The nomination period for CVN’s Trees of the Year 2024 event ended on March 31. Once again we’ve seen how passionate and observant you, our community members, are for the trees around us in both our urban and rural environments. This year, you nominated 27 trees to celebrate, including specimens of 11 different species. Here’s how the nominations broke down among those species, most frequent first: Douglas-fir (8) Bigleaf maple (5) Garry oak (3) Western redcedar (3) Sitka spruce (2) and one each for (in no particular order) western white pine, flowering cherry, grand fir, arbutus, English wa ..read more

Locorice fern The Botany/Mycology Group had a well-attended field trip on March 12 to the Tsolum River floodplain trails adjacent to the Comox Valley Exhibition Grounds to see signs of early spring growth. The new leaders of the group, Véronique M. and Karen C., are adopting a new educational approach to field trips. They pre-selected a few species to focus on, with the aim of having group members learn to identify them. To this end, Véronique followed up with an illustrated guide to the focus species as well as to some additional species that were observed. The focus species on this trip were ..read more

Comox Valley Nature recently hosted the following webinar, facilitated by the Canadian Society of Environmental Biologists: Title: Seed-based Restoration for Urban Settings on Vancouver Island Speaker: Kristen Miskelly (Satinflower Nurseries) Date: Sunday, February 18, 2024 If you missed this event or would like to see it again, CSEB has made the recording available here. To access it you will need to provide your name and email address. For more information about this talk, see the announcement in our earlier post. The post Recording for talk on seed-based restoration appeared first on Comox ..read more

Comox Valley Nature is holding our Annual General Meeting on February 25, 2024 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in the Main Hall of Comox United Church, 250 Beach Drive in Comox. The public is invited to learn about CVN and join the Society. The meeting will introduce leaders of the different interest groups who will give short presentations. The interest groups include Birders, Botany, Marine and Shoreline, Nature Photography, Nature Walks and Habitat Restoration. For more information about CVN, see this page and the rest of this website. Also see our Instagram and Facebook accounts. Some examples of ou ..read more

Jocie says “Now that you’ve all digested part 1, here’s part 2 of Alison’s late fall & winter fungi review: the fabulous Polypores!” Click a photo to enlarge it. Notes on polypore fungi in the Comox Valley, late fall into winter 2023-2024 Polypores are much tougher and more durable than gilled fungi, even the annual ones such as the Trametes species.   Many have a shelf-like or bracket/hoof-like growth pattern, others have stipes; some are hard (Fomitopsis, Ganoderma spp.),  others leathery and pliable (Trametes, Stereum), others quite soft (Pos ..read more

Report by Alison M. circulated to the Botany/Mycology Group on January 26. Watch for part 2 (polypores) coming later. Click a photo to enlarge it. Notes on colourful fungi in the Comox Valley, late fall into winter 2023-2024 To add to the bright yellows, oranges and purples of Jocie’s report on the group’s visit to Kitty Coleman Park…. Who said that winter shrooms were all dull? First, the mystery shroom from the Kitty Coleman report – it looked most like a Nolanea holoconiota, so photos 1A and B show a specimen (a little more pointed that the mystery specimen), complete with its base, wh ..read more

From an email by Jocie to the Botany/Mycology Group on January 4. Catching up from our November 23 outing to Kitty Coleman Provincial Park…. We found a wealth of fungi — it was quite a treasure hunt. Joy said that the excitement level was “like a bunch of 5th graders.” One of the highlights was the diminutive white shroom with a hairy stem and veins beneath rather than gills, Stereopsis humphreyi. We saw lots of winter oysters (Saromyxa serotina), Lynne M. said that she used to harvest these for Christmas dinner: “we used to squeeze all the moisture out and add th ..read more

Moir Park ignition. Comox Valley Nature members and others recently attended the following webinar hosted by the Canadian Society of Environmental Biologists: Title: To Reduce the Social and Economic Damage from High Severity Wildfires, We Must Transform our Landscapes Speaker: Bob Gray (R.W. Gray Consulting Ltd.) Date: Thursday, January 25, 2024 If you missed this event or would like to see it again, CSEB has made the recording available here. To access it you will need to provide your name and email address. For more information about this talk, see the announcement in our earlier post. The ..read more

The nomination period for Comox Valley Nature’s Trees of the Year event for 2024 open on February 1. Some key features of the event: Any resident of the Comox Valley can nominate one or more trees, not just CVN members. We have an online nomination form to make nominating easy. Starting this year, we are promoting appreciation of all the nominated trees rather than having a vote for a single winner. Tour routes will be published for the nomination phase to help you find interesting trees to consider (in addition to routes to find the nominated trees later). You can nominate a tree any time ..read more

Photo: Jim Whyte The nomination period for CVN’s Trees of the Year 2024 runs from February 1 to March 31. If you do not already have a tree in mind, we have suggestions for where you can look for one (or more). This year we have prepared suggested tour routes to lead you to some of the prime spots in the Valley where you can find interesting and special trees. Browse through the maps of five such areas (and one combined map) listed in the table below. Then go out and find a tree to nominate. At the same time you might discover some natural areas that you didn’t previously know. We encourage tr ..read more