botany on plantarum.ca

Bakeapples in June: flowering season update

Fri, 23 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Bakeapple flower, 12 June 2024.

In a few short weeks the AAFC bakeapple team will be back in Makkovik to start another summer of bakeapple research, alongside Inuit Food Systems Research Technician Marilyn Faulkner, and guides Barry Andersen and Todd Broomfield. While the berries are still several months away, June is an important time in the life of an appik.

Bakeapples form flower buds in late summer, tucked away underground and out of sight. They mature slowly over the winter. When the ground starts to warm up in the spring, they’re ready to poke their heads up at last and grow towards the sun.

Bakeapple emergence, May-June 2024. Marilyn Faulkner/AAFC.

When the flowers open, we’ll finally learn something they’ve known since the buds formed last year: whether they’re a boy or a girl! Most other plants have male and female reproductive structures together in the same flower (such as redberries and blueberries), or in some cases in different flowers on the same plant (such as spruce and alders). Bakeapples have separate male and female plants, and all the flowers on a plant will be the same sex.

That might sound strange, because bakeapples only have one flower on a stem. But what we don’t see above ground is that each of those tiny stems is attached to an underground rhizome (a horizontal stem just beneath the surface), and that rhizome can spread for ten meters or more. Which means that each individual bakeapple stem is just one branch on an underground bakeapple “tree”.

Bakeapple rhizome

Male bakeapple flowers emerge first, a day or two before the females open. They also stick around a little longer after the females have finished flowering. We recognize male flowers by the ring of stamens just inside the petals, each one topped with a yellow anther. Male flowers attract insects with a combination of sweet nectar at the center of the flower; and pollen, released from the anthers. As the flies travel from flower to flower, they transfer (hopefully!) some of the pollen to female flowers, enabling them to start developing fruits.

Male bakeapple flower. Some of the pollen grains have fallen out of the anthers, visible as a yellow powder on the white petals.

Female bakeapple flower. There is a cluster of green pistils in the center of the flower, each topped with a fuzzy stigma that collects pollen off visiting insects.

Female bakeapple flowers also have stamens, but they don’t develop fully or produce anthers. Instead, they have a cluster of green pistils in the center of the flower. The pistil contains the reproductive parts of the female flower. At the top is the stigma, which scrapes pollen grains off the bodies of visiting flies. When that happens, the pollen grain will germinate, travel down the tube-like style, and fertilize the ovule (egg) at the base. The fertilized ovule will then release hormones that tell the plant it’s ready to make a fruit. If all goes well, 4-6 weeks later we’ll have a delicious appik to pick.

Pollinators on male bakeapple flowers. Left: A syrphid fly. Right: An Empidid fly. The flies will use their mouth parts to lap up nectar from the bottom of the flower. They need to climb through the anthers to do so; in the process, pollen grains will get stuck to their bodies.

If the flowers bloom too early, or there is a late cold snap, they may be damaged or destroyed by frost. Bakeapple plants are very cold-hardy, but their flowers are tender.

Frost-damaged female bakeapple flower: note the blackened pistils.

When the weather cooperates, and the flies do their job as pollinators, the fertilized bakeapple starts developing a fruit. The first signs are the white petals dropping, and then the green sepals close up around the ovaries. This provides a safe space for the fruit to ripen.

A female bakeapple: pollinated by a fly, dropping its petals and closing up the sepals around the developing fruit.

2025 will be our fourth year studying Makkovik bakeapples. We will contintue collecting a variety of data on different aspects of bakeapple biology. All of the methods we use are safe for bakeapples and for people, and do not interfere with any harvesting. Here are some of the methods we use to study bakeapples, and the equipment you might see around Makkovik this summer:

Flower tagging: we use metal tags to mark individual plants. This allows us to count how many flowers survive to produce fruit each year.

A bakeapple plant with a labeled copper tag loosely looped around the base of the plant.

