This post is another one of those filled with all of the strange things I’ve seen that don’t fit anywhere else.
I found several white pine trees (Pinus strobus) on less than a square acre of land with some type of red substance on the base of their trunks. I don’t know if this was caused by a fungus or not, but I’m fairly certain that it wasn’t a lichen or slime mold, and I’m sure it wasn’t paint. I’ve never seen this before.
This tree also had a red substance on it, but it was higher up than that on the white pines was. This looked like it might have been a crustose lichen-possibly one of the fire dot lichens.
Last summer long I kept watch for a wild cucumber vine (Echinocystis lobata) but never saw one. Then I recently found this one, or what was left of it. This summer I’ll go back to this place and get the shots I wanted last summer. These vines are very fragrant when they bloom and people have started growing them in gardens for their enjoyable fragrance.
This bark was on the end of a fallen log. It was much smoother and was a different color than all of the bark around it, and it looked as if someone had sanded and stained it. Seeing things like this always make me wonder how and why they happened.
We are still having freezing cold days here and this recently cut hemlock stump with its sap frozen solid illustrates just how cold it can get when the wind is from the north.
This dead fern made me imagine the rib cage of some unknown forest creature.
Birds must lose a lot of feathers, because I see them hung up on shrubs all the time. Sometimes from a distance they can be easily mistaken for flowers. Since I’m tired of bush whacking my way through the woods to look at feathers that I thought were flowers, I bought myself some nifty mini binoculars to scan my surroundings with. They weigh almost nothing and will fit in a pocket. I might even get to see some birds with them.
I recently thumbed through a book called “Photographing the Patterns of Nature,” which was a mistake because now I’m seeing patterns everywhere. This is the pattern on the underside of a bracket fungus.
A tiny midge (Rhabdophaga strobiloides) laid an egg in the developing terminal leaf buds of a willow and when the larva grew it caused this pine cone gall by releasing a chemical which interferes with the willow’s normal development. The adult insect will emerge soon and repeat the cycle.
When something that doesn’t stretch is wrapped around the trunk of a tree it interferes with the tree’s normal development by stopping the flow of nutrients to its roots from its crown. This is called girdling. Unless it has other branches that aren’t girdled so nutrients can reach its roots, the tree will usually die. In the case of the tree sapling in the photo, this girdling was caused by a grape vine tendril.
I took this picture of this beard lichen because it looked so ancient-as if it had been clinging to this branch since the dawn of time.
One cold morning at about 6:00 am I saw clouds around the moon so I gathered up my camera and tripod, and out I went. Out of over 100 photos, this is the only one worth showing here. Keeping both the moon and clouds in focus was much harder than it should have been. I’ll see if I can learn from the rejects and try again the next time the moon is in the clouds.
In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth. ~John Milton
Thanks for stopping in.
As an arborist… In really enjoyed this. Jealous you were able to get out and find these!
Thanks!
EC
Thank you Eric. I see all kinds of strange things out there!
I found a dead pine with a red substance today. Like I am certain it was not paint.
Since I did this post I’ve learned that algae can grow on trees and it can be red. Nice find!
You have a great eye for “finds” in nature. I also saw a couple of trees, and a rock, with the red stuff that looks like paint. I was going to include it in my last post, but forgot about it. What I saw was a darker red, more the color of blood, but we’re far south of you so there would be differences.
Thanks! That’s interesting. The fact that you saw it on a rock as well as on trees tells me that it’s probably a lichen. I’m hoping to find more of it.
Wow, Allen! These are all fantastic photographs! Wonderful work. Each one stirs my imagination.
Thanks Melanie. I find some strange things in the woods!
I enjoy your assortments of oddities. Cool stuff! I see a lot of bark like that on the end of the old log, mostly at the bases of huge old Ponderosa Pines. Many pieces look as though they were parts of jigsaw puzzles.
I wish I knew what caused that look on tree bark, but I guess it’s just another forest mystery.
That girdled tree looks like a leg bone to me.
Many people seem to see the same thing! I was really surprised that a grape tendril was strong enough to do this.
I couldn’t find anything on white pine pathology that might explain the “orange paint.” But I doubt it’s good for them.
White pines do get rust, but that is confined to the needles, I believe. I can’t imagine what it is.
What an intriguing bunch of pictures. I especially like the dead fern, the beard lichen and the bracket fungus. There is something kind of mesmerizing about all of them.
Glad you like them. I think these things seem odd because most of us walk right by them without realizing they’re there.
[…] I have done for the last couple of months has been snapshots. So inspired by this post (things I’ve seen) from one of my favourite blogs, I decided to take just my macro lens and concentrate on patterns […]
I can just see you with a group of kids that are interested in nature. They would learn so much and develop an even greater interest in and respect for nature
Thak you for the vote of confidence, but I’d make a lousy teacher. I can explain things easily in writing but stand me up in front of a group of people and I immediately forget everything I ever knew. I’m ceratainly all for getting kids interested in nature though, any way that you can.
I meant working with them in nature where they can actually learn to see. Have the thrill of discovery.
That might not be so bad-I don’t know because I’ve never tried it.
