FORAGING PLANTS IN THE NORWEGIAN MOUNTAINS: FROM BOG TO SAND.

June 15, 2023October 29, 2023 | Gaynor's Flora

The title of my exhibit at the “RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show” is as above:

Foraging Plants in the Norwegian Mountains – From Bog to Sand.

Six of my watercolour and graphite paintings are exhibited by order of habitat starting with those growing in the wettest environment to those in the dryest. Seven paintings were completed not just the six, therefore it was a difficult choice to remove one of them. The second one shown below, the small cranberry, is not in the exhibition.

1. Rubus chamaemorus – Cloudberry – Multe
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
August 2022

1) Habit
2) Male flower – 2a) LS Male flower
3) Female flower – 3a) LS Female flower
4) Fruit
4a) TS fruit
4b) LS fruit

2. Vaccinium oxycoccus subsp. microcarpum – Small cranberry – Små tranebær
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
January 2022

1). Habit
2). Flower
3). TS fruit
3a) LS Fruit
3b) Fruit

3. Vaccinium uliginosum – Bog bilberry – Skinntryte
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
December 2021

1) Habit
2) Flower pair
3) Fruit
3a) TS fruit
3b) LS fruit

4. Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum Mountain Crowberry – Krekling
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
January 2022

1). Habit
2). Flower
3). TS fruit
3a) LS Fruit
3b) Fruit

5. Vaccinium myrtillus – Bilberry – Blåbær Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
March 2022

1) Habit
2) Flower
3) Immature fruit
4) Fruit
4a) TS fruit
4b) LS fruit

6. Vaccinium vitis-idaea – Cowberry/Lingonberry -Tyttebær
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
November 2022

1) Habit
2) Flower cluster
3) Fruit
3a) TS fruit
3b) LS fruit

7. Arctostaphylos uva-ursi – Bearberry – Melbær
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
October 2022

1) Habit
2) Flower cluster
3) Fruit cluster
4) Single fruit
4a) TS immature fruit
4b) LS ripe fruit

If you have read the blog series you will understand that the Cloudberry and Small cranberry enjoy the wettest environment – bogs and marshes, whilst the Bearberry is often found on a sandy forest floor. The other species are found in various types of environment from damp woods to harsh mountain tops. Some, like the Bog bilberry will grow very well just about anywhere as long as it has water and plenty of sun.

All of the plants in this series live in the Subarctic part of the world and have always provided a lot of nourishment for those living in the far north, the rest of us a little further south and of course animals that roam the area.

Some of the plants typically don’t grow in certain areas as witnessed by the difficulty I had finding the Bearberry. In very hot and dry years some plants produce next to nothing; Cloudberry and Small Cranberry are good examples. Can you imagine the risk that Global warming brings to these plants as well as to us. The warmer the planet gets, the more further north these plants are likely to move making it even harder for us and the animals they support, to find them. As it is, plants that can normally be found further south in Europe, are now beginning to appear in Norway; their pollinators moving with them and having a negative effect on the species that belong.

When choosing to study and paint these plants I didn’t realise how much I would learn about them. I loved the plants (and their fruit) before this, but now have so much respect for them and the environment in which they grow. I hope that I have been able to pass on at least a smidgen of this.

Thank you for following this series.

Latest news: I am really pleased to say that following the judging process yesterday, 14 June 2023, the judges decided to honour me with a Silver Gilt medal. The award ceremony will be held this evening at the Saatchi Gallery during the preview to the exhibition opening tomorrow.

I look forward to getting detailed feedback about my exhibit from the judges this afternoon.

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 23. Lingonberry Pt. 1

June 4, 2023June 4, 2023 | Gaynor's Flora

**Ripe Lingonberry ready for picking with Bilberry plants already done and dusted.**

**Distal view of ripe fruit – inferior ovary**

Vaccinium vitis-idaea, or cowberry, the common english name and tyttebær the Norwegian name is more commonly known as lingonberry if you visit Ikea. It forms the sharpish berry sauce you get with your meatballs!

