Last Saturday it rained and Sunday the forecast was for 40 mile per hour wind gusts, so I decided to stay out of the woods and play instead along the banks of the Ashuelot river. I’ve seen a lot of blown down trees this year and it doesn’t take much to bring them down when the ground is saturated. And saturated it must be because all the snow has melted and the river is approaching bank-full.
Downstream from the bridge I stood on it was choppy.
I stopped trying to get a good wave photo in the dim light and admired an aster seed head instead.
The remnants of a bird’s nest hung from the branches of a small oak. I was surprised at the length of the fibers it was woven with. They must have been nearly a foot long. I saw an eastern phoebe nesting here in the past but I can’t say it that was a phoebe that built this nest.
Instead of being caused by an insect like many galls, alder (Alnus incana) tongue gall is caused by a fungus (Taphrina alni). The fungus chemically deforms parts of the ovarian tissue of the female cone-like catkins (strobiles) and causes long, tongue shaped galls known as languets to grow from them. These galls seem to like high humidity so are usually found on alders that grow near swamps, ponds, rivers and streams.
Birds are gobbling the berries of the invasive burning bush (Euonymus alatus) which isn’t a good thing, because this shrub doesn’t need any help in its mission to take over the understory. Since its introduction from Asia as an ornamental in 1860, Winged euonymus has spread as far south as the gulf coast, north into Canada, and as far west as Illinois. It creates such a dense shade nothing else can get a start, so our native plants won’t grow near it. Because of that burning bushes can create monocultures of hundreds or even thousands of plants, and that is what has happened along this stretch of river.
One of the curious things I saw on this walk was what I think was a hemispherical insect egg case attached to a tree. It had a single hole in it where either the insect had escaped or a bird had pecked the larva out of it. It was hollow and had opened somehow and fallen away from the tree, and I could see that the inside was pure white.
I carefully closed the egg case (?) against the tree and this is what it looked like. The white spot is the hole in it showing the white inside. It was only about a half inch across and I don’t know what made it.
It was a mostly cloudy day but the sun was kind enough to come out long enough to illuminate a beautiful patch of snowy moss that was in front of me.
There is a trail here that follows a narrow spit of land that juts out into the river. I suppose you’d call it a peninsula. It’s wooded and though I told myself I had to stay out of the woods I couldn’t resist.
A little spruce tree reminded me that Christmas is near. It’s unusual to find a spruce growing here.
Barberry berries looked like tiny Christmas ornaments but barberry is extremely invasive so I’d rather not see it here. Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) is native to Japan. In 1875 seeds imported from Russia were planted at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts. Birds helped it escape and now it has become a very invasive shrub that forms dense thickets and chokes out native plants. According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, recently “barberry has been implicated in the spread of Lyme disease. Researchers have noted higher densities of adult deer ticks and white-footed deer mice under barberry than under native shrubs. Deer mice, the larval host, have higher levels of larval tick infestation and more of the adult ticks are infected with Lyme disease. When barberry is controlled, fewer mice and ticks are present and infection rates drop.”
Japanese barberry has inner bark that is bright yellow. It also has thorns that are a son of a gun to kneel on.
This is the first gall I’ve ever seen on a silky dogwood shrub. I haven’t been able to identify the insect that made it but it doesn’t matter because galls don’t usually harm the plants they grow on.
There are many witch hazels (Hamamelis virginiana) on the peninsula and I like to come out here in winter to see their beautiful brown leaves.
Beavers like witch hazels too, and treat them as we would a garden vegetable. Over the years, due to the cropping by the beavers, I’ve seen the witch hazels here grow into many stemmed shrubs. The beavers come and harvest a few; never all of them, and then leave them alone for a few years to grow back. Then they repeat the process, all up and down the river. It’s so good to have beavers here, because when I was a boy this river was so polluted few animals frequented it. Muskrats, I think were the largest animal using the river then. I can’t remember ever seeing a single sign of beavers.
Witch hazel seed pods explode with force and can throw the seeds as far as 30 feet. I’ve read that you can hear them pop when they open and even though I keep trying to be there at the right time to see and hear it happening, I never have been.
Bark beetles usually attack weak or dying trees but they can also kill healthy trees by girdling them. Adults bore small holes in the bark and lay eggs in a cavity. Once the larvae emerge from the eggs they make tunnels in the inner bark. Once they stop feeding they will pupate at the end of these tunnels. The pupae then become young adults and fly off to find another tree. These beetles carry spores of various fungi which can grow on the outer sapwood and stop the upward flow of water to the crown. Bark Beetles include over 100 species. It is said that their work is like a fingerprint for the species. They can create such beautiful patterns in wood that it looks as if a calligrapher has taken up a chisel instead of a pen. When I think of things like this, created under the bark of a limb and never meant for me to see, that’s when I feel an almost overwhelming sense of gratitude, just for being alive and able to see beauty like this every day.
Bark beetles excavate egg galleries in fresh phloem, the inner bark which carries food from leaves to the roots of a tree. For a living tree this is a death sentence.
The peninsula I was on gets narrower and narrower until it becomes just a point jutting out into the river, but on this day the water was so high I knew I’d never reach the end.
In fact the end of the peninsula was under water and this was a scary scene that I’ve never seen before. I’m guessing the peninsula is going to be a hundred or so yards shorter from now on.
