Another Taste of Spring

It was nice to see green grass again this past week. It came in so many different shades I felt filled with green, which is not at all unpleasant in the early spring. It had still been warmish for the past week so I thought I’d see what other signs and wonders I could find. I also immediately ordered some color correcting glasses for colorblindness.

I saw some beautiful lilac buds but I wasn’t happy to see their bud scales opening. It’s far too early and they’re liable to pay a heavy price if they open now. We needed some cold weather to stop plants from thinking spring had come and luckily, by mid-week we got it.

Willows of course can stand the cold and often open in early spring. These catkins were in the process of breaking through their bud scales when I found them. Each furry catkin is protected by a single black or brown bud scale, which is called a cap.

The catkins grow and expand inside the bud scale until there is no room left and then the scale splits open to release it. Soon the yellow willow flowers will appear, growing up out of each fuzzy catkin. It’s one of my favorite spring things to see.

While I was visiting the willows I looked at a few pinecone galls. This one was about the size of an acorn and very hairy. Willow pine cone galls appear on the very tips of willow branches, because that’s where a midge called (Rabdophaga strobiloides) lays its egg. Once the eggs hatch the larvae burrow into the branch tip and the plant reacts by forming a gall around them.

I went to where I know a lot of sumacs grow, thinking I’d see a flock of robins eating the seeds, but I didn’t see a single robin and I didn’t see any sign of them or any other bird having eaten the seeds. I’ve heard that sumac berries aren’t the first choice of birds because they’re low in fat, and fat translates to energy. I don’t know how true it is though. I’ve heard in other places sumac fruit gets eaten all winter. Maybe it depends on how cold it gets. It can get mighty cold here so maybe the birds need something more substantial to keep them warm.

The spiraling leaves on this plant reminded me of the spiraled horns of the giant eland from Africa that I had just seen on television recently. The spirals in their horns help them lock together when fighting over a mate, but I don’t why these leaves twisted like they did. They made me stop and look and wonder, and that was enough.

As I neared these honey locust seedpods from over on the right they looked like a big snake in the grass, and I thought of how my grandmother would have climbed the nearest tree if she had been with me. I smiled as I thought how I would have taken her by her trembling hand and walked her over to where I was when I took this photo. “See,” I might have said, “it’s not a snake at all.” Just a simple change of perspective and she would have seen through the illusion, but there must have been a time when it wasn’t an illusion to make her so afraid. She never told me the story but she did tell me to keep away from snakes. I think it must have seemed perfectly natural to her that I would inherit all her fears but I never did, so I enjoy seeing snakes.

I used to think a scene like this one meant that the sun had warmed the stone enough to make it melt into the frozen earth but by watching closely over the years I saw that what really happens is, the saturated soil freezes and heaves up around the stone, which doesn’t move. The hole always has the very same shape as the stone. This is a sure sign that the ground is thawing.

I went to the campus of the local college to look at their flowers beds and was surprised to see a lot of green shoots, like those of crocus seen here. The seedpods you see in some of these photos are from native redbud trees.

I was even more surprised to see crocus flowers. These are the earliest I’ve ever seen.

Tulips were also up but thankfully I didn’t see any buds yet. There are some beautiful red, yellow and purple tulips in this bed. I also saw daffodils up but no buds on them yet either. The coarse mulch used at the college is I think from fallen trees chipped up by the electric company. I’d never use it here but it’s most likely free so they use lots of it.

Tradescantia or spiderwort leaves were showing. The leaves always show quite early even though they won’t bloom until late May or early June. I’m looking forward to seeing the one with white flowers that have a slight blueish blush named “Osprey.” I might even have to buy one, because it’s very beautiful.

I didn’t need this stone to remind me to smile when I saw those crocus blossoms.

This magnolia bud looked a little odd but for the most part the ones I looked at were playing it safe and not opening. The flowers on this tree are a beautiful deep purple on the outside of the petals and pure white on the inside. It’s a semi dwarf tree, I think. When the flowers don’t suffer and turn brown from the cold it’s a beautiful thing.

Cornelian cherry buds offered no surprises. They looked just as they always do in early spring, with their two outer bud scales partly opened.

But then I looked a little closer and did get a surprise when I saw yellow flower buds. This is the earliest I’ve ever seen them and I was a little concerned at first, but as I thought about it I realized that I have never seen these small yellow flowers damaged by cold, no matter when they’ve opened. Cornelian cherry is an ornamental flowering shrub related to dogwoods. It blooms in early spring (usually in March) with clusters of blossoms that have small, bright yellow bracts. Apparently they can stand a lot of cold.

I didn’t think I’d see any vernal witch hazel blossoms but these were just opening. When it gets warm enough the yellow, strap like petals unroll themselves out of the bud and if it gets cold again they roll themselves back up, much like a window shade. You can see the fuzziness of the bud scales that protect the tender blossoms in this shot. Some plants use hairs for protection and this is one of them. Magnolia is another.

I was really surprised when I found several witch hazels loaded with open flowers. The day was warm but still, I wasn’t expecting to see so many flowers. It was great to smell them again. They have such a fresh, clean scent which someone once described as like clean laundry, just taken down off the clothesline. These are very tough plants and if the petals roll up in time they can take a lot of cold, but I have seen them with petals all brown and hanging when they opened too early in the past. I’m hoping I don’t see that this year.

