Paintbrush

Paintbrush
Castilleja sp.
Orobanchaceae (Broomrape Family)



Quick ID
Castilleja blooms in early summer in a wild assortment of reds, oranges, pinks, yellows, even purples.  The colorfully painted brush atop each plant is not actually the flower, but rather the plant's leafy bracts that gradiate to green towards the base.  The actual flowers at the tips of these petal-like leaves are not much to speak of.  Paintbrush tends to be a moderately sized perennial herb, upright and with a woolly quality.  The narrow leaves  are alternately arranged, without stalks, clustered along a stem that can get woody at its base.  Castilleja could easily be confused with the closely related owl clover (Orthocarpus) or even the not-closely related Liatris, if one isn't careful.

Liatris (right) and owl clover above...both native, neither one a paintbrush!

At any rate, the species can be exceedingly difficult to tell apart, as they hybridize easily.  Even the most authoritative taxonomists in the business use caution with this genus.

Range
Around 200 species of Castilleja evolved in the Americas and northern Asia.  Most of the diversity is found in the Northwest region of the US and Canada, although species range down to the Andes.  Plants grow in a wide range of ecosystems. Look for them in forest meadows, rarely in dense stands but instead sprinkled in among other wildflower communities.

What's in a Name?
One used to commonly hear this plant called Indian paintbrush (although most gardeners and botanists I know have come to find the term distasteful) or prairie-fire. The genus name Castilleja was first published in Carolus (the younger) Linnaeus's Supplementum Plantarum in 1782, after Professor of Botany Domingo Castillejo of Cadiz, Spain.  The name was chosen by Jose Celestino Mutis, a world-class botanist in his own right, who must have been one of Castillejo's admirers.  The surname, incidentally, means "little castle".

Around 2001, the botanical family Scrophulariaceae started to get a major makeover.  To put it simply, improved research methods started revealing that as far as genetic relationships are concerned, way too many plants were being included in the family.  So taxonomists kicked a whole bunch of genera out of the group, squeezing them in with Orobanchaceae, Plantaginaceae and some other families.  This sort of taxonomic restructuring can get really technical...and really messy.  Take, for example, the Wiki entry on Scrophulariaceae (which, admittedly, has always been something of a mishmash family) :

Fischer (2004) considered the family to consist of three subfamilies; Antirrhinoideae, Gratioloideae, and Digitalidoideae. He further divided the Gratioloideae into five tribes; Gratioleae, Angeloniaeae, Stemodieae, Limoselleae and Lindernieae. He then divided the Gratioleae, with its sixteen genera (and about 182 species) into three subtribes; Caprarinae, Dopatrinae and Gratiolinae. The Gratiolinae had ten genera (about 121 species) distributed through temperate and tropical America; Bacopa and Mecardonia (formerly Herpestis), Amphianthus,Gratiola, Sophronanthe,  Benjaminia, Scoparia, Boelkea, Maeviella and Braunblequetia. Many of these were transferred to the family Plantaginaceae, in the tribe Gratioleae.

 Yikes!  While some folks, bless their hearts, really get excited with this level of nit-picky detail, the rest of us are left throwing our forever-outdated field guides up in the air, exasperated.   What's cool about the binomial nomenclature system (Genus species) is that everybody all over the world can use the same name for an organism, no matter what language you speak or what region you hail from.  Nice and simple.  All the new (yes yes, more accurate) swip-swapping of names can get complicated, and intimidating for the budding botanist.
At any rate Castilleja, formerly a scroph, is now in the Orobanchaceae (Broomrape) family.  This actually does make sense, as the broomrapes, like paintbrush, are largely parasitic plants.


Tidbits

Castilleja is what's known as a hemiparasite.  Unlike true parasitic plants, it has the chlorophyll to photosynthesize on its own.  It can even live on its own, but will be stunted and miserable.  It would much prefer to worm its haustoria (special roots for plants looking to borrow a bit from their neighbor) into their host plant's root system and pick up a little water- and nutrient-boost.  I thought Tracey Switek's post in The Olive Tree explained it really nicely, so give it a look-see to learn more about paintbrush's fascinating parasitism.