In fact, there are several ways you can eat the fruit and one of the recipes I will be sharing with you is one where the raw fruit is whipped with sugar – it is absolutely delicious – especially on lovely bread with sour cream!! A friend introduced me to this bad/delicious habit, but I have learnt to restrict myself!

I am glad that we picked quite a bit of fruit this last year and it is safely kept cleaned and ready for use in the freezer. Like the Bilberry, I use it in all sorts of recipes, sometimes even together.

Many will think that the Lingonberry is similar to the small cranberry and in many respects it is. They are both Vacciniums, similar in size; 5- 8mm, but the lingonberry is almost completely spherical whilst the cranberry has a very slightly elongated spherical shape.

Because the Lingonberry and Cranberry prefer completely different habitats, there is little risk of picking from the two species at the same time. But, both can be used in the same way and for similar recipes.

The Lingonberry is generally found on heathland and shrubby areas, but as discussed in my blog released 7 May, the Small cranberry grows in very boggy areas covered with sphagnum moss.

The next two picture were taken late September at 1100 metres over sea level. The red berries are

**Veggli, Numedal, at 1100metres over the sea**

the Lingonberry and you can see that as they hang in bunches they are easy enough to pick. Unlike the bilberry (the red/yellow leaves), the fruit is pretty solid and bullet-like making them even easier to pick that that species. In the same picture is the Mountain Crowberry with their black berries, heather and some very short birch.

We are lucky enough to have some Lingonberry also growing in our garden, but in the two years we have been here I haven’t seen any fruit. Possibly this is because the plants are in shade and it has been very dry since we have been here, and our house is on rock. Therefore, with climate change even the native plants suffer. There is more fruit as one walks from our house into the protection of the woods. Often it grows on the top of extinct anthills, indicating how the seeds were transported.

The Vaccinium vitis-idaea (Cowberry) and the Arctostaphylos uva-ursi ( Bearberry) are, in fact, the main reason that I thought to do this series of plants. I have already written about the similarity between the Vaccinium myrtillus (Bilberry ) and the Vaccinium uliginosum (Bog bilberry), and in that case mixing the one with the other won’t spoil a recipe. But because the Cowberry and Bearberry are so similar, mistakes can be made and although both edible, Bearberry is dry and tasteless and has large stones rather than small seeds.

I will talk about the Bearberry as the last plant in this series. But the second section about the Lingonberry is scheduled for 6 June 2023.

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 22. Bilberry Pt. 2

June 1, 2023May 29, 2023 | Gaynor's Flora

**My sketchbooks can be messy in comparison to many**!

This is the main double page for my sketches done on the Bilberry plant. I try to keep as much information as possible together so that when I do my final work I don’t have to search too much in the sketchbook. I try to find a hole on the relevant page to add things, either more sketches or research I might have done. I often find that when I am researching on the internet, the gaps are usually left along the bottom edge of the page, so I frequently use this area to write any notes.

As I have already mentioned in the previous blog, there is a similarity in the fruit of the Bilberry and the Bog bilberry, but the stems are very different for starters. The Bilberry stems are very angular and last year’s branches remain green over winter and into the next season. The deer seem to like them and paw away the snow eating the shoots. The Bog bilberry stems are brown and woody; I talked more about this plant in the blogs published 14th and 18th May.

**And additional serious times – moving!**

By the middle of 2020 I felt that I had enough sketches for most of my final pictures and had already decided to stop the extended period of ‘productive procrastination’. We were in the middle of the pandemic and for most people, the world had turned upside down. My daughter, living in Norway, felt we were too old to live on our own any longer and she was too far away should anything happen to us.

The decision to move back to Norway was thought about and made quite quickly. I think we started talking about it mid June and sold our home with the large beautiful garden and the ‘shed’ – my studio, quite quickly.

The actual move came in August 2020. I had planned all my compositions before leaving the UK and when we arrived in Norway I was all set to start painting the final artwork.

I won’t talk about all the problems moving during a pandemic caused – we were lucky to be completely healthy. But some of the benefits from moving back to the country I loved included being much nearer to the plants in my series. There were lots of others, but I leave that to your imagination.

