Flora and Fauna of Discovery Park: Site 11: Forest Vegetation

Here underneath these towering trees are vegetation that need to be shade tolerate to survive. Can you identify a few? Looking at the lower vegetation, we can see a few of our common understory plants such as Fringecup, Western Trumpet Honeysuckle, Fireweed, Large-leaved Avens, Snowberry, Thimbleberry, Sword ferns, and Lady ferns. You can identify fringecup from its generally white, cup shaped flowers that are attached directly to a single stalk, while the majority of its leaves are attached to the base of the stalk. Most people have some idea what honeysuckle looks like from its opposite leaves and long, tubular orange flowers. Also worth noting is the petal arrangement; 4 upper petals and 1 lower petal is a defining characteristic for this genus (Lonicera). Fireweed truly earns its name, for when it blooms it is a brilliant stalk of pink, filled with 4-petaled flowers. Snowberry isn’t super obvious until it fruits with its pale white berries. Otherwise, you can identify it from its shrubby growth form, small white-pink tubular flowers, and opposite leaves. Don’t try to eat these white berries though; they’ve earned the name “Corpseberry”. Thimbleberry is a small shrub whose leaves look similar to those of a maple, except they are serrated. The flowers are white and 5 parted (5 petals and sepals), with many stamens. If you’re lucky, you can find them when they have edible red berries on them! In this area we also find two of our four native ferns; the sword and lady ferns. You can tell them apart because the sword fern is has fronds that are singlely compound, with the leaflets being sharply pointed with a small lobe pointing forward at the bottom. On the other hand, the lady fern has fronds that are doubly compound, and has a “lady-like” curvature overall.