August | 2015 | New Hampshire Garden Solutions

Archive for August, 2015

Late August Flowers

Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged Ashuelot River, Black Eyed Susan, Blue Vervain, Canon SX40 HS, Crooked Stem Aster, Lady's Thumb, Mallow, Musk Mallow, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Nodding Smartweed, Orange Hawkweed, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Slender Gerardia, Spear Thistle, Spearmint, Tansy, Wild Cucumber on August 29, 2015| 48 Comments »

Goldenrod and purple loosestrife dominate this meadow view but we still have a lot of other flowers blooming.

I’m seeing more and more native asters each day, blooming to usher in fall. I think this one might be a crooked stemmed aster (Symphyotrichum prenanthoide) but there are so many asters that look alike it’s hard to be sure. At about a half inch diameter the flowers are too small to be a New England Aster. I found it growing in a wet area at the edge of the forest.

Surely black eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) must be one of the longest blooming flowers. They’ve been blooming since June and should go well into October. Native Americans cured earaches with the juice of its root, but early colonists gave it its common name after an old English poem by John Gay about a woman called Black Eyed Susan.

Nodding smartweed (Persicaria lapathifolia) gets its common name from its drooping flower heads and the very sharp, peppery taste of the stems, which makes the tongue smart. It doesn’t seem to bother ducks, geese, and all of the other animals that eat it, though. This is also called curly top smartweed; obviously because of the way the long flower spikes droop. It is originally from Europe.

Each nodding smartweed flower spike is made up of many pink to white, very small flowers. The flowers never fully open, which can make it hard to count any of their reproductive parts, but each one has 5 sepals and no petals. There are also six stamens, two partially fused carpels and two styles.

Lady’s thumb is another Persicaria; (Persicaria maculosa.) It looks a lot like its cousin nodding smartweed but instead of growing near water this one will be found growing at forest edges. It is originally from Europe and has spread to nearly every state since 1843.

Lady’s thumb gets its common name from the dark spot that appears on each leaf. Legend has it that a lady with a dirty thumb (apparently) left the smudge-like mark on a leaf and it has been there ever since.

A bee on a spear thistle flower head (Cirsium vulgare) isn’t unusual but I never knew that the pollen from this plant was orange. According to the little pollen baskets on this bumblebee’s legs, it is.

It was getting dark when I took this photo of blue vervain on the banks of the Ashuelot River. It came out looking kind of moody but the vervain flowers still held their beautiful blue color and that’s what I was after. These plants are nearly done for the season now. I’ll miss seeing my favorite color flowers.

I see thousands of examples of yellow hawkweed for every one orange hawkweed (Pilosella aurantiaca) and I’m not sure why that is. The plant might be from Europe but it’s far from invasive. Maybe their scarcity is due to the color orange being virtually invisible to bees. They do reflect ultraviolet light though, so that means that some insects must find them.

The last time I did a flower post I had found some wild mint (Mentha arvensis.) This time I found some spearmint (Mentha spicata) growing at the edge of the woods. Like wild mint spearmint has been used since recorded time both medicinally and as a flavoring. Pliny wrote of it and the ancient Romans cultivated it to scent their bath water. Spearmint is originally from Europe but the pilgrims brought it on their first trip to America, so valuable was the plant to them.

Instead of growing in the leaf axils as they do on wild mint, spearmint flowers appear at the top of the stem. They are said to be pink or white but these were white, blue, pink and lavender. I wish I could send you their scent because it was refreshing on a hot summer day. I’m not sure what the hair or web on the flower was. I didn’t see it until I looked at the photo.

Slender gerardia (Agalinis tenuifolia) reaches ankle height here but I’ve heard that it can reach 2 feet. The tiny purple flowers would be easy to miss if it weren’t for the large numbers of them on each willow leaved plant. It has the odd habit of dropping all its flowers each afternoon and opening a new crop the next morning, so you have to catch it before noon if you want to see unblemished blooms. This plant is also called false foxglove and slender leaved foxglove but I see little resemblance to foxgloves, either in flowers or foliage.

I don’t see too many mallow plants in or out of gardens so I was surprised recently to find this musk mallow (Malva moschata) growing on a roadside. Since it’s another plant that is originally from Europe it was proabably a garden escapee, but you could hardly call mallows invasive. I see them once in a blue moon. I thought this one was pink but my color finding software sees lavender.

Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is another European native that most likely came over on the earliest British ships because it was an important medicinal plant that was considered to be “necessary for a garden” in sixteenth century Britain, according to a list of plants compiled by John H. Harvey called Garden Plants of Around 1525: The Fromond List. Though considered toxic it was used to treat parasitic worm infestations. The insect repellant qualities of tansy were well known and it was used to discourage flies and other pests indoors, and as a companion plant in the garden where it repelled cucumber beetles and other common garden insects. It is still used as an insect repellant today.

Native wild cucumber (Echinocystis lobata) is a late summer blooming vine that climbs on shrubs and trees. It likes to grow in sandy soil and prefers shade over full sun. The flower spikes (Racemes) grow to 6 inches or more all along the main stem. These plants are annuals and grow from seed each year.

The greenish white, star shaped male flowers of wild cucumber have 6 petals that are twisted slightly. The female flowers are yellowish green and not at all showy. They grow at the base of the male flower stems. There is usually only one female flower for every 5 or 6 male flowers, which is why there are so few fruits seen on each vine.

I like the spiny fruit of the wild cucumber, which had formed just days before I took this photo. I also like its spiraling tendrils that curl even when they have nothing to curl around.

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

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Things That Get My Goat

Posted in Nature, Scenery / Landscapes, Things I've Seen, tagged Ashuelot River, Button Bush, Canon SX40 HS, Cedar Waxwing, Chicory, Clouded Sulfur Butterfly, covered bridge, Gomarlo's Store, Lupine, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Ox Eye Daisy, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Purple Loosestrife, River Bank Cutting, Riverside Plants, Silky Dogwood, Staghorn Sumac, Swanzey, West Swanzey Food Market on August 26, 2015| 63 Comments »

Over the course of the almost 5 years that I’ve had this blog I’ve seen many things that have gotten my goat. That’s New England Yankee speak for something that angers you, by the way. Anyhow, I’ve decided that keeping my mouth shut about these annoyances is accomplishing nothing except allowing them to continue, so I welcome you to the first installment of Things that get my goat. Maybe I’ll hear from others who are also bothered by these things. I can’t be the only one.