**Goodbye shed at the bottom of the garden.**

In between looking for a new home and sorting out all the official stuff and additional problems caused by Brexit, I started working towards doing the first picture. Of course, it had to be the Bilberry. This plant also grows at sea level and was easy to access now.

I only had to walk up into the woods behind my daughters house where we stayed until we finally moved. There were lots of native plants along the tracks, including loads of Bilberry. In our new home, to which we moved in January 2021 when the area was ensconced in snow, we eventually found it contained a lot of Bilberry plants. Heaven or what!?

I started with a trial piece of Bilberry parts on vellum and began the final artwork in June 2021, finishing March 2022.

You can see my work station in our new home below. As is perhaps obvious, I continued to procrastinate a little longer as I just had to do more sketches. Working on the vellum off-cut was extremely useful as I also tried out various methods of introducing graphite. Getting the colours right for the bloom of the nearly black fruit whilst I had them was also important. Painting this on paper had been a completely different kettle of fish!

**Hello new ‘shed’. This is one of the bedrooms on the top floor, but now my working area consists of two bedrooms turned into one large room – with a view!**

**Bilberry trial piece on vellum off-cut.**

Making sure that I had samples from all the plants in the series at the right time of year was like putting together a puzzle. The flower sections had to be done in the spring and the fruit at various times over the autumn. Leaves also changed through the seasons.

But basically, I knew that I had roughly six months of the year to paint the deciduous plants (Bilberry, Bog Bilberry, Cloudberry) and those I didn’t have access to under the snow such as the Cranberry. For the remaining plants I would be able to get leaves throughout the year as long as they weren’t hidden too deeply under the snow. It became a matter of planning and making sure I knew where relevant plants were over the winter.

The native range of this Vaccinium myrtillus is Greenland, Temp. Eurasia, W. Canada to NW. & W. Central U.S.A. It is a subshrub and grows primarily in the temperate biome. Including both Norway and the UK.
Source: Kew Plants of the World Online

**Working on the final artwork – graphite and wash section**

Mor Astrid’s (my lovely grandmother-in-law) Raw Bilberry squash

3 l Bilberries

2.5 l water

75 gm Cream of Tartar

4.5 kg sugar

Rinse through the berries to clean of soil. They don’t need to be thoroughly cleaned of leaves and small stalks.
Bruise/crush berries in a plastic bucket and leave for 24 hrs.
Mix the Cream of Tartar into the water and add to the berries. Stir thoroughly.
Let the mixture stand for 24 hrs.
Strain through a muslin.
Add the sugar to the strained fluid.
Stir thoroughly until the sugar has melted in.
Pour into bottles.

The resulting squash can be mixed with water. It is DELICIOUS.

Keep out of easy reach of children or it will be finished off in no time!!

A suggestion from Polly o’Leary after the Bilberry part 1 blog. Thank you Polly.

In this part of Wales theyre called Whinberries. We used to make them into whinberry and apple pie, or whinberry jam. Or both. Depending on how many we found. No recipes, except the usual – plain shortcrust pastry, not too much sugar, because they’re lovely and tart.
Same with the jam. Never really thought about a recipe, just made it the usual way as they were such a treat.

This came from Jane Hogan following the Bilberry part 1 blog. Thank you Jane

We used to pick bilberries on the North Yorkshire moors when visiting my grandmother. She used to line a pie dish with pastry, pile in the bilberries with sugar and top with another layer of pastry. Served with custard or cream and eaten hot. There wasn’t usually any left to have cold! It used to take ages to pick the bilberries. (A quick look online suggests a pound of bilberries and four ounces of sugar)

On 4 June 2023 I will publish the first part of the Lingonberry blog.

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 21. Bilberry Pt. 1

May 28, 2023May 10, 2023 | Gaynor's Flora

Vaccinium myrtillus -bilberry – blåbær

It is considered to be one of the healthiest berries and has one of the richest natural sources of anthocyanin giving the bilberry its blue/black colour. The bilberry, with a high antioxidant content, is believed to be responsible for the many health benefits, more so than many other berry fruits. In traditional European medicine, bilberry has been used for over a 1000 years.

