Last year on March 28th I followed a small stream that flows near my house and this year I decided to do the same to see what had changed. As it turned out nothing much had changed but it was still an interesting walk as spring walks often are.
The most obvious change was the lack of snow this year*. The above photo shows what the stream banks looked like last March. This year the walking was much easier but still, there is no path here so you have to find your own way through the underbrush. With luck you might see a game trail and be able to follow that. Deer are regulars here.
*After I put this post together we got about 5 inches of snow and some 20 degree weather, just to show us what we had been missing.
The stream bed is made up of colorful gravel. I would think that a lot of water must percolate down through it, but though it gets quite low in warm dry weather the stream has never dried up in the more than 20 years that I’ve known it.
Native river grapes (Vitis riparia) grow along the stream banks. These are old vines that grow well into the tree tops, some as big around as a navel orange, and the fruit make the forest smell like grape jelly on warm fall days. I like looking at their tendrils. Sometimes I see beautiful Hindu dancers in their twisted shapes; other times animals, sometimes birds. They can make the heart sing and imagination soar, and that’s part of the enchantment of the forest.
River grapes are also called frost grapes, and their extreme cold tolerance makes their rootstock a favorite choice for many well-known grape varieties. If you grow grapes chances are good that your vine has been grafted onto the rootstock of a river grape. If so the cold will most likely never kill it; river grapes have been known to survive temperatures of -57 degrees F. (-49 C)
Eastern hemlock trees (Tsuga canadensis); easily identified by the white stripes on the needle undersides, also grow along the stream banks. These trees are important to deer and other wildlife. They grow thickly enough to allow you to stand under one and hardly feel a drop of rain, and deer bed down under them. Many birds nest in them and many small birds like chickadees also feed on the seeds. Larger birds like owls and turkeys use them to roost in. Hemlocks are very shade tolerant and like to grow in cool, moist areas, so finding a grove of hemlocks is a good sign of a cool spot in a forest. Native Americans used the inner bark (cambium) as a base for breads and soups or mixed it with dried fruit and animal fat to use in pemmican. They also made tea from hemlock needles, which have a high vitamin C content, and this saved many a white settler from scurvy.
I was surprised to see Japanese honeysuckles (Lonicera japonica) already leafing out but I shouldn’t have been. Many invasive plants get a jump on natives by leafing out and blooming earlier.
Ankle grabbing, prickly swamp dewberry (Rubus hispidus) hadn’t even shed its winter bronze color yet. In June this trailing vine will bloom with white flowers that look a lot like strawberry flowers. The fruit looks more like a black raspberry than anything else and is said to be very sour. Native Americans had many medicinal uses for this plant, including treating coughs, fever and consumption. Swamp dewberry, as its name implies, is a good indicator of a wetland or moist soil that doesn’t dry out.
Foamflowers (Tiarella cordifolia) also like shady, moist places and they do well here along the banks of the stream. They’re very low growing and their evergreen leaves don’t change much from summer through winter, but the leaf veins often turn purple. This plant is a good example of a native plant with much appeal and plant breeders have had a field day with it, so there are many hybrids available. If you have a moist, shaded spot in your garden where nothing much grows, foamflower would be a good choice for a groundcover.
The small blackish bead-like sori that make up the fertile fronds of the sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis) have opened to release the spores. Sensitive fern is another good indicator or moist places. Its common name comes from its sensitivity to frost, which was first noticed by the early colonials.
Washed away leaves and plant stems all pointing in one direction mean flooding, and this stream has started flooding regularly over the last few years. It’s hard to believe that a small, meandering stream could become the raging torrent that I’ve seen this one become, but it does and it usually happens quickly. If it had been raining on this day I wouldn’t have been standing anywhere near the spot where this photo was taken.
When the stream floods it often comes up over the road and a couple of years ago it took a good piece of the road embankment with it. The “repair” was a few loads of crushed stone dumped into the resulting hole, but so far it has held. There was a large colony of coltsfoot that grew here before the flooding but they were washed down stream. Or I thought they had; last year I saw two or three flowers here, so they’re slowly re-colonizing this spot. I would expect that all the stone would catch the sun and raise the soil temperature so the coltsfoot would bloom earlier but they actually bloom later than most others.
Tree skirt moss (Anomodon attenuates) usually grows from ground level up a tree trunk for about a foot or so, but this example grew about three feet up the trunk and it looked like its lower half had been stripped away by flooding.
Tree skirt moss looks like it’s made up of tiny braided ropes when it’s dry. It is normally deep green but I think dryness must have affected the color of this example. Many mosses and lichens change color when they dry out. After a rain it will be green again and each tiny leaflet will pull away from the stem, giving the moss a fluffier appearance.
