Woods Forget-Me-Not, Myosotis sylvatica

Growing along the road near Ainsworth State Park in the Columbia River gorge, this member of the Borage family is not native to the area, but doesn't appear to be taking over.

Devil's Club, Oplopanax horridus

Five years ago I planted Devils' Club seeds harvested from a plant growing in the nearby forest. Two years later, three plants sprouted- one of which is shown below. The picture captures the dual nature of the plant - graceful stems with unfurling leaves and wicked spines that are on every surface of the plant.

5-20-2017 update:

5-20-2017 flower close up:

Here is a nice specimen growing nearby in the forest:

Oregon Fawn Lily, Erythonium oregonum

Just outside Yacolt, Washington is a very small area that has conditions that are ideal for this attractive lily. After taking this picture, it was very sad to see a local resident use a pocket knife to cut every flower he could get his hands on......

Snow Queen, Synthyris reniformis

This is one of the few flowers I saw today while walking through Moulton Falls Park. This native perennial grows low to the ground and the flowers are only about 1/4" long and easy to miss.

Trumpet Daffodil, Narcissus

Although not native to the Northwest, there sure are a lot of them around here! Recent rains broke the stem on this one so it now resides in a vase in the kitchen.

Focus Stacking

Even though I have posted Pixie Cup images before, I wanted to share another as this is my first result of using StackShot hardware and Zerene Stacker software. The above image is a composite of 14 separate pictures taken at f/4. Stack Shot is a motor driven mechanism that sequentially moves the camera closer (or farther - your choice) to the subject, thus allowing the images to capture a deep in-focus area. Zerene software then blends the images into a composite that results in a depth of field that can't be obtained otherwise.

Here is another "focus-stacking" example that is comprised of 20 images of a 3" long twig viewed end-on.


Here is one of the 20 images:

Yellow Coral Mushroom, Clavulinopsis corniculata

This picture shows a small portion of a 3-foot diameter Douglas Fir stump that for the last 18 years has had nothing much growing on it. About 3 years ago the bark fell to the ground and a few weeks ago I noticed these 1" high coral mushrooms sprouting from the trunk.