If you want to send your spirits soaring after a long, cold winter, just plant a few spring blooming witch hazels. I certainly had a spring in my step after spending some time with them. Each year I’m sorry that I don’t have a few in my own yard.

So hooray, it was spring. But then it wasn’t. This is what we woke to last Thursday morning; about 3-4 inches of snow with sleet on top of that and then freezing rain over that. In fact, we were still getting freezing rain when I took this shot of Mount Caesar in Swanzey with my cellphone, and that’s probably why it looks more like a painting than a photo. There was probably water on the lens.

You might think, after a two-week taste of spring, that waking up to snow and cold would be depressing but it’s a good thing, because it will slow most plants down and keep their flowers from opening too soon. This coming week the forecast is for temps in the mid-30s, and that means the snow will melt slowly, as it should. The witch hazels will be fine I think, but the crocuses that have bloomed will be finished and the others will just sit and wait. I still haven’t seen a sap bucket hanging on a maple tree but I do know that the sap is running. I’ve even heard that one person was boiling already. I hope you’re staying warm and dry wherever you happen to be.

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

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Late March / Early April Flowers

Though it hasn’t warmed up much since the last flower post, spring is still happening. Each time I look around I’m seeing more crocuses. Last year there were a lot more white ones in this cool color group but they seem to be disappearing.

A new clump of reticulated iris has bloomed. I thought they were very pretty.

This bicolor is the first daffodil flower I’ve seen this year. Though it had just opened it looked tired and weather worn.

Many others won’t bloom at all because of the two cold nights we had. If you look to where the petals meet the stem on this bud you can see that they’re kind of discolored and watery looking. It and a few others were bitten badly.

I wasn’t going to bother with this shot of scilla but then I saw the oak leaves beside it

The small crocuses with blue stripes on the outside have opened to white. They’re pretty but it’s hard to see the blue when they’re open, and that’s my favorite part.

I like the soft shading on these examples. Google Lens calls them “vernal crocuses” and I think they might be Crocus tommasinianus. But whatever their name it doesn’t matter; they’re very pretty.

I like to see if I can get a bee’s eye view of flowers now and then. What bee wouldn’t want to go in there?

I saw hundreds of tulip leaves but not a single bud.

Magnolias are shedding their fur coats, but very slowly. After three days this one looked just the same as it does here. I love the color of that bud.

Imagine a bud that is the size of a large pea, and then imagine all of those yellow flower buds packed into that space. That’s exactly what is going on in this photo of a Cornelian cherry bud (Cornus mas). The bud scales open to reveal what seems an impossibility.

Grape hyacinths have come along. They aren’t related to grapes; they’re actually in the asparagus family (Asparagaceae) as are true hyacinths, but they do look like little clusters of grapes. These weedy flower beds you see in these some of these shots are at the local college. I went there and asked them if they couldn’t use a part time weeder but the funding isn’t there. I wasn’t surprised. Two years of Covid crippled the University System of New Hampshire but tuition rates are usually still among the highest in the entire country, so I’m sure that must limit spending as well. Maybe if they lowered tuition rates, they’d attract more students and make more money.

There are lots of squirrels around now. I’ve read that a squirrel can live its entire life without ever touching the ground. They bite the bark of trees like maples and lick up the sap, and then they eat buds, bark and fruit. This one found something to nibble on down below though. It also looked like it had been in a fight or two.

The vernal witch hazels, encouraged by the cool weather, just keep on blooming. These bushes are at the local college and a man I took to be a professor walked by when I was taking photos. “Are we all budded up?” he asked. I was a bit surprised. “There are flowers blooming all over the campus,” I told him. I also told him these were some of my favorites because of their scent. He started telling me that he couldn’t smell them because he had allergies, but then he said “Oh wait, I can smell them. They’re wonderful.” It’s easy to imagine him stopping to smell them every time he walks by from now on, just like I do. They are indeed wonderful and well worth stopping for.

I went to see the willows and finally spotted some color amidst the gray. You have to look closely, but it’s there.

The next day I saw this.

And this. Once you see a bit of color on a willow catkin it’s a good idea to go right back the next day because they bloom fast. These are male (Staminate) pollen bearing flowers. I haven’t found any female flowers yet. They aren’t quite as showy as the male blossoms on willows.

One day while visiting the spot where the willows grow, as I was checking to see if they were blooming, I heard a beautiful bird song coming from above. I looked up and there was a cardinal in the top of a tree, the first one I’ve ever seen. It’s hard for someone who isn’t colorblind to understand I know, but with the kind of colorblindness I have two of the most difficult colors to see when they’re together are red and green. I can see that this bird is obviously very red in the photo and I could see it that day when it was in the treetop but if it had been in a green tree, I wouldn’t have been able to see him at all. As if to prove it to me once again, this bird flew into some nearby spruce trees and completely disappeared. I could hear him singing so beautifully, but though I tried and tried I couldn’t see him. In my mind I could hear my son asking, as he did one day while pointing at a tree, “It’s right there. How can you not see it?” I can’t explain the how of it but I can say that this world is full of things we don’t see.

Dandelions are having a great time this spring and I’m seeing lots of them. They’ll disappear as soon as it gets hot so I enjoy them while I can.

One of them had curled stigmas full of pollen showing, which I’m sure the insects were very happy to see. On a dandelion blossom the stigma comes out of a tiny tube formed by the anthers, and though it’s a bit grainy if you look closely, you can see that in this photo.

