Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Brassicaceae

Most of my plant photos are macros of single flowers, but I decided to take and post this one to show a mass of these Pennycress/Stinkweed seedpods. These dry, flat pods are, in fact, quite attractive. "This common plant, also known as Stinkweed, forms dense stands on disturbed soil. Regarded in restoration and landscaping as a useful volunteer cover crop. Not invasive, but may exclude native colonizers of disturbed soil. A prolific producer of very persistent seed. It has developed herbicide resistance at a few Alberta sites." www.anpc.ab.ca/wiki/index.php/Thlaspi_arvense This photo was taken on 23 July 2015, at Darryl Teskey's place. On this day, five of us spent the day botanizing the land belonging to Darryl Teskey, SW of Calgary and W of Millarville (maybe a 40-minute drive from Calgary). This was the first time I had been there and I'm so glad I was invited to go - I would have missed all sorts of things, including a family of Ruffed Grouse and several fungi. These Grouse were the rare rufous-morph, and we startled them when we were walking through the forest in their direction. Usually, you don't see Grouse because they are so well-hidden. When you get fairly close (sometimes very close) to them, they suddenly "explode" from the tangle of shrubs and plants of the forest floor, making ones heart beat fast! We were taken by surprise when we came across a nearby statue of Saint Francis of Assisi, who is known as the patron saint of animals and the environment. A nice idea, I thought. Our walk took us over grassland and through forest, many places treacherous with so many fallen logs which were often barely visible. I have never, ever seen so many tiny Skipper butterflies - there must have been hundreds or even thousands of these bright orange beauties that were flying or perched on flowers of every colour. Fortunately, the rain stayed away until we started driving back to Calgary. Quite a lot of black clouds, reminding me of the tornado that passed through Calgary just the day before (22 July 2015). Our purpose, as always, was to find and list everything that we saw - wildflowers, trees, grasses, birds, insects, fungi, etc.. Our leader then compiles an extensive list of our finds and this is later sent to the landowner, along with any photos that we might take. Always a win/win situation, as the landowner then has a much better idea of just what is on his property, and we have a most enjoyable day.

A species of tiny Rock cress, seen growing in the alpine meadow at Plateau Mountain on July 17th,

Photographed (macro) on Plateau Mountain on July 2nd. There were quite a lot of clusters of these plants and most had all the buds fully opened. Occasionally, you would come across one like this one, with just an outer ring of pretty little white flowers. Love the name of this plant : ) Sorry about all the plant photos at the moment. I have been cropping, etc. so many the last little while, to pass on to local fellow botany people, so I have piles of flower images and not enough time to search for any bird or other type of photos. Our growing season is SO short in Calgary!! Gotta dash to my volunteer shift this afternoon.

This member of the Mustard family, Dame's-rocket, was introduced from Europe as a garden flower. Now it has spread to roadsides and open forests. When we spent a morning walking at Strathcona Ravines Park (within the city) a few days ago, we came across a number of areas of this invasive, but very pretty, flower growing on the hillsides. I always love to see the colour, especially against the green foliage.

A friend and I spent this afternoon exploring the west end of Griffith Woods. At the end of our walk, by the parking lot at the west end of the park, two or three plants of this Dame's-rocket were growing in the grass. This member of the Mustard family was introduced from Europe as a garden flower.

These are the dried seedpods of the Stinkweed/Pennycress plant. Introduced from Eurasia, it grows in fields, gardens, roadsides and waste areas. Grows April to October in Alberta. Stinkweed contains large amounts of Vitamin C. Took this ages ago with my old Olympus C750, not with my new FZ18.

I found this quite small plant down by a small creek in Big Hill Springs park yesterday. This park is NW of Calgary and it was the first time I had ever been there before. A beautiful place to explore! This plant looks like a member of the Mustard family but I'm sure I have never seen it before. I seem to remember that the leaves were very narrow and long. If anyone is able to ID it for me, I would be very grateful!