Our neighbour invited me over to peruse her garden for seeds and cuttings. I came home with Queen Anne’s Lace seeds (Daucus carota) along with ferns, tillandsia, and various other pretty things. So I made her a thank you card and dropped it in her mailbox.
I bought myself a sinuous air plant. It makes me happy 😊
Have you ever stroked a wisteria seed pod?
I love checking out people’s gardens when I walk around the town, and I’m particularly attracted to riotous native shrubbery. If the owners are out working in the yard, I call out my compliments and stop to chat if they’re amenable. Today I met Elaine and Chet; they were really friendly and even dug up some comfrey for me to take home and plant. I’ve been wanting to grow it, but I never see it in nurseries, so when I spied their abundance, I wasn’t shy about asking for some.
Later in the afternoon our next-door-neighbour came over with more apricots from her tree. It’s starting to feel like we live here 😊
Another day, another medical waiting room. But this time, the plant is real!
Galls, also known as cecidia, are abnormal swellings that form on the outer tissues of plants, resembling benign tumors or warts in animals. These growths can be triggered by a wide range of parasites, including viruses, fungi, bacteria, other plants, insects, and mites. The scientific study of these structures is called cecidology.
Galls come in many different sizes, shapes and colours; I’m always looking out for them. Our native arroyo willows display at least two different insect-triggered galls. The sawfly/midge lays its eggs under the surface of the leaf/stem. Cecidologists are still trying to figure out how the plant’s genetic instructions cause the responding structures, which provide shelter and food for the insect’s larvae when they hatch.
It was a busy day at the Park today! We started off with a Junior Ranger program on plants, with a whole lot of enthusiastic kids. Then I worked in the Visitor Center for the afternoon; nearly 200 people came through in four hours, over three-quarters of them in the first two hours. I heard so many great questions, it made my inquiring heart happy.
It’s been a while since I hiked Piuma Ridge Trail. Not a whole ton of wildflowers, but this one bush poppy shrub/tree was stunning.
Mountain mahogany is one of my favourite chaparral shrubs. Right now, clusters of yellow flowers are attracting hummingbirds, butterflies—and nature journalers! It’s especially notable for its long, feathery seeds that curl like delicate spirals and glisten in the sunlight. The name Cercocarpus translates to “fruit with a tail,” a nod to these distinctive seed plumes. Despite its name—given for the dark, mahogany-colored bark—this native plant is actually in the Rose family.
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