On my way back up the trail I tripped over a pine branch and fell to my knees right on some Japanese barberry thorns. Once I stopped cursing my bad luck I saw that in fact I’d had good luck, because I saw a little pink, brain like jelly fungus that I’ve never seen before growing on the branch I had tripped over. Now I just have to see if I can identify it. So far I haven’t had much luck doing so. It’s very unusual, and cute too. It was a little over a quarter inch long.
There is no music like a little river’s . . . It takes the mind out-of-doors . . . and . . . it quiets a man down like saying his prayers. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
Thanks for stopping in.
Posted in Nature, Scenery / Landscapes, Things I've Seen | Tagged Alder Tongue Gall, Ashuelot River, Aster Seed Head, Bark Beetle Damage, Burning Bush, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Insect Egg Case, Japanese barberry, jelly fungus, Mushrooms, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Spruce, Swanzey New Hampshire, Wild Mushrooms, Winter Hiking, Winter Plants, Winter Woods, Witch Hazel | 27 Comments
I admire your ability to look on the bright side of falling onto a bunch of barberry thorns! Enjoy figuring out a new ID.
Thanks, it didn’t hurt for that long!
I have caught up with you again. Your winter there is full of beauty and interesting things to see, as always. Thank you for taking readers on a tour of your world, Allen. Your posts bring back many pleasant memories of my days in New England.
You’re welcome, and thank you Lavinia, I’m glad I can bring back some happy memories for you.
Great post and AWESOME photos of nature as always!
Thank you. Have a great Christmas!
You have t be a real fungus enthusiast to be glad that you fell on a vicious thorn.
I really liked the bark beetle’s artwork.
I can and have gotten lost in an interesting fungus, so the thorns were forgotten quickly.
I like the designs the bark beetles make too. This one was one of the largest I’ve seen.
Very interesting info on the barberry and lyme disease. I love your posts! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Thanks very much Janine. The same to you!
I didn’t know most all of our plants were intentionally brought from Europe and Asia! So is our definition of “natives” muddied, so to speak?
But thank you. As often said by your readers, myself included, you educate, as well as delight our eyes.
No, natives have been here all along but we’ve added non natives over hundreds of years. Some were brought to use as food and/or medicine in colonial times. The colonists didn’t know what they would find here so plants from home were a bit of added insurance. Other non native were brought here by plant hunters and botanists to use as garden specimens, and they immediately escaped. Burning bushes and barberry are good examples of that.
Thank you for your kind words!
Sorry about your ‘thorny’ fall, most unpleasant.
Thank you Susan. It happens quite often but I don’t usually mention it. There is a lot of debris to trip over in the woods.
Well, all I can say is, please take care we don’t want you damaging yourself any further.
Thank you Susan!
Merry Christmas Allen! You give us gifts all year long thru your blog and I thank you! Looking forward to 2020 with you and your environs.
Thank you Ginny. I hope you’ll have a Merry Christmas as well!
The brain fungus is certainly interesting in color and shape but sorry it had to bring you to your knees. Hope all is well.
Thank you Judy. Yes, all is well. I fall down a lot in the woods! Whether I get there by choice or not I always look around before I get back to my feet. I’ve found some interesting things that way.
Christmas wish — Returning Asian “gifts” like burning bush and barberry, never requested.on our wish lists. (We have the receipts from all threatened natives). And looks as if an anti-science politician was on the river trail and dropped his tiny brain!
Thank you so much for your almost daily NH Garden Solutions gifts. Happy holidays to you and yours, and thanks as well for reminding us to be grateful.
You’re welcome, and thank you Lynne. We originally brought all the plants from Europe and Asia that are now considered invasive here. They were once highly sought after so I think the old saying “becareful what you wish for” would fit the circumstances.
Happy holidays to you as well, and thank you for the laugh.
As usual, you provide very interesting and educational things even for this time of year.
Speaking of your “burning bush” (Euonymous alatus), do you have E. bungeanus (http://hort.uconn.edu/detail.php?pid=169) in your area?
We had a nice specimen growing in someone’s front yard in central Texas. It was about 15′ tall and looked like a weeping willow. The local expert nurseryman never could identify it. Being an arborist in my post-retirement years with a big collection of plant books, I was able to track it down for him.
In Amarillo, where I used to live, E. bungeanus is commonly planted as an ornamental tree and called “Pink Lady.”
On Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 6:09 AM New Hampshire Garden Solutions New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” Last Saturday it rained and > Sunday the forecast was for 40 mile per hour wind gusts, so I decided to > stay out of the woods and play instead along the banks of the Ashuelot > river. I’ve seen a lot of blown down trees this year and it doesn’t take > much to ” >
Thank you Ron. I’ve never seen Euonymus bungeanus but that doesn’t mean it isn’t here. According to the USDA it grows in only 5 states so it can’t be wide spread. It does have pretty flowers and fruit!
Interesting. It’s actually a recommended ornamental tree for Region 5, Texas Panhandle. It is common in Amarillo.
I think the USDA map is out of date. It doesn’t show it in Texas or Connecticut but Connecticut lists it as well.
Probably so. It likes alkaline soils and doesn’t mind cold winters like the Southern Great Plains has.