Trip report by Nina Shoroplova

We tree-identifying botanists met at the Grace McCarthy Plaza in Queen Elizabeth Park, opposite the Bloedel Conservatory, early on Saturday May 9. First we looked at a couple of flowering dogwoods, Cornus florida. They are the ones whose white (or sometimes pink) bracts show the notch at the top, where they pulled apart after protecting the tiny green true flowers. The green leaves have a central vein and arcuate subveins.

We set off northeast to go through a well-established, heavily weeeded, and newly planted area.

Enroute, we saw several fernleaf fullmoon maples, Acer japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’, in different colours. Acer japonicum is the less common of the two maples from Japan, and the most sought after. There were several shrubs of ‘Aconitifolium’ along our path, allowing us to compare them.

Further along was an evergreen, an Arizona cypress, whose scientific name used to be Cupresssus arizonica, but is now Hesperocyparis arizonica. Its needles are tiny.

Next was a tree we had difficulty identifying until I uploaded its photo into Google Images. And finally, there was a choice of it being a maple cultivar: Acer palmatum ‘Shishigashira’. Yes! No wonder its leaves were five-lobed and each lobe itself had more lobes.

We left behind a magnolia and a bank of western redcedars to go down a steep slope to a quiet field, seeing along the way two common hazels (with double toothed margins), a common laburnum in the pea, bean, and legume family known as Fabaceae, and a very colourful plant of broom, Cytisus scoparius, broom being highly invasive and poisonous to livestock.

On the northeast edge of this field is the Duck Pond, a popular place for ducks and geese. Near the end of March, when I took a photo to advertise this walk, there was water in the pond and plenty of birds. On May 9, there was neither water nor birds to be seen.

We looked at an Acer cappadocicum, Caucasian maple, with its palmate leaves and pointed lobes.

Queen Elizabeth Park was dedicated in 1939 and officially named in 1940 to commemorate the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) that year. Prior to being named, the park had been a rock quarry, furnishing the roads of Vancouver. When the park was named for her mother, Princess Elizabeth was a young teenager. When she visited the park on October 20, 1951, she was married and a mother, but still a princess. She planted a small oak sapling that is now immense, these 75 years later.

Tucked away in the hedgerow nearby was a hawthorn in flower; hawthorn is a member of the rose family.

We saw a spruce with pollen cones ready to release pollen and last year’s cones lying below the tree.. Spruce needles are sharp, stiff, and square. This was probably Picea sitchensis, the Sitka spruce, native to the area.

On the way back to our starting point, a flowering quince, Chaenomeles speciosa, provided us with colourful red petals and emerging fruit.

The quiet field hosting the oaks, including the one planted by Princess Elizabeth, some elderly holly trees, and several grafted ornamental cherry trees is off the beaten track. We were glad to have visited it.