Pine bark beetles (Ips pini) made an intricate design on a white pine (Pinus strobus) limb. These beetles are small and range in size from about 1/10 to 1/4 of an inch in length, but they can do a lot of damage when enough of them are in a forest. They feed on the phloem tissue just beneath the bark and if they girdle the branch it will die. Dead branches mean no photosynthesizing and eventually the tree will die. For those who have never head the term; girdling of a branch or tree happens when the phloem and bark has been cut around its diameter in a complete circle. Native Americans and then early settlers used girdling to remove trees from fields and pastures and it is still used by some today.
I saw a beautiful drift of gray and green reindeer lichens recently. This shrubby lichen gets its common name from the way reindeer and caribou paw through the snow to find and eat it. Reindeer lichen reproduces vegetatively by small growths called soredia that break off and grow new lichens under the right conditions. The soredia are carried by wind, water or animals. Reindeer lichens grow about .31 inches (8 mm) per year so it’s clear that this drift has been here for a very long time. They can live for a century or more and studies have shown that only boiling and radiation caused severe damage to them. There are many who believe that lichens are virtually indestructible and are therefore immortal.
Reindeer lichens remind me of corals that you would see under the sea. The grayish white color and the way that the branch tips all point in one direction tell me that this one is gray reindeer lichen (Cladina rangiferina.) I find the biggest colonies of this lichen along the edge of a pine forest, growing in a very thin quarter to half inch of dry sandy soil over granite bedrock. At times they get so dry that if you walk on them it sounds much like it would if you walked on potato chips. I’ve read that reindeer lichens produce a single new branch each year and that their age can be determined by counting the branches. The plants pictured must have been very old indeed. I’m glad that I didn’t have to count their branches.
Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) grew into the top of a tree and then found that it had nowhere else to climb so it massed in the tree top, and its bright red berries show that. Bittersweet is very persistent and will simply grow or hang back down until it reaches the ground and then creep until it finds something else standing vertical. As it grows the vine winds tightly around the tree trunk and doesn’t expand when the tree does, so its wire like strength will eventually strangle the tree. This is why its sale and cultivation are banned in New Hampshire.
Blueberry stem gall always reminds me of a kidney bean. This gall forms when a shiny black wasp called Hemadas nubilipennis damages a bud while laying her eggs on a tender shoot. The plant responds to the damage by growing a kidney shaped gall around the eggs, and this is where the larvae will overwinter before emerging as adults in the spring. This example was a highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) but this wasp isn’t choosy and will also use lowbush plants (Vaccinium angustifolium.) The galls do no real harm to the plants.
This witch’s broom on a highbush blueberry looked very red. It’s interesting that the highbush blueberry’s leaves turn a beautiful red in the fall and the stem galls and witch’s broom are also red. Why so much red present, I wonder. Witch’s broom is a deformity that causes a dense mass of shoots to grow from a single point. It’s not caused by an insect but by a fungus called Pucciniastrum goeppertianum. This fungus spends part of its life cycle on the needles of balsam fir (Abies balsamea) so bushes should never be planted near fir trees. When the fungus releases its spores and they land on the stems and leaves of the blueberry, the bush becomes infected. The fungus overwinters on the bush and in the spring again releases spores which will infect even more balsam fir trees, and the cycle begins again. The disease infects the entire plant so pruning off the witch’s broom won’t help. I’ve worked on blueberry bushes that have borne large amounts of fruit even though they had witch’s broom, so I’m not sure how much the deformity harms the plant. I think it’s more offensive to the eye than anything.
A water lily leaf was trapped in the ice just off shore in a small pond. It tugged at me and I thought it might make a fine picture, but it looked much better in person than it does here.
Do hornets care that what they build is so beautiful, I wonder?
There was a time that I thought I had some artistic ability and I’d sit for hours drawing and painting. One of the things I loved especially was pen and ink drawing, and that’s what this burl I found on an old tree stump reminded me of. It looked like a Da Vinci sketch in pen and ink with a colored wash over all to add some depth and character, and how beautiful it was. I think the old master himself would have been pleased to see it.
