Next Hike.

The next hike will be on Saturday, 15th August.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am.

Last week we decided to hike to the top of Mt. Davies as the weather was clear and the views from the top are always quite spectacular in these conditions.  We drove towards Bobs Lake and parked at the usual place where the gasline crosses the Cook Bay Road not very far past the Vancouver Island Hydro line. However, we dawdled through the forest and along the gravel road, stopping to cut branches and look at butterflies and other things so changed our destination to the closer Bloody Mountain viewpoint on the south slopes of Mt. Davies.  Not far off this trail are a couple of beaver ponds one of which had lots of the bright yellow flowers of Bladderwort. I don't have time to go into all the interesting details of this common native plant, but have to mention that while it's flowers are really quite attractive beneath the surface of the water it's stems are dotted with tiny animal traps, in this case bladders.  In fact it's a carnivorous plant like the above ground annual Sundew that is also quite common on Texada.  That catches insects with sticky hairs on the rounded pink leaves.

Go on the web to see more pictures and read about the trapping process.       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utricularia    In my photo the large green leaves belong to the yellow flowered water lilies. These usually rest on the surface of the water, but the spell of dry weather has partially dried up the pond and left the stems exposed.

JD.

      

The bright yellow flowers of the pond plant Bladderwort are usually the only part of the plant that shows above the water surface.