Wall Art

Day 260: It was during a walk through the faerieland of Stevens Canyon that I discovered the Queen of Rocks taking her leisure some eight feet or so from the roadway. She wore a coronet of Penstemon and rested almost vertically against the face of the wall. No other vegetation dared approach closely to her regal repose, nor did any other rock disturb her serene aspect. It was clear that she commanded the wider scene of towering granodiorite, her chiseled throne protected from the cruel forces of wind and water by the grey and ancient battlements which stood at her sides. My audience with her was brief and, vulgar paparazzo that I am, I accepted her gracious permission for a single photograph before moving on.

Also Known As...

Day 259: I don't feel so badly now. I wasn't quite sure of this lichen's identity, so I sent it off to Katherine Glew at the UW for confirmation. She replied with taxonomy new to me, sparking a discussion covering the logic behind renaming species. When I couldn't find any reference to "Polycauliona elegans" in any of my customary sources, I asked her if she could provide me with a link to the updated information. At that point, she said, "Oops! Correct that genus to 'Rusavskia.'"

Even among professionals like Katherine (lichens) and Arnie (vascular plants), confusion is rampant because nomenclature can change overnight. Largely, we are not privy to the molecular studies and genetic research behind the changes, so they take us by surprise. We struggle to keep up, worried that we'll embarrass ourselves by using an older synonym in conversation with colleagues, concerned that we'll be marked as resistant to change. I rail against taxonomists constantly because the changes make my work more difficult, but at the same time, I am thankful for the better understanding of the species which has necessitated reclassification. That said, I wish the taxonomists would stick to descriptive terms. "Xanthoria" tells you something memorable about this lichen, i.e., that it's orangy-yellow, xanthous. "Rusavskia" only gives us a clue to a person or place (Rusavski) related to it. To further confuse matters, not all Xanthorias were removed to the new taxon. Indeed, some were reclassified as "Polycauliona," hence the hiccup in Katherine's communication.

Will I remember "Rusavskia" the next time I find this orange lichen's beautifully symmetrical rosettes? Not likely. I will say as I did on the occasion of this discovery, "Oh, it's xanthous and it's utterly elegant. Joe, look! I've got another Xanthoria elegans over here."

Cephalanthera Austiniae, Phantom Orchid

Day 258: About a year and a half ago, Park Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson gave me a challenge: every week, I was to find a new plant (i.e., a species occurring in a previously unrecorded location). By the time last August rolled around, Team Biota (Joe and Sharon Dreimiller and I) had given him enough to fill out the remainder of the year. The challenge resumed this spring, and we're already ahead of schedule.

Arnie decided to up the stakes during the winter. He had received a photo from a botanist friend who had discovered a single specimen of Cephalanthera austiniae in 2005. Despite his long career in the field, Arnie has never seen a Phantom Orchid in the wild. He had been given vague coordinates by the friend and supplied us with a rough estimate of where the 2005 sighting had taken place, a circle roughly a tenth of a mile in diameter, off trail and into tangled forest. After our other duties were done for the day, Joe and I decided to give it a try even though we felt we were a month too early. Thus the saga begins.

My thought process after clambering over several large fallen trees, wiping spiderwebs from my face (they're sharp when they get in your eyes), and following a number of false leads ran along these lines: "That's another white stick...the ground cover is so thick in here you couldn't find an elephant...licheny bit...stick, yeah, another white stick...stick? Waitaminit, that doesn't look like a stick. That doesn't look AT ALL like a stick!"

Then as I got a clearer view, I said very loudly, thoroughly at a loss for any other words, "Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, SHIT! Joe! Joe! Joe! Shit! Oh, Joe!" to which Joe responded, "Are you all right?" I said through copious tears flowing down my cheeks, speaking rather breathlessly and not solely due to exertion, "Joe...I've got the plant!"

"What?" said Joe from 75 feet away. By then, I was crying so hard I could barely speak, "I've...got...the...PLANT!" and I knelt down beside it to pay homage. I heard Joe say, "There's another one behind you!" There was another one five feet away. Neither displayed open flowers, but we had found them, one of Mount Rainier National Park's rarest species.