I didn’t even have to go into the swamp to see that the leaves were unfurling on skunk cabbages. The sunlight highlighted this one perfectly. When they’re young like this they do resemble a cabbage leaf.

I thought I’d take a look at the place where spring beauties (Claytonia carolinana) grow to see if I could find any of their leaves showing but instead, I found a single flower blooming. I was very happy to see it and I thought this day, April second was the earliest I’d ever seen them bloom but no, in 2020 they bloomed a day earlier, on April first. I walked around the area to find more but this was the only one I could find in bloom. It won’t be long though, before the forest floor is alive with them. These beautiful but small, aspirin size wildflowers always help me retrain my eyes to see small in spring. That’s important, because many other tiny flowers like bluets and goldthread will be coming along in mid-month.

The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from inevitable Time. ~Loren Eiseley

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A Few More Signs of Spring

Last weekend I went looking for signs of spring again and this thin ice sign was one of those I found. Thin ice at this time of year is a good sign if you happen to be a spring lover. The town puts them up in fall as the ice starts to form, then takes them down for the winter and puts them up again in spring when it starts to thaw. It’s good to pay attention to them; there have been photos in the local newspaper of plow trucks sitting in water up to their windows after going through this ice.

The ice was pulling back from shore so you wouldn’t catch me skating on it.

The willows are really coming along now. The soft gray catkins could be seen everywhere on this day.

I’m not seeing any yellow in them yet though, so it will be maybe a week or two before they flower.

I did see lots of pinecone galls on the willows. This gall appears at the branch tips and is caused by a midge (Rhabdophaga strobiloides) laying eggs on them. Once the eggs hatch the larva burrow into the branch tip and the plant reacts by forming a gall around them. They aren’t very big but are very noticeable at this time of year. Galls and the insects that cause them, and the reactions of the various plants they appear on is a fascinating subject but they always lead me to two questions: how and why?

Hazelnut catkins are continuing their spring color change over to gold from green. I usually see the tiny scarlet female flowers in April but I have a feeling they might come a little earlier this year.  

This might look like an old pile of leaves but it is actually a hellebore plant. Hellebores bloom quite early so I usually start watching them at about this time of year. Another name for them is Lenten rose, because they will often bloom during Lent.

Crocuses have appeared alongside what I think are reticulated iris, and they are growing fast. A week ago there was no sign of them. The warm weather and rain this week should give them and everything else a good boost.

Daffodils are on hold, just waiting for the silent signal. The bed they’re in needs some serious weeding.

Since these are not my gardens, I can’t be positive but I do know that hyacinths grow near the front of this bed. Unfortunately an animal had dug down and eaten many of them. I’ve seen chipmunks and squirrels but no skunks, racoons or possums yet, so I’m not sure what could have done it.

There was quite a mound of good-looking soil that had been dug up. There’s nothing like the smell of newly thawed soil in spring.

This bulb had been rejected so it might be a daffodil. Daffodils are poisonous and somehow, animals know it.

I was surprised to see tulips up. No buds yet though, just leaves.

I keep checking the trails, hoping the ice will have melted. It is melting but not very quickly. Hopefully after the warmth and rain this week they will finally be clear of ice. I’ll never forget this winter. It has been one of the iciest I can remember. Even trail reports on the radio are saying that you should bring spikes.

I went to see a Cornelian cherry to see if it had woken up yet and I was very happy to see some yellow inside the bud scales of that pea size bud on the left. It won’t be long before its small but pretty yellow flowers unfold. I’ve seen them as early as late March. Last Sunday it was 65 degrees, so we might see them in March again this year.

Magnolia buds are covered by a single hairy bud scale called a cap and when the bud inside the cap starts to swell in spring the bud scale will often split and fall off, but as can be seen here by the bare space under the bud scale, the bud seems to be pushing the cap up and off. I’ve never noticed this before, but maybe it happens regularly, I don’t know. In any event it signals that magnolia buds are beginning to stir.

I took a look at the big horse chestnut buds. They’re easy to see but not so easy to get a photo of because they’re up over my head. Beautiful flowers will appear out of these buds in mid to late May.

Since most people have probably never seen a red horse chestnut blossom (Aesculus × carnea,) here is a not very technically good photo of what they look like. The tree is a cross between the red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) and the horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum.) I’ve read that bees and hummingbirds love the beautiful red and yellow blossoms.

After visiting the horse chestnut, I thought I’d wander over to the big old red maple. There still wasn’t a lot going on in its buds but they bloom in March so it won’t be long. Maybe it will be a sudden awakening. Speaking of sudden awakenings, I heard the first red wing blackbird today. If that isn’t a sign of spring then I don’t know what is. Soon the spring peepers will add their trills to the chorus.

Johnny jump ups were still blooming, even though they had been covered by snow for a week. I might apply for a part time job at the local college. That’s where some of the beds you see in these photos are located and they’re so full of weeds I’m almost embarrassed to show them. Maybe they would welcome a part time weeder. This bed is full of spring bulbs so it should be weeded before they come up.

I went to see the skunk cabbages, hoping that the spathes had opened so I could get a shot of the spadix with its strange little flowers, but they weren’t quite ready. You can just see a crack opening on the lower rights side of the bulbous part of this spathe but it’s nowhere near open enough to get my lens in. Maybe next week. I’d better bring something to kneel on though because the swampy ground had thawed and water filled every footstep.