I remember seeing the effect of picking and eating bilberries in western Norway in June 1967. I was being shown how beautiful Norway is and we were on a hill overlooking the Stavanger fjord. A future nephew was picking and eating the berries as he walked along and he turned to me laughing. His face and hands were covered with the juice and his tongue was completely black. It didn’t take me long to realise my face was in a similar state! The blue colour is the anthocyanin that make these berries so good for you. No wonder Bilberry has also been used for dying clothes and food.

I have a lovely picture of my daughter’s grinning face and tongue almost black – but I don’t think she would forgive me if I posted it here!

Whilst living and hiking in the UK, we often found Bilberry plants in areas on the edge of heathland as it doesn’t seem to do too well in very open areas. The New Forest was a good source an hour away from where we lived at the time.

**Bilberries and Lingonberries packed and ready to go in the freezer in Norway**

In Norway the plants are everywhere in the woods and also grows well in acidic soils on heaths and marshes.

It is easy to forage and stock up each year!

Our Norwegian garden is rocky and on the edge of woods. We have Bilberries growing in the garden and unlike my neighbours wouldn’t dream of getting rid of them to replace with other plants. I love being able to pick them for a delicious dessert whenever I feel like it during the season. But even more exciting for this project, was being able to pick them and paint from them in the comfort of my own home.

**Roe deer baby nibbling the tips of the Beech in our garden.**

As well as nourishment for us, the plants help to provide nourishment for the Roe Deer that visit us regularly during the winter months. I am happy to let them graze and nibble the tips of the branches as they were here long before people lived in this area. Luckily, they don’t seem to do it all the year round. This is a baby from a family of mother and three small ones that we have had the pleasure of seeing develop.

The Bilberry is not to be confused with Blueberries bought in the fruit department of your local shop. Those are Vaccinium corymbosum and a ‘high bush’’ variant. One can clearly see the difference as the High bush type have pale flesh showing they do not contain the same amount of anthocyanin – the good for you factor.

Researching Vaccinium myrtillus was just as exciting as researching all the plants in the series, even though I thought I knew it the best. I am really glad I did so before beginning to sketch as I could easily have been less observant in relation to the number of flowers and resultant fruit on a branch. Unless equally familiar with the Bilberry and Bog bilberry, these two can easily be confused. But in reality there are considerable differences. For starters, the Bilberry only has one flower in a leaf axil, whereas the Bog bilberry has two!

The next blog showing more of how I painted the Bilberry picture, is scheduled for 1 June 2023. We are rapidly approaching the RHS exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery opening to the public16 June.

**Fertilised flowers.NB the form at the apex.**

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 10. My working practice

April 20, 2023May 10, 2023 | Gaynor's Flora

Composition

Do these three pictures have good compositions? It is not easy for you to judge from these as composition is the area within the mount edge – the image and background.

Benton Iris ‘Farewell’ is Watercolour and graphite. The painting is part of the Cedric Morris Florilegium.
Dying Rosa rugosa is in Watercolour. It was one of the first paintings I did after returning to Norway. The sprig was sticking up above the snow, so it shrivelled quite fast.
Rhododendron impeditum is also watercolour and graphite. This picture is part of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium.

Composition in botanical art is not necessarily very straightforward. As botanical art is ‘art’ it should have a main focal point that draws you into the picture. Once your eye is drawn into the picture, something needs to lead it around within that picture and prevent it from being lead off elsewhere.

On top of this, botanical art must be botanically correct.

**The first digital arrangement of my cloudberry sketches**

Combining the art and botany for each picture is hugely difficult particularly when you have different sections telling a story about a plant. Having a series of plants in separate pictures that elaborate the story compounds the problem.

To try and reduce the problem a little I started to arrange the pictures digitally. I scanned some of my sketches and moved them around within a 31 x 25cm area. It gave me something to think about when deciding what to include in each picture and how many more sketches I would need to get all the information I needed.