And before you cast it aside as a thieving rascal, take heart in the benefits the paintbrush brings to its environment.  Besides the utterly lovely burst of color it provides, this is an excellent pollinator plant, full of nectar and visited by all manner of bees and hummingbirds.  It's also an important larval host for Schinia moths and checkerspot (Euphydryas) butterflies.  The flowers are theoretically edible for people too, and have historically been used to treat various ailments (including love-sickness).  The plant's tendency to accumulate potentially-toxic levels of selenium in the leaves, however, means would-be foragers should go forth with caution.

Wild Gardening
Because paintbrush naturally grows in complex relationship with other plant communities, it's notoriously difficult to cultivate in the garden.  But not impossible!  Collect seed capsules midsummer to fall and dry them in paper bags.  Try giving the seeds a month or so of cold moist stratification...different species will respond to this treatment differently.  You could also try sowing seeds outdoors in fall so they're exposed to naturally fluctuating temperatures.  Start spring seeds in pots or again, try sowing them straight into the ground.  You should see germination within a couple weeks.  A host plant is not required to get seeds to germinate, but your paintbrushes will languish soon without.  Your best bet is to grow it near other native plants that it would be found alongside in nature.  Time to start building that native wildflower meadow you've always wanted!  Good luck!

Rocky Mountain Juniper

Rocky Mountain Juniper

Cupressaceae (Cypress Family)

Rocky Mountain juniper.  Appressed leaves.

Quick ID
Rocky Mountain juniper is a small conical tree that grows to be around 30' high.  The bark is raggedy and shredding, reddish-brown to gray.  Its leaves are actually made up of thousands of tiny little needles, about 2 mm long.  If you look close, you'll see that some of these needles stick out all over the stem like a Doug Fir.  These are the juvenile leaves.  Mature leaves are squashed up flat against each other (known in the botany world as appressed), layered like shingles on a roof.

Common juniper.  Nothing appressed about these leaves.

There are three other species of juniper native to Montana.  Common juniper (J. communis) is a small shrub that's easy to recognize.  Its needles aren't apressed; they go poking out all around the stem in whorls of three, and have distinctly white undersides.
Creeping juniper (J. horizontalis) has leaves much like the Rocky Mountain juniper, but it grows in dense mats, never more than 2' tall.  The leaves are usually a dark green, whereas J. scopulorum tends to be more blueish-gray.  And finally, the Utah juniper (J. osteosperma) is another 30' tree.  Everything about it somehow seems more blunt: broader needles, a squarish crown, and a generally more squat appearance.  In Montana, you'll only find it in Big Horn and Carbon counties, south of the Pryor mountains, where it's at the northern edge of its range.

~Western Red Cedar~

You might confuse juniper with the western red cedar (Thuja plicata) in northwest Montana.  The leaves are similar, but the branches are more flattened, spray-like and brighter green.  The cones are also woody, whereas juniper bears seeds in what look like blue berries (they're technically female cones).  Juniper "berries" form in May or June and take two years to mature; you'll find green immature berries all over the branches along with the blue ones, which are usually covered with a white bloom.  If you're looking to harvest the berries, remember that, unlike most trees, junipers are dioecious (from the latin for "two houses"), meaning that individual plants are either male or female.  

"Male Bark"

Only the female plants have berries; the male ("staminate") cones just look like little brown nubs at the tips of branches, which scatter pollen to the wind.  Female trees also tend to have shreddier bark, as opposed to the patchier bark on males.

What's in a Name?