The spring blooming witch hazels were in full bloom and I wanted you to see this one because of the translucence of the petals. Having to get so close to them to get a photo meant that I was awash in their wonderful fragrance. I find it impossible to describe but other have likened it to fresh laundry just taken down from the clothes line.

This witch hazel couldn’t have bloomed any more than it was. It had nice color too.

I chose this photo so you could see the different stages of a witch hazel bloom. On the upper right the petals are just emerging, and below that they are about half way unfurled. Finally in the center the flowers have fully opened. I’ve discovered this year that this can happen very fast. There are 4 or 5 different varieties in this group and as I wandered among them taking photos by the time I got back to where I had started many more flowers had opened on that first shrub I looked at. This was in the space of maybe 15-25 minutes.

In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.  ~John Milton

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Things I’ve Seen

The roller coaster changes between winter and spring go on in this area. Yesterday I was taking photos of Johnny jump ups and today as I write this it is 30 degrees F.

But the cold won’t hurt the early spring plants any, especially those in the pansy family like viola tricolor. They’re hardy, and built for cold finicky weather, and that’s why you’ll often see them blooming away beautifully in window boxes in March. I have to say I was quite surprised to see them blooming in February though. I think that is a first, but after two or three days in the 50s they responded. This is why, when I talk about spring on this blog, I’m not talking about calendar spring. I’m talking about the spring that the plants and trees and birds tell me is here now.

Except for an ice shelf over there on the left the ice has melted off the stream that runs through the skunk cabbage swamp. It was blue and beautiful on a sunny day.

And the skunk cabbages are growing quickly. Soon the spathes like the one seen here will open to reveal the spadix, which will be covered in tiny, pollen bearing flowers.

It rained hard the night before this was taken and instant ponds popped up everywhere. That’s a good sign that the soil under them is still frozen. Since the water can’t soak into the ground and has nowhere to go it ponds up in the low spots. This one was huge and I was surprised there were no ducks in it.

After it started to cool off again, I went to a waterfall to see if any ice had formed. I wasn’t disappointed.

Everything on the shoreline was covered with ice.

This grass plant had grown ice on its leaves that was thicker than my thumb, all from splashing drops of water. When I see ice like this I think of a candle. A candle starts with a wick, which is dipped again and again into melted wax. In this case each blade of grass is like a wick, splashed over and over by water.

This stone was covered in round spheres of ice. I can’t explain the mechanics of how this ice forms but I do know that splashing water creates it.

There was also plenty of white puddle ice to be seen. I’ve read that it is oxygen that makes the ice white like this. Microscopic bubbles, I suppose. It held the memory of what looked like a current.

This was a surprise and it was flowing right out of the ground just where I stood. I thought it was bright red but my color finding software sees rosy brown, chocolate and dark salmon pink. Though it looks strange it’s really just groundwater that has leeched out various minerals in the soil. Most of those minerals I’d guess, are iron oxide based. There are probably bacteria present as well and I’d guess that the heavy rain we had flushed everything out of a groundwater reservoir of some kind. Scientists say it’s all non toxic and harmless, but I admit it doesn’t look it.

I can remember as a boy seeing the Ashuelot River run almost the color of that seep in the last photo, when the woolen mills in Keene released their dyes into it. It ran all the colors of the rainbow, but when I need to think of a good success story I think of the river, because over the years it was cleaned up. Now trout swim in it once again and bald eagles fish here. We humans can accomplish quite a lot when we put our minds to it.

The river looked fairly placid in that previous shot but this is what was going on downstream. The camera made the water look dark but it was really chocolate brown from all the soil that is washing into it from flooding. This section looked to be about twice its normal width and it roared mightily.

Instead of a roar the ice on Halfmoon Pond in Hancock pings, creaks and twangs, especially when the wind blows. It was covered in melt water recently and looked like a mirror. It will freeze and thaw until one day, it won’t freeze any longer. I still think that ice out will happen in March this year.

When warm air flows over the cold ice sometimes the pond creates its own fog. Just another hint of spring that I enjoy seeing.

The witch hazels didn’t dare to unfurl their petals on this cold day. It’s kind of amazing how they can pull their long strap shaped petals back into such tiny buds but they’re fairly accurate. I’ve seen them get frost killed in the past but that doesn’t happen often. Each fuzzy bud that the petals come out of is less than the diameter of a BB that you would put in an air rifle. That’s 0.177 inches so I’d guess the buds are about an eighth of an inch, or .125.

The reticulated iris (I think) had grown some in the week since I had seen them last, and so had the daffodils. The seed pods you see are from redbud trees. These spring flowering bulbs grow under them.

Tree buds were calling to me as they always do in spring but I couldn’t see any signs of swelling in the pretty blue buds of the box elders. This tree in the maple family has beautiful flowers in spring so it’s always one of those I check regularly. They’ll bloom just after the red maples do.

These are the beautiful sticky, lime green female box elder flowers, for those who haven’t seen them. I’ll be waiting impatiently for both them and the red maple flowers. Box elders usually flower in April and red maples sometimes by mid-March. It all depends on the weather.

Speaking of red maples, here are some of their flower buds. I can see a little movement in them. The bud scales are starting to ease and open but I hope they won’t because it’s too early. I’ve seen trees with every flower killed by frost but nature has that all figued out, and not all trees bloom at the same time. The bloom times are staggered over several weeks, so if a killing frost happens not all tree flowers will be damaged by it.

I walked past the European beech I know of in Keene and saw its seed pods all over the ground, falling I suppose, to make room for new ones.

