More Signs of Spring (and a Few Other Things)

There is nothing special about this photo of a swamp, other than to mark the place where I heard the first red winged blackbird of this year. I haven’t seen any but I’ve heard them and that’s another sign of spring.

I hope the red winged blackbirds know what they’re doing because this frozen pond is right across the road from the thawed swamp in the previous photo. Our nighttime temperatures are still falling below freezing but I hear the birds each morning.

Half Moon Pond in Hancock certainly didn’t look very spring like after one of our many recent nor’easters. Before this cold came in March it looked like the ice would be gone in less than another week.

The wind blows strongly off Half Moon Pond almost all of the time, and this lake sedge (Carex lacustris) shows the direction. This sedge grows in large colonies near lakes, ponds, and wetlands and is native to Canada and the northern U.S. It is a pleasant shade of green in summer and can sometimes be the dominant plant along shorelines and in swamps. Waterfowl and songbirds eat its seeds.

When I saw a mullein seedling (Verbascum thapsus) I realized that I had never seen another one, most likely because I wasn’t paying attention. It was every bit as wooly as its adult counterparts and ready to start photosynthesizing. Mullein is a biennial that flowers and dies in its second year. This one was about the size of a baseball, or just over 9 inches.

I went to see my old friends the striped wintergreens (Chimaphila maculata) to see how they came through the winter and I was happy to see that they looked good and healthy. This is a plant I don’t see that often and I only know of three or four small colonies. Hopefully they will bloom and set seed in mid-July.

Trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) grows near the striped wintergreens and also came through the winter looking well. This plant always reminds me of my grandmother because it was one of her favorites. The plant is also called mayflower and was once nearly collected into oblivion so the very fragrant blossoms could be used in nosegays, but it is now protected in many states. It relies heavily on a relationship with certain fungi mycelium in the soil and it absolutely refuses to grow anywhere that the mycelium isn’t present. Native Americans used to use the plant medicinally to break up kidney stones. It was so valuable to them that it was thought to have divine origins.

The basal leaves of hawkweed (and many other plants) often turn deep purple in winter. Many trees and other plants conserve a lot of energy if they don’t have to make  chlorophyll so in the fall many stop making it. When that happens other colors which were there all along start to show. Carotenoids make leaves orange and yellow and anthocyanins make them red, pink or purple. Anthocyanins can also protect leaves from getting sunburned in winter if they are evergreen.

Beaked willow gall is caused by a tiny midge laying its egg in a willow bud. The reddish galls usually form at branch tips in the fall and will house the fly larva all winter. It will eat the tissue in the gall until spring, when it will pupate and an adult midge will emerge. Winter is a great time to look for galls, which are often hidden behind leaves at other times of year.

I’m always amazed by how much red there is in highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) and nothing shows it better than the witch’s brooms that are so common on these shrubs. On blueberries witch’s brooms are cause by a fungus that deforms branches or roots and causes a dense mass of shoots to grow from a single point. In my experience they don’t really harm the plant and can even be quite pretty with snow on them.

An old trick that gardeners sometimes use when they want to grow plants that aren’t hardy in their area is to plant the sensitive plats near a stone or brick wall. The mass of masonry absorbs the warmth of the sun during the day and releases it slowly at night, protecting the plants from frost damage. Sweet gum trees grow near such a sunlit wall at the local college and the above photo is of one of their seed pods (Liquidambar styraciflua.) Seeing these pods here seems very strange because sweet gum is thought of as a “southern tree,” and Massachusetts is the northern most point that it grows naturally. I never saw the seed pods as a boy but I wish I had because they’re interesting and hold their shape well when dried. They would have made a great addition to my collection of natural oddities.

The base of this eastern hemlock tree (Tsuga canadensis) was covered by what I think must be yellow green algae (Pleurococcus vulgaris.) These algae grow on the shaded sides of tree trunks, on soil, stones and even on walls. Their closest relatives are said to grow in lakes and rivers, but these species can withstand some dryness. Fossil evidence shows that algae have existed for at least 540 million years.