I tried radioing Maureen, our contact. No response. It registered with me that I had never gotten Arnie's radio number, so I did the next best thing. I called Dispatch. "Dispatch, 442. Please call Arnie Peterson and ask him to contact me by radio." Dispatch replied, "Stand by." Less than a minute later, Arnie's voice came over the air: "442?" "Arnie, Joe and I are kneeling beside two Phantoms," I responded. Short and to the point, he replied, "GPS and photos. Check in with me later." I already had my GPS on the ground, averaging a reading.

For the most part, my photos were poor due to lack of light except for this one, but in any event, a return trip is in order next week to see if the flowers have opened. Our retreat was made somewhat easier by following a distinctive geographic feature, eliminating some of the route-finding hazards we encountered on the way in. Still, you don't want to get into a patch of Devil's Club, and even more to the point, you don't want to grab its stalks to pull yourself uphill. Nor do you want to exhaust yourself by repeatedly heaving your body over the jackstraws of blowdown. That particular exercise gets old really fast.

Some time later, we attained the truck and made our way to Longmire. As we were leaving Arnie's office after showing him the results of our search, I reminded him of the challenge he'd given us. His comment: "It'll be hard to beat this one." I've promised to guide him to the site if he can free up the time. Those herbarium specimens he was cataloguing will keep. The Phantom won't.

Luina Hypoleuca, Silverback

Day 257: Silverback is primarily a subalpine species and draws its common name from...wait for it...the silvery, woolly backs of its leaves. The tops of the leaves are nearly smooth, but the undersides are silky and soft to the touch. It is a member of the Asteraceae, a family formerly known as Compositae: plants having inflorescences which are composed of many small flowers. What you see here as round, ball-like blossoms are each composed of a number of smaller blooms called disk flowers. Unlike many other members of the Asteraceae, Luina hypoleuca has no ray flowers (the "petals" you would see surrounding the disk of a sunflower).

Butterwort, Pinguicula Vulgaris

Day 254: Pinguicula vulgaris (Butterwort) is not a new plant for my list, but it is one I monitor because it is relatively uncommon. It is insectivorous. It snares and digests its prey via secretions from two different types of specialized glands within its tongue-like basal leaves (the yellow-green foliage in the center of this photo). These glands also produce a bactericide which slows the decay process, allowing Butterwort to dine at leisure on the nutrients it extracts from small insects. It prefers a consistently damp environment such as the one shown here: a vertical rock face which drips continuously even in late summer. As you might imagine, some sacrifices of comfort were required to obtain this photo. Sodden sleeves and wet knees are just a few of the occupational hazards appurtenant to botany.

Have A Banana

Day 255: Have a banana. I have seen larger specimens (they grow 'em big on the Olympic Peninsula), but this one still qualifies as a whopper. It took me entirely by surprise. I'd pulled the kayak in through a tangle of branches, beached it on a narrow shingle and was just going around behind a large cedar tree for purposes unsuitable for mention in polite company, and as I went to put my hand on the tree for stability, teetering on the soft, spongy soil, I saw the banana. It was about three feet up from ground level and had a mouthful of lichen. Suffice to say, I was startled by the monster in the gloom of the deeply shaded wood, and jumped out of my skin as I realized I'd nearly leaned on it. The span of my hand is seven and a half inches; note that the slug's head and shoulders are curled somewhat (tail is at the top), adding at least another inch to its total length.

Ariolimax columbianus is our largest Pacific Northwest slug. They can reach sizes up to ten inches long. According to Wikipedia, they are the second largest species of terrestrial slug in the world! Many have dark spots on their body, but the most common colours are the sickly olive-green (shown here) or yellow, the latter giving rise to the common name Banana Slug. They may be so extensively spotted that they appear black (a very ripe banana!), or may even be entirely white. Whatever colour they may be, their size is the clue to their identity. And now you know that bananas grow on cedar trees.

The Sundews Of Lake St. Clair

Day 254: Much to my frustration, the connection of weather, work schedule and household obligations hadn't happened in a manner which would allow me to get out in the kayak to visit my "kids" at Lake St. Clair. Yesterday, all the parts came together and I declared it "Me Day." I got to the lake about 8 and set out across its still surface, travelling around the Horn and down the Inside Passage to the site. A hundred yards out, it was obvious that they were doing well as evidenced by the amount of red I could see, but up close, the scene was even more surprising. I have never seen them as thick and lush! Many of their disks were speckled with small, easily digestible insects, but one colony had joined forces to snare a dragonfly for their mutual larder. I had been afraid that I'd missed the blooming season, but that fear was dispelled by the presence of inflorescences still in varying stages of development. Only one was close to opening. Ironically, I found it difficult to get good pictures, unable to isolate selected individuals from the mass.