What an odd bag of oddities. The oddest for me was the fragrant cucumber vine. Difficult to imagine what it could be like before, so I look froward you showing it in its flowering season. Last year I had a pumpkin which had flowers that were highly perfumed in the morning. (Felt I had to finish on an odd note.)
I see the oddest things in the woods! As I told one commentor, I don’t remember the scent of wild cucumber vines being overy fragrant, like a rose. I’d say they had a pleasant scent, but nothing to get overly excited about. I wouldn’t be surprised if they smelled much like your fragrant pumpkin did. These vines can cover shrubs and trees much like wild clematis, so I’m not sure that I’d want one in my garden.
For moon and cloud shots, you almost have to go with a HDR shot using software to combine two or more exposures, that, or luck. I did get one good cloud and moon shot, but it was pure luck. Other than that, I don’t have much to add over what the other commentors have said, great post.
Thanks Jerry. This shot was definitely pure luck!
Don’t get obsessed by patterns as this reader at any rate likes to see the whole picture. Another entertaining and informative post.
Thanks! I’ll try not to become seduced by patterns, but once you start thinking about them you really do see them everywhere.
What an interesting assortment of odd-looking things. Thanks for the tip on the book about patterns in nature. I’m going to look that one up. And speaking of shapes…my biology perspective made me see that vine wrapped around a sapling as the knee joint where the femur articulates with the “shin” bone (tibia). It’s an uncanny likeness.
Thanks Sue. You’re not the only one who sees a knee joint-I think there are 5 of us so far! It’s interesting, I’ll say that for it.
Great shots. You can (and I have) spend days photographing all of the cool patterns in nature! The girdled sapling looks like a knee joint and the bracket fungus reminds me of coral. Great representation of the things that are all around us!
Thanks Laura! I think maybe you could spen a lifetime on patterns that appear in nature. That book actually had some good examples that I never thought of. A lot of us see a knee joint in that girdled tree! I’ve taken to getting shots of the underside of fungi because quite often they can be more beautiful than the visible parts.
I agree with Mr Milton. You’ve a fine collection of images here, Allen…that girdling shot looks like an old knee joint from somebody or something…and the wild cucumber looks like a balloon that had been wrapped in string, hair-sprayed (or spray-starched?), and then popped…something that we did as kids…and I do love the moon photo, too…one shot out of a hundred…isn’t that how it goes sometimes? Well done…..
Thanks Scott. I thought the girdled tree looked kind of human as well-I see I’m not the only one. I’ve never heard of doing that with a balloon, but we did some crazy things as kids, so why not? Yes, i think I ended up with 120 shots of the moon and had to reject just about every one. The moon itself is easy, but when you try to add anything else like clouds or tree branches it becomes much more difficult. Many people will take a shot of the moon and then another of the clouds and then put them together but that seems like cheating to me, so I did it the hard way.
You’re welcome…it turned out very well.
The red substance on the white pine, I have seen what looks like the same thing as your second photo. Some wood I burned in the woodstove recently left very red ash, I wonder if it is related to the red substance you saw. Only part of the ash was red so it wasn’t just the type of wood and it certainly wasn’t paint.
I didn’t know wild cucumber vine had an enjoyable fragrance! I’ll be sure to give the next one a sniff!
Great post, thanks.
You’re welcome Chris. I’m glad someone else has seen this on tree bark-I wonder if it stays red even through burning-as in indestructible. I knew lichens were tough, but not that tough. I remember the wild cucumber fragrance from when I was a boy abd can remember that it was fairly strong, but I don’t remember it being real pleasant, like a rose.
I’ve been busy this last couple of months and had little time to do anything more than snap-shot photography. This post has inspired me to get out and start looking closer again, now that I have a bit more time. I’m a sucker for “patterns” too.
PS I love the wild cucumber vine.
I’m happy to inspire you James. I wonder if you have wild cucumbers there? We used to throw the spiny, prickly things at each other when we were kids, so I’m sure you’d remember them from your own boyhood if you’d seen them.
I was tempted to reply no but thought I’d check with my reference book first. Apparently we do! They are marked as a rare introduction from North America. I have certainly never seen one.
As kids we would throw the round barbed seed heads of burdock at each other; a pain to get out of your hair. We called them “sticky buds”.
Hmm..I wonder why they were introduced. Possibly because of the fragrance, but they can be invasive. Here we call them a weed. It’s nice to know that kids the world over throw prickly things at each other! We did burdocks too, and I remember losing patches of hair to them.
What a cool collection of oddities. I especially like the bracket fungus and the beard lichen. I sympathize with your challenges in getting shots of the moon and the clouds with both in focus and properly exposed. The problem was that they seemed to require different exposures. When I got good shots of the clouds, the moon turned solid white and when I got good shots of the moon (with a shorter exposure time), the clouds were too dark. Let us in on the secret if you figure out how to get consistent results.
Thanks Mike. I remember when you tried this and I was thinking of your post when I tried it. I ran into the same problems you did-either the clouds or moon were in focus but not both. I don’t know what went right with this shot, but I’ll let you know if I ever figure it out!