Archive For The “rain forest” Category
Devil’s club (Oplopanx horridus) (Robin Rowland)
There’s beauty in the forests of the Kitimat Valley, even if you’re a plant with the Latin name horridus. It’s also called the Devil’s Club and has very nasty spines on both the stem and the leaves. It’s related to the ginseng family and was used by coastal First Nations as a medicine for arthritis and dozens of other ailments.
The other appropriately ill-named plant that is common in wetter areas is the skunk cabbage (Lysichiton Americanum) because it stinks. Here the skunk cabbage is pictured alongside the Devil’s Club near Minette Bay.(Robin Rowland)
Found frequently in swampy, boggy areas and on stream beds. First Nations used it as “wax paper” to line baskets and steaming pits. Can be eaten if steamed or roasted–but only in early spring in time of famine.
Young horsetails (Equiseteum arvense) emerging in the late spring evoke a primeval world during my morning walk in Kitimat. (Robin Rowland)
Late on an early November afternoon, the sun, low in the sky, shines through moss hanging from trees in a wooded area near my home in Kitimat, BC, November 9, 2014. (Robin Rowland)
After almost two months of steady rain (from late September to early November) the jet stream has moved east, for now, bringing the “polar vortex” to central and eastern North America, and clear skies and the sun (finally) to the British Columbia coast. Taken about about 20 minutes after the shot above. (Robin Rowland)
Bish Creek, on the west side of Douglas Channel, south of Kitimat and near the proposed Chevron Kitimat LNG terminal site, photographed on a stormy Sunday afternoon, October 5, 2014.
A little experimentation with black and white here. Three versions of the image blended together, a standard black and white conversion, with two versions from Perfect Effects 8, mostly selenium but also a smidgen of high key.
Another gorgeous evening in Kitimat, August 13, sun set lit clouds and the quarter moon setting over Douglas Channel.
Sunset and quarter moon setting over Douglas Channel, Kitimat, Aug. 13, 2013. (Robin Rowland)
Telephoto (200 mm) view of the forest and Kitimat harbour, Aug. 13, 2013. (Robin Rowland)
Another telephoto (200 mm) view of the forest and Kitimat harbour, Aug. 13, 2013. (Robin Rowland)