After patrolling the two logs which constitute "Jack's Lot," I set a new course for Sundew Island, the raft on which I had originally discovered Lake St. Clair's Drosera population. Several years ago, it came free of its moorings and had drifted to a less-than-optimal location in a shady cove. Its Sundews had not been happy with the change, and I kept hoping that a storm would carry them to a better port. They say that you should be careful with wishes: Sundew Island has gone missing again. I could find no trace of it despite a survey of three of the lake's four arms.

Rare Abundance

Day 253: The count of "noses" has now passed the century mark at Site A, as many as 14 specimens of Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae occuring in a single tight grouping. Out of concern for the species, our trips into the area will be restricted to no more than once a week. These excursions will be limited to as few members of the team as is reasonable to allow study of the progression of growth and to monitor the survival rate. Already we have noted that many of the smaller specimens have disappeared, leaving no clues to their fate behind them. Were they eaten by something? If so, what? Or did they disperse their spores and deteriorate rapidly as part of the reproductive process? Some cups are growing, and although none yet matches the size of the larger examples from our observations in 2016, several seem well on their way. Site B is as yet unobtainable, but I am anxious to see if it also produces an abundance of this rarity.

A Fungus With Eyelashes

Day 252: When I find a species which baffles me, I will refer it out to an expert for help, but my personal quest for its identity doesn't stop there. I continue searching, and in this case, I was able to identify Scutellinia scutellata before Katherine Glew could write back to me to say that it wasn't a lichen. You could have fooled me. In fact, it did fool me, and that's why I sent the photos off to her. She's a lichenologist. The problem is, Scutellinia scutellata isn't a lichen at all. It's a fungus...a fungus with eyelashes.

According to several references, it's not uncommon in the Pacific Northwest. It is a subalpine species, and erupts in the spring. It first appears as tiny round "buttons" which, as they mature, open out into flattish orange disks with golden-brown "eyelashes" around their rims. The backs of the disks show a sparse population of short, stiff hairs. Various field markers allow it to be distinguished from other members of the genus: eyelash length, substrate and when viewed under the microscope, spore characteristics. The largest specimen shown in this grouping had a diameter of 6 mm., but they can be as large as 10 mm. Commonly referred to under the uninspired designation "Eyelash Cup," it is also known by the charming name of "Molly Eye-Winker."

Honeysuckle Vine

Day 251: While we're waiting for an expert's analysis of the latest botanical mystery (and trust me, it's a doozy!), let's stop to smell the roses...or in this case, the Honeysuckle. This showy cultivar got off to a bad start. Its first full summer at the corner of my garage was droughty and dry, and although it suffered under my customary lax husbandry, it survived. The following year, it was plagued with aphids (not an uncommon affliction in honeysuckles) and lost all its new growth to their predation. Its recovery was slow, but for several years, it only bore a few flowers. This year, it's gone mad under our early unseasonably moist and cool conditions, spilling from the top of its trellis in a cascade of brilliant orange panicles, inviting hummingbirds and scenting the air with sweetness now that the temperatures have risen.

Fruits Of My Labours

Day 250: Well, I'll be darned! It looks like my attempt to pollinate the Akebia vines is going to pay off! Little 3/4" fruits are developing on the purple vine.

Using a fine artist's paintbrush, I transferred pollen from the male flowers of the white vine to the female flowers of the purple vine. I would have liked to perform a reverse experiment as well, but the male flowers of the purple vine never formed pollen, a fact which led to misgivings that it might have been a non-fertile cultivar. Both male and female flowers were smaller on the purple vine than on the white, although the purple females appeared to be receptive (i.e., the pistils were tipped with stigmatic fluid). The female flowers on the white vine were not observed to demonstrate receptivity, "not observed" because I didn't look very hard at them because I didn't have any pollen to transfer to them. The fruits are developing solely from the ovaries which were hand-pollinated; all others have dropped.

