Flowers of Ivvavik

Celebrated my 27th birthday yesterday with people in my lab and had dinner at Tim Horton's.  Nothing super interesting in my life at the moment - working on my thesis, teaching, and thinking about what I should do with my future.

I have to teach a lab this Friday that requires me to identify tree species on one of the surrounding drumlins here at Trent.  I spent some time last Saturday identifying the trees from a guide, but I still wasn't too comfortable with my skills.  So yesterday, the lab coordinator took us teaching assistants to the drumlin again to identify the trees together.  Hopefully, everything will work out fine on Friday.

Speaking on trees and plants, I have been wanting to share my flower photos from this past field season for some time now.  Here they are.

Dwarf Fireweed (Epilobium latifolium)

Weasel Snout (Lagotis glauca)


 Moss Gentian (Gentiana prostrata) with the common name pygmy gentian because its flowers are tiny - up to 12 mm only!

 
Bladder Campion (Silene uralensis) - the calyx are inflated and bladderlike.  So cool.

 
Northern Sweet-Vetch (Hedysarum boreale)


Mountain Avens (Dryas integrifolia)




 Drummond's Anemone (Anemone drummondii)


Digitata Bittercress (Cardamine digitata)


Unknown Aster

Arctic Forget-me-not (Eritrichium aretioides)

Bearflower (Boykinia richardsonii)

Arctic Willow (Salix arctica) - male

 Arctic Cinquefoil (Potentilla hyparctica)

 Arctic Catchfly (Silene repens)




 Woolly Lousewort (Pedicularis lanata)






 Elegant Paintbrush (Castilleja elegans)

Platanthera sp. a.k.a. Northern Bog Orchid

According to Cody (1996) and with the oval basal leaves in the previous photo, this is likely to be Platanthera orbiculata (Pursh) Lindl.  However, it is known to occur "in the Yukon Territory but no substantiating specimen located."  So this is definitely an interesting observation by me.

I am definitely going to miss the amazing floral diversity that I observed in Ivvavik.