Flower transects: we have set stakes to mark out 10 meter transects (straight lines) that we return to each year. We’ll count all the male and female flowers on the transect, including how many of the females have been damaged by frost or insects. When we return in August we’ll count again, to see how many fruits were produced along each transect.

Erica and Charlie Mae counting bakeapples along a transect.

Time-lapse cameras: we have a set of (mostly) weather-proof cameras that we focus on freshly opened flowers. They are set to take a photo every 10 minutes during the flowering season, and then every hour until the fruit ripens. This gives us more information about the timing of flowering, and how long it takes for a berry to ripen.

One of our weatherized timelapse cameras, pointed at a bakeapple flower (just above the left side of the camera).

Temperature loggers: at each of our transects we have air and soil temperature loggers. We’ll use the data from these instruments to better understand how temperature influences when the flowers emerge, how long it takes to produce a fruit, and how extreme heat and cold impact the plants. At least, that’s what we’re planning to do. We’ve had some challenges with this equipment. The foxes take great delight in digging them up and chewing them to pieces!

Temperature loggers. Left: An air temperature logger. We’ve started replacing this older model with a new version that doesn’t have exposed wires. The foxes love to chew on those wires! Right: a soil logger. These instruments are buried 6 inches under ground, marked with flagging tape. The flagging tape is very interesting to foxes, though, so we’ve stopped using it.

DNA sampling: we’ve collected leaf samples from some of the sites, and plan to complete the rest of the sites this year. We extract DNA from the leaf samples, and do a kind of “fingerprint” analysis. This allows us to determine how many individual plants are present at each site, and how closely they are related to each other.

A leaf tissue sample. We put the leaves in a bag of silica gel crystals in order to dry them out quickly.

Flower netting: new this year, we will be putting mesh bags on a few of the bakeapple flowers. This will prevent insects from pollinating those flowers, so we can better understand how the plants respond to pollination.

A pollination bag, here being used on a tomato.

Nutrient sampling: also new this year, we will be collecting leaf and soil samples, in order to better understand how the sites differ in terms of soil quality, and to identify which nutrients the plants may be lacking.

We’re glad to answer any questions about our work. Please feel free to chat with us in person, say hello while we’re working on the boardwalk/Makkovik Hill/Ranger Bight, or get in touch by email. It’s a privilege to be working in Makkovik and we are grateful to everyone for your kind interest and support.

Bakeapple Floral Ecology

Wed, 07 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Floral bud initiation and sexuality

Bakeapples are dioecious, meaning that individual plants are male or female. Flower development begins in late summer. As the fruits from the current year’s flowers are ripening up, next year’s flower buds are developing just below the surface. At this stage, all flowers have female organs (ovaries), but the male organs of female plants don’t initiate anthers. Later in the fall the ovaries of male plants will develop ovules. By spring the development of female organs is suppressed in male plants, and the flowers that emerge are clearly unisexual (Martinussen and Junttila, 2002). Hermaphrodite flowers are very rare, and are highly desireable for breeding programs.

Bakeapple bud, August 10, ca. ten days after fruit ripened.

Flowering

Male bakeapple flower

Flowering starts early in the spring, and the timing is highly variable (Brown and McNeil, 2009; Li et al., 2016). In Makkovik (55.1°N, 59.2°W) this can be from the first week of June until the first week of July, with mid-late June being usual (pers. obs). Male flowers often appear a few days earlier, and may be present longer into the summer than female flowers (Brown and McNeil, 2009). The peak bloom period is usually concentrated over a week at a location.

Female bakeapple flower

Individual female flowers usually open for only one or two days before their petals drop, and sepals close. This indicates successful pollination and the start of fruit development(Jean and Lapointe, 2001; Jones, 2010). There is limited evidence to suggest that female flowers are only fertile for 36 hours, after which their stigmas are no longer receptive (Kortesharju, 1993).

Female bakeapple flower, ca 1 week post pollination, sepals up covering developing fruit.

In cold (near freezing) temperatures, female flowers may stay open for a week or more (per. obs). However, their viability may suffer. Frost can cause visible injury to the flowers, most notably blackened ovaries. In addition, frost (or even near-freezing temperatures) may deprive flowers of their ability to set fruit without leaving any obvious damage (Kortesharju, 1995).