At one time there was a small grocery store that stood very close to the Ashuelot River in Swanzey, New Hampshire. You wouldn’t have had to walk too far behind the car in this 1952 photo to have reached the covered bridge that crossed the river, and still crosses it today. Not too long ago, a couple of years I think, I watched this building being torn down and it was then that I heard rumors of a town park being built on the property. I didn’t have a good feeling about that.

The park, as it stands now, seems to consist of granite block terracing and an expanse of crab grass. It reminds me of an amphitheater, but if you sat on these granite blocks you would look out on more crabgrass, so I’m not sure amphitheater is the right word.

The park is sunken below street level and the retaining wall where it meets the street was once part of the foundation of the store in the first photo. Now concrete blocks that are supposed to look like stone are used as a retaining wall.

A new fence was installed and it makes sense because there is a 7-8 foot drop from street level down to where the riverbank starts.

What doesn’t make sense is what was done to the riverbank. All of the shrubs and wildflowers that once grew there have been cut down, and what is left is an ugly scar.

This photo I took last year shows what this section of the river bank once looked like. There were lupines, ox-eye daisy, birds foot trefoil, asters, yarrow, goldenrod, button bush, silky dogwood, smooth and staghorn sumacs, Virginia creeper, and many other plants and shrubs that were important to the birds, waterfowl and other wildlife in the area.

One of the things Swanzey is known for its covered bridges. This one was built in 1832 and is called the Thompson Bridge, named after the playwright Denmon Thompson, who lived in town. Of open lattice design, it has been called the most beautiful covered bridge in New England and it draws a lot of tourists to the area. Tourists easily translate to income and the cutting has opened up the view so they can see the bridge better. I understand that; it seems like a valid reason. But what I can’t understand is why all of these plants had to be butchered back to ground level when more selective cutting would have opened up the view and left a riverbank overflowing with blooming shrubs, vines, and wildflowers. Why not have someone who knows what they’re doing come and at the very least give their opinion about what should be done before just hacking away at it?

Because what once looked like this…

…now looks like this. I doubt very much that tourists are going to be drawn to this. Are there more “improvements” in store, I wonder? I have to say that I hope not. Over there on the upper right is where one of only two examples of chicory plants that I knew of grew. The beautiful blue flowers would have pleased the tourists more than this empty riverbank, I think.

At this time of year the beautiful blue berries of silky dogwood hung out over the water.

You might say “big deal, sumacs and silky dogwoods grow everywhere, so who cares if we cut a few of them down?” Well, the cedar waxwing in the above photo probably cares. They rely heavily on silky dogwood berries at this time of year and when I was on the bridge watching one recent evening he and many of his cousins kept flying to where the shrubs used to be, as if they couldn’t figure out why there were no berries there. Who knows how many generations of birds have been taught to forage here?

And that’s saying nothing about the 25 species of ducks and 28 species of birds that feed on buttonbush seeds. Or the robins, bluebirds, crows, mockingbirds and 300 species of songbirds that feed on the sumac berries. Or the raccoons, rabbits, muskrats and squirrels that used the shrubs for cover and food. Or the birds that nest in the thickets the shrubs create. Or the bees, butterflies and other insects that feed on the wildflowers.

As John Muir once said: When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

The saddest and most ironic part of this story is, I think, how just a few hundred yards downriver on the other side of the bridge a 250 year old timber crib dam was torn down in 2010. At the time that section of river bank was also “improved” and good money was paid by taxpayers to plant native shrubs and trees there. Many of the shrubs that were planted are silky dogwoods!

So here we are on one side of the bridge spending tax dollars to plant silky dogwood while on the other side of the bridge, just a couple of hundred yards away, we’re busy paying more tax dollars to cut them all down. I’m sure this must make sense to someone somewhere who probably wouldn’t know a dogwood from a dandelion, but it makes absolutely no sense to me.

Just as ironic is how most of the native wildflowers were cut and good sized patches of purple loosestrife, one of the most invasive plants that we have in this area, were left standing. There are still one or two goldenrods, asters and smartweeds growing here but they won’t be able to compete against the loosestrife. It will eventually win out. Instead of using it to cut down native plants would the money be better spent trying to eradicate invasive species along the river bank? There are many, including Japanese barberry, burning bush, and oriental bittersweet. They’ve taken over the woodland just downriver from here.

Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance. ~Theodore Roosevelt

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Things I’ve Seen

Posted in Nature, Things I've Seen, tagged Acid Rain, American Chestnut, Blue Moon, Bracken Fern, Branch River, Canon SX40 HS, Chanterelle Mushroom, Drought, Hobblebush, Keene, Maxfield Parrish, Native Cranberry, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Northern Club Spur Orchid, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Pearl Crescent Butterfly, Smithsonian Institution, Sumac Pouch Gall, Summer Forest, Sunset, White Admiral Butterfly on August 22, 2015| 36 Comments »

I haven’t seen many pearl crescent butterflies (Phyciodes tharos) this year but this one landed nearby and let me get quite close. I wondered if it needed a rest after flying with such a torn up wing. I’ve read that males have black antenna knobs, so I’m guessing that this is a female.

This white admiral butterfly (Limenitis arthemis) landed in the leaves at the side of a path. It seemed like odd behavior for a butterfly but I thought it might be looking for some shade. It was a hot day.

The branch river in Marlborough has more stones than water in it at the moment. It’s a good illustration of how dry our weather has been. Rain is a rare commodity here lately, but they say we might see showers this weekend.

Last year at this time I found a northern club spur orchid (Platanthera clavellata v. Ophioglossoides) growing in this spot but this year there wasn’t a sign of it or any other orchid. A tree fell and opened up the forest canopy to let the sunshine hit the forest floor and last year I thought that it might be the reason the orchid grew here. Now I wonder if the extra sunshine is what caused the orchid to no longer grow here. I’ve noticed that many of the smaller orchids I’ve found seem to prefer shade.

Signs of fall are creeping from the forest floor up into the shrubby understory, as these hobblebush leaves (Viburnum lantanoides) show. This plant gets its name from the way it can “hobble” a horse because it grows so close to the ground. My own feet have been hobbled by it once or twice and I’ve taken some good falls because of it, so now I walk around rather than through stands of hobblebush.

Bracken ferns are also starting to show their fall colors. This fern is one plant that will not tolerate acid rain, so if you don’t see it where you live you might want to check the local air pollution statistics. We have plenty of it here so acid rain must be a thing of the past, thankfully.