They were all empty, even the ones still on the tree. No wonder there are so many happy squirrels in that area.

Many, many years ago someone went around Keene with a stencil of a foot and spray-painted small feet here and there throughout town. I was surprised to find one still in good condition one day. It told me to stay on the trail. Keep walking and keep seeing the wonders.

It doesn’t take much to make my heart soar in spring; seeing sap buckets hanging on the sugar maples will do it every time. Though this post might seem to be all over the place, with flowers and ice and snow, that’s what spring is in New Hampshire. We are in the push-pull transition time between winter and spring and right now, winter is making a comeback. We are expecting a foot of snow as I finish this post, but it won’t last long and spring will win out as it always does. The trees producing sap means the ground has thawed and soon everyone will be wearing a smile. If you ask most of them why they’re smiling chances are they won’t be able to tell you but it’s just that spring tonic. It just makes you happy, for no particular reason.

The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month. ~Henry Van Dyke

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Late April Flowers

We’ve had a colder week with daytime temps in the 40s and nighttime temps in the 20s and though it has slowed a lot of flowers down it hasn’t stopped them, as this new red trillium (Trillium erectum) blossom shows. Red (or purple) trilliums are our earliest, followed by nodding and then painted trilliums. Red trilliums are also one of our largest spring ephemeral flowers. Everything about them is in threes.

From one of the largest spring ephemerals to one of the smallest; goldthread plants have just started blooming. The shiny, three part leaves and small, aspirin size flowers are sure signs that you’ve found goldthread.

There’s a lot going on in a goldthread (Coptis groenlandicum) blossom, despite its small size. The tiny styles curve like long necked birds and the even smaller white tipped stamens fill the center of a goldthread blossom. The white, petal like sepals last only a short time and will fall off, leaving the tiny golden yellow club-like true petals behind. The ends of the petals are cup shaped and hold nectar.

I was dismayed to find that, as I was crawling around trying to get a photo of goldthread, my foot inadvertently pulled up a plant. Well, I thought, at least we’ll be able to see the golden root, and here it is in the photo above. Native Americans showed early colonists how to chew the roots to relieve the pain of canker sores and that led to the plant being called canker root. It became such a popular medicine that the Shakers were paying 37 cents per pound for dried roots in 1785 and people dug up all they could find. I can tell you that many tens of thousands of plants would have had to have been destroyed to make up a pound of roots, because this one weighed next to nothing. Dry, it would have weighed even less. At one time more goldthread was sold in Boston than any other plant, and of course that meant the plant came close to being lost.

Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) blossomed in a sunny spot on a lawn. Ground ivy was introduced into North America as an ornamental and medicinal plant as early as the 1800s, when it immediately began taking over the continent. But nobody seems to mind. The purple flowers have a very light minty scent that isn’t at all overpowering unless you mow down a large patch that has taken over the lawn. This is one of those flowers that takes me back to my childhood, because it grew everywhere that I did.

I don’t remember ever seeing henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) when I was a boy but it must have been here. It was reported in New York’s Hudson valley in 1751. It is another annual in the mint family and is edible.

I’ve read that small birds love the seeds of henbit and hummingbirds love their nectar. They always seem a bit clownish to me; like a cartoonist had drawn them.

If only you could smell these magnolia flowers. If the afterlife is scented surely one of those scents will come from magnolias. To sit outside on a warm spring evening with their scent in the air is something you just never forget.

As you can imagine you see a certain amount of death when you spend a lot of time in nature. Every now and then I stumble upon something that is as beautiful in death as it was in life; insects, mushrooms, and this magnolia blossom that looked as if it had been carved out of wood. I hope you too can appreciate its beauty.

Vinca (Vinca minor) is a trailing plant from Europe. It is also invasive but has been here long enough to have erased any memories of them having once crossed the Atlantic on the deck of a wooden ship though. In the 1800s Vinca was a plant given by one neighbor to another along with lilacs and peonies, and I’ve seen all three still blooming beautifully near old cellar holes off in the middle of nowhere, as the plants you see here do. it is nowhere near as aggressive as many non-natives so we enjoy its beautiful violet purple flowers and coexist.

Another name for vinca is Myrtle and that’s what I’ve always called it. It has a flower of sixes, double that of trillium.

Pulmonaria (Pulmonaria officinalis ) has just started blooming. Other than spring bulbs, this perennial is one of the earliest to bloom in spring. It prefers shady places so it is valuable in gardens that get little sun. During the middle ages in Europe lungwort, which is another name for the plant, was considered dangerous because the grey spots on its leaves were associated with an infected lung. Later, it was used to treat lung disorders. The scientific name Pulmonaria comes from the Latin pulmo, meaning lung.

Dandelions are having a great year so far. I’ve never seen them bloom so profusely.

Just look at all of those seed heads in waiting.

I’m seeing more and more trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) each year and that’s a good thing, because it was once over collected almost to the point of oblivion. My grandmother always called this, her favorite flower, mayflower. She always wanted to show it to me but back then it was so scarce we could never find any.

Violas are loving the cool weather. All plants in the pansy family can take a lot of cold and that’s why they’re an early spring staple for window boxes and flower pots. They chase away the winter blues that so many seem to suffer from.

Here is another look at the beautiful bulb bed that I showed in the last flower post. It’s just about done now.

Creeping phlox (Phlox subulata) has just come into bloom and before long it will be in bloom everywhere I go. Creeping phlox is native to the forests of North America. Another plant called creeping phlox is Phlox stolonifera, native to the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Georgia.

