melbær

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 25. Bearberry Pt. 1

| Gaynor's Flora

The forest floor at Vikersund
Bearberry fruit

Arctostaphylos uva-ursi or the common English name of bearberry and norwegian name of melbær. 

The Norwegian name, when translated, literally and aptly describes the melbær,  flour-berry. The berries are edible, dry, tasteless, and floury. But they are considered an important  ‘survival food’ and eaten in sauces by some northern indigenous people with fish, venison, elk and bear.

When describing another plant in this series, Vaccinium vitis-idaea (cowberry/lingonberry), I mentioned that these two plants were the main reason that I wanted to do research and illustrate this series of plants. I wanted to show how they can be distinguished so that both can be used and enjoyed. Getting things wrong – mistaking one fruit for the other – is not dangerous, but it can spoil the effect of a recipe intended for Lingonberries.

Both plants have leathery leaves as well as similar fruit and flowers and although they can grow in the same habitat, the bearberry does better in drier surroundings. In the last blog I showed the back of the Lingonberry leaf which is more oval-shaped, but now I will show you the back of the bearberry leaf which is paddle-shaped.

The photo of the Bearberry leaf was taken in September when the tiny flower buds start to appear – establishing themselves before the snow appears so they can make an early start as soon as it is gone.


To the left is the ‘veiny’ Bearberry leaf and to the right the ‘dotty’ Lingonberry leaf

As you see, the Vaccinium vitis-ideae – lingonberry leaf has small dots on the underside, whereas the bearberry Arctostaphylos uva-ursi leaf has a fine network of veins.

The bearberry is not a member of the Vaccinium Genus, but is part of the Arctostaphylos Genus. However they are both part of the Ericaceae (heather) family. This means that in both species the flowers are typically heather-like, although the bearberry flowers are more urn-shaped and the lingonberry flower is bell-like .


Bearberry urn-shaped flowers to the left and Lingonberry bell-shaped flowers to the right
Longitudinal section of Bearberry flower

The rhizomes of the bearberry lie prostrate down rock walls or across the sandy forest floor, whereas those of the lingonberry sit deeper in the humus.

Both plants have clusters of red fruit, but the Bearberry fruit has a slightly flatter spherical form than that of the Lingonberry. Most importantly the Bearberry has a superior ovary (the gynoecium – [female reproductive part] is above the attachment point of the floral whorls [petals etc]), meaning that the remaining sepals are at the top of the hanging fruit, nearest the pedicel (stalk). The opposite is true of the Lingonberry where the remains of the sepals are at the bottom of the hanging fruit, distal to the pedicel.

This is a photo of the longitudinal section  (LS) of one flower. It clearly shows that it has a superior ovary.


To the left, Bearberry fruit with sepal remnants near pedicel. To the right, Lingonberry fruit with Sepal remnants distal to pedicel.

The second blog about the Bearberry species is scheduled for 11 June 2023. That will be the last blog about the series, although I will show the completed pictures on 15th June.

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

| Gaynor's Flora
  • Benton Iris Farewell
  • Dying Rosa rugosa
  • Rhododendron Impeditum

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 

  1. Rubus chamaemorus – Rosaceae
  2. Vaccinium oxycoccus Subsp. microcarpum – Ericaceae
  3. Vaccinium uliginosum – Ericaceae
  4. Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum- Ericaceae
  5. Vaccinium myrtillus – Ericaceae
  6. Vaccinium vitis-idaea – Ericaceae
  7. 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.

  • Cloudberry/Multe
  • Small Cranberry/Små tranebær
  • Bog bilberry/Skinntryte
  • Mountain crowberry/Krekling
  • Bilberry/Blåbær
  • Lingonberry/Tyttebær
  • Bearberry/Melbær

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

| Gaynor's Flora
  • Bilberry
  • Lingonberry
  • Bearberry
  • Mountain crowberry
  • Cloudberry
  • Cloudberry
  • Bog bilberry
  • Bog bilberry
  • Small cranberry

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

  1. Rubus chamaemorus – cloudberry -multe
  2. Vaccinium oxycoccus subsp. microcarpum – small cranberry – tranebær
  3. Vaccinium uliginosum – bog bilberry – skinntryte
  4. Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum– Mountain crowberry – krekling
  5. Vaccinium myrtillus – bilberry – blåbær
  6. Vaccinium vitis-idaea – cowberry/lingonberry – tyttebær
  7. 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 – 1. History of the project.

| Gaynor's Flora
These photos were taken over the years whilst in the throes of this project – Foraging plants in the Norwegian Mountains. Haglebu, the area where the photos were taken, is about 850 metres over sea level in south east Norway and the area where all my plants came from.

I am originally English but have lived many years in Norway with a 24-year gap in the UK from 1996 to 2020. I lived in the valley of Sigdal for several years, just below Haglebu so returning to the area for this project was a joy for me.

Following my application to exhibit at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Botanical Art and Photography Show this year (2023), I received confirmation that I will be one of the exhibitors and allowed to show six pictures in a series of my own choice.

Picking Lingonberries

The topic I chose is the one mentioned above, Foraging plants in the Norwegian Mountains. This series of blogs is about my whole process from choice of plants to painting the final pictures. I intend to post the blogs twice a week right up to the 2023 exhibition in June.

