I found this shrub somewhere in the Greater Vancouver area, possibly somewhere not too high in the coastal mountains near North Vancouver, most probably in March 1986. But I do not remember the details and I lost all my notes about my earliest pictures from the Vancouver region. The image cannot have been taken later than March 1986, however, because I had arrived in Canada in December 1985 and the slide is stamped "MAR 86". I still remember that there were very few flowers around at that time and that this early flower looked rather exceptional. Can someone identify this shrub? It looks to me like another Vaccinium species but I do not know which one.
My suggestion would be Vaccinium ovalifolium. Pinkish flower, solitary in leaf axils, twigs reddish, flower emerging before leaves are halfway to maturity...
Thank you very much! So I'll call the plant Vaccinium ovalifolium, possibly with a question mark added, even though this shrub bloomed considerably before May and even though the styles look a bit long. Flowering season (May - July) and remarks about the length of the style ("included or on the level of the corolla lobes") can be found in the booklet "The Heather Family of British Columbia" by A. F. Szczawinski (third printing, 1975, British Columbia Provincial Museum Handbook No. 19) but these things were left out of the more contemporary "Illustrated Flora of British Columbia".
