Monday, October 20, 2008

Burke and Edith Lake mystery shrub


Even back in the summer while canoeing these lakes a shrub kept appearing along the shore. I haven't seen it in this amount anywhere else. I was having a bit of trouble nailing down the species.

Started to look into it some more and even brought back lots of samples and put them in water in the house. To make a long story short it is a member of the Holly family, and it's called Black Alder or Winterberry. Winterberry because the berries stay on for such a long time into the fall, although when I went looking for it there were very few to any berries left.
Today wet and cool and expecting wet flurries to two cm. of snow by AM.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

just lookin at the pic, before reading your post I said Alder....Huntsville has them too, they call them winterberrys, just like you said....according to the Hidden Vally Association, they show up just before the snow comes...I did wake up to snow this morning....darn berries....