A muscle wood tree (Carpinus caroliniana) had a grapefruit size burl on it and something had worn away the bark on it. A burl is a rounded growth on a tree that contains clusters of knots made up of dormant buds. It is said that burls form on trees that have seen some type of stress, and though scientists aren’t 100 percent sure it is believed that they are caused by injury, a virus, or fungi. The name muscle wood comes from the way that the tree looks like it has muscles undulating under its bark, much like our muscles appear under our skin. This tree likes soil that doesn’t dry out and is common on stream and river banks.
Other names for the muscle wood tree are American hornbeam and ironwood. The name iron wood comes from its dense, hard and heavy wood that even beavers won’t touch. Since a burl is naturally dense, hard, and heavy a burl on this tree must be doubly so, and would probably be almost impossible to carve. It would make a great bowl though, with its wavy purple stripes.
Black cherry is another tree that doesn’t mind wet feet and it grows well along the stream. This one has what I’ve always thought was a burl bigger than a basketball on it, but further reading shows it to be black knot disease. A fungus (Apiosporina morbosa) causes abnormal growth in the tree’s cells and the resulting burl like growths interfere with the transmission of water and minerals up from the roots and food down from the leaves. Because of this trees with black knot almost always die from it eventually.
Horsetails (Equisetum hyemale) rise like spikes from the forest floor. These ancient plants are embedded with silica and are called scouring rushes. They are a great find when you are camping along a stream because you can use them to scour your cooking utensils. Running your finger over a stalk feels much like fine sandpaper.
In Japan they are boiled and dried and then used to smooth wood, and are said to produce a finish superior to any sandpaper. Horsetails produce spores in their cone shaped tips, but the examples in this spot rarely grow them. The stripes on them always remind me of socks.
When old friends reunite it’s usually a joyous occasion and it certainly was on this day when I said hello to my old friends the tree mosses (Climacium dendroides). They were right where they were last year, toughly hanging on inches above the water despite all the flooding they’ve seen. The stream bank where they grow is just high enough to be a perfect sit down spot and I can sit beside them comfortably for as long as I wish, admiring their beauty while listening to the chuckles and giggles of the stream. There is no place I’d rather be and nothing that could make me happier, and I could sit here for hours.
Like music for the eyes are these little mosses. It is their shape that gives tree mosses their common name but it is their inner light that draws me here to see them. Some plants seem to shine and pulse with a love of life, and this is one of those. As I sat admiring their beauty we burned with the same flame for a time and loved life together.
Go out, go out I beg of you
And taste the beauty of the wild.
Behold the miracle of the earth
With all the wonder of a child.
~Edna Jaques
Thanks for coming by.
Our garden was infested with horsetails when we moved here. It took me years digging them out to get rid of them and, even now, the odd one comes up. Maybe I should have kept them and used them to scour my pots 🙂 I like the idea of seeing things in the twisted vines. That’s just the kind of thing I do.
I’ll bet it did take years. I covered an entire garden with black plastic once to kill off the horsetails and the thrived under it. They’re nearly indestructible, and they really will scour a pot clean.
I have a strong imagination, I think. It doesn’t take much to get me seeing different things in vines and leaves while I’m in the woods, but I think it all adds to the enchantment of the forest.
That’s a very striking burl on the ironwood. Ironwood is a tree I’d like to grow – if any of my existing trees ever die I might plant one. The nutlets are supposed to attract a lot of birds.
They don’t live long and they need soil that doesn’t get too dry. They only grow along rivers and streams here.
That horsetail sure has some good color to it!
Yes, I was surprised when I saw the photo that it was so colorful and I wonder if the camera didn’t overcompensate for the shade that was there.
Beautifully written and so full of your love of the natural world. I love that little tree moss!
Thank you Clare. The tree moss is rare here, so I get excited when I find it. It seems to love growing near water and it’s a beautiful little moss.
It is lovely! It is just like a miniature pine tree. I’m sure in it’s heart (you’ll have to forgive me here – what is the botanical equivalent of anthropomorphism?) it is just as big and important as a redwood.
I think anthropomorphism would apply even in botany, and I agree!
Oh good! 😀
The post on the Horsetail, reminds me of our wood working bushcraft elders…when they made there Prayer pipestems…they always had handfuls of Horsetail nearby to smooth out there stems…Love these entries. thank you to the artist (photographer) and the accompanying writings …wonderful pieces. cheers
Thanks very much. I envy your being there and actually seeing that. I’ll have to try horsetails on wood someday just to satisfy my own curiosity.
I’m glad that you’re enjoying the blog!
I’ve always loved horsetails and your “sock” photo is just wonderful. We have lots of black knot on our cherries here. I keep hoping someone will discover that it has wonderful properties like chaga, but no such luck.
Thank you. We have lots of black knot on our wild cherries too. I haven’t heard of any health benefits from it but they’re discovering new things all the time, so who knows?