This seems to be a bountiful year for fruits as these cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon) show. Most were unripe when this photo was taken but you can see one reddish one in the upper right. Cranberries, along with blueberries and grapes, are the only fruits native to North America that are grown commercially and sold globally.

Someone from the Smithsonian Institution read another post where I spoke about sumac pouch gall and contacted me to ask if I knew where they grew. They are researching the coevolution of rhus gall aphids and its host plants the sumacs. A female aphid lays eggs on the underside of a leaf and plant tissue swells around them to form a gall. The eggs overwinter and mature inside the hollow gall until spring, when they leave the gall and begin feeding on the plant. Scientists have paleobotanical evidence that this aphid has had a relationship with its sumac hosts for at least 48 million years. They are studying this relationship at the Smithsonian and I told them that I could show them where many of these galls grew. We’ll do that sometime in September, after they collect galls from Georgia, Arkansas, and Ohio.

This chanterelle mushroom held a good amount of water in its cup. I never thought that the coating on a mushroom was water proof, but it looks like I have to re-think that.

This might not look like much but it is a rare sight. American chestnuts were one of the most important forest trees, supplying both food and lumber. An Asian bark fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica) was introduced into North America on imported Asiatic chestnut trees and the disease all but wiped out over three billion American chestnut trees. New shoots often sprout from chestnut roots when the main trunk dies so they haven’t yet become extinct. Unfortunately the stump sprouts are almost always infected by the Asian fungus by the time they reach 20 feet tall. Many botanists and other scientists are working on finding and breeding disease resistant trees. I’ll be watching this one.

Mini the wonder dog comes trotting out of the darkness with tongue wagging, ready to save mankind from the scourge of the chipmunk. Mini lives with friends of mine and I call her the wonder dog because I really have to wonder if I’ll ever see her sit still. She’s very energetic and loves a good chipmunk chase. She never catches them but that doesn’t keep her from trying.

I saw the sun light up the clouds one evening but I couldn’t stop driving right then and had to chase the view until I found a good stopping place. It was amazingly colorful and reminded me of a Maxfield Parrish painting.

For those unfamiliar with Maxfield Parrish; he was a painter who moved to Plainfield New Hampshire in 1898 and painted here until he died in 1966. His paintings are known for their saturated colors and sunlit clouds. There is often a beautiful woman dressed in Native American or other unusual clothing somewhere in the painting. This painting is titled “Sunlit Valley.” The clouds I saw reminded me of it.

Last month we had a blue moon and I went out and took photos of it but then forgot to put them into a post, so here is a nearly month old photo of the blue moon. Obviously it isn’t blue but is called blue when two full moons appear in a single month. According to Wikipedia the suggestion has been made that the term “blue moon” arose by folk etymology, the “blue” replacing the no-longer-understood belewe, ‘to betray’. The original meaning would then have been “betrayer moon”, referring to a full moon that would “normally” be the full moon of spring. It was “traitorous” in the sense that people would have had to continue fasting for another month in accordance with the season of Lent.

The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves. ~Kahlil Gibran

Thanks for stopping in.

OF LOCAL INTEREST: The following was sent to me recently:

2015 NH Permaculture Day – Saturday, August 22, 2015 Anyone who wants to learn ways to live in a more sustainable and self-sufficient way should attend the third annual NH Permaculture Day – Saturday, August 22 from 8 am to 5 pm at Inheritance Farm, in Chichester, NH, presented by the New Hampshire Permaculture Guild in cooperation with UNH Cooperative Extension. Experts will lead more than 30 activities on such topics as growing, harvesting, preparing, and preserving food; herbs; mushrooms; raising farm animals; historic barns and natural building practices; and sustainable energy. Tickets are $35 for adults, children ages 6-15 are $10, and ages 5 and under are free. A local organic farm-to-table lunch is included.

Locally-made products will be for sale in the vendor’s area, and supervised activities and crafts will be offered all day long in our Children’s Corner.

Tickets can be purchased online (via Eventbrite). For more information, go to the event page at http://extension.unh.edu/2015-NH-Permaculture-Day.

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Mid August Flowers

Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged August Flowers, Boneset, Burdock Flower, Canada St. John'swort, Canon SX40 HS, Field Milkwort, Joe Pye Weed, Keene, Late Summer Flowers, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Pokeweed Flower, Pokeweed Fruit, Purple Coneflower, Queen Anne's Lace, Slender Fragrant Goldenrod, White Turtlehead, Wild Mint, Yellow Toadflax on August 19, 2015| 51 Comments »

There are many flowers still blooming in this corner of New Hampshire but it has been very dry so those that bloom don’t last long. The oddest thing about this photo is the cloudy sky. We’ve had blue sky, full sun weather for what seems like months, with only an occasional rainy day. It might seem odd to hear someone complain about that, but it has also led to drought and many seeps and small streams have dried up. Full sunshine doesn’t make photographing flowers any easier either, so I keep hoping for clouds.

Turtleheads tell me that late summer is here. I found this pink lipped beauty on wet ground up in Nelson New Hampshire recently. Usually the native turtleheads I see are the white flowered variety (Chelone glabra linifolia,) but I have a pink flowered one (Chelone obliqua speciosa) in my garden that a friend gave me many years ago. I wonder if the white and pink varieties have naturally cross bred to create this bicolored example. It could also be a simple garden escapee, because there is a plant that breeders developed called Hot Lips (Chelone lyonii ‘Hot Lips‘). The plant gets the first part of it scientific name from Chelone of Greek mythology. She was a nymph who insulted the gods and was turned into a turtle for her trouble.

Purple cone flower (Echinacea purpurea) is known for its medicinal qualities as well as its beauty. According to the USDA the plant was used by many Native American tribes throughout North America to treat a variety of ailments. It was used as a pain reliever, anti-inflammatory, a treatment for toothaches, coughs, colds, and sore throats. It was also used as an antidote for various forms of poisonings, including snake bite. Portions of this plant were also used to dress wounds and treat infections. Modern medicine has found it useful to combat bacterial and viral infections and as an immune system booster. I grow it because butterflies and bees like its nectar and birds like the seeds.

Slender fragrant goldenrod (Solidago tenuifolia) is another goldenrod that easy to identify because of its long slender, willow like leaves and its pleasant fragrance that is impossible to describe. The only other similar goldenrod is the lance leaved goldenrod (Solidago graminifolia) but its leaves are wider and have 3 to 5 veins as opposed to the single vein in a slender fragrant goldenrod leaf. It is also called flat topped goldenrod.