The species name of Rocky Mountain juniper, scopulorum, comes from the Latin 'scopul'  meaning rocky crags or cliffs, which is just where you'll find these bristly trees on your botanical field excursions.The origin of the common name juniper (and genus Juniperus) is shaky.  I've been combing through a lot of suggestions this morning, some silly and some sensible, and I'm not sure who to believe.  I do love the salty old etymologist Bill Casselman's take on the topic as a whole, and found this article pretty enlightening.Juniper is also becoming a popular baby name.  Ultimately, the given name is probably not derived so much from the plant as from the Welsh name Guinevere (which also gave rise to the name Jennifer).

Gorgeous juniper habitat on the Madison river

Range

Look for Rocky Mountain Juniper in dry, rocky foothills and montane regions from BC and Alberta south to New Mexico and east to the Dakotas.  The range is extended somewhat due to the fact J. scopulorum hybridizes regularly with other juniper species and horticulturally cultivated varieties. 

Tidbits

Junipers, along with other members of the cypress family, have been around for a looooong long time.  Ever since the earth's land masses were clumped together in the super-continent  Pangaea, 250 million years ago.  This is why you can find the very same species, Juniperus communis, as a native shrub in North America, Asia and Europe.  This ancient plant, as you might expect, has a rich and fascinating history.Juniper's light, durable wood is naturally streaked with a lovely red and white grain, and makes fine tools and decorative utensils.  The shredded bark has been used in rope-making and padding for diapers.  The dried berries can be dried and strung into necklaces; Navajo mothers are said to have given these "ghost beads" to their babies to prevent bad dreams.

The berries and aromatic branches of the juniper have also been used medicinally since ancient times (the Greek physician Galen mentions it as early as the second century AD), for a list of ailments too long to go into here.  The essential oil does contain the diuretic compound terpinen-4-ol, as well as Amentoflavone, which has antiviral properties.  Juniper berry tea has a long, complicated, sometimes dangerous association with child-bearing.  It was used by Shoshone women as a contraceptive, and Zuni and Apache women drank the tea to promote muscle relaxation during labor.  Juniper oil does increase uterine contractions, and many native tribes (and pioneer women) used it to induce abortions, sometimes with fatal results.The berries are not particularly edible on their own, but they do lend their distinct flavor to that most delightful spirit, gin.  The earliest juniper-flavored alcohols were medicinal concoctions,  and would have borne little resemblance to our modern take on gin.  The species most often used in gin production today is the long lived Juniperus communis communis.

Camped out at my favorite (top secret) juniper picking spot

For the most part the berries (a thousand tons a year or more!) are still wild-harvested, coming principally from Tuscany, Morocco and eastern Europe.  Hand picking is long, laborious work because remember, there are berries in all stages of ripeness on each branch.  To only pick off the dark blue berries and leave the green fruit alone requires a lot of elbow grease and some skill with a good whacking stick. Once harvested, the berries are infused into a neutral base spirit (vodka) and violá!  Oh Captain, my Captain.  Distillers can be a little secretive about their recipes, but common additions often include angelica, orris root (a type of iris that acts as a fixative for other flavors), cardamom, bay leaf, citrus, ginger, grains of paradise (in the ginger family Zingiberaceae), lavender, coriander, fennel and cubeb (similar to black pepper). 

Hogarth's Gin Lane

We could go on and on about the history of gin.  It's production as "medicine" during prohibition.  England's 18th century Gin Craze.  The fascinating story of quinine.  Jenever, Old Tom and London Dry.  Bathtub gin.  So on and so forth.  If you'd like to read more, and in fact discover a whole incredible world of botanicals as they relate to alcohol, please do pick up a copy of Amy Stewart's The Drunken Botanist.  You'll be glad you did.

Wild Gardening

The Garnet Range is a great place to see giant J. scopulorum

The Rocky Mountain juniper is one of our toughest little trees, and is a perfect choice for natural gardens.  The tiers of branches, loosely woven, call the eye upward and beyond the borders, providing structure and texture in every season. Waxy-coated leaves make it incredibly drought resistant and winter hardy.  Junipers want full sun or part shade, and very little water.  If you are going to irrigate, mke sure the soil is really well drained.  Although very slow-growing, give it enough space to accommodate its mature size (about 20-30' high with an eight foot spread).