The horsetails are new to me and look amazing. At first I thought it was a brightly coloured sock with those patterns! Thanks very much for your well researched interesting posts and lovely pictures. 🙂
You’re welcome and thank you. That’s what horsetails always remind me of too. It’s an unusual plant that they say once grew to tree size.
It is those small but special moments that make walks so fulfilling. Amelia
Yes, I agree!
Reading your post, I suddenly had a flash of how much I loved looking at, and feeling moss, as a child…how much we can forget as life goes along… Lovely uplifting post.
Thanks very much. I think that happens to all of us, but it’s never too late to revisit that which we once loved so much. I do it all the time!
One thing that I can always count on when I see that you’ve done another post is that I’ll learn a great deal from it, so it is with this one.
I can very well imagine you sitting by the stream admiring the beauty of the smaller things around you as you listen to the stream, definitely music to the ears! It’s something that I used to do that I don’t do often enough these days, I may have to change that, as I miss the serenity of nature even though I’m out in it as often as I am.
Thanks Jerry! As always, I learned a few things from doing this post as well.
I know what you mean about getting caught up in documenting what we see and missing out on enjoying what we’re seeing. It happens easily and sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s really about just being there. Going out without a camera a few times a week helps!
The horsetail was an eye opener for me.
I don’t see them very often and they’re a bit hard to get to along this stream.
I love your close-ups and conversation on the different things you come across. Your reverence comes shining through.
Thank you Eliza. I guess it’s a hard thing to hide.
Great post. I wonder if that black-knot disease growth could be pruned off and give the tree a chance, or if it’s too large and that would just cause the tree to die anyway.
Thank you Cynthia. Black knot can be pruned off small trees but I’ve read that once the tree has it that means it’s a goner. This particular tree has it all around the trunk so it would be impossible to prune it off without cutting the tree down.
Loved your picture of the grape tendrils, what an interesting shape they make.
Thank you Susan. You can see all kinds of shapes with grape tendrils and they are fascinating.
Ironwood is the name I remember that tree by from days back east. Hard, heavy wood for sure. We have a black locust tree here on the farm, also quite hard and heavy wood. Bees love the flowers. Its partner was uprooted in a violent windstorm here one year, and fell across my husband’s van.
Mosses were on of my first loves as a child exploring the swamp in back of the house where I grew up. There is a book you might like, Forests of Lilliput; The Realm of Mosses and Lichens by John H. Bland
Yes, iron wood is another name for it but you don’t hear it used much here. In fact few people ever mention the tree. That’s too bad about your husband’s van. I’m sure a large black locust could do some serious damage and it’s lucky he wasn’t in the van.
That does sound like just the kind of book I like to read so thank you for the tip. I just happen to have a gift card for the local bookstore and now I know what to use it on!
I am so in love with your love of earth wonders….your sharing of photos and writings. Yours and Wondermyway’s…. I now feel the presence of your kindred spirits when I go out wandering and exploring. Thank you thank you! ~Jennifer
On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 4:12 AM, New Hampshire Garden Solutions wrote:
> New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” Last year on March 28th I > followed a small stream that flows near my house and this year I decided to > do the same to see what had changed. As it turned out nothing much had > changed but it was still an interesting walk as spring walks often are. The > m” >
You’re welcome, and thank you very much Jennifer. I love nature and being outside very much and I’m glad to hear that you do too!
Great post, glad to be subscribed! Thanks for pointing out some of the lesser noticed wonders.
Thank you and welcome. You’ll find a lot of the lesser noticed here.
Great post as always, I enjoyed your reflection on the tree moss!
Thank you. Tree moss gets me excited! I don’t see it very often.
The Horsetails are beautiful! I had not idea, and wouldn’t have ever known had you not included the close-up shot, just how much like knitted socks they appear. And so useful too. Thank you for this little bit of fun!!
You’re welcome Martha, and thank you. Horsetails seem to like moist to wet places.
The musclewood burl is beautiful, but I agree, it would be a bear to carve. Isn’t it amazing that such a small stream could cause such flooding? Great post as always.
Thanks Laura. Yes, that burl would be tough!
It is amazing that this stream can flood like it does. It has to rise several feet just to reach road level, so a lot of water must run into it when it rains hard.
I love all of the tidbits of information that you manage to cram into your postings, Allen. I was particularly intrigued by your information about the frost grape and tickled by you photo of the “socks” plant–I used to have a pair with almost those colors and pattern.
Thanks Mike. If there’s one thing I’ve found through blogging it’s that plants come with reams of fascinating information attached. Apparently we’ve been studying them for a very long time!
I had socks like those too, and these horsetails always remind me of them.
I knew very little about birds and insects when I started photographing them and almost without trying I have gained a lot of knowledge about them as I have sought to identify my subjects.
I thought I knew quite a lot about plants but never studied their historical significance before blogging. I too have learned an awful lot.