Typically, many Norwegians forage for fruit during the summer and autumn periods of the year. This is understandable when you think that in many parts of Norway the upper metre or more of the ground is frozen solid and covered with snow for up to 6 months of the year. From late May until late September the Norwegian flora has a very fast and compact growth and development. If you come to Norway during the late spring or summer, everything seems very lush with lots of spring flowers everywhere.

If you travel up into the mountains, the flora is different but still very lush – as you see in the pictures above. 

Spring seems to start off with the birch (Betula ) and we love to see the ‘mouse ears’ showing in May. The Norwegian national day is 17th May and being able to decorate everywhere with ‘mouse ears’ really gives the feeling that warmth and growth is at last on the way.

One of the reasons I chose foraging in the mountains as a topic was because I always knew that there were differences in the fruit we found, but it wasn’t until I started painting botanically that I understood how to note these differences and the importance of doing so accurately. 

When I first arrived in Norway in the early seventies, I quickly learnt which fruit was good and very roughly the type of area in which I would find it. I then learnt how to use the various fruits for jam, juices and puddings, giving the family a taste of summer over the winter months.

Now I have the freezer full of bilberries, cloudberries, cowberries (or lingonberries), wild cherries as well as the usual fruit from the garden such as red, white and black currents and plums.

A red Bearberry
Red lingonberries

When foraging, there were two fruits that were easy to confuse, but I learnt to distinguish between them, although not via botanical knowledge. I have since discovered that both are safe to eat, but not equally pleasant. They have  completely different uses which, I will come back to in a future blog when describing them.

Both fruit are red and there is a similarity to the leaves, making it a little complicated when picking them – unless you know what to look for. The one to the right has many uses in jam and juice, whereas the one to the left is a stone fruit of which mostly the leaves are used.

What made me choose these plants to study?

In 2014 whilst still living in the UK, I came to Norway to run and teach at a botanical art workshop in Åsgårdstrand, a popular sailing village near where I now live. Edvard Munch lived in Åsgårdstrand when he painted The Scream. 

I will continue this blog on Thursday 23 March.

Haven’t had time to update my own website – so here goes!

| Gaynor's Flora

I have been really bad at keeping on top of my own website because of all the work in relation to ABBA (Association of British Botanical Artists). Therefore this information about my participation in the RHS exhibition next week is not on the right page! Sorry about that, but I am telling you a little more about it now and hope that you will be able to make it.

Following on from the exhibition ‘In Ruskin’s Footsteps’ at Lancaster University, we (ABBA) have a stand this coming week at the RHS Plant and Art Fair, which for Botanical artists is a very important event. It is on 11th & 12th July at the RHS Halls in London. ABBA have a stand with the majority of Botanical artists, in the Lindley Hall. As I said in my last blog, Follow the Banner!

We are exhibiting five of the original pictures from the juried exhibition in Lancaster, giving everyone a further opportunity to study them. One of them is mine – Sea Thrift, painted on vellum. I mentioned that I would be demonstrating at the exhibition and now it is clear which medium I will be using, also which plant I will be painting.

I had intended getting my own exhibit finished for the RHS exhibition next year, but because of the amount of work that has gone into ABBA, I have decided to put this off until 2020.  My topic is ‘Foraging plants of the Norwegian Mountains’.

It became very clear whilst going through the various phases of the Worldwide exhibition preparation, that although the UK is a distinct island it is still part of the European Continent. At one point in our history we were connected without needing to use a tunnel, boat or plane. Our plants bear witness to this in that many of the plants that are native in Northern Europe, are also native in the UK. However, some may not be so common these days.

Image being drawn on vellum

One of my series of plants is the Arctostaphylos  uva—ursi, Common bearberry in English and Melbær in Norwegian. It looks similar to a Crowberry, but is white inside (floury), giving its Norwegian name. When picking Crowberries it is not popular to mix Bearberries in by mistake as they don’t taste quite as nice, although edible. Also it is a stone-fruit and not a berry!

ABBA wants to encourage botanical art in relation to our native flora. As I intend to paint the series on vellum, I will be using this medium on the ABBA stand at the RHS. I have a nice little plant of the Bearberry with the beginnings of small flowers. The image is already transferred to a small piece of vellum which will be ideal to practice on and make decisions about which colours to use.

From my sketchbook.

You might be just able to see that in my sketchbook I have quickly done a rough tonal drawing, indicating where the light is coming from. I have also put in a little blue to indicate where the light of the sky has reflected on the leaves and started indicating the difference between the colour on the front and back of the leaves: but that is in my sketchbook. Which colours I will actually choose to use on the vellum, remembering that colours appear far more intense on vellum as it reflects the colour of the pigment better than on paper, will be the result of this trial piece.

In addition to my demonstrations we will be talking with people to find out what they want from ABBA in the future and whether they – you, want to be part of it. Our focus will be to help anyone, anywhere, interested in botanical art to learn more.

But there is a little icing on the cake: The RHS have agreed to show the Botanical Art Worldwide exhibition slideshow from 25 countries. This will happen in the talks area of the Lindley Hall, between and after the talks. But just in case you want to see it otherwise, we will be showing it on the ABBA stand.

This is the last opportunity to see the Worldwide Slideshow!

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