Every time I go outside here in the Pacific Northwest I find something new and mysterious, so I’ll keep posting these notes on my discoveries. This time I crossed the border and entered our northern neighbor, Canada. It’s only a three-hour drive, not counting the time spent at the border patrol station.

There is no old-growth forest in this part of British Columbia but that doesn’t mean the forest has died. It is regrowing and adapting to a more urban environment. We were strolling through Stanley Park, on the waterfront of Vancouver, when this bizarre tree caught my eye. The tree looks dead, including no crown and a trunk that appears ready to fall over; but near the top a curved branch has appeared. It is almost as large as the trunk and has a thick canopy. Unbelievable!

This tropical appearing plant is Gunnera manicata, also known as giant rhubarb (according to CoPilot). It is originally from Brazil, but it does well in the PNW because of the wet climate and mild winters.

We drove a little up a fjord to Shannon Falls and discovered that nurse-log trees occur here as well as in Washington. This one is probably a Western Hemlock growing from a stump comprising multiple roots from clumped trees that merged into one. That’s why it looks like a bamboo thicket.

This Sooty Grouse didn’t seem to mind being photographed as it poked around this water hole in Squamish and Chief Viewpoint park.

This reminded me of the tree I saw in Stanley Park, a dead stump with curved growth full of foliage. I asked CoPilot about it and, surprisingly, it had a plausible explanation. It is so damp in the coastal PNW that trees don’t just grow out of stumps, they can actually grow from dead trees well above the ground. Apparently, the young tree has sent roots down through the decaying stump to reach the ground…another biological wonder. Simply awesome!

I thought these bright flowers looked familiar, but I don’t trust my intuition on biological matters (all yellow flowers are the same); as it turns out, according to CoPilot these are Western Skunk Cabbage–the same plant I saw in a wetland along the Olympic Peninsula. I was right…but I had forgotten the name. LOL!

I enjoyed this trip and writing this post, thanks to CoPilot. Its identifications may be wrong but they are better than mine. I think of its comments as those of someone who took a biology class in college.

I hope you enjoyed it too.