Local Scenery

Sometimes I get tired of being sprawled out on the ground taking photos of small things and I feel like standing for a while, so that’s what this post is all about. White asters, yellow goldenrod and purple loosestrife made a pretty scene in this roadside meadow, so I had to stop to get a few photos of it.

I drove through a local cemetery one day and saw that the lawns were full of blossoming thyme. Bees love thyme so I’m sure they were just ecstatic.

Back before 1938 this path would have wandered through a white birch forest but the hurricane of 1938 blew them all down, so the city planted red pines in their place. The pines have grown very tall but don’t seem to have added much girth in three quarters of a century. This place is called the Dinsmoor woods, named after Mary Dinsmoor, who donated 13 acres of forest to the city in 1928.

I’ve driven by this scene nearly every day for over 20 years now and have always admired it in a quick, out of the corner of my eye way, so I finally stopped and took a photo of it. I can’t really say what it is about it that appeals to me, but something does. It’s the kind of place that I can just sit and stare at.

Rye pond in Hancock, New Hampshire is at the top of my list of places to kayak next summer because of the beautiful orchids that grow here. I went there recently to get a feel for the place and to find a good launching spot. While I walked the shoreline I saw two beaver lodges, but I think they were abandoned.

 

Beech leaves don’t usually fall until the following spring, so bare beech branches in the middle of summer are very noticeable. Many of our beech trees are dying of a bark blister disease but I don’t know if it caused the leaf drop seen in this young tree.

We’ve had enough rain this year to make me think that some of our waterfalls would be roaring, but as this photo of the lower falls at Bailey Brook in Nelson shows, they weren’t doing much more than trickling. There are upper falls here as well but since it’s berry season and this area is known bear country, I didn’t hike up to see them.

One day after a rain the clouds parted and sunbeams shot straight down to earth. I wish I could have seen what they were highlighting.

The colors of the sky and clouds were beautiful after thunderstorms rolled by one evening.

The late afternoon sun often turns the Ashuelot River falls in Keene into a golden ribbon. Silky dogwoods grow along the shoreline here and soon cedar waxwings will be eating the ripe berries.

The water in this pond was as smooth as water can be. It looks like it won’t be long before the cattails in the background fill this shallow pond completely.

This photo was taken just a few feet from where the previous photo was taken. It’s amazing how just a simple change in perspective can have such an impact on the mood of a photo.

I’ve walked by this little glade of ferns a hundred times but for some reason on this afternoon the light was like I had never seen it before, and had transformed the scene into something quite beautiful. I had to sit for a while admiring it, and I remember thinking what a wonderful painting it would make.

Landscapes have the power to teach, if you query them carefully.  And remote landscapes teach the rarest, quietest lessons. ~David Quammen

Thanks for coming by.

 

 

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Christmas Fern

The last entry in this trio of forest dwelling, evergreen ground huggers is the Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides.) It seems odd to be walking through the late fall forest litter of brown leaves, or maybe several inches of snow, and suddenly come upon a green fern, but this fern stays green right through winter. Only when the new fronds, or fiddleheads, appear in spring do the previous season’s fronds turn yellow and then finally brown. The dead fronds then form a mat around the living fern that helps prevent soil erosion. 

One odd thing about the Christmas fern is the shape of its fronds, which start off narrow at the base, widen in the middle, and then get narrow again at the tip. Most ferns have fronds that taper gradually; widest at the base and narrower towards the tip. 

Throughout most of the year the Christmas fern looks much like any other fern; an upright  clump of shiny, deep green, one to three foot, rather thick, leathery fronds, but after a good freeze the fronds all bend at the base and lie flat on the ground. If it snows heavily they can be hard to spot and since few animals eat this fern, once it gets completely buried under snow it usually stays that way until spring. 

From June to October spore bearing “fruit dots,” called sporangia develop on the undersides of the leaflets nearest the tip of the frond. Christmas ferns reproduce by releasing spores or by underground stems, (rhizomes) and can form large colonies under optimum conditions. I recently saw a sunny embankment along an old dirt road that had hundreds of them on it. Usually though, it’s more likely to see only one or two in any one place. 

Native Americans used the Christmas fern to treat chest ailments like pneumonia and to relieve flu symptoms. One story says that the name “Christmas fern” is thought to come from the early settler’s habit of using its fronds as Christmas decorations. Just as plausible to me is that a fern that was still green at Christmas might be called Christmas fern, but this trait isn’t unique; there are at least 15 evergreen ferns known throughout the world. 

Christmas ferns do well in moist, well drained soil that is rich in organic matter and will do well in shaded garden beds. Once it becomes established it can take quite a lot of dryness. Christmas ferns are easily found for sale commercially and should never be taken from the wild.

 

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