A question now arises: did the cold snap we experienced just as the male flowers opened on the (obviously fertile) purple vine inhibit their ability to produce pollen? They opened a week or so later than the white flowers. Interestingly, the white vine produced very few female flowers, but even so, no pollen was produced by the purple vine with which to cross-pollinate them. And then there's another question: are the fruits going to taste good enough to be worth the bother of hand-pollination? Will they even hang on the vine long enough to mature? Stay tuned!

Father's Day Tour

Day 249: First, I'd like to thank Squire Dan for capturing our Father's Day performances and making the photos available to members of the side. We are Sound & Fury Morris!

Our Father's Day venues included the Ballard Farmer's Market where we danced at the bell tower before an appreciative audience of a hundred people or more. We performed in rotation with the Morris Offspring, the four children of our side's members. We then moved on to Hiram Chittenden Locks (aka "the Ballard Locks"), dancing on the plaza between beautifully manicured gardens. Again, we drew a sizeable audience, and I'm sure there will be hundreds of photos of us surfacing across the globe as people post highlights of their summer holidays. I was surprised by the number of people who recognized Morris dancing, but of course there were also a lot of questions along the lines of, "What country is that from?"

All in all, it was a great day, ending off with the traditional pub stop at a cidery, and the delightful camaraderie of the side.

Sphinx Moth Pupa

Day 248: I have to thank my partners in Team Biota for putting me on the right track to identify this pupa, dug up from the ground when I was attempting to secure an earthworm for a photographic project. My knowledge in the field of entomology is very limited. Joe is a "bug guy," so I referred the critter to him. He suggested that it was probably a Sphinx Moth pupa. I did some further checking to confirm it, and although I can't say with certainty that it is the pupa of Hyles lineata, the White-Lined Sphinx is the only Sphinx I have seen in this area (the adult is huge and beautiful). It surprised me to learn that the larvae of these moths burrow into soil and remain there for at least 2-3 weeks before emerging as adults. Many overwinter, as I am sure was the case here.

This further suggests that my "pollinator plantings" are working! The caterpillar hosts for this moth include grape, tomato and fuchsia, all of which I have in my garden. The adults nectar on columbine, larkspur, petunias, honeysuckle and lilac, again all species which I cultivate in varying degrees. Here is the proof that if you give them habitat, they will come!

Suksdorfia Ranunculifolia - A Profile

Day 247: I've spoken often about how important it is to capture a side view of a bird if you want to use your photo to make an identification. In the side view, a bird presents the greatest number of field markings possible. But what about plants? Ah, there we're getting into tougher territory.

Many plants have inflorescences which rise well above their leaves. This often means that you can't capture the flower and leaf in the same image. Growth habit also supplies a definitive characteristic. When given a species like Suksdorfia ranunculifolia ("the Suksdorfia with the buttercup-like leaves"), it's best to take three views for your records.

This lovely Suksdorfia often exhibits red-centered and yellow-centered flowers in the same panicle, the panicles rising as much as a foot above leaves which resemble those of common buttercups. When individual blossoms first open, their centers are yellow. As they age, they fade to red. The plant's preferred habitat is somewhere its "feet" can be kept cool and moist, and therefore can be found where seeps emerge from rock. In the Park, it is most common in Stevens Canyon.

Carnivore Carnival

Day 246: Sarracenia Carolina Yellow Jacket (left) has presented her first two flowers this year, both open as of this writing. I had wondered how they would compare with those of her cousin Audrey (Sarracenia rubra, right). She is less flamboyant. Rubra comes on stage in a rush of scarlet ruffles; Yellow Jacket enters gracefully in a sleek gown of palest yellow tastefully accented with red. Rubra has the most buds ever: seven in various stages of development, only one of which is fully open.

These flowers are remarkably long-lived when compared with other plants. Each individual blossom maintains its colour for several weeks, slowly turning brown but never going limp or watery. When completely dry, they are somewhat withered, but the petals are less fragile than one might expect. They would make a nice addition to a dried arrangement if it wasn't for all the dead bugs trapped inside!

Dictyoptera Simplicipes

Day 245: Dictyoptera simplicipes missed the memo about wearing camouflage. Classed as one of the "net-winged beetles," this brilliantly coloured insect can be spotted in all types of Pacific Northwest forest. It feeds on decaying plant matter and tiny invertebrates, and has also been reported to eat slime molds. Current records show it as only occurring on the west coast from British Columbia to California, with the northern portion of its range extending slightly into Montana.