One way to tell Phlox subulata from stolonifera is to look for the darker band of color around the center of each flower; only Phlox subulata has it. Creeping phlox is also called moss phlox or moss pinks.

Hellebores are another plant that can stand a lot of cold. Pliny said that if an eagle saw you digging up a hellebore it (the eagle) would cause your death. He also said that you should draw a circle around the plant, face east and offer a prayer before digging it up. Apparently doing so would appease the eagle. I can’t even guess how such a belief would have gotten started.

This is a fine example of why I can sometimes kneel in front of a flower and have no idea how long I’ve been there.

My grandmother taught me that it was best to cut lilacs and bring them to her when the flowers just started to open. In that way all the  other buds would open inside so she could enjoy their fragrance longer. I would watch them closely and when just a few blossoms showed I’d bring them in to her. They seem to be doing well this year. In fact many plants are doing better than they have in a long time.

It’s time to say goodbye to the vernal witch hazels. What joy they’ve brought to spring,

A redbud tree (Cercis Canadensis) showed me how it got its name. Eastern redbud  is not native to New Hampshire but I do find them here and there. Do to the cold weather this one has refused to go beyond bud. The hardiness of this tree can be questionable here unless trees started from northern grown seed are planted.

I hoped to show you some trout lily blossoms in this post but they’re being stubborn so instead I’ll show you the spring beauties (Claytonia carolinana) that grow with them. They’re with us just a very short time so I hope you won’t get tired of seeing them.

This is what a forest floor covered by spring beauties looks like. It’s a rare sight, and is one I’ve been wanting to show you for years. It isn’t a great shot but it gives you an idea of what forest flowers look like. Once the leaves come out on the trees, their short lives are over. And I will miss them.

In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.  ~John Milton

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Spring Fever

After a warmer than average week in which records were broken, plants are responding. These red maple buds (Acer rubrum) were in the process of opening when I went to see them, and I knew that by the way the bud scales were no longer tightly clasping the buds. Sap flow to the buds causes them to swell up and this forces the bud scales open. It’s a beautiful thing if you happen to be a lover of spring.

Box elder buds (Acer negundo) on the other hand, showed little signs of movement. They usually open a week or so after red maples, so I wasn’t surprised.

This particular box elder still had seeds from last year. They are bigger than the seeds of other trees in the maple family and a single tree can produce many thousands of them.  

The alder catkin (Alnus incana) over on the right looked like it was showing a little green. That’s what they do before they start to open; become multi-colored for a short time.

I went to see if I could find some female American hazelnut catkins (Corylus americana) again but all I saw were last year’s hazelnuts.

Big, shiny, and sometimes sticky poplar buds have released their fuzzy catkins. At this stage they resemble willow catkins somewhat but they will stay gray and will lengthen to sometimes 5 or 6 inches. These bud scales were not sticky and that tells me this was a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), because that is the only member of the poplar family with catkins like these that doesn’t have sticky bud scales. Balsam poplar catkins (Populus balsamifera) look much the same but their brown bud scales are very sticky to the touch.

The willows (Salix) are now fully out and just about to flower.

If you look closely at a willow catkin and blow gently on the gray hairs you can see the structure of the flowers inside. I’d guess, depending on the weather, that these will be flowering next weekend.

Most of the snow has melted now and it has all run into the Ashuelot River. The forecast for the coming week is for more average temps in the 40s F., so any further melting will be gentle. There is still ice on the trails but it won’t be there for much longer.

The tiny white flowers of what I think are hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) have opened. These flowers are so tiny you could hide this entire bouquet behind a pea. I spent a while on my knees and elbows with my nose almost in the dirt getting this shot.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw buds on these daffodils. They must be an early variety.

Hyacinths are budded up and ready to go.

Tulips are gathering sunshine with their leaves but I haven’t seen any buds yet.

I did see crocus buds, and this one was very beautiful. It will open pure white inside.

There were also crocus flowers.

Lots of crocus flowers.

Johnny jump ups were adding their special sweetness to spring.

They’re such pretty little things. It’s no wonder some call them “heart’s ease”. Kneeling there beside them certainly did my heart good.

And I finally saw a reticulated iris blossom. They’re late this year; they usually blossom about a week before the crocuses do. I’ve even taken photos of them covered in snow.

As I thought they would be the spring blooming witch hazels were in nearly full bloom. I wish you could smell them. Their fragrance can be detected a block away and it’s wonderful. Someone once described them as smelling like clean laundry that had just been taken off the line but it’s a little spicier than that, I think.

In any event they’re a beautiful thing to find on a blustery March day.

I thought I’d give you a bee’s eye view, even though it may not be bees that pollinate these flowers. Owlet moths pollinate fall blooming witch hazels.

This one was over the top. With its long, bright yellow petals it was just a joy to see.

Witch hazel is one of only a handful of plants that have flowers, buds and seed pods all showing at the same time. In fact the name Hamamelis comes from the Greek words “hama” which means “at same time” and “mêlon”, meaning “fruit”.

I checked a flower bed the day before and saw three yellow crocus buds. On this day I found many clusters just like this one. Hundreds of blossoms had appeared in less than 24 hours. When spring is determined to happen It can happen quickly.

And spring will be beautiful; we can always count on that.

