The tutor shares another field find.

Gravel boundaries can be very fruitful places to find wild plants. So it is with the particular location that yielded rose campion back on June 7. Growing there as well, today’s specimen: curled dock.

I noticed curled dock in the guide weeks back and knew I’d seen it before. Therefore, I kept it in mind, waiting to find it in the field. It grows in neglected places, like roadsides and vacant lots. Hence, I predicted I’d find it by chance rather than by search. I noticed it the same day as the rose campion, a couple feet away.

Curled dock is an imposing plant, hard to miss. The one I’m reporting is about 50cm tall, with red stem and red flowers. From any distance, they don’t look like flowers, but rather like small beads clustered on the stem and branches. If you want to imagine a plant somewhat like it, you might imagine corn, which, though taller, can have a similar profile. If you imagine the kernels of the corn not in an ear, but instead growing right on the stem and upper branches, you can probably identify curled dock quite easily.

I’ll be reporting more field finds in coming posts:)

Source:

Pojar, Jim and Andy MacKinnon. Plants of Coastal British Columbia. Vancouver:
  BC Ministry of Forests and Lone Pine Publishing, 1994.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.