What else is in a redwood forest?

As magnificent and overwhelming as the sequoia sempervirens are in coastal redwoods forests, if that's all there was the groves wouldn't be nearly as interesting or photogenic.

Some of the most fascinating items in the forest are the smaller things that grow on or around the big trees.

Like the mushrooms you sometimes see (as on the right).

Or the flowers and berries that manage to thrive, despite the small amount of sunlight that filters through the boughs of their larger neighbors...

One of the prettiest plants we saw was the redwood sorrels. Their clover-like leaves provided a lovely contrast with the massive tree trunks, and they especially seemed to like the downed trees that I loved taking pictures of.

We saw a very few little buds and blooms on some of these plants, and wondered if we'd missed their

flowering, or come to early for it. Or, if they just put out a small number of blooms each summer.

Even without blooms, they're very pretty plants. The bright green of the topsides of their leaves is contrasted with a maroon-y-purple underside. I hope the photo on the left gives you some idea of the beauty of this colorful ground (and trunk) cover.

But of course the trees still provide the most photogenic elements in the forest, but not always just the sheer mass of their trunks and upper branches.

Here are some more mushroom-type growths I spotted...

this is a closeup of the delicate white growths you see in the photo just above

Downed trees, as I've mentioned often, provided some of the most gorgeous photo opps...

But the standing trees also display some great micro-ecologies that beg to be photographed...

...not to mention the many burls that, not surprisingly, adorned many of the trees...

Some of these growths could easily be mistaken for animals, or at least totems, especially given the magical vibe the groves give off...

Which brings me to my last category of forest "microscenery." Especially in the very old parts of the forests that we visited, where there was lots of moss, we "saw" all kinds of strange creatures and structures...

a dozing monkey

a downed log being slowly enveloped

a more snake-like protuberance (or is it "Stumpy," from Tremors?)

wild boar? unicorn? a yacht's prow?

But no matter how old the forest, there's always new growth to notice and celebrate:

And, of course, photograph!

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Next up: "micro" scenery along the coast.