For those not familiar with burl; it’s an abnormal growth that grows faster than the surrounding tissue. Scientists don’t fully understand why it happens but burls are thought to grow on trees that have been weakened by stress or damage. Once the tree’s defenses have been weakened insects and /or fungi can attack and cause the abnormal growth. Woodworkers make some very beautiful things from burl and prize burls highly. Bowls and other objects made from it can sometimes sell for thousands of dollars.
I found this colony of wooly alder aphids (Paraprociphilus tessellatus) on an alder limb. These insects can be winged or unwinged and need both silver maples and alders to complete their life cycle. Eggs overwinter in crevices in the bark of silver maple trees. In spring, nymphs hatch and begin feeding on the underside of new leaves. In late May through July, they develop wings and fly to alder trees where they feed on twigs and begin reproducing. Soon the colony is composed of aphids in all stages of development and becomes enveloped in white, fluffy wax as seen in the photo. Some aphids mature, return to silver maple trees and mate. Each mated female lays only one egg, which once again starts the overwintering stage.
Wooly aphids are sap sucking insects that secrete sweet honeydew on branches and leaves of plants. The honeydew attracts a fungus called black sooty mold. Since the mold only grows on the aphid honeydew and not the plant, it doesn’t harm plants. In fact the aphids will do far more harm. I’m not sure if the aphids with dots in this photo always look that way, if they haven’t grown the white waxy covering yet, or if they’ve lost the covering for some reason. They were very small; not even pencil eraser size.
I love seeing juniper berries at this time of year. A waxy coating called bloom makes them a bright and beautiful blue. I always wonder how many gin drinkers know that the unique flavor in their drink comes from this plant’s fruits. Though they’re called berries, botanically speaking juniper fruits are actually fleshy seed cones. Unripe green berries are used to flavor gin and the ripe, deep purple-black berries are the only part of a conifer known to be used as a spice, often used on game like venison, moose and bear meat.
Part of what I try to do on this blog is show the amazing and beautiful things that are tucked into virtually every nook and cranny of nature and, with nothing but a slower gait and a watchful eye, how easy they are to see. Walking along at a toddler’s pace and looking at logs is just how I found the unknown fungi in the above photo. I knelt to give them a closer look and saw that they were like nothing I’d seen. Finding unexpected beauty like this can take us to that higher place where time seems to stop for a while. Sometimes it’s hard to know how long you’ve been there but that’s okay; as Mehmet Murat ildan said: “If you are lost inside the beauties of nature, do not try to be found.”
Mushroom mycelium grew on the bottom of a log where it made contact with the soil. It wept golden nectar and its many intricacies reminded me of distant cosmic nebulae where stars and planets are born.
He who does not expect the unexpected will not find it, since it is trackless and unexplored. Heraclitus of Ephesus
Thanks for stopping in.
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 
You found a lot on your walk. I especially liked the burl and the woolly aphids. Walking slowly has a lot of advantages.
Yes, and I hope more people will try it!
I know they are a pest but I do enjoy seeing aphids up close like that. The macro-world is beautiful I think. I also like the intricate design of the pine bark beetles. Here is Australia we have an insect that puts wonderful scribbly patterns on a tree we refer to as a scribbly gum. Girdling of tree trunks is called “ring-barking” here and was used to kill vast numbers of trees when white settlement occurred. Unfortunately it led to a lot of problems with soil erosion and rising salinity as the water table rose. Thanks for this very interesting collection. I enjoy seeing all the little oddities of nature. 🙂
You’re welcome and thank you Jane. I also like the world that a macro lens reveals. It’s often quite surprising!
Your example of tree girdling is a good lesson in what can happen when we think we know how to control nature. I hope they’ve replanted some of the trees so the erosion and salinity problems are under control. Sometimes we humans are very foolish!
