Scouler’s Corydalis

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Beautiful and extremely rare in Canada, the Scouler’s corydalis is found only on southwest Vancouver Island around the Nitinat, Carmanah, and Klanawa valleys in Ditidaht and Huu-ay-aht territories. With delicate pink-purple flowers and bright feathery leaves that look like stylized green flames when first emerging, this relative of the bleeding-heart flourishes in the rich soils along the banks of the rivers as well as disturbed areas.

Scouler’s corydalis has some interesting strategies for distributing its seeds. When jarred, the elastic seedpods will hurl the seeds up to 2 metres away from the parent. Fascinatingly, the seeds of the corydalis are sheathed in a lipid-rich layer (called an eliaosome) that contain proteins, sugar, and vitamins, which is not believed to be for feeding the baby plant, but for ants!

Ants are thought to harvest these seeds and take them back to their nests, where they strip off the fatty, nutritious coating to feed to their offspring and toss the seed onto their rubbish heap. This nutrient-rich substrate provides the infant seed with ideal growing conditions and the new colony of corydalis gets a headstart in the ant colony’s waste management site. That same seed coating that is so delectable for ants is believed to taste repulsive to deer mice, a handy way to deter these rodents which might otherwise eat the seeds.

Scouler’s corydalis is provincially blue-listed with only 24 known occurrences in Canada. Not only are they rare, they’re also ephemeral, with the plant dying back in the summer after seeding. The beauty of this unusual plant is present for only a few short months in spring, one of the countless wonders of our incredible coastal rainforest. If you see it, savour the experience!

False Hellebore

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One of the most violently poisonous plants of the coastal rainforest is false hellebore (also known as Indian hellebore). This tall but unassuming plant grows in wet areas and is lethal if consumed. Even drinking water from where it grows has been known to cause stomach cramps.

In Chinook jargon, the historical trade language of the west coast, this plant was referred to as ‘skookum’ root, with ‘skookum’ meaning powerful or brave. Despite its toxic nature, this plant has enormous medicinal value for First Nations cultures, though practitioners would have to be extremely careful about consumption — something we do NOT recommend.

Nurse Logs

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Life and death are inextricably linked in the old-growth forest and nowhere is this more evident than in the important role of nurse logs. A nurse log is a fallen tree that serves as the growing site for young plants. Nurse logs are especially important for western hemlocks and Sitka spruce as they provide an elevated platform for the seedlings to grow free from the dense competition of shrubs and forbs already established on the forest floor. In fact, seedling densities may be nearly five times as high on nurse logs as on the ground and nurse logs may support nearly three times as many species of moss as the surrounding forest floor.

The influence of nurse logs continues for centuries after they rot away, you can often find “colonnades” of immense Sitka spruces growing in a clear line deep in the rainforest. These enormous rows of pillars appear to be more the product of human architecture than natural occurrences. This is because centuries ago each of these spruces would have germinated on a fallen tree. Though the original log has long since rotted away, the positions of these giant trees still reflect the straight beam of that long-ago nursery.

It’s not only trees that these nurse logs support, but also a huge range of rainforest creatures: fungi mine the dead wood for nutrients, insects burrow under the bark, pacific wrens nest in the huge upturned root-wads, and salamanders take shelter under the logs. These incredible forest nurseries are a hallmark of the old-growth forest, where the slow death of ancient trees is the mechanism of forest renewal and rebirth.

Devil’s Club

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Devil’s club is one of the most dreaded banes of the coastal bushwhacker. Towering to over 16 feet (5 metres) high, this plant sports huge, maple-esque leaves and wicked spines coated in irritating oils. Many bushwhackers would prefer to climb into a grizzly’s den than wade through a dense thicket of devil’s club.

This plant is, however, prized by bears who feast on its bright red berries, undeterred by the vicious spines. Related to ginseng, devil’s club is also highly valued by coastal First Nations for its myriad medicinal properties.

Devil’s club is also associated with old-growth forests due to the fact that it’s slow to spread, and so has trouble recolonizing areas that have been logged. It loves moist, nutrient-rich sites, the same environments that create big trees, and therefore its presence can be an indicator of nearby forest giants; for ardent big-tree hunters, devil’s club can be the dragon which guards the treasure they came to seek.

 

Deer Ferns

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Deer fern is abundant in the coastal rainforest. This delicate little plant has two distinct forms: its sterile fronds are evergreen and lie flat on the ground, and its fertile fronds produce spores, they appear only in the spring and stand straight up from the forest floor. True to its name, deer fern is an important source of winter forage for our coastal blacktailed deer.