A saw another hemlock that had a deep crack in its bark that ran straight and true from the ground to about 15 feet up. At first I thought it must be a frost crack but I’ve never seen one so long, so I’m guessing it must have been a lightning strike. Since it was an older wound there were no pieces of bark that might have been blown off lying around. I came upon a tree once that had been recently struck by lightning and there were strips of bark all over the ground. No matter how the crack was made I’m sure it made quite a loud noise when it happened.  On cold winter nights you can sometimes hear stressed trees cracking in the forest. It is sudden and sounds like a rifle shot.

The bud scales on many of the male alder catkins have gone from their deep winter purple to shades of pink, orange, red and brown. Soon the bud scales will open to reveal the yellow green flowers that will release the pollen to the wind. They become very beautiful at this time of year and sometimes when the light is right it looks like someone has strung ropes of multicolored jewels on all the bushes.

Boxwood (Buxus) is called man’s oldest garden ornamental because it has been used for hedges and specimen plantings for centuries. The early settlers thought so highly of it they brought it with them in the mid-1600s. The first plants were brought over from Amsterdam and were planted in about 1653 on Long Island in New York. There are about 90 species of boxwood and many make excellent hedges. These examples I found in a local park were budded. They’ll bloom In late April or early May but so will many other flowers, so these small but pretty ones will probably be overlooked.

The willows seem to be in a holding pattern. They’ve had their fuzzy gray catkins for two weeks now but there are no signs of the bright yellow flowers yet. Maybe I’ll see some later today.

I was flabbergasted when I saw the vernal witch hazels (Hamamelis vernalis) still blossoming. They’ve been through three nor’easters and zero degree cold but there are at least five bushes still full of flowers, so I’d say they were well worth what it cost to buy them. I wish you could smell them. I’ve heard their scent compared to laundry taken in fresh from the line but another description I just read says a hint of citrus-maybe lemon-is there as well. They seem a bit spicy to me but it’s a very pleasant scent that you can smell from quite a distance.

It’s always nice to see budded daffodils in spring. These were coming along well in spite of the zero degree cold we’ve had. They grow near the brick wall of a building and I think the heat radiating off the wall keeps them warm at night, just like the sweet gum trees we heard about earlier.

Not all the daffodils were lucky enough to have a brick wall, and this is what happened to many of those that didn’t. This is the second year in a row that this has happened to these bulbs and I’m not sure if they’ll make it now. A bulb needs leaves to photosynthesize and build up the strength it needs to blossom the following year. With their first spring leaves dying off for two years now I doubt they have much strength left. If they were mine I’d dig and replace them with later blossoming bulbs. They’re a bit overanxious I think.

Sometimes sunlight on moss is really all I need. I pity those who spend their lives chasing after riches, all the while missing the incredible richness all around them.

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy. ~Anton Chekhov

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Things I’ve Seen

This is the road I drove down early one morning after a 5 inch snowfall the night before. The pre-dawn light was really too dim to take photos, but I didn’t let that stop me. It was too pretty, I thought, to pass by without recording it. As Scottish author William Sharp noted: “It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.”

A small brook wound its way through the woods. I loved its polished black surface against the snow.

Beech leaves provided a touch of color.

Mount Monadnock loomed dramatically over the surrounding countryside in a view of it that I’ve never shown here before. In another half hour when the sun kissed its flanks it would probably have made an amazingly beautiful scene but I was on my way to work and I didn’t have time to dilly dally. There was snow to move.

Ice shelves have begun forming along the Ashuelot River. This one was clearly visible as a shelf but when they’re completely attached to the river bank and are covered by snow they can create a very dangerous situation, because there are times when you can’t tell if you’re walking on land or on an ice shelf. I’ve caught myself standing on them before and that’s why I now stay well away from rivers in winter unless I know the shoreline well.