It’s spring fever, that’s what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want — oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain

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Wandering

In typical March fashion the first week of the month was cold and very windy, so it came in like a lion. Everyone I know is hoping it goes out like a lamb but meanwhile the snow is still melting, and with sixty degree temperatures expected in the near future I’d guess that this scene will be snow free by the weekend. I’ve been itching to climb again but with all the ice that came with February I haven’t done it.  Instead last weekend I went wandering, just to see what I could see.

I wondered if the red winged blackbirds had returned so I went to a place I knew they’d be if they had, but I didn’t hear them. I did see that ice had re-formed on the stream though.

There are plenty of cattails for them to build nests with when they do come back. There is a pond I go to where I can walk right along the edge, just where the cattails grow, and I often scare the female red winged blackbirds when I do, so I know that the nests are tucked down in the stems, quite close to the water. I’ve seen females picking large grubs out of the previous year’s decomposing stems as well, so nature has provided everything they need in a cattail stand; both food and nesting material. They’ll be back before long.

 I saw a group of mallards and as usual they were rushing away as fast as they could go. Usually when I get shots of mallards I see more tailfeathers than anything else. They’re very skittish in these parts.

I believe these were willows but they grew on the far side of another stream so I couldn’t get close to them, but many of the willows that grow here have yellow or yellowish branches in spring. I thought their color was very spring like and beautiful whatever they were, so I was happy to see them. They made an impressionistic scene, I thought. Or maybe post-impressionistic; I can see Van Gogh painting it.

I went to the river thinking I might see some interesting ice formations but I think the water was too high for them. Instead I admired the beautiful texture and colors of the water. It really is amazing how the appearance of river water changes. It’s very dependent on the quality of the light.

Closer to shore the sunlit ripples were hypnotizing.

A fallen tree had washed downriver and become stuck on the rocks, and it showed just how cold it was.

This ice is so clear it can’t be seen, but those bubbles were trapped under it.

This ice was anything but clear. I couldn’t tell if the patterns I saw were part of the ice itself or what was under it, but I liked them.

Much like beech and oak leaves do, black locust seed pods (Robinia pseudoacacia) often fall in spring and this one had landed in an icy footprint. You often see these pods with one side gone and the seeds open to the elements, just as these were.

The tiny brown seeds of a black locust look like miniature beans and that’s because they are in the same legume family. Their coating is very tough and they can remain viable for many years. They’re also very toxic and should never be eaten.

There is a stone in a local park that has what appear to be paw prints in it. Not on it; they’re actually depressions in the stone. They’re small like a housecat’s paw and I can’t imagine what might have made them or even if they really are animal prints, but seeing them always gets me wondering. Maybe they were just gas bubbles that popped as the magma that the stone came from was cooling, or maybe they’re impressions from ancient leaves that fell in mud that hardened. I didn’t bother to try to figure out if the stone was sedimentary or igneous but maybe one day.

Speaking of stones, here is a well made stone wall to contrast all the “thrown” and “tossed” walls I’ve shown on this blog. This is just the kind of wall I used to build; a puzzle made of stone, and I miss being able to do it.

I saw a beech tree, large and fairly old, with buds on it that are quite different from our native beech buds. Instead of thin, long and pointed like a native beech it was short and more round, so I think it must be a European beech (Fagus sylvatica). I’ve read that they can escape cultivation but this one lives on the grounds of the local college, so I can’t say it has done that. I’ll have to get a look at its leaves later on.

Native nannyberry buds (Viburnum lentago) with their two bud scales are good examples of valvate buds. These buds always remind me of great blue herons or cranes. Nannyberry is another of our native viburnums but unlike many of them this shrub produces edible fruit. Native Americans ate them fresh or dried and used the bark and leaves medicinally.

While I was thinking of buds I thought I’d check on the red maple buds (Acer rubrum). I didn’t see any open yet but the outer bud scales are definitely pulling back.

I saw a skunk cabbage spathe (Symplocarpus foetidus) that had opened so of course I had to look inside at the spadix.

There were plenty of flowers on the spadix and they were releasing pollen already. The flowers don’t have petals but do have four yellowish sepals. The male stamens grow up through the sepals and release their pollen before the female style and pistil grow out of the flower’s center to catch any pollen that visiting insects might carry from other plants. The spadix carries most of the skunk like odor at this stage of the plant’s life, and it is thought that it uses the odor to attract flies and other early spring insects.

Lots of animals have been waiting all winter for anything green so I’m sure they’ll be happy to see green grass again. I’ve seen both porcupines and muskrats eating dead grass in winter.

I went back to see how the cold had affected the spring blooming witch hazels (Hamamelis vernalis) and found that all of the petals had rolled themselves back into the wooly buds so they didn’t get damaged. With 60 degrees right around the corner I’m guessing that they’ll be in full bloom by the weekend.

The thing that surprised me most was finding crocuses showing color. Though this flower bed isn’t in my yard I know it well enough to know that it has quite a few reticulated irises in it and they have always bloomed before the crocuses. Maybe the gardener pulled up all the irises? I don’t know.

Wandering souls discover sleepless dreams. ~Paul Sachudhanandam

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Things I’ve Seen

For this post I’m going to try to take you through February, starting with the photo of puddle ice above. February was a cold and icy month but beautiful too. The average February temperature usually runs between 16.5°F (-8.6°C) and 31.5°F (-0.3°C) so ice doesn’t come as a surprise.