Scanning and arranging digitally gave me the opportunity to do something similar with my other species and the ability to compare them against each other. This composition looks nothing like the final one, but I kept rearranging until I was satisfied.

I worked hard to compose my set of pictures so that they looked a series. This can be quite difficult when some are from different families

Rubus chamaemorus – Rosaceae
Vaccinium oxycoccus Subsp. microcarpum – Ericaceae
Vaccinium uliginosum – Ericaceae
Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum- Ericaceae
Vaccinium myrtillus – Ericaceae
Vaccinium vitis-idaea – Ericaceae
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi – Ericaceae

The first word in each species is the Genus name from which the plant is derived. Four are Vacciniums from the same Genus. Six of the plants are from the Ericaceae (heather) Family and you can see this by the similarity of the flowers. One is from the Rosaceae(rose) family, and the stipules on the leaves (tags at the base of the leaves) is a clear indication of this.

Deciding the enlargement was relatively easy with the plants from the Ericaceae Family where the fruit is comparable. But as everything was larger on the Cloudberry picture, only the scale bars can give the size.

My aim with all the pictures was to let people see and understand the incredible flora and edible fruit available in the mountains. Many look at plants and think them pretty, or know where to pick certain fruits, but not so many study the plant and understand how intriguing it really is. This is an opportunity.

What to include in each composition.

I went through my sketchbook and made sure that I had enough information about each plant to fit on my vellum, mounted on blocks by William Cowley’s. I didn’t want to overcrowd each picture.

The focus was the plant and its fruit, but one can’t do this without highlighting its flowers. I decided to introduce a picture of the flowers and fruit but restrict dissections to the fruit only. That is until I got to the cloudberry which was going to be the most difficult to integrate into the series. But it isn’t called ‘Mountain Gold’ for nothing.

In the end, all but the cloudberry picture included a branch enlarged and branches actual size to indicate habit. Each had an enlarged flower, plus fruit with both longitudinal (LS) and transverse sections (TS). These are the finished longitudinal sections from each fruit; the largest being the Cloudberry.

In the next blog I will be talking about my transfer process. This comes 23 April 2023.

Only Eight weeks until the RHS Exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London;

https://www.saatchigallery.com/exhibition/rhs_botanical_art___photography_show_2023

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 7. History of the project

April 9, 2023May 10, 2023 | Gaynor's Flora

Above are the seven plants I chose with trial pieces on vellum offcuts.

The species I chose, with common names also in English and Norwegian

Rubus chamaemorus – cloudberry -multe
Vaccinium oxycoccus subsp. microcarpum – small cranberry – tranebær
Vaccinium uliginosum – bog bilberry – skinntryte
Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum– Mountain crowberry – krekling
Vaccinium myrtillus – bilberry – blåbær
Vaccinium vitis-idaea – cowberry/lingonberry – tyttebær
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi – bearberry – melbær

I have listed the plants in the order according to the type of ground in which they grow – from boggy to sandy:

The cloudberry and small cranberry often found intertwined together in the boggy moss of a swampy lake edge.
The bog bilberry is more of a bush and guards the very marshy plants perching on rocks in the marsh.
The Mountain crowberry grows in various areas from rocky outcrops at the edge of a swamp, to tiny examples without much soil, clinging to the rock on mountain tops.
The bilberry and cowberry are generally in a similar habitat in damp woods and forests; the cowberry can be the main plant on an old wood ant heap often with bilberry and mountain crowberry.
Bearberry grows in sandy areas on the edge of forests or creeping down over smooth rock.

The next stage of this blog goes into my working practice for this series. After which I will talk a little about each of the species and how I painted the final pictures. I will use the above order of plants as I would love others to learn more about them, where to find them and their uses.

The next blog will be on 13 April 2023.

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 5. History of the project

April 2, 2023May 10, 2023 | Gaynor's Flora

Since moving back to Norway there have been two bumper years for Cloudberry fruit and this is why we have so much in the freezer now.