Frost-damaged female bakeapple flower: note the blackened pistils.

Male flowers don’t have clearly defined growth stages comparable to the females. They typically last a few days or more before their petals drop, and the anthers dehisce gradually, releasing pollen over several days (Brown and McNeil, 2009).

Pollinators

Pollinators on male bakeapple flowers. Left: A syrphid fly. Right: An Empidid fly

The most important pollinators are muscid and syrphid flies. Bumblebees and halictid bees are rarer pollinators, and less constant (i.e., visit a wider variety of species). However, the value of bees is increased by their capacity to remain active in colder conditions, and to travel further in their foraging (Brown and McNeil, 2009). It is widely reported that female bakeapple flowers do not produce nectar (e.g., Taylor, 1971, citing Jensen 1922); however, Brown and McNeil (2009) found that nectar production was variable among years, and in some cases females produce more than males. Male flowers did receive more visits from pollinators, possibly as a consequence of having larger petals (and they are more likely to have five petals, rather than four, than female flowers). They noted that a single visit from a muscid or syrphid resulted in fruit set in 76% and 92% of cases, respectively.

Fruit Development

Berry ripening takes 30-45 days, and is highly influenced by temperature (Kortesharju, 1993). The same study found local adaptation among populations for ripening time, with populations in northern/colder locations ripening faster than southern populations. Pollination rate also influences ripening speed. Flowers with fewer than 9 fertilized ovules ripened more slowly (up to five days longer), presumably as a consequence of reduced hormone levels in the aggregate fruit (Kortesharju, 1993).

Berries are also susceptible to frost damage (Kortesharju, 1995), although they become hardier as they mature.

Note that different researchers have used different indicators of the start and end of the ripening period: flowers open/petals off/sepals up, berries loose/sepals down. This could alter the measured duration by 2-4 days between studies.

The developing berries gradually push the closed sepals apart as they grow. When they are fully ripe the sepals reflex. This happens over the course of single day.

Ripe bakeapple flower with the sepals fully reflexed.

References

Brown, A. O., and J. N. McNeil. 2009. Pollination ecology of the high latitude, dioecious cloudberry (Rubus Chamaemorus; Rosaceae). American Journal of Botany 96: 1096–1107.

Jean, D., and L. Lapointe. 2001. Limited carbohydrate availability as a potential cause of fruit abortion in Rubus Chamaemorus. Physiologia Plantarum 112: 379–387.

Jones, A. 2010. Plants That We Eat: Nauriat Nigiñaqtaut - From the traditional wisdom of the Iñupiat Elders of Northwest Alaska. 2nd ed. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks.

Kortesharju, J. 1993. Ecological factors affecting the ripening time of cloudberry (Rubus Chamaemorus) fruit under cultivation conditions. Annales Botanici Fennici 30: 263–274.

Kortesharju, J. 1995. Effects of frost on the female flowers, unripe fruits and vegetative growth of the cloudberry (Rubus Chamaemorus) in Finnish Lapland. Aquilo. Ser. Botanica 35: 31–38.

Li, J., D. Percival, J. Hoyle, J. White, K. Head, and K. Pruski. 2016. Phenology and yield of native fruits cloudberry/bakeapple (Rubus Chamaemorus L.) And lingonberry/partridgeberry (Vaccinium Vitis-Idaea L.) Grown in Southern Labrador, Canada M. T. Charles [ed.], Canadian Journal of Plant Science 96: 329–338.

Martinussen, and Junttila. 2002. Flower Development in Cloudberry (Rubus Chamaemorus L.). Acta Hort.

Taylor, K. 1971. Rubus Chamaemorus L. Journal of Ecology 59: 293–306.

Research Permits for the City of Ottawa

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The City of Ottawa Owns a Lot of Natural Areas

If you’re looking to do field work around Ottawa, you might be surprised how much natural land is owned by the City. You can see for yourself using the geottawa browser.