Wild mint (Mentha arvensis) has been used by man since the dawn of time and Pliny, Hippocrates, Aristotle and Charlemagne each wrote of its virtues. It is unusual because it seems to be native in virtually all parts of the world. Native Americans made tea from its leaves and used it to spice up pemmican and soups. When we see wild mint we see the beginnings of man’s interaction with plants, since before history was even recorded.

The white or lavender tubular flowers of wild mint appear in a whorl in the leaf axils at the uppermost parts of the plant. Each usually has 4 long stamens but sometimes they don’t develop. Identification couldn’t be easier; I just crush a leaf and smell it. The fragrance seems cooling on a hot summer day.

At a glance boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) looks like white Joe Pye weed. That’s because the two plants are closely related. In fact they can often be found growing side by side, but boneset blossoms a little later than Joe Pye weed here. I find it on river, pond and stream banks.

The perfoliatum part of boneset’s scientific name means “through the foliage” and that’s how its stem appears to grow; as if the leaves have been perorated by it. Joe Pye weed leaves have leaf stems (petioles) and look very different.

Burdock (Arctium minus) has very pretty flowers made up of disk florets that are usually pink or purple. The bur’s floral bracts have narrow hooked tips that are soft at this stage but stiffen as they age. Birds love the seeds but small songbirds have been known to get their feathers stuck to the burs and die. Early Europeans brought burdock to North America to use as a medicine. The Arctium part of the scientific name comes from the Greek word arktos, which means bear, and refers to the round brown burs which someone apparently thought resembled a bear.

A glance at this Queen Anne’s lace flower head might convince you that there was an insect feeding on it, but the purple thing in the center is actually a tiny, infertile flower that’s less than half the size of a pea. Not all plants have these central florets that can be purple, pink, or sometimes blood red. From what I’ve seen in this area it seems that as many plants have it as those that do not.

The ant gives a good idea of the size of the tiny purple floret. I’ve heard many theories of why this flower grows the way it does but the bottom line is that botanists don’t really know why. It seems to serve no useful purpose, but it might have at one time. The ant certainly seemed interested in it.

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) flowers are about 1/4 inch wide and have 5 petal-like, rounded sepals. In the center of the flower are green carpels that come together and will form the berry. It happens quickly and you can find both flowers and fruit in all stages of growth on a single flower head (Raceme.)

My favorite part of the pokeweed plant comes when the sepals turn pink on the back of the berry. The color will seem even more intense when the berries ripen and turn deep purple-black.

The common name pokeweed comes from the Native American word for blood, and refers to the red dye that can be made from the berry. The juice was used as a dye by the early colonists and they also used it to improve the color of cheap wine. All parts of the plant are considered toxic and should never be eaten unless you know exactly what you’re doing.

Yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) was imported from Europe in the mid-1800s as an ornamental and, as the all too familiar story goes, escaped cultivation to become a noxious weed. It’s a pretty weed though, and reminds me of snapdragons. It really isn’t that invasive here; I have a hard time finding it each year.

There are many little yellow flowers that look much alike so I admire their beauty but leave their identification to someone else, as I do with little brown mushrooms. It can sometimes take weeks to identify a flower you’ve never seen before properly and life is just too short for all the little yellow ones, in my opinion. I’ve walked by this one for years until recently when I read about it on the Saratoga Woods and Waterways blog and the post made me curious enough to want to learn about it. It’s called Canada St. John’s wort (Hypericum canadense) and its flowers are some of the smallest I’ve tried to photograph. You could pick three or four of them and hide the bouquet behind a penny, so small are the blooms. I think they might even be smaller than those of dwarf St. John’s wort. The bright crimson buds are a bonus, and surprising for a plant with yellow flowers.

On field milkwort plants (Polygala sanguinea) what look like petals arranged on a central stem are actually individual flowers packed into a raceme no bigger than the end of an average index finger. Each tiny overlapping flower has two large sepals, three small sepals, and three small petals that form a narrow tube. Several different kinds of bees help pollinate this plant. Its flowers can be white, purple, pink, or green. I know of only one place where it grows and its beautiful flowers always make it worth the walk to see them. The flowers are very beautiful and unusual enough to make you want to sit beside them for a while and study them, and that’s just what I did.

What is divine escapes men’s notice because of their incredulity. Heraclitus

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Slime Time

Posted in Nature, Slime Molds, tagged Canon SX40 HS, Didymium iridis Slime Mold, Keene, Lindbladia tubulina Slime Mold, Many Headed Slime Mold, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Scrambled Egg Slime Mold, Slime Molds, Summer Woods, White Finger Slime Mold, Wolf's Milk Slime Mold on August 15, 2015| 41 Comments »

We haven’t had much rain here this summer but all it takes is a thundershower, a good hot day and plenty of humidity to get slime molds on the move. And they really do move; through a process called cytoplasmic streaming slime molds can reach speeds of up to 1.35 mm per second, which is the fastest rate recorded for any micro-organism. Scarcity of food is what drives them on, always searching for bacteria and yeasts to feed on. As this photo shows slime mold plasmodium is a mass of glistening vein-like material (actually a single-celled amoeba) that creeps across dead leaves, wood, or soil. I think this might be the many-headed slime (Physarum polycephalum.)

I think this might also be the many headed slime (Physarum polycephalum,) even though it looks quite different than the previous example. When slime molds run out of food and come together into a mass like that pictured above, individual cells change their shape and can form stalks that are capped by fruiting bodies. A fruiting body can look like a jellybean or sphere, or can sometimes resemble blackberries, hair, dripping wax, and just about any other shape imaginable. The fruiting bodies produce spores that are borne on the wind and which will create new slime molds.

How big are slime molds? It varies, but tiny is usually a good description. I always carry my glasses and a loupe when I’m looking for them.

Some slime molds can grow big enough to be seen without too much difficulty. When the weather is right I look for what appear to be white or colored smudges on logs, leaves, or even mossy stones. Slime molds seem to grow on just about anything; there is even a photo online of one engulfing a beer can that was left out on a rock. They almost always grow on the side away from the sun because they don’t want to dry out. This one was growing on the top of a well-rotted log and that tells me that this log doesn’t see much sunlight.

If you want to photograph slime molds you’d better have a macro lens. What is seen in this photo wouldn’t have even covered Abe Lincoln’s head on a penny. I think it might be white finger slime (Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa, variety fruticulosa.) Identifying slime molds can be tricky, but most good mushroom books will include a section on them and there are a few good online resources as well.