Try propagating juniper by taking heel cuttings after a couple of hard freezes, and using a rooting hormone.  If you want to try growing it from seed, sow them in the fall and cross your fingers.  It's possible, but expect your germination to be pretty low.  Plants are also readily available at nurseries, but ask questions to be certain you're getting the true native species.  There are a ton of Juniperus cultivars and ornamental varieties.  There might be nothing wrong with that per se, but as a general practice, the more your garden plants resemble the native species found in your area, the better they'll be at providing food, shelter and nesting sites for your local insects and other wildlife.

Juniper berries are relished in fall and winter by many small birds, especially waxwings and grosbeaks.  Junipers are larval host plants for the Juniper Hairstreak butterfly (Callophrys gryneus).  Watch for males perching amidst the branches on your next summer excursion.

So you want to build a Pollinator Hotel...

Well you can!  And you should.  Pollinator Hotels provide essential habitat for cavity-nesting insects like mason bees and leafcutters, as well as other beneficial critters like spiders, ladybugs, and butterflies.  You'll get to watch this mini-ecosystem unfold in your backyard, observing first hand its life cycles, food chains and day to day goings-on.  Your hotel can be tidy and symmetrical, or thrown together with wild abandon.  You can build them to suit your fancy, changing features and adding on over the years.  And with a little ingenuity and a bit of time spent gathering materials, they're inexpensive and easy to put together.

I build these wild bee houses using salvaged fenceboards and shingles, blue-stain lumber milled from trees killed by bark beetles, and whatever else scraps I can find.  (If you want to buy one, here's my Etsy Shop!)
You can also expand on this idea and install a Pollinator Hotel on-site.  We did this recently as part of the Homestead Hey Day spring celebration at the historic Moon-Randolph Homestead in Missoula.  Volunteers pooled their craftsmanship and creativity, using scrap wood from around the ranch, locally gathered natural materials and hand tools to build a beautiful and functional house for helpful bugs.  We've still got some finishing touches to do, drilling holes in the logs and stuffing crevices with bee tubes, but for one happy afternoon's work, it turned out pretty incredible.  
If you want to build your own you'll want to follow just a few basic guidelines.  Here are some tips to help you get started.

1.  Build a frame
Anything goes, pretty much!  You might want to sketch out a plan before you begin.  How big?  Do you want formal rows of tubes and drilled holes, or rustic compartments of natural materials?  Will it be built on posts, or hanging?  Do you want to stack materials so the hotel can be dismantled and rebuilt easily, or do you want a frame that's held in place by screws...or cement, or...?  Do you want to include spaces to put soil and grow live plants on the structure?  If so, you might want to put them down low so you can water without drenching your insect nesting materials.

Whatever you decide, remember that native bees need one end of their nesting cavity closed.  If you're using completely hollow tubes, you'll want to put a backboard of some sort up.  If you're drilling holes through logs, you can opt to not drill all the way through (for example, drill a 6" deep hole in a 7" deep log).  I personally recommend drilling all the way through and putting up a backboard, however.  That way if you ever decide to clean out your bee holes, it's much easier.


2. Put it in the right place
You'll want to locate your Pollinator Hotel in a place that's at least somewhat shielded from heavy wind and rain.  Face the opening to the south or east so it gets plenty of warm morning sun.  If you live in a really hot sunny location, some afternoon shade in midsummer is helpful too.  Raising the frame off the ground a few feet deters ants, who have been known to sneak in and steal the pollen reserves left for developing larvae.  Just don't put it so high that it's out of insects' normal flight paths.  Somewhere between 4-8' off the ground is ideal.  And make sure the insects have access to a source of food (pollen from trees, shrubs, flowers or vegetables within a couple hundred yards), water and mud, which mason bees use to line their brood cells.  We located ours at the edge of the vegetable garden, facing out towards an ancient orchard.  The early spring flowers of fruit trees are perfect for mason bees (also known as blue orchard bees).  Remember that, once you start to fill in your frame, it will get heavy, so you might want to get it in place beforehand.