But back to my sketches that were incomplete right up until last summer (2022). This plant in particular is not easy to find if you don’t know exactly where to look, and even then you might miss the right period of time.

We took a couple of long day trips into the mountains to look, and we eventually found what was missing. As well as a lot of driving, I extended the workday when I got back home. The flowers don’t last long and whilst I had them, I needed to dissect and sketch with measurements before going to bed.

The typical demands to a botanical artist. But luckily during the summer months we have a lot of daylight hours in southern Norway – in fact around mid-summer the sky doesn’t really go dark. Birdwatching at midnight is different to say the least! The picture to the left is Robin birdwatching at 5 mins past midnight on the 12 June – still over a week to mid-summer!

The lesson learned? Make sure when sketching that you have the where-with-all to measure various aspects of your plant and to make accurate colour swatches.

Equipment for sketching outside

As you will see from the pictures at the top, sketching on location can have various problems, from ants still defending their old anthill, a very hard bottom rest and a helpful cat.

The anthills in the Norwegian forests can be huge, but so too can the ants. They have a large territory to look after and a lot of old wood to turn into something future generations of trees and ants can live off. But they do have a painful bite! One often finds several of the plant species I was considering, growing on them. One often finds lingonberry, bilberry and mountain crowberry, well established on them. It also suggests what some of the ants transport to their home.

When I am out sketching in nature I minimise the amount of equipment I have with me. I try to keep everything in the same sketchbook and for watercolour use a Stillman & Birn, Zeta series. It has stood up well to the battering it has had and takes the watercolour washes well.

Normally I use a bum-bag when walking not too far and it will contain this kit:

Of course I go nowhere in the mountains without my mobile phone, but these days they are much more than a phone or safety net. The Victsing 3-in-1 mobile phone camera lens was introduced to me many years ago by Sarah Morrish and I use this to get the details not normally seen very well. In particular it enabled me to get a picture and draw the growing tip with flowers of the Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum (mountain crowberry) . I keep a small piece of mm paper with it to measure within the photos.

My palette is an old one with the original student colours removed and replaced with artist quality colours. I use transparent single pigment colours and normally have a couple of yellows and Quin Gold, Permanent Rose, Perylene Violet, Purple, A cold and warm blue and this time a single pigment green.

The pencils preferred are a 3B and HB as they are easy to lift if necessary, plus a single black fine liner pen. I only need to sharpen one of the pencils so have a sharpener to fit that. Otherwise travel brushes, ruler and erasers, magnifying glass, small water holder and kitchen towel.

**Sketching in the New Forest in the UK. I got a tick bite this time, but it wasn’t infected.**

**A dire warning; this is what happens when an infected tick bites. This is Robin’s leg last year.**

If I take specimens with me, then I have a small plastic bag ready and can add some of my painting water. Sketching back in the cottage or at home means that I have all my equipment available.

I nearly forgot an important addition to the list above; Insect repellant because of the ticks, and sun screen, particularly here in Norway where the air is so clear.

The picture to the left is Robin’s leg last summer after a tick bite! We have a lot of dear and ticks, but doctors are very aware of the dangers and are quick to prescribe treatment.

A serious start on the series in 2017

**My friend’s cottage at 800m over sea level.**

By 2017 I still hadn’t decided which plants I was going to paint and this first year we borrowed a cottage from one of my oldest friends in Norway. The cottage was at about 850m over sea level.

Around the cottage we found Rubus chamaemorus (cloudberry), bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), bog bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum)and mountain crowberry (Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum). This was a pretty good start.

Notice that three of them were Vacciniums – from the heather family. In fact the Blueberries you buy in the shops are yet another species (Vaccinium corymbosum) but they are farmed and not included in my choice.

Importantly I hadn’t found a bearberry (Arcostaphylos uva-ursi) which was partly the reason for choosing to do this series.

But there were loads of other lovely flowers such as Heath spotted orchids, geraniums and various insectivorous plants such as the Common butterwort. There was also plenty of Andromeda polifolia (bog rosemary) in the moss and amongst the new Cloudberry leaves. When seeing it growing at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, I realised it was an opportunity to paint the species and the resulting picture resides in the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium collection.

