A strange plant, and the hunt was on.

What plant is this?

On my travels, I will come across something which piques my curiosity.  I do not have much of an interest in plants as a generally true statement, but occasionally my neglect of them is thwarted by an interesting specimen.  While visiting Vancouver Island I came across an odd herbaceous plant.  I did what anyone with a query normally does these days; I searched the internet.

It is not an overstatement to say that I spent two hours plying every trick I know in an attempt to uncover the identity of this peculiar plant.  I used Google, of course, as my search engine of choice and started out with simple search terms.  The meaning of the word "useless" became clear in my mind as the returns were exactly that.  Undaunted by such drivel, I was inspired to use more precise language.

Still, there was nothing.  A short break was needed to give my strained eyes and nerves a rest, then it was back to the fray.  I have often been successful with quotations in my more challenging searches, so short phrases such as "rocky outcrop" and "Pacific Northwest" were liberally used.  I included the unique leaf colours, descriptive terms such as creeping and "ground cover", all to no avail.  I found some remarkable sites though, with lots of plant pictures and some great information, but nothing to satiate my quest for an answer.  I was in a funk.

A new idea, why not use the Google image search engine by submitting a picture?  This must work, as there are not too many plants that look like this one.  Yet, it too was a bust.  My enthusiasm was running out.

Another break was needed.

It was time to re-engage with the hunt.  It was at this point that the big guns came out.  I looked up the email for a UBC botanist.  Surely such a specimen could be recognized by someone who took plants more seriously than I did.  I fired off an email with an attached image; hope refilling my renewed aspirations.  I have used this technique before.  A friend sent me a photo of a remarkable fungus which had stymied both of us.  I found the name of a renowned expert overseas and decided there was nothing to lose.  The fungologist (funny word, don't you think?) got back to me very quickly and identified the mycelium.  It could work again.

However, it was late in the day and who knows what that person was doing.  I may hear from them tomorrow or maybe never, but I wasn't about to wait.  No, an exercise in page turning was clearly warranted.  It was time to open a book.

I have quite a few identification guides, and brought out my copy of "Plants of Coastal British Columbia."  It is a great book and is filled with a lot of sage (excuse the pun) knowledge and information on local botany.  It took a mere five minutes for me to discover the identity of the unknown vegetation.

Broad-leafed stonecrop.  "Eureka!", I cried, with less importance to the expression than Archimedes' original use.  My quest was successful, and it was using the centuries-old, tried but true, method of flipping through a book.  Instantly I typed in the name into my computer and got this hit.  Great information, and local too.

I also learned that the yellow flowers in my shot are the actual flowers of the plant; I had thought they were some other plant just jockeying for position in the photo.  You learn something new every day; in this case, two things.