Blue-Eyed Mary

Day 244: Collinsia parviflora (Blue-Eyed Mary) is not an uncommon plant, but it is very easily overlooked because of its diminutive size, as demonstrated when put in a "Penny Perspective." A closer look at the corolla reveals four white and blue lobes smiling up cheerfully from the tip of a downward-pointing tube. Mary is a lover of moist places and seeps, and can be found in both the forest and subalpine zones.

An Historic Day

Day 243: You see before you the portrait and moment of scientific discovery. Yesterday was an historic day. Team Biota isolated a heretofore unrecorded host Carex (sedge) for our rare friend, Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae.

So momentous was this discovery that we made a trip out to a point where we could contact Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson by phone. When he answered, I announced without preamble, "We've got the sedge!" He immediately dropped what he was doing and drove an hour to meet us at the site. Ankle-deep in snowmelt water and under a penetrating rain, Arnie and I obtained three juvenile specimens from the 42 inventoried on this trip, a painful but necessary sacrifice in the name of science. One was preserved with the Carex still attached, and the fungus' tell-tale knobby and diagnostic sclerotium visible.

Arnie was unable to identify the specific Carex in the field, but of the known hosts for Myrio, only one occurs in the Park. That host does not grow at this site. In and of itself, Myrio was a signal discovery; documenting it on a new host is emphatically more significant.

I am enormously grateful to my companions in Team Biota Joe and Sharon Dreimiller for their field-work in inventorying Myrio despite the unfavourable weather, and for providing this photo of a couple of soggy but very happy scientists.

Chocolate Lily

Day 241: A close cousin of Washington's native Chocolate Lily (Fritillaria affinis) can often be found in garden stores, usually marketed as Fritillary Lily (Fritillaria meleagris). At least in the cultivated plants in my own garden, the checkered pattern is more obvious than it is in the native species as well as being more strongly defined. The green and brown flecking make the native difficult to observe when it's mixed in with other vegetation, so when Team Biota stopped at a roadside pullout to check for rarities on the cliff face, all three of us walked right past several specimens and didn't notice the first one until we were standing in the ditch and they were at eye-level. A quick survey 100 feet east and west yielded up at least three dozen, but subsequent stops along the same roadway failted to turn up any more. Why that one spot? Why only beside the road? Is it possible they were transported there unintentionally or intentionally? The question becomes important because this is one of several instances of discrete areas where one particular plant exists in isolation beside this roadway. It is a question I will be directing to our Plant Ecologist for further analysis.

Tapertip Onion, Allium Acuminatum

Day 241: Any day I "collect" a new plant is a good day, regardless of whether or not it's particularly rare. Consequently, a trip to the dry side of the state necessitated a minimum of one "botany break" along the way. The stop was occasioned by a yellow composite I had never photographed successfully (my camera really doesn't like yellow), a plant whose common name had been instilled in my mind since childhood as "Wapato," but quite inaccurately so. In fact, it was a Balsamroot, and my photos of it were no improvement on earlier ones, but the site proved fruitful nevertheless when it provided an even more interesting specimen for my catalogue. I recognized it as Hooker's Onion, aka Tapertip Onion (Allium acuminatum) and confirmed the identification when I got home. The flowers often appear in shades of pink, vivid to pale, and are distinguished by their unusual shape. The inner three petals are smaller than the outer ones. By the time the plant blooms, its slender basal leaves will have disappeared, leaving only a slim stalk topped by a terminal umbel.

Letharia Vulpina

Day 240: Coming back from Yakima, I had already called for a "botany break." A little later, my companions decided to stop at the viewpoint for a lovely terraced waterfall and we were all heading down the trail together when a clump of distinctly chartreuse lichen on the ground caught my eye. All thoughts of scenic views evaporated in an instant, and as Maureen and Kosette proceeded to the overlook, I dropped to my knees to study it. Then looking up, I saw more colonies of it on the bark of several trees, much better specimens than the sorry and sodden example I had first noticed. However, the ones on the tree were well out of reach even with my arms extended over my head. Glad that I had left the macro filter on the camera, I snapped this photo without being able to tell if it was in focus or not. A sample taken from the clump on the ground confirmed the identification: Letharia vulpina, one of the "wolf lichens" used to dye textiles.