This continues on 6 April 2023

When I wasn’t walking in Norway …

July 31, 2019July 31, 2019 | Gaynor's Flora

…..I was either hunting for plants or painting.

I had a list of plant detail that I had worked out I needed to complete the composition planning for my series of pictures. My vellum size for each piece is 25 x 31 cm – which I suppose relatively speaking is quite small. But all but one of my plants is very small with leaves varying from 2-6mm long on the Vaccinium microcarpum, to the Rubus chamaemorus where the leaves vary hugely in size.

Vaccinium microcarpum – Small Cranberry – Leaves 2-6mm long.

Impetrum niger ssp. Hermaphroditum – Crowberry – Leaves 3-6 mm long

Rubus chaaemorus – Cloudberry (image is 13cm high)

I decided that rather than work on all seven pictures at once as I have done so far, I would work on half this year and the rest next year. For all of them I needed to do some colour matching on vellum as this will be different to the colours I have used on paper. You have already seen the small piece I did on the Cranberry a couple of blogs ago. You may also have noticed the difference to the actual flower size (tiny) and the painting which I did at twice the size.

Luckily enough although there is a slight difference in the terrain from which each of the plants come from, we have found each species within walking distance of the cottage in which we have been staying. The Cloudberry and the Cranberry can be found intertwined with each other in the soggy sphagnum moss – but not always. The Bog Blueberry (Vaccinium uliginosum) comes from a similar area, but I have seen it reaching up the side of rugged outcrops. The Crowberry can be found all over the mountains although the Ssp Hermaphroditum can only be found at higher altitudes. The Bilberry can also be found pretty well most places, but doesn’t seem to be above the tree-line and doesn’t seem to like really boggy areas. The Cowberry – Lignonberry (Vaccinium vitas-idaea) is spread on ant mounds and rocky outcrops. Common Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) likes much drier conditions and is often found in pine woods. But we did find an example not far from the cottage. Last year Robin drove about 150km to find a spot that I knew about!

Below is the colour sample of the Bog blueberry done this year. The very new new leaves start out quite red and as they get older they become bluer and stiffer. Sorry the photo is a little dark.

*Vaccinium uliginosum* – Bog blueberry – Watercolour on vellum 5×7″, painted twice natural size.

The length botanical artists go to get the right plants!

July 22, 2019 | Gaynor's Flora

My daughter, husband and I ready to battle the elements on our first hike together this working holiday. We managed 3 km in 4 hours!

**Preparing to climb the mountain behind the cottage in the bitter cold and hail!**

It was bitter cold and hailing when we started out, with a temperature of only 2º, and the wind coming from the north! It felt quite a tough climb particularly as I wasn’t in as good shape as I used to be. But the views were worth it, as were seeing the variety of plants.

On the way up we saw quite a lot of wild flowers from Wood Cranesbill, Bilberry, Bog Bilbury or Blueberry, Cowberry (or for Ikea addicts – Lignon berry), Bog Rosemary, and loads of Chickweed Wintergreen everywhere we looked.

Its funny, but this last plant really livened up the steep slopes and the Norwegian translation of its name felt more like the experience we had of it – Star of the Woods!

**Wood crane’s bill – Geranium sylvaticum**

We rapidly got above the tree line with lots of heathers (most of the plants I have mentioned come from that family) and low lying Mountain Birch.

The small plateau on which we arrived had a lake and a further track leading over the mountain top. Patches of winter snow still lay there.

Rypebaer, Arctostaphylos alpina – Arctic Bearberry

On a patch of rock clung another plant carrying its immature fruit – The Artic Bearberry. I have heard of it, but hadn’t really made particular note of it before. Perhaps the redness of its autumn colour confused me with the red of the prostrate Mountain Birch.

Vaccinium uliginosum – Bog blueberry/bilberry – Skinntryte

This is the other plant I managed to colour match on vellum whilst up in the mountains. But I will update about that one in a later blog.

GAYNOR'S FLORA

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bilberry