• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Before Header

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Friends of Kananaskis Country

Enhance, protect and share the unique natural and cultural experiences of Kananaskis Country through public participation and environmental education.

Header Right

Donate Join Us Volunteer-Events Calendar
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Vision and Mission
    • The Team
    • The Advisory Council
    • Thanks Volunteers
  • About K-Country
    • Kananaskis Country
    • Trail Maps
    • Trail Reports
    • Bite-Sized Advice
    • Trail & Camping Info
    • Kananaskis Conservation Pass
    • Critters of K-Country
    • Flowers of K-Country
    • Plants of K-Country
    • Fungi of K-Country
  • Programs + Events
    • Trail Care
      • Recruiting Crew Leaders & Backcountry Crew
      • Migratory Birds and the Friends
    • Canmore Trail Alliance
    • Trails Fest
    • Environmental Education
    • Chandra Crawford Hut at CNC
  • Engage
    • Sign Up and Join Us
    • Volunteer
      • Volunteer Projects
    • Corporate & Group Trail Days
    • Trail Day – What to Bring & Expect
    • Volunteer Agreement, Release and Waiver of Liability Form
    • Trail Groups and Clubs
  • Library
    • Latest News
    • Annual Reports
    • Great Kananaskis Flood Book
    • Bylaws & Cooperating Agreement
    • Newsletter
      • 2020 Newsletter Archive
      • 2019 Newsletter Archive
      • 2018 Newsletter Archive
      • 2017 Newsletter Archive
      • 2016 Newsletter Archive
      • 2015 Newsletter Archive
      • 2014 Newsletter Archive
      • 2013 Newsletter Archive
      • 2012 Newsletter Archive
      • 1997 – 2008 Newsletter Archive
    • Policies
  • Support
    • Donate
    • Legacy Fund
      • Legacy Fund FAQs
    • Planned Giving
    • Trail Love Give Back
    • SkipTheDepot
    • Our Supporters
    • Thanks
  • Contact
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Vision and Mission
    • The Team
    • The Advisory Council
    • Thanks Volunteers
  • About K-Country
    • Kananaskis Country
    • Trail Maps
    • Trail Reports
    • Bite-Sized Advice
    • Trail & Camping Info
    • Kananaskis Conservation Pass
    • Critters of K-Country
    • Flowers of K-Country
    • Plants of K-Country
    • Fungi of K-Country
  • Programs + Events
    • Trail Care
      • Recruiting Crew Leaders & Backcountry Crew
      • Migratory Birds and the Friends
    • Canmore Trail Alliance
    • Trails Fest
    • Environmental Education
    • Chandra Crawford Hut at CNC
  • Engage
    • Sign Up and Join Us
    • Volunteer
      • Volunteer Projects
    • Corporate & Group Trail Days
    • Trail Day – What to Bring & Expect
    • Volunteer Agreement, Release and Waiver of Liability Form
    • Trail Groups and Clubs
  • Library
    • Latest News
    • Annual Reports
    • Great Kananaskis Flood Book
    • Bylaws & Cooperating Agreement
    • Newsletter
      • 2020 Newsletter Archive
      • 2019 Newsletter Archive
      • 2018 Newsletter Archive
      • 2017 Newsletter Archive
      • 2016 Newsletter Archive
      • 2015 Newsletter Archive
      • 2014 Newsletter Archive
      • 2013 Newsletter Archive
      • 2012 Newsletter Archive
      • 1997 – 2008 Newsletter Archive
    • Policies
  • Support
    • Donate
    • Legacy Fund
      • Legacy Fund FAQs
    • Planned Giving
    • Trail Love Give Back
    • SkipTheDepot
    • Our Supporters
    • Thanks
  • Contact

Fairybells

The distinctive double red berries of the Fairybell

You usually can’t miss the obvious red berries of the Fairybell, Prosartes trachycarpa. The berries are far more noticeable than the small, subtle flowers (pictured at right) that precede the berries.

Our Fairybells used to be considered part of the Disporum family (and used to be called Disporum trachycarpum). But the botanists in the know decided that Disporum were native to Asia from northern India to Japan, south to Indonesia and north into the Russian Far East. Accordingly, they split out the 5 North American species of Fairybells and gave them a new family, Prosartes.

The primary Fairybell species here is the Rough-Fruited. One look at those little red berries will tell you that is an apt name. We think they’re more velvety than rough, however. You can find these Fairybells all across the boreal forest in Canada, and in mountainous regions of the US south to the Mexican border. The marble-sized berries, which come in clusters of 1, 2 and 3, stay on the plant into late September. They like to grow in shady, damp montane forests, of which K-Country has a lot.

If you see Fairybells with yellowy-orange berries, they’re neither sick nor underripe. You’ve found Oregon Fairybells, sometimes called Hooker’s Fairybells, a far less common species in K-Country.

The berries of Fairybells are supposedly edible, but flavourless. Indigenous people believed them to be poisonous and did not eat them. They are, however, popular with Grouse and various rodents and squirrels.

See more of the pretty flowers of K-Country here!

A close up of the rough fruit of the Rough-Fruited Fairybell

Footer

Contact Us

email: info@kananaskis.org
Phone: 403.678.5593
Mail Address:
Suite 201, 800 Railway Ave.
Canmore, Alberta
T1W 1P1

Search Website

You can also find us on

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
Donate Join Us Volunteer Calendar

Copyright © 2023 · developed by Artmann Comm on Genesis Framework