If you’re viewing this post from an email alert, click on the headline to see the full graphic design of “Cantwell’s Reef.”
IT’S MID-JUNE ON CENTER ISLAND. My meadow’s wildflowers came and went in May, and the wild roses with their pink blush and nose-tickling scent are almost a memory.
But we can always depend on a sudden wild splash of creamy, sun-catching florabundance just before the summer solstice when the oceanspray blooms. Bearing large tassels comprising scores of tiny florets, oceanspray virtually floods our forest with waves of white.
This woody shrub (Holodiscus discolor) is native from Southern British Columbia to Southern California, with variations reaching into South America. It typically ranges from three to 10 feet in height, and spreads like crazy in open forest floor like the front of my island plot.
It’s also known as ironwood, for the hardness of its woody stalk. According to the website Native Plants PNW, native tribes used the wood for many tools and utensils. Rendered even harder by heating it over a fire and polishing it with horsetail stems, the wood was used for salmon-roasting tongs because it won’t burn, for digging sticks, fishing hooks, needles, canoe paddles, bows, and spear, harpoon, and arrow shafts. Oceanspray pegs were even used in construction when nails were not available.
Every June, the blooms are a welcome sight that welcomes summer to the San Juans.
Speaking of which: The 2026 summer solstice occurs on Sunday, June 21, at 1:24 a.m. PDT. This exact astronomical moment marks the official start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and brings the longest day — with 15 hours and 59 minutes of daylight in our islands — and shortest night of the year.
I’m marking the event by participating with a friend in Orcas Island’s homespun Solstice Parade through downtown Eastsound. What are your plans?
Cantwell's Reef 
Celebrating Solstice by enjoying a rogue sound bath in the acoustic tunnel under Highway 14 along the Columbia River gorge – bowls and instruments played by my Goddaughter Jesse! Summer Solstice to me is the most bitter sweet day – So full of light, yet beginning its slow goodbye…
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Your ocean spray is a week or so ahead of ours! Love all the ethnobotany of this reef. I tried commenting to say what I’m doing on solstice, since you asked,, and think that I successfully did so – and then WordPress asked me for my password (GalleyScotes) and when I entered it, the message popped up that it was a duplicate of the comment I just wrote…Anyway, just a heads up that if you see a duplicate comment from me, please delete one. 🙃
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