The dark trunks of trees absorb heat from the sun and reflect it back at the snow, which melts in a ring around it. These melted rings seem to be a magnet for smaller birds and animals like chipmunks and squirrels.

If I see whitish or grayish spots on tree bark I always like to take a look because it could be a script lichen or some other lichen that I’ve never seen. In this case it was what I think is a black-eye lichen (Tephromela atra.) According to the book Lichens of North America this lichen grows on stone, bark or wood from the tropics to the arctic.

As you can imagine the raised rimmed, black spore bearing apothecia of the black eyed lichen are extremely small, so it’s always a good idea to carry a loupe or a camera with macro capabilities. Many features on this and many other lichens are simply too small to be seen with the eyes alone.

Another small lichen on a different tree showed some unusual color in its apothecia but I couldn’t see any definite shape without the camera.

The book Lichens of North America says the apothecia on the mealy rim-lichen (Lecanora strobilina) are flat to convex and a waxy yellowish color. They grow on bark and wood of many kinds in full sunlight and the apothecia are very small at about .03 inches. Though the color here looks more orangey pink I think the light might have had something to do with that.

Pixie cup lichens (Cladonia pyxidata) look like tiny golf tees or trumpets, and they are also called trumpet lichens. They are common and I almost always find them growing on the sides of rotting tree stumps. Pixie cups are squamulose lichens, which means they are scaly, but they are also foliose, or leafy. A squamule is a lobe of the body of the lichen (Thallus,) and squamulose lichens are made up of small, leafy lobes. As can be seen in the center of this photo the stalk like cups (podetia) grow out of the leaf like squamules. This is the first time I’ve ever caught it happening in a photo. Pixie Cups were used by certain Eskimo tribes as wicks in their whale blubber lamps. The lichens would be floated in the oil and then lit. The oil would burn off of the lichen but the flame wouldn’t harm it.

Red maple flower buds (Acer rubrum) are just waiting for the signal from spring. These are one of my favorite early spring flowers and I’m looking forward to seeing them again. The flowers, twigs, leaf stems, seeds, and autumn foliage of this tree all come in varying shades of red. These buds are tomato red, according to my color finding software.

Hawthorn buds (Crataegus) are also tomato red but they’re very small; each one no bigger than a single flower bud in the clusters of red maple buds in the previous photo. I had to try several times to get a photo of this one. I think an overcast day might have made things easier. There are over 220 species of hawthorn in North America, with at least one variety native to every state and Canadian province. In New Hampshire we have 17 species, so the chances of my identifying this example are slim to none. Since I see it regularly I know that it has white blossoms.

The hawthorn also has red thorns; as red as its buds and sharp as a pin. This one was about 2 inches long. Hawthorn berries and bark were used medicinally by Native Americans to treat poor blood circulation and other ailments.

I was surprised to see the flower buds of this boxwood shrub (Buxus) showing color on one recent warm day. I hope it was telling me we’ll have an early spring! Boxwood is called “man’s oldest garden ornamental.” The early settlers must have thought very highly of it because they brought it over in the mid-1600s. The first plants to land on these shores were brought from Amsterdam and were planted in about 1653 on Long Island in New York. There are about 90 species of boxwood and many make excellent hedges.

Jelly creps (Crepidotus mollis) are small, quarter sized “winter mushrooms” that like to grow on hardwood logs. They are also called soft slipper mushrooms and feel kind of spongy and flabby, much like your ear lobe. They grow with an overlapping shelving habit like that seen in the photo.

The flowers of native scarlet bee balm (Monarda didyma) are tubular and grow out of leafy bracts, and these bracts were all that was left of this bee balm plant. This is the first time I’ve noticed that they had stripes. The Native American Oswego tribe in New York taught the early settlers how to make tea from bee balm. The settlers used it when highly taxed regular tea became hard to find and it has had the name Oswego tea ever since. The plant was also used by Native Americans as a seasoning for game and as a medicine.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. ~Rumi

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