The patterns left by the pine bark beetles are remarkably artistic. I like the reindeer lichen also.
Yes, some bark beetles are even called engraver beetles. I’ve always thought that a drift of reindeer lichen would look good in a garden but it grows so slowly I’m not sure I’d have the patience for it to catch up with everything else.
Hey, I knew that about juniper berries and gin! But what a wonderful burl, and that bittersweet vine is a sight for sore eyes. I’ve grown bittersweet, but it’s never massed up so strikingly as this one.
Thank you Cynthia. The juniper and bittersweet berries really add a much needed splash of color to the landscape!
They do, indeed. It’s quite remarkable that the most colourful season, autumn, leads to the most colourless one!
Yes, being taken to that higher place is such an insightful line. Beautiful photographs and discoveries Alan. You write an inspiring blog encouraging us to go out and take in the moment, taking time to stop and stare and just marvel at the natural world.
Thank you Julie. Losing myself to nature is always a fine thing!
Encouraging people to get out and see for themselves is what this blog is all about and I appreciate your letting me know that it might be convincing some people to do so. They really don’t know what they’re missing, so I’m trying to show them.
As others have said, your artistic side really came through in this post, but I’ve been noticing that in many of your recent posts, and it just adds that much more to your blog!
I’ve often thought that the patterns left by the bark beetles look a lot like man’s early cave drawings, could it be that we learned art from the insects?
I don’t know how you find the things that you do, or the time to find them. But, that’s nature, two people can spend hours outdoors every week and see totally different, but very beautiful things.
Thanks Jerry! I must be in an artistic mood or something, I don’t know. I do know that patterns and shapes in nature are much easier to see at this time of year.
Did we learn art from insects is a big question that I can’t answer, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I’m fairly certain that we took some of our common patterns and color combinations from nature.
I really don’t know how I find what I do either other than walking slowly and looking closely. That’s very true about two people seeing nature differently. I got to spend a day in the woods with two Army Corp of Engineer people recently and wow-that was an eye opener. We didn’t really see anything the same way!
Yes, it is amazing how what we’re interested in and our preferences shape the way that our brains process what our eyes see. Last evening I was shooting the sunset, while watching a small flock of Bonaparte’s gulls playing in the surf. People would walk past me and I’d comment about how watching the gulls was keeping me occupied as the light changed, no one had seen them until I pointed the gulls out to them. I’m thinking, how do people not see gulls wheeling and diving into the surf repeatedly, but that should no longer surprise me. Most people are oblivious to wildlife around them.
Sad but true. I’ll never forget the two girls who said they hadn’t seen a single wildflower when the woods were full of them. I’m not sure how that works.
As your posts always are, beautiful and fascinating!
Thanks Montucky, I’m glad you think so!
Such a fascinating collection of finds! The burl, the mushroom mycelium and the fungus are my favourites. You must have fairly clean air where you live to get such large colonies of reindeer lichen.
Thank you Clare. Those are my favorites too. Yes, we have huge amounts of many types of lichens here and many grow in the tree tops, so I’m guessing that our air is very clean. Sometimes in winter the smoke from wood fires will collect in the valleys but that’s about all the real pollution we see.
Sounds wonderful! We have a fair amount of pollution here even though we are out of town. We are north-west of London with the prevailing wind from the south west so we get a lot of the city’s fumes and of course the local farmers are always spraying their crops with pesticides and fungicides.
That’s too bad. School children did a famous clean air map of London once by recording where lichens did and didn’t grow. I thought it had shamed the powers that be into cleaning up the city.
It isn’t as bad as it used to be. When I was a very young girl and lived close to London we were all warned not to go anywhere near the Thames as the water was very polluted. By the time I was in my late teens and early twenties and working in the city things had improved greatly. I used to overlook the river in one of my jobs and I used to watch cormorants swimming and diving for fish. There is still a lot of traffic in the city and on the M25, the motorway that surrounds the city, and it is those fumes that blow away from the city and end up here!
