We have an amazing diversity of native plants here in the Lower Mainland of BC but most people have no idea they even exist! The scary thing is, we are losing them at an alarming rate because we are unaware, don’t have the time, or don’t even care if they exist or not. We should care about the health of our environment because it doesn’t just affect the plants and animals around us it affects us too! Everything is connected, just like trees in forests are connected by mycorrhizal fungi that help each other out. These flowers are Fawn Lilies in Hi-Knoll Park in Surrey. They are only here for a short time as they are ephemeral plants meaning they emerge in spring, bloom, set seed and then go dormant by summer. The White Fawn Lily is Erythronium oregonum and the Pink Fawn Lily is Erythronium revolutum. It is getting harder and harder to find these plants in the wild and also at native plants nurseries because it takes on average 5 to 7 years for a fawn lily seed to germinate and to produce its first flower! Many of our rare native plants take too long and too much effort for them to be economical for nurseries to grow.

Pacific (White Western) Trillium –  Trillium ovatum

Western Trilliums were once common to see in our forests but are becoming rare. They also take on average seven years to go from seed to first flower. They are also ephemeral plants that emerge, bloom, go to seed and disappear by summer. The Trilliums and the Fawn Lilies have evolved this way so they can get the early spring sun and moist soils and then go dormant before the heat of summer and the soils dry out. 

Picking these flowers can severely damage the plants so please to not pick the flowers. Some people try to dig them up to take home, but this usually just kills the plant. There are nurseries that sell these plants like Satinflower Nursery on Vancouver Island. 

One way we all can help native plant species thrive is to stay on designated trails. When we and our pets go off-trail trekking we not only crush plants, we compact the soil making it hard for water to move into the soil, and hard for both plant roots and soil organisms to move through the soil. The soil loses the open pore areas that allow air and water to move through the soil, both of which are needed by plant roots and soil organisms, which in turn helps keep forest soils healthy. The first picture is of Dull Oregon-Grape which is a common shrub growing with Coastal Douglas-fir trees. I thought it would be pretty hard to trample it but at the local park by where I live it is half gone due to people cutting through it instead of using the trail that is roughly twenty feet away. The third picture is of False Lily of the Valley, another common forest groundcover plant. The fourth and fifth pictures are the aftermath of the ground being trampled. We are not against people enjoying natural areas, in fact very much the opposite, but we do need to be respectful. We can have bike trails with jumps (for example) but on designated trails. Trampled soils dry out way faster because rainwater cannot penetrate into the ground and instead flows across the ground. This means less water for the plants where the ground is trampled making it harder for them to survive. It also means less groundwater for plants, creeks and rivers in the summer months when we have very little rainfall. Groundcover plants, the humus layer and soil organisms all help to keep moisture in the soil and therefore the forests and trees healthy.