The secret to finding slime molds is to walk very slowly and keep your eyes to the ground, scanning right and left as you go. I almost walked right by this one growing on a mossy boulder. Comparing it to the leaves and pine needles shows how small it was.

Looking through a macro lens shows the individual bodies of the slime mold on the stone in the previous photo. I’ve never seen this one but I think it might be Didymium iridis. If it is each tiny body grows on top of a hair thin black stalk. Calcium carbonate crystals give the fruiting bodies a light bluish, powdery appearance.

This organism has me completely baffled. I first saw one last year and it reminded me of a mass of tangled fishing line. This year I stumbled onto a spot where many of them grew in the leaf litter on the forest floor. Each mass was about pear size.

This is a closer look at the whatever-it-is in the previous photo. I don’t know if it’s a slime mold or fungus and haven’t been able to find a photo or description of anything similar. I keep forgetting to feel it and tug on one of the many threads.

Wolf’s milk slime mold (Lycogala epidendrum) starts out as tiny pink globules but as they age and become more like what we see in the above photo the globules look more like small puffballs growing on a log.

I think there are actually two slime molds in this photo. The two small black-brown shiny spheres could be Trichia decipiens, which are often found mixed in with other slime molds.

Wolf’s milk slime mold is also called toothpaste slime and that’s because there is a pinkish orange material inside each globule with the consistency of toothpaste. It can also have a more liquid consistency, which is usually the way I find it. As it ages it will turn into a mass of brown powdery spores.

One of the most common slime molds is the scrambled egg slime (Fuligo septica.) It gets quite big and will grow in full sun on wood mulch or chips, so it is easily seen and is often people’s first introduction to slime molds. Fuligo also septica produces the largest spore-producing structure of any known slime mold.

I wasn’t sure if this was a slime mold or not but I found some similar examples on line that said they were Lindbladia tubulina slime mold, which apparently has no common name. This one was somewhere between gunmetal gray and black, and about as big as a pear. It is described as cushion shaped and likes to grow on dead conifers, just as this one was doing.

A close look at the surface of Lindbladia tubulina shows thousands of tiny shiny spheres. The outside was crusty but inside where the spores are produced is said to be spongy and yellow or olive green. This type of surface is said to be bullate, which means “covered with rounded swellings like blisters.”

I don’t really know if this was a slime mold, fungus, or something else but since blue is my favorite color I was happy to see it. It was about as big as a penny.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. ~Henry David Thoreau

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Time For A Climb

Posted in Fungi, Lichens, Nature, Orchids, Scenery / Landscapes, tagged Canon SX40 HS, Cicada, Cinnamon Fairy Stool Mushroom, Clavaria ornatipes Club Fungus, Club Coral Fungi, Downy Rattlesnake Plantain Orchid, Granite Bedrock, Lichens, Looper Moth, Mount Caesar, Mount Caesar Swanzey NH, Mount Monadnock Jaffrey NH, Mountain Hiking, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Purple Coral Fungi, Reindeer Lichen, Starflower, Swanzey New Hampshire, Toadskin Lichens on August 12, 2015| 38 Comments »

I haven’t had time to do much climbing over the last few months so I thought I’d make up for the lapse by climbing Mount Caesar in Swanzey. It’s one of my favorite climbs because there is so much to see there, like this drift of reindeer lichen that looks like a snowy path through the woods even in August.

The uphill climb isn’t steep but it’s steady. Recent logging operations here haven’t helped the trail any, but at least it wasn’t muddy.

In some places the granite bedrock is exposed. I like the patterns of minerals in it.

Starflowers (Trientalis borealis) have gone to seed but the tiny white seed pods haven’t opened yet.

Starflower seed pods look like tiny soccer balls and can be tough to get a good photo of. Putting a penny on a stump to use as a background helped.

I found a dead cicada on the trail and put him on a stump for a better photo too. I never knew they were so blue.

As if to illustrate how you can hike the same trail a hundred times and still not see all there is to see, I found downy rattlesnake plantain orchids growing right beside the trail. I can’t believe that I’ve walked right by them all these years without seeing them.

This orchid’s flowers are very small and hard to photograph, so I went back with a piece of black artists foam core board and got this shot so you could see what they look like. They look a lot like the flowers of the checkered rattlesnake plantain that I showed in another recent post and indeed the two plants are thought to cross pollinate naturally. I don’t know what made them appear so sparkly in this photo.

Acorns were falling all around me but the real surprise was hearing a large tree fall off in the woods. I couldn’t see it and was glad I wasn’t anywhere near it because it made a tremendous crashing sound when it fell. That’s a rare experience for me.

Cinnamon fairy stools (Coltricia cinnamomea) grew here and there all along the trail. They get their common name from the concentric bands of cinnamon brown coloring on their inch diameter caps. They are a tough, leathery polypore which, if picked when fresh, will hold their color and shape for a long time.

My Mushroom books don’t say much about club shaped fungi but I think this might be Clavaria ornatipes. This fungus is described as spatula or club shaped and greyish to pinkish gray. It grew directly out of the ground.

The reason club and coral fungi grow the way they do is to get their spores, which grow on their tips, up above the soil surface so the wind can disperse them. This example is another of the Clavaria club fungi I think, but I haven’t been able to identify it.

There are good views to the south from the top of Mount Caesar though on this day it seemed just a bit hazy.

It was a very hot and humid day with temperatures approaching 90 degrees and I found myself wishing I was swimming at Swanzey Lake rather than sitting up here in full sun.

I couldn’t leave without looking across the hills to Mount Monadnock over in Jaffrey. It’s the highest mountain in these parts and is also the second most climbed mountain in the world, and on a day like this there were probably hundreds of people on it.

My friends the toad skin lichens (Lasallia papulosa) were very dry and ashy gray for the most part, but I did find a moist green one here and there. I’ve only seen these lichens growing on the very tops of hills so visiting them comes with a price. They’re beautiful and rarely seen though, so it’s a price I’m willing to pay.

I never would have seen this moth if it hadn’t flown in front of me to land on a tree trunk. Even though I knew where it had landed I had a hard time finding it, so perfect was its camouflage. I think it might be a looper moth in the family Noctuidae. There are many, including some familiar ones like the cabbage looper and the golden looper. They all seem to be experts in camouflage, just as this one was.

Easily the most beautiful thing I saw on this day was this violet coral fungus (Clavaria zollingeri.) My daughter had climbed here the day before and told me that she had seen it but this is a big mountain and I had little hope of finding it. Her directions were perfect though and there it was; the most beautiful coral fungus that I’ve ever seen. I knelt before it to admire its beauty and forgot the heat, the mosquitoes, and even myself for a while.