Pygmy Short-Horned Lizard, Phrynosoma Douglasii

Day 239: I don't often get to explore Washington's dry-side ecology, so on the way home from manning the Park's booth at Treaty Day in Yakima, I requested a "botany break" at the next occurrence of yellow "daisies." A few minutes later, Maureen pulled over next to a mailbox and I started to scramble up a little rise to get a photo, but Kosette cut me short. "Stop! Look over here!" My first thought was that she'd spotted a rattlesnake. My eyes scanned the ground and passed over this fellow at least once before perceiving him against the rocky soil. He wasn't particularly disturbed by our presence and posed nicely for his "field-guide" portrait.

I make no claims to being a herpetologist, and misidentified the little feller. I am grateful to the Park colleague who corrected me (as I always say, "better to be embarrassed than to continue on in error"). This is a Pygmy Short-Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma douglasii), often referred to by locals as a "horny toad" or "horned toad."

Wild Ginger

Day 238: The common name "Wild Ginger" is one of those things which drive botanists crazy. Asarum caudatum is not related to culinary ginger, although when crushed, its roots and leaves give off a smell reminiscent of the spice. Its elusive flowers are difficult to spot unless your eyes are at ground level. They hide beneath the plant's foliage! Technically, the true flower of this Asarum is the structure at the center of the reddish-maroon sepal tube, and as is the case with other members of the family, it gives off a slightly less-than-pleasant scent. The odor attracts gnats and small flies, the primary pollinators of the species.

Lycogala Epidendrum

Day 237: While exploring a forgotten but close-by corner of the forest last year, I stumbled across something which looked for all the world like a quart or two of well-chewed pink bubblegum wads massed on a decaying log. I had never seen anything like it, so I documented it with photos from various angles and referred them out to one of Washington's pre-eminent botanists. Although he was unwilling to commit to anything further, he identified the substance as a slime mold and provided me with the email address of an expert in the field. It wasn't long before I had a reply and a name for my treasure: Lycogala epidendrum.

Lycogala epidendrum is one of the most recognizable of slime mold species, but it is not always pink. The fruiting bodies (aethelia) may range in colour from pale yellow to almost black at maturity, and indeed that was what Team Biota discovered when we visited the site recently. When opened, these aethelia appear to be filled with uniformly mushy goo, but under the microscope, this material is shown to contain thousands of spores and chain-like threads of sterile tissue (pseudocapillitia) which divide the chamber into irregular and often imperfect compartments. The term "fruiting bodies" is misleading. Unlike the apothecia of lichens, these structures do not develop like a bud on a rose or a pear on a pear-tree. Rather, they are a gathering-together of individual cells in response to a chemical signal, cells which otherwise would be living independently in the substrate. The chemical signal acts as their clarion call, communicating the message that it is time to reproduce. They become visible to our eyes only when they have formed the cooperating communities shown in this photo.

I suppose none of my friends will be surprised by this, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to do an experiment. In a corner of my living room, I have set up a pair of "moist chambers" (lidded Petri dishes) where I can monitor the growth of two samples. If I should disappear under mysterious circumstances, Lycogala should be considered the primary "substance of interest."

Naked Broomrape On Sedum

Day 236: Orobanche uniflora is a trickster. Don't assume that the succulent foliage at its base belongs to the same plant. It does not. In fact, you will find Naked Broomrape in association with at least two different leaf-forms in the Park. This beautiful little plant is parasitic on the roots of a number of different sedums. The leaf rosettes of two of the most common are shown in this photo (S. divergens at the bottom, S. oreganum to the right of the flowers). Because Orobanche lacks chlorophyll and cannot photosynthesize on its own, it takes its nutrients from its host; whether or not it contributes anything to the relationship with sedum is at this point conjectural.

Counting Noses

Day 235: My readers may recall that about this time last year, I returned home from a swamp expedition with photos of a mystery fungus, and that after two weeks or so of referring it to one expert after another across the globe, it was determined that it was a rare species (Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae) and further, that even the genus was considered rare worldwide. As such, the find marked the undisputable apex of my history as a botanist, and I can't imagine what could top it.

This species had been reported as occurring in the Park, but the only record was contained on a 1948 herbarium card which cited it as having been found in an entirely different location. My companions in Team Biota Joe and Sharon Dreimiller and I set about trying to find the 1948 location immediately. We were successful, and between the two sites, we documented 64 specimens in 2016.

