Purple Akebia

Day 206: The purple Akebia now has a few blossoms open and hundreds more to come, each one about the size of the pink of my thumbnail. For the first time, I detected the scent, although I had to put my nose in a cluster to get a good whiff. I would not describe it as chocolaty; rather, it reminded me of something tropical like frangipani or plumeria. That said, the weather has been cool and flowers are at the peak of their fragrance in warmer temperatures. The next few days are forecast to be warm and may initiate a full olfactory experience. I have also gained a greater appreciation of Akebia's vigour. In just a week, the stems of the white vine have put on a foot or more of new growth, now reaching beyond the top of the trellis. As I mentioned in my post three days ago, Five-leaf Akebia produces a tasty fruit, but does so rarely in our climate due to the fact that it flowers in May before the pollinators have emerged. The next phase of this horticultural experiment will see me out there with my little paintbrush, gathering pollen from one vine and transferring it to the other.

My Buddy Calypso

Day 205: For the second time this spring, I was sent on a mission by the Park's Plant Ecologist, specifically related to Calypso bulbosa, Calypso Orchids. The first project was mapping sites where they are known to occur, and I had to do it from memory because they had not yet emerged. This week's goal was to find any which might have popped up following a few days of warm weather. I found quite a few, but none was open farther than the specimen in this photo. It won't be long before tiny spots of magenta begin appearing in the carpet of moss, but for now, it takes a finely tuned eye to find these native beauties. Calypso is my "buddy," and gives me the cue to start searching for other rarer Orchidaceae.

A Hearty Welcome To May

Day 204: Who doesn't love Bleeding Hearts? When I first moved into my home thirty years ago, I planted a commercial cultivar, Asian Bleeding-Heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis, formerly Dicentra spectabilis), not realizing that the stems were extremely fragile. Unfortunately, I had put it in a bad spot and invariably broke some portion of it almost every time I walked by. It survived this mistreatment for couple of years, but eventually failed to return. Lesson learned, I waited until I had created a more protected bed for a new one which, I am happy to say, is thriving between other shade-loving plants. Lamprocapnos bears much larger and richly coloured hearts than our Pacific Bleeding-Heart (a sub-species), a show-piece in the early spring shade garden.

White Akebia

Day 203: Last year, I visited my favourite nursery hoping to find a shade-tolerant vine to crawl up the side of my garage. After a long discussion with the horticulturist, I settled on Five-Leaf Akebia, aka "Chocolate Vine," so called for the scent of the species' flowers. Akebia also produces a 5-inch long edible fruit, but is not self-fertile; therefore I needed two varieties. I bought a white and a purple. What the horticulturist neglected to mention is that Akebia is very prone to powdery mildew, and unbeknownst to me, one of the plants was already infected. By the time I realized the blackening of the leaves was something more serious than transplant shock, the problem was well-established. Some quick research on line told me what I needed to treat it, and I began applying a copper-based fungicide almost immediately.

From looking at the foliage, you might assume that this vine is deciduous. It is not, at least not in our climate. Both plants held most of their leaves through the winter, and about two weeks ago, I noticed tiny little clusters of buds on both vines...hundreds of them! Yes, the copper treatment worked and the Akebias are not only healthy, they show evidence of being very happy in their new situation. Today, the white one has a few open flowers; the purple one is in a more shady location, and therefore is coming into flower a little more slowly. Akebia can go rogue and become invasive if not monitored, but it is easy to control with pruning. I do hope I get some fruit, but even if I don't, the flowers are enchanting.

Fiddlin' Around

Day 201: Fern fiddleheads (young shoots) come in a fascinating array of shapes. While several species are considered edible, I do not collect them and would caution my readers against doing so. They must be properly prepared to remove the fine hairs which are irritating to the digestive system. I took a "fern walk" yesterday so that I could show you some of the various types of fiddlehead. Left to right: Oak Fern (Gymnocarpium dryopteris), a very soft-textured fern when fully unfurled; Western Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum), familiar to most people for its leathery, harsh foliage; Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum), arguably the most common fern in the Pacific Northwest and in fact one of the most abundant plant species in the world.

May Day Morris

Day 201: I have never minded getting up in the wee hours of the morning to go on an adventure, whether it was a climb, a backpacking trip or any other sort of excursion. I was awake half an hour before the alarm was set to ring at 2:45 AM, and was out the door at 3:15, bound for Seattle to dance up the sun with fellow teammates from Sound & Fury Morris. We gathered at Gasworks Park with several other sides and a group of singers, each group performing in rotation. A few golden rays briefly pierced the cloud cover as the sun mounted into the sky while a brisk and chilly breeze ensured lively action from the dancers. A small audience had gathered, stalwarts who chose to help us celebrate May Day with a festive and joyous tradition despite the threat of rain. An hour and a half later, we took breakfast and then went on to dance at other venues until 12:30, finishing up under light rain at Google Plaza. Sumer is icumen in! Morris dancers around the world have driven winter away!

Rhizines

Day 200: Peltigera membranacea (Membranous Dog-Lichen) provides an excellent lesson in how lichens attach themselves to a substrate by means of root-like structures called rhizines which grow out from the back side of the thallus. In Peltigera, the rhizines are large and obvious; in the finely crustose lichens which occur on rock, they may be invisible without the aid of a hand-lens and yet if you were to try to peel one away, you'd soon discover why they are also referred to as "hold-fasts." Most lichenologists agree that rhizines do not assist in tranferring minerals or nutrients to the body of the lichen, although this has not been proven conclusively. Others suggest that close attachment to the host aids in retaining moisture.