Botany Photo of the Day

Great solution, that will be convenient. Lovely picture. You are a good teacher.

Cotoneaster perpusillus - Z4, RHS Index of Garden Plants, Griffiths

Daniel,

Thanks for a great webpage. I somehow found your site about a month ago and signed up for the daily. I have really enjoyed the pictures and the great info on each. THe links are very entertaining. I especially loved the bone eating snot flowers and sent the link to many of my friends. Considering that it was sent out near Hallowe'en that timing was superb. How could you embody so many themes of All Hallowed eve in one plant, bones, snot and gooey things. Plus deep sea 'flowers'. that is great. I would like to see more sea flowers and their information if that is at all possible. I also enjoyed the bitterroot picture. With some of the people in this area I have had the opportunity to learn of the cultural value of bitterroot and its medicinal uses. Usually I see the roots, not the flowers. It was so nice to see the flowers too. It was a good season this year, wasn't it?

Keep up the good work, maybe I will submit some of my pictures too!

Jen Cody

Beautiful photographs and dedicated work. Thanks for going through the effort. I especially enjoy the links that you provide for photography, as I am trying to improve my skills.

You mentioned somewhere that you had lived in the east. Would that be Lanark by chance? One of our naturalists and botanists is Ted Mosquin. A relative?

Tineke

Jen and Tineke, thanks.

I was born and raised in Manitoba, on the same farm that my uncle Ted grew up on.

Linked page says no serious pest or disease problems, yet out here cotoneaster webworm can pretty much spoil a plant of C. horizontalis for a season.

Webworm is certainly an occasional problem on the typical Cotoneaster horizontalis in the landscape in the Vancouver area; however, I don't ever recall seeing it infesting C. perpusillus in the garden. Chances are that the birds take care of such things before they get out-of-hand. It's worth noting that UBC Botanical Garden generally takes no action with respect pests in the Asian Garden. We let the herbivores, parasites (and parasitoids) and predators duke it out. The results clearly speak for themselves. Biodiversity begets biodiversity. The downside is that the birds take the berries--ok, technically, they're pomes (Ron B keeps us on our toes here)--quickly

This species (or variety, if you prefer) deserves to be better known. It is a little like a diminutive version of C. horizontalis, but unlike that species, it displays little lateral branch development; i.e., no distinctive herringbone pattern. The growth is also less congested, which probably contributes to its freedom from pests (fewer places to hide). Cotoneaster perpusillis has a characteristic hummock-forming habit, whereas C. horizontalis spreads horizontally. We have never seen self-sown seedlings (it layers beautifully), but this is probably because all of our plants represent a single clone, and this is (and I'm guessing here) a sexual species that requires outcrossing to produce fertile seed.