3.  Provide nooks and crannies
The idea is to mimic the natural nesting sites of insects in the wild.  This helps mitigate the effects of habitat destruction as native ecosystems give way to concrete, asphalt and (gasp!) turf grass.  So build one for environmental stewardship and conservation!  But also do it for yourself.  Attracting a diverse array of native insects to your yard and garden leads to a healthier ecological balance (thus reducing insect pests), better pollination of your fruits, flowers and veggies, and an awesome opportunity to observe these fascinating creatures up close.
Try to provide a diversity of cracks and crevices to accommodate different nesting habits.  Ladybugs, beetles, lacewings, beneficial spiders, moths and butterflies all seek shelter to raise their young and overwinter, and many native bee species nest in hollow tubes and cavities.  Use different sized sticks, dead flower stalks (sunflowers work great), straw, pine cones, dry grasses and pieces of bark to fill compartments.  Avoid wood that's been treated or recently varnished.

Things are starting to take shape!  Peter cuts plant stalks into tubes, Tyson saws logs, and Natasha slices bark rings to build compartments.

4.  Make the bee holes the right size and depth

Mason bee cells in a milkweed stem

Tubes and drilled holes should be about 6" deep.  This is important.  Nesting mason bees will fill the first ~4" with female eggs, and cap each tube with a couple males.  The eggs hatch into larvae, which pupate into adult bees at the end or the summer.  The males emerge first (presumably to be offered up to any predators lurking outside the nest) followed by the females a couple weeks later.  If your tubes are too short, you risk having all female eggs.  Cavity nesting bees also avoid holes that are too deep, so try not to go over 8" or so.

There are thousands of species of wild bees...all different sizes and with varying preferences.  When drilling holes or cutting tubes, the standard recommended diameter is 3/8".  I've seen bees nest in holes down to 1/8" and as big as 5/8".  I try to provide a variety of sizes, to see what different species I can attract.

Gathering tubes

Finding hollow-stemmed plant materials can be tough.  If you live in an area with bamboo, that works perfect.  I try to use the previous year's dry stalks of Japanese knotweed (an abundant noxious weed), Fuller's teasel (a pain to process, with all the prickles), Queen Anne's lace, milkweed, elderberry, even corn stalks.  Remember that many species have nodes that go all the way through the stem, so these parts need to be cut out or placed towards the back of your hotel.

5.  Protect it
Besides choosing a sheltered location, it helps to put some sort of slanted roof on so rain rolls off.  And if you're worried about birds, squirrels or deer getting into your nesting materials, put some small-gauge chicken wire over the front entrance.

6.  Maintain it over time
If you're using straw, dry grass or other decomposables, clean out the compartment and replace with fresh materials each spring.  In the case of bee cavities, mites and other pests can build up if the tubes aren't cleaned out periodically.  Once every four years or so you'll want to scrape out debris with a poker or replace the tubes entirely.  Some people recommend spraying the holes with a 5-10% bleach solution to kill mites.
Keep an eye on your Pollinator Hotel.  Over time, you'll have an idea of who lives where, what the most popular rooms are, and how well each material and arrangement is working.  Experiment!  Change it up.  Have fun.

If you want to learn more about native pollinators, visit my Wild House of Bees page.  Also check out this excellent compilation of insect habitats from Inspiration Green to see what people around the world are building.  And please, post pictures of what you come up with!