The events of the past day have proven to me that I am wholly alive, and that no matter what transpires from here on in, I have truly lived. ~Anonymous mountain climber

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Early August Flowers

Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged Canon SX40 HS, Dodder, Eastern Forked Blue Curls, Fireweed, Gray Goldenrod, Ground Nut, Keene, Late Summer Flowers, Narrow Leaved Gentian, Native Clematis, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Northern Bugleweed, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Rosebay Willowherb, Spear Thistle, Spotted Jewelweed, Virgin's Bower, Whorled Wood Aster on August 8, 2015| 40 Comments »

August is when our many asters begin to blossom here in New Hampshire and one of the first is the whorled wood aster. It’s one of the easiest asters to identify because of its early bloom time and because the narrow white ray florets look like they were glued on by chubby fingered toddlers. The plant can take quite a lot of shade and I usually find it growing alongside the edges of woodland paths.

Whorled wood aster (Oclemena acuminata) gets its common name from the way its leaves appear to grow in whorls around the stem from above. In botany, a whorl is an arrangement of at least three sepals, petals, leaves, stipules or branches that radiate from a single point around the stem, and the leaves of this aster really don’t fit the definition. Looking at the from the side the tiers of whorled leaves of would appear flat like a plate, but these leaves appear randomly scattered up and down its length. Indian cucumbers have tiers of whorled leaves as do some loosestrifes. The plant is also called sharp leaved aster and grows to about a foot tall.

One of the most beautiful late summer wildflowers that I know of is called eastern forked blue curls (Trichostema dichotomum), but blue is my favorite color so my opinion is slightly biased. Each tiny flower has four long arching stamens that dust bees with pollen when they land on its lower lip. It is an annual plant that grows new from seed each year. It likes dry sandy soil and I find it growing along river banks and in waste areas. It grows to about ankle high and its flowers might reach a half an inch long on a good day.

Virgin’s bower (Clematis virginiana) is a late summer blooming native clematis vine that drapes itself over shrubs so it can get all of the sunshine that it wants. I’ve also seen it climbing into trees. An extract made from the plant is hallucinogenic and was used by Native Americans to induce dreams. Mixed with other plants like milkweed, it was also used medicinally. It is a very toxic plant that can cause painful sores in the mouth when eaten. It is also called old man’s beard and devils’ darning needles.

Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare) is also called bull thistle and is native to Europe. It is considered an invasive weed but it’s far less invasive than creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense) because it spreads itself by seeds and not root fragments like that plant does. It is thought to have been introduced to eastern North America during colonial times and to western North America in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It’s now found in all of the lower 28 states and most of Canada. Spear thistle likes to grow on disturbed ground and I find it in vacant lots and at the edges of cornfields. Many different bees and butterflies love its nectar and several species of small seed eating birds like finches love its seeds.

The flowers of spotted jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) have 3 sepals and 5 petals but are far too complicated to explain here. That information is easily found online anyway but what often isn’t included in the jewelweed flower’s description is the cluster of stamens with white anthers that sits just under the ovary near the upper lip. When a long tongued inset crawls into the flower to get at the nectar deep in the nectar spur its back gets dusted with pollen from these anthers. Sometimes the pollen can also end up on a humming bird’s head; they love the nectar too.

An interesting fact about jewelweed flowers is their ability to change from male to female. According to an article in the International Journal of Plant Sciences, when nectar is taken from a flower pollen collecting hairs are stimulated and the duration of the male phase of the flower is shortened. From then on it enters its female phase and waits for a visitor to dust it with pollen from another male flower. It’s no wonder these plants can produce so many seeds!

There are enough different goldenrods (over a hundred it is said) which look enough alike to convince me that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to identify them all, but some are quite easy to identify. One of the easiest is gray goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis). It’s one of the first to bloom and its flower heads always look like they have been in a gale force wind and were all blown over to one side of the stem.

After years of trial and error Thomas Edison found goldenrod to be the best domestic source of natural rubber and bred a plant that grew to twelve feet tall and contained about twelve percent rubber in its leaves. Henry Ford and George Washington Carver developed a process to make rubber from goldenrod on an industrial scale during World War II and the USDA took over the project until synthetic rubber was discovered a short time later.

Northern bugleweed (Lycopus uniflorus) has opposite leaves that turn 90 degrees to the previous pair as they make their way up the square stem. The leaves are sessile, meaning they sit directly on the stem with no leaf stem (petiole,) or they can occasionally have a short petiole. Tufts of very small white flowers grow around the stem in the leaf axils. This plant likes wet places and, since there are many different species of Lycopus, it can be hard to identify.

The tiny flowers of northern bugleweed are about 1/8 inch long and tubular with 4 lobes, a light green calyx with 5 teeth, 2 purple tipped stamens, and a pistil. They are also very difficult to photograph because they’re so small. The plant is usually about knee high when I find it along the edges of ponds and streams. They often fall over and grow at an angle if there aren’t any other plants nearby to support them.

Dodder (Cuscuta) is an annual and grows new from seed in the spring. It is a leafless vining plant that wraps and tangles itself around the stems of other plants. It is a parasite that pushes root like growths called haustoria into the stem of the host plant. Dodder can do a lot of damage to food crops and some of its other common names reflect how people have felt about it over the years: devil’s guts, devil’s hair, devil’s ringlet, hail weed, hair weed, hell bine, pull-down, strangle weed, and witch’s hair.

In this photo that I took a couple of years ago if you look just to the upper left of the white flower in the photo you can see how the orange dodder stem has burrowed into a goldenrod stem. Once it is feeding on its host it loses all connection to the soil and from then on will survive by sucking the life out of the host plant. Dodder has no chlorophyll and its stems can be bright orange, yellow, or red. The round growths are seed pods.

If you search for rosebay willow herb (Chamerion angustifolium) on the USDA Plants Database you find that the plant doesn’t grow in New Hampshire, but if you search for fireweed you find that it does grow here. That’s odd because they’re the same plant, and I thought that this was a good illustration of why it’s so important to use a plant’s scientific name, especially when buying plants. Otherwise you never really know what you’ll be getting. The name willowherb comes from the way its leaves resemble those of the willow and the name fireweed comes from how it quickly colonizes burned areas of forest.