February was also a snowy month with storm after storm coming through. According to state records in Concord, the state capital, on average snow falls for 10.2 days in February and typically adds up to about 7.36 inches. We’ve had all of that, as the waist high snowbanks on the side of the road I travel to work on show.

The snow and ice might have built up but the finger of open water in Half Moon Pond reached further out into the pond each day. In February days have the least amount sunshine with an average of only about 4 hours per day, so things like this take time. The clouds seen in this shot are typical on an average February day.

But the sun does shine and slowly, the days get longer.

I’ve read that the reflection of sunlight from snow can nearly double the intensity of the Sun’s UV radiation. This photo of a fertile sensitive fern frond was taken in natural light that was reflecting off the snow and it looks like I used a flash.  

Here is another sensitive fern fertile frond which has released its spores. This was another attempt at catching sunlight on snow. It isn’t easy to do because it’s so very bright. If you stare at it too long you can experience snow blindness, which thankfully is usually only temporary. Still, bright sunlight on snow isn’t good for the eyes especially if you have glaucoma, so I try to always wear sunglasses.

Animals like turkeys, deer and squirrels have been digging up the snow looking for acorns.

And then one day the sunshine was different; it felt like a warm breath, and the melting began in earnest. That’s how spring always begins, but it is something that can never be proven to those who don’t believe. It doesn’t matter if it is February, March or April, spring always begins with that sense; the knowing that something has changed. You feel it and you know it but you can’t explain it, even though you know that from this point on there will be other, more visible signs.

Anything dark colored like this white cedar branch absorbed warmth from the sun and melted down into the snow.

Here a basswood tree limb was doing the same.

At this time of year each tree in the forest may have a melt ring around it as the basswood in the above shot does. A study done by Emeritus Professor of Botany Lawrence J. Winship of Hampshire College, where he used an infrared thermometer to measure heat radiated by tree trunks, found that the sunny side of a red oak was 54 degrees F. while the shaded side was just 29 degrees F. And the ground temperature was also 29 degrees, which means it was frozen. This shows that trees really absorb a lot of heat from the sun and it must be that when the heat is radiated back into the surroundings it melts the snow. The professor found that the same was true on fence posts and stumps so the subject being alive had nothing to do with it, even though a living tree should have much more heat absorbing water in it.

As the snow melts things that fell on it months ago reappear, like these basswood berries (actually nutlets). That bract is a modified leaf, called a tongue by some, which helps the berries fly on the winds. These didn’t make it very far from the tree however. Native Americans used many parts of the basswood tree, including the berries, as food and also boiled its sweet sap. The fibers found in the tree’s bark were used to make twine and cordage used for everything from sewing to snowshoes. In fact the word “bass” is a mispronunciation of the Native word “bast”, which is their word for one of the types of fiber made from the tree.

No longer moistened by snow melt, this moss growing on a stone was looking quite dry. From here on out it will have to depend on rain.

As the sun warms stones many times you’ll see the frost coming out of them. That’s what the white was in this shot. It doesn’t usually last long so it’s one of those being in the right place at the right time things.

Maple syrup makers hung their sap buckets about the third week of February as usual. Nobody knows when or where sap gathering started but most agree that it was learned from Native Americans. They used to cut a V notch into the bark of a tree and then put a wedge at the bottom of the cut. The sap would drip from the wedge into buckets made of bark or woven reeds, or sometimes into wooden bowls. They would then boil it down until it thickened and became syrup. Since it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup sap gathering was and still is a lot of work.

Winter dark fireflies (Ellychnia corrusca) have appeared on trees. According to Bugguide.net, these fireflies can be a pest in sap buckets in the spring because they like maple sap, and they will also drink from wounds in maple trees. They like to sun themselves on the sunny side of trees or buildings, and this one was happy to do so on an old oak. Most fireflies live as larvae in rotting wood and forest litter near water and stay in the area they were born in, even as adults. They like it warm and humid but they weren’t getting much of either on this February day. They don’t seem to be afraid of people at all; I’ve gotten quite close to them several times.

Buoyed by sap flow and insect activity I thought I’d visit the swamp where the skunk cabbages grow and see if they were up yet.

They were up and that tells me the hazelnuts will most likely be flowering before long. Inside the skunk cabbage’s mottled spathe is the spadix, which is a one inch round, often pink or yellow, stalked flower head from which the small flowers emerge. I’d say it’ll be another week or so before I see them. The spathes seem extremely red this year. They’re usually a deep maroon color. Alder catkins, which are also a maroon / purple color, are also red this year, from here to Scotland. I can’t even guess why.

Of course I had to check the bulb beds, and there were indeed shoots up out of the soil. I’m not positive but I think these were crocus. Since I don’t own the bulb bed I can never be 100 percent sure.

Reticulated irises are usually the first bulb to bloom and they were up and looking good, but no buds yet.

In one bed daffodils seemed to be rushing up out of the ground.

These daffodils were about four inches tall, I’d guess. They looked a little blanched from coming up under the snow but they’ll be fine. They won’t bloom for a while though.

The willows are showing their silvery catkins so it won’t be long before the bushes are full of beautiful yellow flowers.

I hoped I’d be able to show you flowers at the end of this post and the spring blooming witch hazels (Hamamelis vernalis) came through. I was beside myself with joy when I turned a corner and saw them blooming. We might see cold and we might see more snow but there is no turning back now. Spring, my favorite season, has begun in this part of the world. I might have to tie myself to a rock to keep from floating away.

It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what. ~ John Galsworthy

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