The City website includes descriptions of some of the larger conservation areas.

How to Get a Permit

I couldn’t find a link on the City website, but was directed to one of the City biologists by a colleague in another agency. As she explained, formal approvals come from the Real Estate team, with direction from the biologists when the permit involves natural areas. The current requirements are:

An administrative fee (fee may change each year)
A security deposit required, depending on the nature of the work.
Certificate of insurance, naming the City as additional insured.
Who your signing authority will be on the agreement and their position.
The anticipated start and end date of your study.
An overview of the project, including equipment to be used.
A map showing the study’s intended sampling location(s) (may be just property parcels, as listed in geottawa

Your first point of contact for this should be leasing-location@ottawa.ca. Expect the process to take at least two months, so start early.

Permits Aren’t Always Necessary

Projects that involve work that doesn’t differ from regular recreational use of the properties may not require a permit. If you can record your data from public trails without any special equipment or specimen collection, you might be able to proceed without a permit. That’s up to the City of course, so check with them.

Caveat

I don’t work for the City, and this summary is based on my personal experience in 2023. It may change in future (or be inaccurate now), and may differ based on the details of your project.

Keys to the Sedges of Ontario, Updated

Sat, 13 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A few years ago I wrote a little webscraper to collect taxonomic treatments from the Flora of North America website. There were a few problems with the last version, as the webpages on the FNA site have some inconsistencies that my code didn’t handle. Checking the key against the list maintained by the Natural Heritage Information Center, there were about 25 species missing, plus the entire genus Cyperus. I added the missing species, so the key should now be complete. It’s available on my botany page. The source files are available on my bitbucket account.

References

Ball, Peter W., Reznicek, A. A., and Murray, David F. 2002. Flora of North America. Volume 23: Cyperaceae. Oxford University Press.

Preserving Leaf Tissue for DNA Analysis

Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE 2015-02-01: Additional tips from Kathryn Turner added below!

Collecting high-quality DNA is the first, critical step in any genetic study. Working with fresh material is usually the best option. Second choice would go to leaves that were frozen immediately after collection. However, this is difficult to manage on extended field trips. This makes silica gel the preservative of choice for most botanists working away from the greenhouse. In this post I’ll provide a few pointers for how best to use it.

The problem

DNA is actually a relatively stable molecule. While it should be stored in the freezer, extracted DNA accidentally left at room temperature over a weekend is unlikely to degrade.

However, in the normal course of cell functioning, DNA is constantly being split apart, translated and otherwise manipulated. In living tissue, this is carefully regulated by enyzmes, within different membrane-bounded areas of the cell. When the tissues are damaged, as when a leaf is collected, the integrity of the cell is compromised, and the DNA is exposed to a slurry of enzymes and other chemicals that will quickly break it down beyond use to a biologist.

There are two ways to prevent this breakdown: freezing and desiccation. Given that freezing is rarely an option in the field, that leaves drying. If we use a plant press, it can take a week or more for the leaves to dry completely. This is too slow to preserve the DNA. Drying a press over a heater of some kind is better, and DNA can be extracted from well-dried herbarium specimens for some applications.

For particularly sensitive methods, such as AFLPs or microsatellites, or if you need higher quantities of intact DNA, a better method is necessary. That’s where silica gel comes in. It’s cheap, easy to handle, and most important can dry a leaf sample in 12-24 hours, fast enough to preserve enough high-quality DNA for most applications.

What is silica gel?

Silica gel is a white, orange or blue crystal, packaged as dust-sized powder or larger beads up to 5 mm across. The crystals have a high capacity for absorbing moisture. We most frequently encounter silica gel when we buy electronics — the little packets in the packages with the “do not eat” warnings are silica gel. If one of the packets gets split when you open the package, you’ll see the actual crystals rolling around in the box.