I know of only one place along a stream in Nelson New Hampshire where fireweed grows but it isn’t included in the New Hampshire Natural Heritage Inventory list of rare plants, so I’m guessing that it isn’t rare statewide even though it is here. Henry David Thoreau mentions seeing great stands of it growing in burned areas in 1857. It’s a beautiful color and its dangling stamens and large white pistil make it very easy to identify. This plant is a favorite of bee keepers and is an important nectar producer for the honey industry throughout Canada and Alaska. The honey is much sought after and commands premium prices.

The bright sunshine turned the usually brownish maroon color of the insides of these groundnut (Apias americana) flowers salmon pink. These unusual flowers always remind me of the helmets once worn by Spanish explorers and in fact Spanish explorers might have seen the plant, because it was a very important food source for Native Americans from New England to Florida. It has been found in archeological digs of Native settlements dating back 9,000 years.

The groundnut plant grows as a twining vine and will climb just about anything. In this photo it is climbing a small oak tree. It grows from tuberous, potato like roots that can be as big as a tangerine but are usually smaller. Native Americans used them in the same ways we use potatoes today, but groundnut “potatoes” contain about three times the protein. Natives taught the early colonials how to use the groundnut and the roots became such an important food source for them that they went so far as to forbid Natives from digging them on colonial lands. How’s that for a thank you?

I can count the times I’ve seen gentians on one hand and still have fingers left uncounted. I’ll never forget finding these plants growing beside the same dirt road that I found the fireweed on up in Nelson last year. I jammed on my brakes and jumped out of my truck and fell to my knees beside them. If anyone had seen me they would have been sure that I had escaped from an asylum, but I didn’t care. That’s how rare these plants are. I drove for 45 minutes to see them again this year.

At first I thought they were bottle gentians (Gentiana andrewsii) but further research told me that they were narrow leaf gentians (Gentiana linearis.) These plants like moist, calcium rich soil and that’s one reason you don’t see them here very often. Another reason is that the flowers never open so insects have to force their way in, and it takes a strong insect like a bumblebee to do so. Third is how its seeds are too small to interest birds and its foliage too bitter to interest herbivores. Put all of that together and it’s a wonder that this plant is seen at all. It’s listed as rare, endangered or vulnerable in many areas. I love its beautiful deep blue color and I’m very grateful to have seen it. Now if only I could find a fringed gentian or two.

I should like to enjoy this summer flower by flower, as if it were to be the last one for me.~ Andre Gide

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Wilson Pond

Posted in Nature, Scenery / Landscapes, Wildflowers, tagged Arrowhead, Blueberries, Canon SX40 HS, Kayaking, Keene, Keene Electric Railroad, Marsh St. John's wort, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Skullcap, Swamp Rose, Swanzey New Hampshire, The Rec Swanzey New Hampshire, Trolley Cars in Keene NH, Wilson Pond on August 5, 2015| 30 Comments »

There is a pond to the south of Keene that comes with a lot of historical baggage. It’s called Wilson Pond and it’s one of my favorite places to swim and kayak, so I thought that it was time I told you about it. Though I’ve done a bit of research I haven’t been able to find out who the Wilson was that the pond is named after, but I do know that Wilsons are mentioned as living in the area as far back as the mid-1700s. I’m not going that far back though; I’ll start at about 1900.

Once upon a time, back at the turn of the century, Keene had an electric railway. One of the places the railway went was south to what is now North Swanzey, but was then called Factory Village because of all of the mills that used to be there.

The Keene Electric Railway company seems to have had financial problems from the beginning, mostly due to the lack of passengers, so in 1911 the company bought a large piece of land on the shore of Wilson Pond in Swanzey near the end of the trolley line. To entice customers to ride the trolley the company built a large recreational park on the property. It was about 15 minutes from Keene by trolley and was called the “rec” by locals. A six cent trolley ride would take you to a place where you could go bowling, shooting, roller skating, swimming, boating, attend a band concert, dance in a dance hall, and even watch a movie at an outdoor theater. On the fourth of July the town’s fireworks celebration were held there and by all accounts it was a very popular spot.

Though it was a popular playground for the people of Keene most of them visited the rec center only on weekends, so the Railway Company still lost money and continued doing so until in 1926 when the rail lines were finally abandoned. Busses took the place of the trolleys and people still went to the rec center until it fell out of favor and finally closed down. On December 21st, 1965 it burned until there was little left. The above photo is of the large outdoor theater. One local said that it would have been a great idea except for one thing: mosquitoes.

The remains of the outdoor theater can still be seen today if you know where to look, but it looks considerably different now. Nature is slowly reclaiming the land.

I’m guessing that the old building that once housed the movie projectors lost its roof in the fire. Nature is having its way with what is left.

Swamp roses (Rosa palustris) now grow where the rowboats and canoes were once moored.

Back in the days of the recreation center this land must have been treeless but now it is almost jungle like and many species of birds sing from the trees. I love kayaking through here because there are many canals and small islets to explore. There’s no telling what you might find in the way of plants and I’m often surprised by what I see.

On this trip I was surprised by the marsh St. John’s wort (Hypericum virginicum,) the only St. John’s wort I know of with pink instead of yellow flowers. It was a beautiful little thing but I had quite a lot of trouble getting a photo of it because of the bright sunshine. When I went back a second time when the sun wasn’t shining on it all of its flowers were closed, so I’m guessing that they only open on sunny days. As its common name implies it prefers wet areas and is considered a wetland indicator, so if you see it you’ll know that you’re in a wetland. This is the only time I’ve ever seen it and the only way I can get to see it again is by kayak.

Skullcap (Scutellaria) is another marsh plant that does well here. The cheery little blue and white flowers can be seen by the hundreds growing on the grassy hummocks.

There are many aquatic plants here too including one of my favorites, arrowheads (Sagittaria latifolia.) This plant is also called duck potato because ducks love to eat the potato like tuberous roots. On this day I saw many ducks in the area, and I wondered if they were waiting for me to leave so they could get at them. Native Americans also held thee roots in high regard as a food source.

This old hand colored postcard shows the pond’s island and the factories that once stood at its southern end. The factories produced mostly woodenware like boxes, pails, barrel staves, and chairs but there was also a grist mill and sawmill there. At one time the entire 72 acre pond was owned by the Keene Gas Company and a dam and hydro power turbine produced electricity.

This is a view of the island from near the same spot today, and I’m happy to say that there isn’t a factory to be seen. There used to also be a floating island in the pond but it was deemed a hazard to navigation and was towed to shore by a 33 horsepower motorboat, and then a steam shovel picked it out of the water piece by piece and it was hauled away by truck.

