Last Sunday I decided to follow a rail trail in Swanzey that I knew had a trestle on it. History and botany are two of my favorite things and I knew I’d find a lot of both here. It was a beautiful warm, sunny day and hiking just about anywhere would have been pleasant.
Sometimes the sap of white pines will turn blue in very cold weather but it was warm on this day and the sap was still blue. I wonder if it stays blue once it changes.
I’ve never heard of bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) being evergreen but there were several plants along the trail, all wearing their winter purple / bronze color. If this plant looks familiar it’s probably because it is the smallest of our native dogwoods and the 4 leaves look like miniature versions of dogwood tree leaves. Bunchberry gets its common name from its bunches of bright red berries. It is also called creeping dogwood and bunchberry dogwood. Native Americans used the berries as food and made a tea from the ground root to treat colic in infants. The Cree tribe called the berry “kawiskowimin,” meaning “itchy chin berry” because rubbing the berries against your skin can cause a reaction that will make you itch.
Something unusual I saw this day was a Canada yew (Taxus canadensis.) It is native from Newfoundland west to Manitoba, south to Virginia, Tennessee, Illinois, and Iowa, but in this region I rarely see it. Though all parts of the yew plant are poisonous several Native American tribes made tea from the needles to ease everything from numbness to scurvy. A man in England died not too long ago from eating yew, so I wouldn’t advise trying to make tea from it. Natives knew how to treat poisonous plants in ways that made them beneficial to humans, but much of that knowledge has been lost.
A yew branch looks very flat and once you get to know what they look like you’ll never mistake it for any other evergreen.
Snowmobile clubs have built wooden guardrails along the sides of all of the train trestles in the area to make sure that nobody goes over the side and into the river. That wouldn’t be good, especially if there was ice on the river. Snowmobile clubs work very hard to maintain these trails and all of us who use them owe them a great debt of gratitude, because without their hard work the trails would most likely be overgrown and impassable. I hope you’ll consider making a small donation to your local club as a thank you.
Years ago before air brakes came along, brakemen had to climb to the top of moving boxcars to manually set each car’s brakes. The job of brakeman was considered one of the most dangerous in the railroad industry because many died from being knocked from the train when it entered a trestle or tunnel. This led to the invention seen in the above photo, called a “tell-tale.” Soft wires about the diameter of a pencil hung from a cross brace, so when the brakeman on top of the train was hit by the wires he knew that he had only seconds to duck down to avoid running into the top of a tunnel, trestle, or other obstruction. Getting hit by the wires at even 10 miles per hour must have hurt some, but I’m sure it was better than the alternative. Tell tales are rarely seen these days; the above photo shows the only example I know of.
The Ashuelot River was full in places.
And over full in others. This happens regularly throughout this area and the trees survive it just fine. Many are silver (Acer saccharinum) and red maples (Acer rubrum.) Another name for them is swamp maple because they often grow in the lowlands along rivers that flood regularly.
The large crimson bud clusters make the maples easy to spot at this time of year but I couldn’t tell if these examples were flowering or not. Many are, now that we’ve had some warmth.
There isn’t a lot of ledge in this section of trail but there is some and it shows the marks of a steam drill. The railroad workers cut through the solid rock by drilling deep holes into the stone using steam powered drills and then poring black powder into them. Packing these holes with black powder and lighting a fuse was a very dangerous business and many were killed doing it, but dynamite wasn’t invented until 1866 so it was either black powder or brute force. Trains first rolled through here in the mid-1850s.
Maple dust lichens (Lecanora thysanophora) are beautiful and are definitely worth looking for. I’ve found them growing on maple, oak, beech, and poplars. They are usually quite a different green but the camera didn’t seem to be seeing green very well this day.
You can tell that it’s a maple dust lichen by the tiny fringe around its outer edge.
The trail goes on for many miles and it is wide, flat, and sometimes busy as it was on this day. I saw several people while I was here and I was happy to see them out enjoying nature. I hope they saw as many interesting things as I did.
There was snow for anyone who might want it. I didn’t.
American beech (Fagus grandifolia) bud break begins when the normally straight buds start to curl, as in the above photo. The curling is caused by the cells on the sunny side of the bud growing faster than those on the shaded side. This creates a tension that curls the bud and eventually causes the bud scales to pull apart so the leaves can emerge. At the bud’s location on the tree branch an entire year’s new leaves and stems will often grow from a single bud. Beech bud break doesn’t usually start until mid-May, so I think the example in this photo is a fluke caused by early warmth. Others I saw had not curled yet.
Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens) is one of the lowest growing evergreen plants on the forest floor, hardly growing more than 3 or 4 inches high. Plants have a vining habit but do not climb. Instead they form dense mats by spreading their trailing stems out to about a foot from the crown. Roots will often form at leaf nodes along the stems and start new plants. The 4 petaled, pinkish, fringed, fragrant, half inch long flowers appear in June and July. The berries remain on the plant for long periods unless eaten, and can often still be found the following spring.
Partridgeberry flowers are fused at the base. Once pollinated, the ovaries of these flowers will join and form one berry with 8 seeds. Partridgeberry plants can always be easily identified by the two indentations on the berries that show where the flowers were. Other names for this plant include twinberry and two-eyed berry. Native Americans ate the berries and made them into a jelly, which was eaten in case of fevers. Partridgeberry is still used in folk medicine today to treat muscle spasms and as a nerve tonic.
