[InFlight]

Normamdy Park Cove In November

I came across this bush today red berries and red bark. Best I could come up with is Viburnum opulus. Anybody’s recognize this? Was located next to a saltwater marsh.

[Mike Collins]

I am not convinced they are berries. The photo looks like rose hips of Rosa nutkana, Nootka Rose. Some of the branches have thorns. A berry forms from the ripened ovary of the flower with the wall of the ovary encasing the seeds. It is what botanists call a "true succulent fruit." False succulent fruits have the case which surrounds the seeds form from some other part of the flower but the ovary. A good example of false succulent fruits are rose hips.

[treeswarper]

Rosehips on rose bushes.

[pcg]

[Mike Collins]

[gb]

Here are the various roses. Burke Museum WTU Image Collection - Rosa It is not all that difficult to figure out which rose, for, as you can see, a number are introduced and hence not likely to be widespread in the wild; and in fact only 2 or 3 are likely to be found in either Eastern Washington or Western Washington. You can see that distribution on the maps.

[pcg]

An interesting sidenote... Patagonia has a lot of similar flora as the PNW. Rose hips anchor a small cottage industry there and there are entire shops devoted to rose hip products. Down there it's referred to as "rosa mosqueta". Also, they've given up on eradicating scotch broom (or maybe they never tried). Lots of houses actually plant it and shape it as a groomed hedge. And the tree they refer to as "Oregon Pine" is Douglas Fir. Oh yes, fuscia trees grow wild down there. I've always wanted to see if they would grow here.

[treeswarper]

Rose hips can be boiled for a back to nature tea which has vitamin C in it.