are superficially very similar (esp considering considerable variation in leaves in both species), they have floral differences, and presumably do not cross; here, M canadense has a wide habitat range from deep shade to quite open places, moist to quite dry under spruce; M trifolium is only in wet woods/semi woods, and flowers earlier, though there is some overlap...

i think your Chrysosplenium is the same one gote showed last year,i'd have to look some more, nice plant!--i only knew our native one before then.. but gote also has native C alternifolia (sp?) which is a synonym for iowense, if i am remembering right..

definitely we can talk privately about some trading  keep a list as you look at my thread--i still have many sets yet to post, too!

[christian pfalz]

thanks, chris, and the same to you and yours! hope your yuccas are not under snow too long Wink


hi cohan, the temps are good for the last days, only over 0°c, but tommorrow snow again 

cheers

chris

[Hoy]

Thanks cohan1
I think from your description of the forests over there they are more similar to the high elevation spruce forests than the low elevation spruce forests here. But high elevation forests here are 700-1000m asl. I recognize many of the species or at least the genera.

We have 3 species of Chrysosplenium in Norway and I have planted 2 of them in my garden + 2 Chinese species.
I have started writing a wish-list!

[cohan]

well, 700-1000m asl is my zone so that may be no surprise   my immediate are is between 900 -1000m

[cohan]

I was debating how to handle my backlog from 2010, and decided to go ahead posting in this thread, even though its 2011--the images are still from 2010!
I'm also going to post at NARGS,
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=591.0
 so I will only post a few images from each set to each forum (usually not the same images!) and as always, full sets on Picasa..

Diving back in, I'm going to finish a bike ride from June 20 I started here and never finished!
A few roadside shots, and some from the site of multicoloured Castilleja (not posting them today) that I have shown before...
The beginning of the ride is in the following albums:
https://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/June202010AGeraniumsAndRoses#
https://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/June202010BRueAndValerian#
https://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/June202010CShootingStarsAndAlexanders#

This last set is at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/June202010DAnemonesAndSarsaparilla
In a roadside wet area, Ranunculus sp



From a wet pasture, Menyanthes trifoliata not sure why I am finding flowers so rarely, the plant is quite common, but I think when areas are overgrown with woodies, the plant survives and spreads vegetatively, but doesn't flower much..



Near the wooded site, along the roadsides and into wood edges, Anemone canadensis  and friend...



Aralia nudicaulis with friend and Viola canadensis

[cohan]

Another bike ride in June, last year.
This first site is one of the first I stumbled on when I started bicycle botanising in 2009-one of those special little unassuming patches of roadside that for some reason is full of species.
https://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/June282010APrimrosesSparrowSEggsAndMore#



One of the teasers I saw on my first visit to the site was Primula incana - I saw only dried flower stalks, so I hoped to catch it in flower in 2010, and I was right on time! There's a healthy colony in the damp to wet ditch (roadside; --probably this is full of water in spring and after heavy rain) some on the other side of the road, and they extend into the grassy/open wooded area (pasture) across the fence (this is all private farmland, presumably there are cattle in here at some time, though I haven't seen them)..

 

Some closer shots--you can see why its called 'mealy (floury) primrose', and a shot with a pollinator..

   

[cohan]

Same site,
https://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/June282010APrimrosesSparrowSEggsAndMore#

A few other common favourites, ranging from the wet lowest areas, up the road banks, and into the fenceline where the open ditch area transitions to mixed woods and wetland on the other side..
Antennaria sp there are a number of possibilities for my area, now that I have a proper Flora, I may attempt them!



Another group that will require close attention, Platanthera/Habenaria sp; this could be P viridis, based on long bracts.. These (various) are very common here in both open and wooded damp to wet areas..



Geum rivale is another that is found from full sun to deep shade, as long as roots can be at least moderately moist...

 

This Pyrola sp is interesting, and requires some research-- it seems to have generally smaller leaves, with very visible raised veins, and possibly slightly darker flowers (not quite as dark as the buds in the pics)-as compared to the very common Pyrola asarifolia; I have seen it only in damp semi/wooded areas..

 

Cypripedium passerinum only a couple of plants found here, and quite small..



The widespread charming Sisyrinchium montanum



Finally for this site, Pedicularis groenlandica