Devil’s Club

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Slime Mold

Slime molds are among the oddest creatures of the rainforest. These frequently brightly coloured organisms represent an interphase between the multicellular bodies of plants and animals and the unicellular world of amoebas and other protists. These strange creatures live much of their lives as single-celled organisms but individuals eventually meld into a “super-cell” called a plasmodium, which is bounded by a single-cell membrane but contains many cellular nuclei.

This strange conglomerate being is observable in the forest as threads of brightly coloured “slime” creeping over rotting logs. This plasmodium is able to move through a process called “cytoplasmic streaming” as it hunts for microscopic prey along the forest floor. These plasmodiums can cover an area of 30 square metres despite being technically a “single” cell. When the food supply is exhausted the slime mold develops fruiting bodies to seed the forest with its spores.

Lab research has shown that despite lacking a brain or even a nervous system, slime molds appear capable of rudimentary learning, memory and problem solving. In one experiment slime molds even appeared to be able to learn from one another. These bizarre, contradictory creatures of the coastal rainforest are challenging our basic understanding of cognition, expanding our understanding of thought and memory.

Perhaps even more intriguing, the filamentous networks of slime molds are actually structurally very similar to the “cosmic web” of galaxies strung across the universe. Cosmologists have now started using slime-mold patterns to predict and understand the structure of the Universe and to help them map out the distribution of the enigma known as “dark matter”.

The careful hiker in the coastal rainforest will be on guard for inclement weather, unexpected cliffs, and possible bear encounters, but few will be prepared for the perils of drastic mind expansion that may result from an encounter with a slime mold.

Many old-growth forests where slime mold is found aren’t currently protected from logging. We encourage you to speak up for big trees and ancient forests in BC by sending an instant message to the BC government today.

Carnivorous Sundews

Rather than make its food through photosynthesis, carnivorous sundews, like the ones seen here, supplement their diet by feeding on insects! The tiny tentacles have a sticky dew or “mucilage” on them to help trap and digest their prey for a hearty meal.

Known by the Haida First Nation as “many hearts,” the sundew is a dynamic plant revered for its medicinal properties and as a good luck charm for fishing. The nitrogen-starved wetlands they thrive in, take thousands of years to develop and are home to a variety of beautiful life forms, including mosses, herbaceous plants, shrubs, trees, and fungi, not to mention these brightly coloured creatures!

These ‘botanical oddballs’ can be found in hot, humid areas such as Georgia and Florida in the US, but the majority are found in Australia and South Africa. In BC, they can be found in the bog forests along the coast, such as the Shorepine Bog Trail near Tofino – look very close at the ground next time you’re walking there!

Tooth-Leaved Monkeyflower

 

A rare and beautiful flower, the yellow tooth-leaved monkeyflower (Erythranthe dentata), in Canada, is restricted to a handful of valleys on southwestern Vancouver Island. This diminutive rainforest resident prefers the rich floodplain forests that grow along the valley bottoms, which are home to the largest and most magnificent old-growth trees. These forests are now exceedingly rare, as their massive trees have been a target for logging for well over 100 years, leaving the flower as a blue-listed species of concern.

However, during springtime in BC, you still might catch a glimpse of the tooth-leaved monkeyflower brightening the forest floor in places such as the Nitinat River Provincial Park in Ditidaht territory; its pretty petals a tiny but lovely emblem of these grand and once-abundant ancient forests.