Silica gel can be purchased in “indicating” or “non-indicating” forms. The indicating forms have a dye added to some of the crystals. The dye changes colour as the amount of moisture absorbed by the gel increases. The most frequently used dyes are cobalt chloride, which is blue when dry, changing to pink as it absorbs water; and methyl violet, which is orange when dry, changing to green.

Is it safe?

There are no serious dangers of handling silica gel. However, it may irritate your eyes, lungs or digestive tract (remember not to eat it!). Note, though, that silica in the form of silica gel does not cause silicosis.

There is some risk associated with the indicator dyes added to some silica gels. Cobalt chloride has been classified as a carcinogen in Europe; methyl violet is offered as a safer alternative.

Given these considerations, my preference is to use larger (2-4 mm beads) indicating orange silica gel crystals. The dust size gel may dry slightly faster, but it’s impossible not to inhale it when you handle it. It can take a few days to cough that dust back out. The larger beads are much more pleasant to handle, and I’ve yet to inhale one. The orange coloured beads use the safer methyl violet indicator.

How do you use it?

Let’s work back from our extraction. Most extraction kits use 20 µg of leaf tissue.

That’s about a 4 cm². Flow cytometry requires about the same amount of issue, and I like to collect at least enough tissue for two extractions and two flow runs. A single hibiscus leaf provides sufficient tissue.

This leaf weighs in at about 1.3 gm fresh. As a rule, you should have at least 10 times more silica by weight than the tissue you want to dry. I pre-fill my silica bags with 30 gm of crystals, so that should be ok for this leaf. Note that 30 gm = 30-40 ml of crystals; we measure them out by volume, not weight.

To increase drying speed, rip the leaf up into pieces. Place it in the bag and shake it around, so that the leaf surfaces have good contact with the beads. Avoid getting big clumps of leaves - the inner surfaces won’t dry well. Push the air out of the bag and seal it tight. Throw it inside a second bag for extra safety, label it and place it somewhere safe.

Twelve to twenty-four hours later, your leaf should be completely dry.

How do you know it worked?

A properly dried leaf will snap when you try to bend it. The colour may have faded slightly, but it should still be green. Some of the beads may have shifted colour a little.

Warning signs

If the leaves have turned brown, or many of the indicator beads have shifted colour, you should use more beads or less tissue.

Reusing crystals

After the tissue is dried, you can remove most of the crystals. If you used 30 gm to dry your tissues, 10 gm should be enough to keep it dry.

You can reuse the crystals, if you’re careful, and depending on the tissue you’re collecting. Carex leaves are pretty tough, and it’s not hard to pour off the crystals leaving all the leaves in the bag. On the other hand, Rubus leaves break into tiny pieces, and the risk of contamination in reused crystals is too great to bother with it.

UPDATE: A tip from Kathryn Turner to keep your leaf bits from contaminating the silica crystals [NB: link to original tweet now borked, thanks to Elon]

Kathryn’s approach is to use one large tub or bag of silica, and place an the samples from entire population (each in a paper envelope) into it. This would allow you to leave the silica in the car, and just carry envelopes into the field. A short time (up to a few hours) between collection and storage doesn’t seem to impact tissue quality, at least for sedges. My supervisor now prefers to wait until the evening to put her Carex leaf samples on silica.

If you are reusing crystals, or if you have purchased crystals that were already showing their “wet” colour, you can recharge them. The easiest way is to bake them in a pan at 200°F until the colour changes back. This usually takes a couple of hours, longer if you’re using deep pans. If you’re in a bind, you can pan-fry them over a camp stove — keep the pan well above the flame, and keep them moving. This is, however, a sub-optimal way to spend your field time!

Where to get them

Craft stores such as Michael’s often carry silica gel, which is used to make dried flower arrangements. This is usually the white dust with cobalt chloride variety though. When I set up my current lab, I bought a bulk quantity of orange indicating beads from www.silicalgelpackates.com.

References

Chase, M. W. and Hills, H. H. 1991. Silica gel: an ideal material for field preservation of leaf samples for DNA studies. Taxon: 2015–220.

