Distraction

Day 311: Nothing distracts me quite like Nature's provender. I'd gone out on assignment, looking for a good shot of the lower forest environment for display at Mount Rainier National Park's booth at the Washington State Fair, and was just coming back to the car after making a circuit of the short Twin Firs trail when I spotted wild blackcap raspberries ripe on the vine. These are not particularly common in the Park because they prefer to grow in disturbed soil. If it hadn't been for that windstorm a couple of years ago, this spot would have been like the rest of the surrounding habitat: ferny, full of Canadian dogwood and vanilla leaf growing up through a duff of mixed evergreen debris. That windstorm uprooted several old trees, snapped others, opening up the canopy, stirring up the soil and giving these blackcaps the opportunity to grow. Alongside them, trailing blackberries covered the ground. They too were ripe and ready, but Rubus leucodermis took precedence. Some things are just too good to pass up, and like this species, I seized the moment. You can learn a lot from plants, if you take my meaning.

Foamflower, Tiarella Trifoliata

Day 265: Hikers encountering Foamflower growing in drifts in a shady woodland will readily see how the plant came by its common name. Tiny white flowers widely distributed on a thread, tough stem give the impression of mist laying close to the forest floor. Although some varieties grow at higher elevations, this plant prefers the moist habitat offered by the runoff streams of the lower forest, often forming dense mats of slightly hairy leaves. This specimen was found along the Twin Firs Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.