Resources for the Wild Beekeeper

So...I'm not coming up with any new content in this post, I know.  But I've found myself in a little bit of a...situation...lately...
"Yawwwn...bedtime, hooray!  I'll just buzz through my Facebook feed real qui--hey lookie!  A neat little article about bee lifespans by Crown Bees!  Click click, oop, what's this?  An insect hotel photo gallery from all over the world?  Sweet sweet swee-oh my gosh I've been looking for some research on the evolution of bees and wasps!  Yesssss...click click click. Fascinating.  That reminds me, I need to find good instructions on insect collection techniques...and where to buy pins and...click click click..."
Boom.  It's three in the morning, I'm wide awake with 15 browser windows open, and up to my ears in totally awesome resources for someone who can't get enough of native bees and other busy little pollinators.  Too much information and you just get lost down the rabbit hole.
So I've been wanting to pull together a compendium of sorts; a handy dandy list of what I've found to be the most complete, compelling, entertaining and useful tools available to all us budding apiologists.  These are the movers and shakers in the world of bees, with a special focus on western Montana's native species.  If you think of any I've left out, just give me a hoot!

*One quick note.  Sometimes it seems there's a savage war raging between the "native bee" people and the"honeybee" people.  I'm not going to get into honeybees much at all with this resource guide.  No time, no space!  But I highly encourage you to read this intriguing article on how native bees and honeybees interact and compliment each other's work.  I can't stop talking about it.

Helpful Organizations, Projects and Tools for the Wild Beekeepers of Western Montana

What IS that?!  Identification and Classification Tools

Insect identification can drive you bonkers!  I remember my first entomology class all too well.  The textbooks seemed to be written in a different language.  SO much new terminology, so many nit-picky little parts to learn, sooooo many insects species in the world!  We have thousands of native bee species in North America, and if you want to know which ones are buzzing around your garden, you have to learn to key them out.  This guide to bee families is a good place to start.  It gets easier, once you get the lingo down.  I promise.  For a refreshing, colorful, very readable guide to a few of Montana's poster-child bees, check out MT Bee ID.  This MSU extension guide gets a little more in depth, still specific to Montana.  For an all-around excellent insect ID tool, check out Bug Guide.  And if you really want to get into it, Discover Life lets you key out pretty much any living thing on earth using simple Q&As and lots of pictures.  Also check out Nico's photos...he's based in Belgium, but the photo sets are well put together and very helpful.

Burrowing in a little deeper...

Pete Hillman did a nice readable overview of the biology of bees-a perfect intro to what bees are all about.

Some of the best collaborative research and outreach in the country is being done at the University of MN Bee Lab--which is nice, because the majority of resources you find on native bees are coming out of western Europe (BWARS is worth peeking at, as is Hymettus.  Both excellent programs from the UK, with plenty of applicable info for the US.)

My favorite source of casual info on North American native bees is Our Native Bees.  This is the site that keeps me up till dawn.  It's filled with endlessly fascinating articles, tidbits and photos that I just can't get enough of.  You can buy bee supplies here, and learn so much about wild beekeeping, and...you'll love it.

Inspiration

You can spend countless hours toodling around on the computer, soaking up wild bee facts like a sponge, but eventually you're gonna wanna DO something!  You could build a simple nesting box--Montana Wildlife Gardener put together some handy instructions.  If you want to take on a slightly bigger project, visit my tutorial on building Pollinator Hotel installations in your garden.

Once you've got your habitat set up, you can Map Your Nest!  I really believe that citizen science projects like this are the key to building engaged communities and cultivating the collective knowledge base we need to save the world.  Just sayin'.

To see citizen science in action, check out the Yatton Area Bee Project--a collaborative, community-based approach to protecting local bee populations.  Models like these are totally applicable to any city or town...even yours!  Dooooo it...

I also love Resonating Bodies, which celebrates pollinator biodiversity through media installations and community outreach projects.  Very inclusive, very cool.

Pollinators in the Garden

The Pollinator Garden is great.  My particular brand of geekery has led me to become pretty well versed in the topic of gardening for wildlife and sustainability, and I still managed to learn a whole lot from this UK-based site.  Good pleasure reading, if you're anything like me.
If you're planning a pollinator garden, use this Pollinator Syndromes chart.  It tells you what types of flowers attract what types of pollinators, basically, and is super handy.  It's buried in the depths of the Pollinator Partnership, which, along with The Xerces Society, is without a doubt the go-to for everything you ever wanted to know about insects and pollinator conservation.
Be sure to check out the LA Times' take on why you need to get in on backyard wildlife habitat conservation...featuring Flora montana's Wild House of Bees!
I put together a nice compilation of wildlife gardening and native plant resources specific to western Montana, as well.  Here you go.  Visit the Wild House of Bees Frequently Asked Questions page to dig deeper.