Big-tree hunters with the AFA have also noticed that some of the most magnificent groves of giant cedars on the coast are densely populated with lovely beds of deer fern. Cedars are unique among our coastal giants in that they are, like ferns, symbiotically linked to arbuscular mycorrhizae (Douglas-firs and Sitka spruces are connected to another group of fungi called ectomycorrhizae), this means that the mammoth pillars of ancient cedars are intimately connected with the delicate fern gardens that grow in their shadow.

A group of western skunk cabbage plants begins to show their yellow flowers.

Western Skunk Cabbage

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A sure sign of spring on the coast is the emergence of the spectacular western skunk cabbage. These magnificent plants, with their gargantuan leaves, flourish in wet, swampy areas in the rainforest and are among the earliest flowering plants to grace our forests. Their pungent odour is the chemical equivalent of birdsong, though instead of attracting a mate of the same species, the skunk cabbage’s olfactory music lures in flies and beetles to pollinate its dense column of flowers called a spadix.

Bears relish skunk cabbage, feasting on it after they emerge from hibernation in the early spring when other food resources are scarce. If you come across a skunk cabbage garden in the forest, look for bear tracks in the mud and pits where the hungry animals have dug up their swamp salad. Don’t be tempted to follow their example though, as the leaves of skunk cabbage contain crystals of calcium oxalate, the same substance that makes rhubarb leaves toxic.

Also called a swamp lantern because of its bright yellow spathe, encountering dozens of these bright “lanterns” glowing in the shadow of ancient cedars on a cool spring morning, while varied thrushes and pacific wrens pour out their music, is one of the quintessential pleasures of the coastal rainforest.

Red-Legged Frog

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The red-legged frog is a beautiful and secretive inhabitant of the coastal rainforest. These small frogs are found in shaded forest pools and can be recognized by the bright red colouring on their legs.

Unlike the more common pacific tree-frog whose croaking chorus is a hallmark of coastal spring evenings, the red-legged frog is rarely heard. This is not because they are silent, but rather because they do their singing underwater, sending out their mating calls up to 90 cm below the surface.

This frog is a blue-listed species of special concern in BC and requires undisturbed forested streams and wetlands in which to survive. Red-legged frogs are especially dependent on cool, shaded waters to breed, making the cool microclimate of old-growth forests an ideal habitat for them.

Hundreds of pink Fairy Puke globes scattered across a mint green carpet.

Fairy Puke Lichen

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Among the myriad lichens that adorn and encrust the coastal rainforest, few are as striking as Icmadophila ericetorum. This mint-green carpet speckled with tiny pink globes is known as “peppermint drop lichen” or “candy lichen” to some, but in British Columbia, most prefer the evocative nickname “fairy puke lichen” to capture its unique blend of the sickly and the fanciful.

This lichen thrives on rotting logs in shaded and damp places. The green carpet is the lichen’s thallus which roughly corresponds to a plant’s leaves, whereas the pink globes (or perhaps “chunks”) are called apothecia and release reproductive spores, corresponding roughly to the fruits and flowers of a plant.

So next time you’re wondering what those interesting colours on a log might be, take a closer look and see whether it’s the leftovers of a forest fairy’s wild night out.

Lobaria Lichen

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The lobaria lichens such as lungwort and lettuce-lung play a crucial role in forest ecology. These lichens bear a superficial resemblance to human lung tissue, and so under the medieval medical belief known as “The Doctrine of Signatures”, they were used to treat pulmonary illnesses such as tuberculosis and asthma. Though the benefits of this belief proved to be only of the imagination, these lichens are in fact critical for the health of our planetary “lungs”, the temperate rainforests.

Lobaria lichens are able to accomplish the rare feat of fixing atmospheric nitrogen. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth but almost no organisms are able to extract it from the air. These lichens mine this precious nutrient from the atmosphere and when they fall to the forest floor and decay, that nitrogen is made available to the entire ecosystem. These ecologically critical lichens are most abundant in old-growth forests where there may be as much as two tons of lobaria per hectare, all working tirelessly to enrich and fertilize the entire forest ecosystem.

Lobaria lichens are declining globally due to logging and pollution. The coastal rainforests of BC represent a critical global stronghold for these remarkable and ecologically valuable organisms.

A mossy big leaf maple tree with licorice ferns growing along its trunk and branches.

Licorice Ferns

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The licorice fern is a dainty forest dweller primarily found growing on mossy rock faces and the trunks and mossy branches of old-growth trees, sometimes hundreds of feet above the ground in the forest canopy. Licorice ferns are especially abundant on the branches of old big-leaf maple trees as well. Great examples can be found in Mossy Maple Grove and Mossome Grove.

These ferns get their name from the flavour of their rhizomes, which when exposed and nibbled on have a stevia-like sweetness mixed with that taste of black licorice…and dirt. The rhizomes can also be boiled to make a licorice-flavoured tea. Next time you’re in a forest with a lot of moss and maples, keep your eyes peeled for these cute ferns.