These fungi are extraordinarily ephemeral as we discovered on subsequent trips. Here today and gone tomorrow, we knew that our chances of finding them again in 2017 would be governed by some very precise timing. We have been monitoring Site A for several weeks (the second location still being under several feet of snow), and yesterday, the three of us sallied forth through soaky-wet snowmelt meadow and emerged victorious with a total of TEN examples recorded for posterity by multiple cameras. The newly-emerged specimens are as yet quite small, the three in the upper photo the most well-developed. The smallest was hardly larger than a straight pin. The rest of our happy family can be seen in the collage below. The little guy is just right of the three in the top left image, about a third the height of the one immediately to its left.

Team Biota doesn't usually bring home the bacon in quite such grand style, although we do turn up a number of botanical rarities or new locations for uncommon plants almost every time we go out. Yesterday's tally was not limited to Myrio by any means, and over the next few days, I'll be bringing you more Park peculiarities.

Vancouver Sea Breeze

Day 234: Clematis "Vancouver Sea Breeze" is one of the principle focus pieces in the motley assemblage of plants I call my "garden." Saucer-sized flowers simply cover the vine once it's fully open, but even in the early days of its blooming cycle when it has more buds than blossoms, it's still a show-stopper.

The secret to success with Clematis is knowing what "group" defines a specific species. Group I plants are spring bloomers and should be cut back immediately following flowering. The plant will then put on new growth. This will be the wood which will develop blossoms the following spring. Group II plants are repeat bloomers, flowers emerging from both new wood and old. These can be pruned after the first flush of bloom in the spring, but care should be taken not to remove all old wood in order to ensure continued flowering throughough the summer. Vancouver Sea Breeze is a Group II species. Group III plants are the easiest of all: simply cut the vine back to 12-18" in early spring if you want to keep growth confined, or just let the vines wander at will for a massed display through summer and fall.

Siberian Sea

Day 233: The tide is running high in the Siberian Sea. Its waves wash along my south fence line, spilling into the neighbouring yard. It is a narrow channel, perhaps 24" at its widest, yet it surges with colour for a few brief weeks in the spring. Soon, its storm-whipped swells will be but a memory, and nothing will remain but a placid green passage, ebbing and flowing under the breezes of summer.

Chance And Choice

Day 232: The columbine pictured here is one of the "pinks" which came with my house. While the yellow skirt makes it almost acceptable, it is still one of the colours I have been systematically relocating to other parts of the yard because when I see it, I think "pink" despite the fact that it is almost dark enough to qualify as red (if not the bright red of our native variety).

On the other hand, this is the calibrachoa ("Million Bells") I selected to go with bright red geraniums in my hanging baskets this year. Okay, it looked redder at the nursery, but even so, the overall palette is almost identical to that of the columbine. I think I owe the columbine an apology; clearly, my logic is not consistent.

Sarracenia Season

Day 231: The Sarracenias are budding! Those of my readers who have been following me for some years know about the two carnivores who protect my back porch from mosquitoes. "Audrey" (named after the plant in "Little Shop of Horrors") is Sarracenia rubra, a species whose pitchers grow to about 12" in height; the other is Sarracenia x Carolina Yellow Jacket (unnamed as of this writing), its pitchers much shorter (about 8" maximum) and stouter than those of rubra, and morphologically different as well. Rubra (left) has bloomed in growing numbers each of the last four or five years, the stalks rising to 18", terminating in an enormous and unusually-shaped red flower. This year, she has produced SEVEN buds! I've only had Yellow Jacket (right) for a couple of years, and although it bore one or two small buds last year, they did not mature. I am confident that the two buds shown in the photo will develop fully, and I'm anxious to see what form the blossom takes.

These Pitchers are hardy in our Pacific Northwest winters, although I bring them indoors when temperatures drop below the mid-twenties. The foliage suffers some light frost damage even so, but new pitchers begin growing concurrently with the development of the inflorescences. At this point, the new pitchers are still quite small on both plants, but a number of older ones have remained viable, ready to devour any hapless bugs who venture into their interiors. Every year when I trim back the frost-nipped tips, I am surprised to see just how well they've done their job. Invariably, the husks of dead insects fill each one to a depth of four or five inches, accumulated from the previous summer.