The island is known today for its bountiful blueberry bushes. In fact you can walk the shores of just about any lake or pond in New Hampshire and find blueberry bushes lining their shores. Though they are also fund on dry ground the shrubs seem to love growing near water. With a kayak and some patience you can pick them by the pail full.

Nowadays there is a different kind of recreation going on at Wilson Pond than there once was; now nature seems to be what draws he crowds. And the crowds still come; on any given summer day you can find them swimming by the boat landing near where the factories once stood, fishing from the pond’s shores, or floating along in kayaks like I do. All in all it’s a peaceful, serene place, and maybe that is what the real attraction has been all along.

Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. ~Stephen King,

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Things I’ve Seen

Posted in Nature, Things I've Seen, tagged Canon SX40 HS, Eyelash Fungi, Garter Snake, Grass Flowers, Great Blue Heron, Keene, Mushrooms, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Pinwheel Mushrooms, Pond Otter, Spotted Sandpiper, Tachina Fly, Virginia Ctenucha Moth, Yellow Club Coral Fungi on August 1, 2015| 32 Comments »

The Virginia ctenucha moth (Ctenucha virginica) is a pollinating wasp moth that feeds on nectar and flies during the day rather than at night. It’s the largest and most broad-winged of wasp moths in North America, with a wing span of up to two inches. It’s also a pretty moth with its orange head, metallic blue body, and grayish brown wings. There is another moth called the yellow-collared scape moth (Cisseps fulvicollis) that looks very similar but its wings are a darker bluish brown and sometimes black.

Maybe this is a juvenile spotted sandpiper or an adult that has already put on its winter feathers, or maybe it isn’t a spotted sandpiper at all. To be honest I’ve looked at bird pictures in books and online long enough for my eyes to cross and I’m close to being beyond caring what its name is. Whatever it is it’s a cute little thing, about the size of a robin maybe, which I saw at a local pond recently. It constantly wiggled its tail feathers up and down as it walked, which is something I’ve never seen a bird do.

Here is another shot of the same shore bird showing its back and wing feathers better. Its tail feathers came out blurred from its wiggling them up and down.

I’ve been watching this otter play in the same pond for over a year now. He’s a smart critter that always stays far out of camera range, but on this day he popped up just off shore to eat the pond weeds. He knew I was close and that I was watching him but he didn’t seem to mind. I never knew that otters ate pond weeds, so he taught me something.

Note: This could be a muskrat but otters (or one otter) have been seen many times in this pond, and further research shows that river otters do indeed eat aquatic plants. Who knew?

Right after I saw the otter I saw this female 12 spotted skimmer resting in the shade on a fence post. At least I think it’s a female 12 spotted skimmer; I’m never 100% certain when it comes to insect identification. It was a large dragonfly with eyes that looked like pearls and there was some white on its wings but it was very hard to see it in this light. It let me get closer than dragonflies usually do and since it was a very hot day and I wondered if it was trying to get out of the sunshine.

Note: Mike Powell says this is a juvenile male twelve spotted skimmer. Thanks Mike! If you like dragonflies Mike takes some great photos of them and they can be seen at https://michaelqpowell.wordpress.com/

This heron was just standing on some lily pads with its mouth open, which really doesn’t make for a very exciting photo. I thought I might get a shot of him doing something interesting if I waited around, so I waited and waited and waited. I had almost convinced myself that he was really just a statue of a heron when off he flew without ever doing anything interesting. Of course by that time the camera was hanging from my neck and I really wasn’t paying attention anyway, so I didn’t even get a shot of him flying away. If you need lessons in patience herons are always happy to teach.

I was kneeling down taking some photos of flowers and when I looked to the side I saw this garter snake eyeing me. He stayed absolutely frozen still as I switched cameras and took some photos of him. This was the biggest garter snake I’ve seen in a long time. He must have been a foot and a half long and I’d bet that the heron in the previous photo would have loved being as close to him as I was.

What I think is a tachina fly was also eyeing me one day from atop a small Queen Anne’s lace flower head. He was very hairy and willing to pose, so I snapped a few photos. Some species of tachinids attack moths that are responsible for cut worms, peach twig borers, and others that do damage to our fruit and vegetable crops.

Yellow club coral fungi (Clavaria amoena) have just started appearing in the well packed and always damp earth along the sides of woodland paths. I haven’t seen many coral fungi this summer though, in spite of weekly rain and plenty of heat and humidity.

I remembered to put a penny down by some yellow coral fungi so you could see just how small they are. This example would easily fit on the penny with room to spare. They look like tiny yellow flames coming up out of the earth.

These tiny pinwheel mushrooms (Marasmius rotula) reminded me of parachutes with the light from above coming through their pea size caps. I find these mushrooms growing in clusters on hardwood logs or leaves; often on oak leaves, but never on soil. The stem starts out light colored and darkens as it ages, so these examples had some age. They are able to withstand dry spells by shriveling up and all but disappearing, and when it rains they re-hydrate.

Though I saw some eyelash fungi (Scutellinia scutellata) at Distant Hill Gardens I never really thought I’d find them again because of their small size and because I have such trouble seeing red and orange, but I looked down at a wet twig lying in a seep and there they were. They were easy to see against the dark colored wood. It seems to prove once again that once you see a thing in nature you soon start seeing it everywhere. It’s all a matter of knowing where to look and the size of what you’re looking for.

I must have taken 20 shots of these tiny things before discovering that a side view was the best way to show the “eyelashes.” Eyelash fungi are considered cup fungi. The hairs can move and curl in towards the center of the disc shaped body but I can’t find a bit of information about what they’re for.

Grasses are still flowering. I’m not sure which one this is but I’ve learned enough from other grasses to know that the yellow parts at the ends of the whitish filaments are the pollen bearing male (staminate) flowers and the white feathery parts are the female (pistillate) flowers. One way grasses and trees protect against self-fertilization is by having the male flowers release their pollen before the female flowers become receptive to pollen blown on the wind from another plant.

Speaking of grasses, the first cutting of hay in this field revealed a little screen house off in the distance. There wouldn’t be anything unusual about that if I hadn’t driven by this field almost every day for over twenty years without ever seeing it. I’m often as amazed by discovering what I’ve missed as I am by what I’ve seen.

What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. … In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the coloring, sportsmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not always follow that we should see them. ~John Lubbock

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New Hampshire Garden Solutions

Exploring Nature in New Hampshire

Archive for August, 2015

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