Still need more?  Beautiful Wildlife Garden put together an Ultimate Guide to Attracting Native Bees that will definitely keep you busy.  Click click click...

Bearberry

Bearberry

Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

Ericaceae (Heath Family)

What's in a Name?  

The scientific name of Bearberry is quite literal:  Arcto and ursi both mean "bear", while staphyle and uva indicate "grapes" (or berries).  Not surprisingly, bears are fond of this tiny fruit.  Also known as Kinnikinnick, from an Algonquin word meaning "item for mixing in" (to a smoking blend).

Quick ID:  

Look for Bearberry growing in dense, trailing mats along the forest floor.  It's one of our few broadleaf evergreens, with leaves that stay on all winter.  The paddle-like leaves are small (1-3 cm), leathery, and dark glossy green-turning reddish as winter moves in.  

Dainty pink-and-white flowers cluster in racemes at branch tips.  

Fruits are bright red, appearing in late summer and hanging on well into the winter.  

Range:

Found on well-drained foothill, montane, subalpine and alpine sites from Alaska to New Mexico.  Click here for MT range map. 

Tidbits:  

Bearberry has been used as a food source throughout history.  The berries are dry, mealy and bland.  Bearberry tea is widely used for many medical ailments, most notably for treating urinary tract infections and kidney stones.  However, ingesting too much can lead to constipation, and extended use has been linked to stomach and liver problems (esp. in children) and uterine contractions in pregnant women.

Bearberry leaves are high in tannin and can be used to tan hides.

Wild gardening:  

An excellent groundcover, particularly for dry sites and steep slopes.  It is tolerant of heat and cold (Zone 2-8), drought, and sun or shade.  Long-lived but slow-growing, Bearberry has no serious disease or pest problems.  Berries provide wintertime forage for birds and other wildlife.  Flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds.  The plant is a larval host for Rocky Mountain Clearwing (Hemaris senta) moths, Hoary Elfin (Callophrys polios), Brown Elphin (Callophrys augustinus), and Freija Frittilary (Boloria freija) butterflies.

This blog entry was originally created for the Montana Natural History Center.  Check out the original post here

Redtwig Dogwood

Redtwig Dogwood

Cornus sericea

Cornaceae (Dogwood Family)
Quick ID:

Redtwig dogwood is full of character throughout the year.  In its leafless winter state, the conspicuous red branches set off a blaze of color against the snow.

Early spring brings dense, flat-topped clusters of creamy white flowers, which give way to pea-sized white berries in summer.

Cooler temperatures bring out purple and red anthocyanins in the leaves--the mass fall display of a dogwood thicket can really take your breath away.  Look for this loosely spreading deciduous shrub, typically 6-12' high, growing in dense thickets in riparian areas and open forests.

The red twigs are tipped by a uniquely pointed terminal bud, and can be covered in lenticels on the old growth.  Leaves are opposite (arranged in pairs along the stem), simple (not lobed), with entire (not serrated) margins that tend to be wavy and occasionally rimmed in purple.

Notice the way the veins sweep up toward the tip of the leaf.  This is a great identifying feature that can be used to distinguish dogwood from the many other simple-leaved species out there (chokecherry, twinberry, huckleberry...).

Range:
Very common throughout Canada and the northern US, south to Virginia on the east side and northern Mexico in the west.  Look for it growing in the rich, moist soil of riparian areas and in forest openings, in conjunction with alder (Alnus spp.), willow (Salix spp.), cottonwood and aspen (Populus spp.), Wood's rose (Rosa woodsii), currants (Ribes spp.), Rocky Mountain maple (Acer glabrum) and horsetails (Equisetum spp.).

