Botany Photo of the Day

Honeymoon Bay Ecological Reserve, near Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island, BC, was preserved for the dense concentration of Erythronium revolutum (pink fawn lily) that can be found blooming in late April. Knowing that this year's spring has been quite warm, I didn't hold out much hope for seeing many (or any) of the fawn lilies in bloom last weekend; as it turned out, I only found two plants blooming amongst thousands of seed capsules. I did however discover that the timing of the flowers roughly coincides with the blooming of the same species in the Native Garden, so I now have a timely indicator of when to visit the area in future years.

The trip had value beyond scouting for future trips; the trilliums and bleeding hearts were in full swing, and the vanilla-leaf (Achlys triphylla) was just starting to flower. The scenery was outstanding as well, so I was inspired to try out a few landscape shots, like this one.

Sutton Creek borders one side of the ecological reserve. I was intrigued by the moss-laden overhanging branches of Acer macrophyllum (big-leaf maples) that lined much of the creek, so this is my attempt at illustrating them.

One other thing to note is the “white-barked” trees on the other side of the creek. This is Alnus rubra (red alder), which actually has grey bark. Here though, the bark is near-completely covered with white crustose lichens, and I'll guess that one of the culprits is Graphis scripta (hieroglyphics lichen).