Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Bunchberry

Will have to post and more or less run this morning. Last night, I set two alarm clocks (one set very loud), for 5:45 a.m., but I slept right through an hour of very loud music and then woke up nearly five hours later! As a result, I have missed a trip to a great place - one that I don't like going to on my own. Knowing that there will be other people there today, I think I will still go, but not very far into the forest on my own. Hopefully, the others will scare any Bears and Cougars out of the forest and not in my direction! To say that I could kick myself is to put it mildly, ha!

This small, low-growing plant, also known as Dwarf Dogwood (Cornus canadensis), adds so much beauty to the forest floor. The plant's single white flower is delightful and when fall is just around the corner, the very tiny, red berries add lots of colour. Photographed (macro) yesterday when I went to Brown-Lowery Provincial Park for the afternoon in the hopes of finding mushrooms everywhere - yeah, right, lol! I did manage to find a few, some photogenic and others definitely not, but nothing like the abundance of the last two or three years. I'm laughing now, but I wasn't laughing just before I entered the the forest. There was a blood-curdling scream way in the distance that stopped me in my tracks. I had visions of someone (the only other car in the parking lot had left just as I was arriving, but maybe they had dropped someone off for a hike) being attacked by a Bear or Cougar. Did I really want to continue??? I can tell you, I almost turned around and went straight back to my car, ha! However, I very cautiously kept going - this place gives me the creeps, as it is, every time I go there, especially when I'm on my own. Maybe 15 minutes later, another scream and then another a short while later. And THEN I realized that maybe this is some kind of machinery, but unlike anything I had ever heard before. No idea if it was from within the forest or maybe from a nearby farm - from time to time, someone does go in there to cut up trees that have blown down across the trail. These trunk pieces are always left to rot there at the side of the path, to give wonderful protection to small creatures of the forest. Yesterday, I picked up the estimate for building a ground-level, cedar deck to cover the whole of my tiny 16'x18' backyard. It is on a bit of an incline, so that would give extra work of course, plus the plants/shrubs in my two small borders would have to be removed first. However, almost $10,000!! So, I am back to square one again - just as I am with the sale of my brother's house in England, when the buyer backed out a few months after putting in his original offer. The only reason I thought about a wooden ground-level deck was that I had been unable to find anyone who would come and remove all plants/shrubs and put down netting and wood chips, as I just can't cope with a garden, even a small one. It seems no one wants a one-time-only piece of work - they all seem to want a job that is weekly or at least monthly ... sigh.

This native wildflower, Dwarf Dogwood/Bunchberry, makes such an attractive covering for the forest floor. Seen at the Mountainview Sports and Handicapped Centre north west of the city.

A white slime mold growing on the leaves of a Bunchberry plant in the forest at West Bragg Creek. Seen on 22nd August last year.

Usually, I see Bunchberry covering the forest floor, but these plants were growing up a broken tree stump and I liked the way they added their little spots of bright colour against the darkness of the rotting wood. Seen at the Snakes Head Natural Area two days ago, when we were there to record all the flora and fauna we could find.

Digging once again into my archives! This plant is called Bunchberry or Dwarf Dogwood and it is widely distributed in boreal forest across Canada. The berries are a source of food for deer, grouse and songbirds.