What's in a Name?
Cornus is the Latin word for horn (like a unicorn).  The Romans called the dogwood "cornel", in reference to the mature wood, which is hard as the horn of a goat and useful for making a great many things.  This is also a convenient way to remember the distinct leaf buds of redtwig dogwood, which are narrow and pointed like horns.The species name sericea means silky, in reference to the fine hairs covering the leaves.  The origin of the word "dogwood" itself is not totally settled.  It may be a corruption of "dagwood", from the use of its hard wood in making dags (or daggers).
Alternatively, there is some evidence that a concoction of English Cornus leaves was used to treat dog mange in 17th century herbology.

C. sericea is also commonly known as redosier dogwood.  This may be confusing, since "osier" comes from the medieval term for willow (Salix sp.)  In fact, the flexible young branches of C. sericea have long been used for basket weaving, much like the willows that grow in similar streamside thickets. 

Tidbits:
Like most of our native plant species, dogwood has been, and continues to be, valued for its many benefits to humans.  An extract made from the leaves, stems and inner bark can be used as an emetic for treating fevers and coughs (and a great many other ailments), and the inner bark scrapings have long been added to tobacco smoking mixtures.  The red stems not only produce colorful weaving patterns, but can be used to make red, brown and black dyes.

The white berries, although tart and bitter, are not poisonous, and have been eaten by many people throughout history.  The fruits are low in natural sugars, making them less attractive to wildlife and less likely to rot than other berries.  Thus, dogwood fruit persists long into the winter, making it available when other food is not. These unlikely berries are a key food source of grizzly and black bears, and are also eaten by songbirds, waterfowl, cutthroat trout, mice and other animals.  Beavers use the hard wood to build dams and lodges.

Thickets of dogwood are especially good habitat for little birds like the dusky flycatcher, orange-crowned warbler, Lincoln sparrow and the house finch pictured here.  These thickets, often located along the river's edge, provide good places to rear young, with year-round security and food sources.  Because of its thick root system, redtwig dogwood is also important for stabilizing these streambanks, particularly in places where stream channels are scoured by seasonal flooding.

Wild Gardening

Being a water-loving species, Cornus sericea is tolerant of moist soils and varying water tables.  Once established, it also holds up well against drought.  Research has shown that water-stressed plants actually have a higher tolerance to freezing cold temperatures.  When dogwood senses the shortened days of oncoming winter, tissue changes occur that prevents the plant from taking up water and increases water lost through transpiration, so the tissue becomes dehydrated even when water is abundant.  This interesting adaptation, along with C. sericea's somewhat complex ability to avoid freezing injury by having water freeze outside of its cells, should make it an incredibly cold-hardy choice for northern gardeners.  BUT, remember the notorious cold snap of early October, 2009, when temperatures across Montana took a sudden dive into the single digits?  Our 11-year-old redtwig dogwood--10' tall and strong as an ox, we thought--was the only significant plant we lost at the Fort Missoula Native Plant Garden here in Missoula.  Granted, all the plants at this garden are dynamite no-fear natives that can take most anything the weather throws at them, so the garden's overwhelming hardiness came as no surprise.  The loss of our old friend was a sad one, though.  Luckily, dogwood is easy to propagate by seed, layering or stem cuttings, and easy to establish in a range of soils.  This is one shrub that will do fine in partial shade as well.  And while the tender stems are preferred browse for deer, elk and moose, they're less enticing than many of the delectable non-native shrubs commonly planted as ornamentals.  Aside from the wildlife you'll be providing backyard habitat for, you'll also be enticing pollinators and butterflies with the fragrant white blossoms in spring (C. sericea is an important larval host for the Spring Azure (Celastrina ladon) butterfly.  Overall, this is one of the best all-purpose native shrubs to plant for ease of care and year-round enjoyment.

Thanks to Dave DeHetre,  Bryant Olsen and Paul Alaback for some of the images used here.

See original blog post here