Preparing Rubus samples for herbarium study

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Collecting blackberries and their relatives (Rubus spp.) for herbarium study is particularly challenging, and even experienced field-botanists may not appreciate everything that is involved. More than in other vascular plant groups, to make a good Rubus specimens, you need to understand a bit about the their life-cycle.

A single Rubus allegheniensis specimen, with the first-year primocane on the right, the second-year floricane on the left, and my expert Rubus presser Charlotte in the middle. Note that the primocane is unbranched, while the floricane has many flowering branches

Blackberries, and most other Rubus, are perennial shrubs. However, their stems, called canes, are biennial. In the first year of growth a cane remains in a vegetative state, and does not flower. Usually, it doesn’t even form any side branches. These canes are referred to as primocanes. At the end of the season, buds form in the leaf axils and at the shoot tip.

In the second year of growth, flowering shoots will emerge from these buds. At this stage, the cane is called a floricane. Growth stops after the fruits are formed; the floricane doesn’t produce any over-wintering buds.

A mature blackberry plant produces both primocanes and floricanes at the same time. The floricanes start earlier in the season, since they get a head-start building from last year’s primocanes. By the time the flowers appear in June or early July, the next batch of primocanes are only just beginning to emerge from the underground rhizome.

Unlike other angiosperms, blackberry flowers aren’t generally useful taxonomically¹. The really interesting characters are the primocane leaves, the stem armature (prickles, bristles, hairs and glands) and the mature inflorescences of the floricane. This means the best time to collect specimens is later in the season, when the fruits are forming or ripe and the primocanes are well developed.

First, confirm that you are collecting both a floricane and a primocane, and they both come from the same rootstock. This is important, as we’ve seen a lot of mixed populations!
You make at least two separate sheets for each plant. For the first, select a representative section of the cane from the central part of the primocane, with a few well-formed mature leaves attached. The cane tips are easily damaged, and don’t generally press well. Similarly, the leaves at the base of the cane are often damaged or misshapen.

Pressing the leaves is tricky, particularly on prickly specimens. Keep in mind that on the mounted sheet you will want to see the intact outline of a complete leaf, as well as examples of the upper and lower surface of the leaves.
Make sure the specimen includes a nice segment of the most heavily-armed section of the stem. Sometimes the best leaves and the nastiest prickles are on different sections of the stem. If this is the case, include a section of the prickliest part of the stem, with the leaves removed, in your sample.
Use a second sheet, with a separate newsprint folder, for the floricane. Get a section of the stem with two or three well-formed inflorescence branches. Again, the little shoots at the very top or bottom of the cane are often misshapen, so use the center of the cane. As for the primocane, make sure you’ve got a section of the prickliest cane.

Floricane leaves are incredibly variable. If you can include a few well-formed leaves in the folder, great. They don’t get much attention taxonomically, though, due in large part to their inconstancy.
If you’re collecting tissue for DNA work, the freshly-formed leaves at the end of the primocane are the best source. I had some bad experiences as a grad student, and so I collect enough for at least four extractions, and four flow cytometry analyses. Typically 50-100 cm². Double-bagged, with labels inside and out in case of catastrophe.
Finally, make sure you note the habit of the plant for the label. The major growth forms include:
- highbush blackberries, with upright, ascending, or somewhat arching stems that don’t reach the ground and don’t root at the tip
- doming forms, that start out upright, but arch and may or may not root at the tips, possibly trailing along the ground as well
- trailing forms, which may either grow prostrate on the ground, or trail and scramble over other low vegetation
Do your best to describe what you see. It can be challenging to determine if you’re looking at a trailing form, or a highbush form that is now growing on the ground after having been weighed down by snow or fallen branches. And some highbush species will look strange and stunted when growing in poor conditions.

The shape of the inflorescence should be visible on the sheet. The fruits, however, will either rot or dry down to a pile of seeds. So definitely include a note on their size (length and width). Also flavour, if you get some ripe ones. Better in your belly, with a good description on the label, than pressed into mash untasted!

