I hike and photograph plants and flowers as one of my hobbies in retirement. I have been able to identify all but two to date, using the book, "Plants of Northern British Columbia", by MacKinnon, Pojar, Coupe. I have attached photos of the two I cannot identify. I would appreciate knowing the common name for these. The photos were taken in Eskers Provincial Park, NW of Prince George. Thanks
Thanks Rob. It is listed in my book but the book picture looks somewhat different. I will now have a name for it for the slide show I am putting together.
For the second one, it would be helpful to see the plant too, but it might be a Cardamine spp.. Here are some of the ones that occur in BC: http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/ShowDBImage/Gallery.aspx?genus=Cardamine
Thanks for the link. The portion of the plant immediately below the flower appears to be different than that shown in the flowers of your link. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the whole plant. A lesson learned......photograph the plant, then a closeup of the flower.....lol!
My book for Northern BC does not show the mustard family but another book I have, "Plants of the Rocky Mountains", by Kershaw, MacKinnon and Pojar does. I see the similarity but I cannot find one that resembles the photo.
I have double checked the family listings...no mustard family. In the index there is a reference to a "tower mustard" in the notes section of another plant (p-204), which describes it as a tall, stout stem that is unbranched, bluish-green with creamy-white flowers......there is no photo. Do you have access to a picture of a tower mustard? The book notes that it does not include all plants.....only the most common species. I should check the library for another book.
If you type "tower mustard" into Google (or some other search engine), you will come up with Arabis glabra. If you click on "Images" in the Google page, you will bring up various pictures of same... be aware that it is necessary to check the actual species name attributed to photos; in some cases, only the first few are the actual species... sometimes it is even worse.
The left one is Maianthemum racemosum (= Smilacina racemosa) which is the "big species of false Solomon's seal" in B. C. The right one does not look like a mustard family plant. I suggest that this is a sunflower family plant, very likely a yarrow, probably Achillea millefolium agg. A photograph of some leaves might have helped a lot.
Thanks Robert. I have checked my book for the yarrow but the photo shown has smaller flowers and the portion immediately below the flower has different characteristics. Another flower of the sunflower family, Pearly Everlasting, also shown in the book, seems to be similar, with larger flowers than the yarrow, but I am still in doubt, for the same reasons. As I mentioned previously, next time I must also photograph the whole plant.
I think that I know pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea) and that this species can be excluded. Anaphalis flowers and leaves look very different from those on your photograph. Just check the B. C. e-flora (http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/Atlas/Atlas.aspx?sciname=Anaphalis margaritacea). If you click onto the photograph you'll get some more photos which may be enlarged by another click on the photograph of your choice. I have also got an image of this plant (see the respective photograph on my page http://www.flogaus-faust.de/bc/asteceae.htm). Achillea millefolium agg. is a highly variable polyploid complex which is known to be extremely difficult at least in Europe. When you take a photograph of a yarrow from the side it looks very similar to your image, see e. g. http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/ShowDBImage/ShowStandard.aspx?index=3243 and http://www.awl.ch/heilpflanzen/achillea_millefolium/index.htm. There is also another species in your area, Achillea sibirica, which differs from Achillea millefolium by its leaves. This species might also be a possibility even though most of the images from B. C. look somewhat different from your image.