On the first of May, that is on May Day, while walking to Brock House in West Point Grey to lead a tree-identification walk in their grounds, I came across a lily-of-the-valley shrub, scientifically known as Pieris japonica.

The leaves are green and oval with a paler-green central vein; the flowers are white and urn-shaped, several hanging in clusters from one bud.

In Vancouver’s West End, lilac trees, Syringa vulgaris, are abloom. These trees have an opposite branching pattern so the large, sweet-smelling inflorescences are in pairs and sometimes even in threes. The blossom colour all over the tree is either lavendar, white, or indigo.

The inflorescences open from buds at the stem end to buds at the distal tip. Leaves are heart-shaped with an extended point.

In Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Garden, a flowering dogwood (this is its common name) provides shade for two benches.

We can tell it is a Cornus florida f. rubra by the bracts with tears at the tips and the edges coloured in pink. These bracts are what some people mistake for the flowers’ petals. Each green leaf has a central vein and arcuate subveins, themselves arching at the leaf margin and making the species more easily identifiable.

Walking near the Duck Pond in the northeast corner of the park, we came across a hawthorn with some of its leaves variegated, meaning the leaves are not just green but in this case white in places. Leaves are one of the ways to differentiate among the species of Crataegus, the scientific name of the genus hawthorn. These leaves are three- to five-lobed, making the species C. monogyna, whose name translates as the hawthorn with flowers carrying only one pistil, meaning one seed (unlike other members of this genus).

A member of Rosaceae, the rose family, each flower in the cluster has five petals, many stamens, and one pistil. Some of the pollen anthers are still pink, showing their pollen is still available; other anthers are black, showing that their pollen has been released to pollinating insects and, of course, to the pistil.

This species is not listed by the Invasive Species Council of Metro Vancouver or by the Invasive Species Council of BC as being invasive. However, it is listed as invasive in some US states.

Hidden among other plants in Queen Elizabeth Garden is a quince shrub, Chaenomeles speciosa, with the synonym Cydonia speciosa. Its orange-red petals attract insects for pollinations. This showy, rose family shrub is apparently easy to grow, though it must be pruned for the new growth to bear flowers. In the second year of their growth, the fruit make wonderful jam, according to my husband.

This doublefile viburnum, Viburnum plicatum var. tomentosum (tomentosum refers to its leaves that are hairy underneath) is very similar to a cultivar of bigleaf hydrangea. The similarity is the showy sterile flowers that surround the tiny fertile ones. In addition to the two types of flowers being similar, both shrubs use an opposite branching pattern. So how do we tell apart the viburnum from the hydrangea? The large sterile flowers on a hydrangea have four petals of an equal size. The large sterile flowers on a viburnum have petals that are unequal in size; it is almost as though they have two, three, four, or five large petals and one tiny one. Also, hydrangea leaves are considerably larger than viburnum leaves.

Also the arrangement of flowers along a viburnum branch can be stunningly beautiful, though not in this particular shrub.

And all this is in the first five days of May.