Note that this protocol reflects the minimum necessary material for a useful herbarium collection. If you have time and space for more than two sheets, and you see interesting bits you’d like to include, you can always collect more. Some of our collections include five or six sheets for a single plant.

What I should say here is that flowers have not been found useful by previous taxonomic research on blackberries. Sadly, previous taxonomic research on blackberries is quite a mess, and I am prepared to accept that anything I think I know about this group is completely wrong. ↩︎

Botanical macros from Mer Bleue

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It hit 23 Celsius in Ottawa today, so I packed my camera and headed out to Mer Bleue for my first photo trek of the season. It’ll be another week or so before the spring wildflowers get into full swing, but I came back with a great preview.

Red maple flowers before the leaves come out, giving the tree a red halo that it quite striking against the bare branches. Silver maple, Acer saccharinum, flowers are similar, but yellow-green rather than red. They bloom about a week earlier, but their season is long enough allow for occasional hybrids to form. The male and female flowers are usually on separate branches, and young trees may have only one sex or the other. These blooms were on the big tree at the start of the Mer Bleue boardwalk.

The fresh anthers are bright red. They split open to reveal the yellow pollen. As the pollen is shed, the dull red inner surface of the anther remains briefly before the flower falls apart. The shiny spot at the base of the flower is the nectar produced to attract insect pollinators.

Sterile anthers are visible at the base of the female flowers. The tiny ovaries are already shaped like miniature maple keys, surrounded by a swollen nectary. You can see these features with a hand lens, but it’s too small for me to get a clear picture with my SLR.

I got a nice view of the female flowers out at the road. There were also some small, apparently all-female trees right at the start of the boardwalk.

I’ve never stopped to look at young Tamarack cones before. The female cones have a rich pink-red colour, which contrasts nicely against the new green needles. Being deciduous, the needles will be gone by the time the cones mature into the more familiar woody form.

The male cones face downwards, and aren’t as brightly coloured as the female. They weren’t quite mature today, but they’ll probably start shedding pollen this week.

There were a few Trilliums and Bloodroot poking up, but the only showy spring wildflower I found were a handful of Trout Lilies, Erythronium americanum.

Carex pedunculata is one of my favourite spring flowers. It’s one of the earliest, starting with or even before species like Carex plantaginea. The plants are distinctive, with strongly reddened leaf bases, and dark red scales - particularly the staminate ones. You might confuse it with something from section Acrocystis, like C. pensylvanica. However, C. pedunculata has female spikelets on long, drooping peduncles arising low on the plant, quite unlike any of the Acrocystis. When the fruit matures, the perigynia are pubescent, and can form fleshy elaisomes, another characteristic shared with some of the Acrocystis species.

This one was part of a big patch on a small ravine slope, but it’s pretty common through the woods here. It’s very easy to overlook, though, because its ant-dispersed fruits are shed and gone before the end of May. There was a very delicate little Acrocystis sedge growing with it. I’m not sure what it was, too small for C. pensylvanica or C. complanata, so I’m guessing C. peckii.

Another one of my favourites is Beaked Hazel - Corylus cornuta. There was lots of it in the woods today. Another easy-to-miss flower. I finally got some good pictures of it last year, after trying without success for many years. Here’s one of them:

Geek notes

Despite lugging my tripod around with me all day, I only used it once or twice. With the wind blowing, it was not really that helpful. However, I’m finally coming to terms with modern technology, I think. I got stuck in a rut where everything I shot was ISO100, on a tripod, stopped down to F40+ to squeeze as much of ‘reality’ as possible into focus. Working under these restrictions limited my composition, I finally realized. Today, I left the camera on ISO200, and sure enough, the sky did not fall. I’m using a vibration-reduction lens, auto-focus, and a camera-mounted speedlight for fill-flash, and I’m quite happy with how sharp the images came out. I switched back to manual focus for the real close-up stuff, and used a pair of lens-mounted R1 speedlights when I needed a little more control of lighting, but that’s still less bother than a tripod. What do you think? Let me know how you deal with close-ups of bouncy flowers.