On Saturday, Martha and I went to the old gravel quarry on Gellatly Road. Martha wanted a few smooth, rounded rocks for her painting on rock hobby. Of course, I spent part of my time looking for interesting plants. The attached pictures illustrate some of my more interesting finds. Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia, by Parrish, Coupe and Lloyd states: "The name chickweed comes from the practice of feeding the plant to chickens, goslings and caged birds, especially if they were ill".

The plants in the next two pictures  have been identified for me by my friend Reg Newman as Silverleaf Phacelia--a plant able to colonize the gravelly bottom of the old quarry.

The 5th and 6th pictures are of a favorite deer food, Snowbush Ceanothus. It is in the same family as Redstem Ceanothus, another favorite food of deer but Redstem, which is so abundant in the old burn on Goats Peak, loses its leaves in winter. Notice that the stems of this bush have been cropped by browsing deer. It would be much taller if not for the deer browsing it down each year. It is just coming into flower.

Bitterroot is in bloom near the little copse of trees on the far side of the old quarry--near Glen Canyon Park  

This is an unusually pale specimen. When I took the picture, I had not noticed the spider inside the blossom. I am calling it a Crab Spider but I have not determined the species. Crab Spiders wait for their prey to come to blossoms to feed. The bit of dark debris near this spider may be the remains of an insect that it has caught.