It’s really amazing how quickly things like rivers can be drastically cleaned up. Now if they’ll just work on your air…
😀
Such an interesting combination of “finds.” It’s amazing how different your woolly aphids are from ours. Enjoyed!
Thank you. I’ve read that there are woolly aphids that are specific to certain host plants. These alder woolly aphids might look very different than the woolly apple aphid, for example. These are the only kind I’ve ever seen here.
The ones I see are very small and white. No other colors like your have.
You’ll have to take note of what kind of tree or shrub they’re on. They’re easier to look up that way.
They were thick on our hackberry trees in the summer. They fed on the underside of the leaves and the sap came out “their other ends.” This made a mess on everything under the trees.
Yes it can, especially when it turns all black and sooty.
We still have things splotchy black.
Yes, I can imagine. It’s almost impossible to get rid of.
We’re in the middle of a few days of heavy rain. My fingers are crossed.
It might take care of it. Bleach might work on plastic things.
Your artistic side was very well exercised in this post. The oak burl was a knockout. It’s easy to look at things and be delighted as you pass by (if you are paying attention) but much harder to take a picture that works as well as your does.
The unknown fungus was very pretty as well.
Thank you. It does bubble to the surface occasionally, usually triggered by something like that burl. I agree; it’s much easier to just gaze at it than it is to get a record of it. I flub as many as I show, usually.
I thought that crust fungus was the nicest I’d seen in quite awhile.
Reblogged this on Dawn of Divine Rays.
Thanks very much!
Most informative, I always learn new things here – thank you!
You’re welcome and thank you Eliza. I’m happy to hear it!
The log with the beetle damage was much more extensive than any I’ve seen. We camp often and purchase lots of firewood. It’s rare to ever get any that isn’t full of beetle marks. No wonder there is such concern about moving firewood around.
Love the wooly aphid photo. I probably never would have gotten so close up to see all that beautiful detail.
Chalk up another fascinating post.
Thanks very much Judy. Some forests have really severe infestations of bark beetles and they cost the lumber industry a lot of money each year, so it really isn’t a good idea to move wood very far.
In the past when I’ve seen wooly aphids there was so much wool I couldn’t see them, so I was pleasantly surprised this time!
there is something especially artistic about this post that I’ve really enjoyed. The hornets’ nest, the pine bark beetle engraving, the wooly aphids, the tree burl. Oh my.
Thank you Kate. There’s such a lot of beauty to see out there!
Quite the artist these Pine bark beetles! 🙂 and much more beauty on display. Much appreciated on a day as wild and windy as we’re having round here today.
Thanks Ben! I love seeing the patterns the beetles make. The woods here are full of branches that they’ve carved so they’re easily found.
I hope your weather will finally calm down for a while. You sure do seem to get a lot of rain.
We’re 8 miles inland from the Atlantic, with lots of winds blowing in from the west, frequently water-laden. To our immediate east rise the Cumbrian mountains. You can guess the result I’m sure. 🙂
Yes, the clouds get squeezed out right over you. The plants must love it!
You would have so much you’d want to explore I think, both in words and images.
The great thing about nature study is it can be done anywhere at any time, so I’m sure it would be a lot of fun.
When I saw the first picture of the reindeer lichen, I thought you had found a dusting of snow. So many neat things in this post. The wooly alder aphids are cool looking.
I actually went looking for ice and snow but didn’t find any. The reindeer lichens do look like snow though.
As a gardener I should be repulsed by aphids but as a nature nut I think they’re fascinating. As long as they aren’t in a garden!
As I have said before you have a most artistic way of looking at nature, the patterns drawn by the pine bark beetles and the shape that burl on the tree stump grew into are prime examples of what I mean. Your photographs are a delight to my eye.
Thank you Susan. Maybe my old attempts at being an artist have stayed with me. I do tend to see a lot of patterns, shapes and colors in nature. They really are everywhere!
I enjoy those patterns that you find so keep on looking!
I hope to!