Apple moss (Bartramia pomiformis) grows along the sides of the trail and its thousands of tiny spore capsules were shining in the sun. Reproduction begins in the late fall for this moss and immature spore capsules (sporophytes) appear by late winter. In the spring the straight, toothpick like sporophytes swell at their tips and form tiny globes that always look like pearls to me, but someone thought they looked like apples and the name stuck. Sometimes the capsules do turn red as they age, so I suppose the name makes sense.
Most of these spore capsules were not quite spherical and that means that they were still immature. When they become spherical the spores will begin to ripen and prepare for the wind to disperse them.
Human history and natural history are visible from rail trails. The old railroad routes through a town can show a lot about how the town developed, what it was like long ago. When you go through a town by bicycle on an old railroad route, the place looks very different than from the customary perspective of the car and the highway. ~Peter Harnick
Thanks for stopping in.
You’re right. A nice blend if instructive history and nature. Now if only schools …
Oh, and did I mention the fine photography?
Thanks very much Ben. I wish schools would take children outside and teach them about their natural surroundings a lot more than they do!
Seconded.
Thank you so much from all the way down in the antipodean regions of Australia where summer is slowly trailing into what goes for winter in my part of the world. I love all the little details in your posts. Especially taken this post with the tell tales, the bunch berry and the ample dust lichen. I love lichen and how it connects us back to times when things were slow.
You’re welcome, and thank you. I’m glad you like the post. You’ll see plenty of lichens here but please remember that I am an amateur when it comes to lichen identification. I’m confident of the ID of just a handful of them.
I must show my husband this post as he is a rail enthusiast and will be fascinated by all you have to say. I am really surprised that those “tell-tales” are still there.
It is lovely to see all the sunshine in your shots, Allen. We have had a lot of bright weather recently though it’s been chilly (about 50F most days) and dry (too dry!). This has brought a lot of plants on and we are getting flowers and trees blooming much earlier than usual. Cow Parsley is starting to flower a month early and I have seen laburnum, lilac and wisteria blooming! Your beech must be in a sheltered sunny place to be breaking buds so early.
Thank you Clare. I used to have a large model railroad and grew up very near the railroad tracks, so I’m always ready to see anything to do with Railroads. I hope Richard will find it interesting. The tell tales would be a nice touch on a model railroad.
I hope you don’t see any frost with so many plants blooming early. That would be too bad. We had above average warmth last week and are having below average this week so we still ride the roller coaster. At least it has been sunny for the most part.
The beech was sheltered, mostly by evergreens.
Thank-you Allen. We actually had a light frost this morning and some of the crabapple blossom has gone brown. It is always possible that we will get frost up to the beginning of June and I have known snow in June too. We just have to learn to be philosophical about inclement weather don’t we?
We sure do! I’m sorry your crabapples got bitten. Our last frost date is the end of May, so we’re about the same. I’m hoping to never see snow in June!
It’s not much fun though fortunately it doesn’t settle for more than a few hours at most!
I also meant to say that Richard was most impressed by the tell-tales and the wooden trestle bridge.
I’m glad he liked them. Things like that can make certain people’s pulse quicken a bit, mine included!
He would certainly agree with you there!
Interesting post. Judy’s grandfather was an engineer on the Union Pacific, starting out as a fireman – meaning he shoveled coal into the boilers all day. He retired just as coal locomotives were being phased out. Not sure if he ever worked as a brakeman.
That poor man! I’ve shoveled dirt all day and if shoveling coal is anything like doing that, he was quite a guy to be able to do it all day, every day.
I am glad that you got a decent day for a walk at last.
Thank you, Me too! We’ve had a few more lately.
So nice to get out and enjoy the sunshine before the leaf canopy shades the trail. Your posts are always a pleasure. Enjoy your Easter holiday.
Thank you Eliza. Its a great time of year to be outside!
I meant to wish everyone a Happy Easter at the end of this post but of course, I forgot. I hope yours is a good one!
Thank you!
You’re welcome!
Interesting what you say about the blue sap, i have seen it on one tree,and always wondered. I do think it faded over the years. So do you think it happens when the tree is wounded on a very cold day?
Thank you Jozien. Since I see it more in winter then at other times I’ve assumed that it was the cold that turned it blue, but I’ve never been able to confirm that. When I do find it usually most of the other sap on the tree is whitish, as you’d expect. There must be someone out there who has written a paper on it but I haven’t been able to find it yet.
I like the history lesson along with the botany of your region, Allen. I learned a new one, the “tell-tale” wires.
Partridge Berry is one I remember from back east, and always loved their flowers, too
Thank you Lavinia, we have a lot of both here!
The partridge berry’s twin flowers are really unusual. They should be blooming before too long.
It’s amazing that those “tell tales” still exist. Things have sure changed, haven’t they!
Yes they have. I’m surprised the nobody has ever taken the tell tales down. They’re missing at the other end of the trestle and none of the other trestles in the area still have them. I don’t know if the railroad took them down or if people have been taking them.
Happy Easter enjoy the summer temps!
Thank you, I hope you’ll do the same!
🙂 I will
Loving the warmer weather! I wouldn’t have wanted to be a brakeman!
Thanks Laura. It sure is about time we had some spring!
No, I wouldn’t have wanted that job either. Getting hit in the face by the tell tales must not have been much fun.
The signs left from not so long ago make you reflect on how hard and dangerous life was. Amelia
Thank you Amelia. Yes, I think the railroad workers had a tough life!
Reblogged this on Poltrack Pix and commented:
Finally we are getting some warm weather. Nice post from NH Garden Solutions.
Thank you John.
Loved the Tell Tale and its story and agreed with the writer of your quote which applies in this country too.
Thank you Susan. Rail trails are great places to hike or bike. I’m glad you have them too.