Hello again, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving day. For those of you who didn’t catch why I suddenly went quiet; I’ve had to hole up for most of November due to eye surgery. I’ve taken a few short walks but most of the month was spent letting these eyes heal with minimal strain. This particular surgery was for both cataracts and glaucoma, and though the cataract portion seems to have gone well, so far the glaucoma portion appears to be less than satisfactory according to the doctors, so for now it’s wait and see.
Meanwhile while I’ve been cooped up I see that many of the trees have lost their leaves, especially the red and silver maples, birches, ash, sumacs, and others that are on the tender side.
Tougher trees like beech and oak still hold some color. I was amazed by the colors in this huge swath of oaks on the foothills of Mount Monadnock. This shot was taken from many miles away so it looks almost as hazy as my eyes were when I took it.
The beautiful and unexpected colors that the various oaks turn in the fall are always amazing.
Leaves like these always catch my eye and I hate to pass them by without getting a photo or two. I’ve had some people tell me that oak leaves never turn purple but they sure look purple to me. If there is one thing I’ve learned by studying nature it is that the words “never” and “always” don’t apply. You’re better off just dropping them from your vocabulary, because they’re meaningless. The moment you think you’ve got it all figured out nature will show you that you haven’t.
Something that always brightens winter is the bright red of winterberries. Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is a native holly that likes a lot of water. Birds love the bright red berries and it is an excellent choice for a landscape plant to attract them, especially if your yard has wet spots or if you live on the edge of a wetland.
Berries on trees in the juniper family are usually quite colorful as well. Juniper berries are often used by hunters to flavor wild game dishes, and are also used to flavor gin. Without the flavoring from juniper gin would be pretty much the same as vodka, so by law gin must contain juniper berries as flavoring. According to Wikipedia “In the United States of America, “gin” is defined as an alcoholic beverage of no less than 80 proof that possesses the characteristic flavor of juniper berries.“
Many birds love these berries as well. Last year I saw my first yellow rumped warbler on this bush.
Have you ever stood and watched the wind blow lake sedge this way and that? It’s an amazing show of light and color.
I took a walk along a trail through a small forest one cloudy day and found a few rarities, along with some very colorful leaves.
Tree clubmoss (Lycopodium dendroideum) grew everywhere along the trail.
Fan clubmoss (Lycopodium digitatum) grew in a good size colony in these woods but they stay to themselves and don’t seem to mix with other clubmosses. These and other clubmosses were once collected almost into oblivion so they could be used to make Christmas wreaths. People still do this in certain areas and the best way to stop the practice is to stop buying the wreaths. A Christmas or two with no sales would really get their attention, because there is a huge amount of hands on labor involved in making wreaths with clubmosses.
I saw some fairly fresh boletes. I didn’t try to identify them but if I had to bet I’d say they were one of the blue staining boletes, which usually have yellow stems and yellow flesh that will turn deep ink blue almost as soon as they are touched.
Chicken fat boletes (Suillus americanus) can grow in large numbers as these did. I secretly call them flapjacks because the way they stack on top of each other makes me think of a stack of pancakes. The common name comes from their color. They are edible and are said to have a “savory mushroom flavor.” They are also slimy and usually have forest litter stuck all over them. You wouldn’t catch me eating them no matter how much butter and maple syrup they had on them.
I thought maybe if the slip of the scalpel nicked the right nerve or if one of the many eyedrops I use worked in unexpected ways maybe my colorblindness would miraculously fade away but no, that feather moss still bright orange as it always does at this time of year. I didn’t pay a lot of attention with my hazy eyes but I think the fungi might have been artist’s conks (Ganoderma applanatum,) so called because you can draw on the pure white underside with a sharp stick. These bracket fungi can get as big as a dinner plate and once dry they, and whatever is drawn on them, can last for many years.
The leaves of striped wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) change from green to purple when it starts to get cold. The colder it gets the more purple the foliage becomes and you can see that happening in this photo. This plant is on the rare side here but I noticed the two or three small groups I found 12-15 years ago have grown larger and now are spreading throughout the forest.
We haven’t had any real cold yet but ponds are freezing over and occasional snow squalls blow through. Winters are far from “average” these days.
American wintergreen is also called teaberry or checkerberry, and its leaves also change color when it gets cold. They first go from green to red and then slowly turn to deep purple. My daughter had to drive for an hour and a half one way each of the many times I went to see the eye surgeon, and we saw huge colonies of these plants all wearing dark purple along the sides of the highway. They and many other plants change color in winter to protect themselves from sunburn and in places that are mowed regularly they really stand out.
Downy rattlesnake plantain orchid (Goodyera pubescens) will stay just like this all winter, happy under the snow. (If we get any.) It’s a pretty plant that seems indestructible.
Stiff clubmoss (Spinulum annotinum) is so rare here I’ve seen only one small colony in this one spot. I misidentified this one as shining clubmoss until I found spore bearing “clubs” (strobili) on it one year. Shining clubmoss produces spores on its leaves and reproduces vegetatively so it doesn’t need clubs.
Dandelion is the only flower I’ve found blooming in every month of the year. Here is the entry for November this year.
Native little bluestem grass (Schizachyrium scoparium) foliage can indeed appear blue, but at this time of year when stems and seedheads are all that’s left it glows in luminous pink ribbons along our roadsides and in old pastures. After a frost it can take on a darker reddish purple hue, which makes it even more beautiful.
It is the way little bluestem’s silvery seed heads reflect and scatter light that makes it glow so beautifully. I’ve been thinking a lot about eyes and light lately while sitting in all those waiting and recovery rooms and this photo reminds me that everything we see with our eyes is really just reflected light. The brain converts this light into electrical signals in the retina. Those electrical signals are are transmitted through the optic nerve to the visual cortex where they are sorted out into “pictures,” both moving and still. Glaucoma can destroy the optic nerve if left untreated and once that happens there is no longer any light being transmitted to the visual cortex. No light means no sight.
I hope I’ve helped all of you realize the importance of yearly eye exams. I watched my father go blind from glaucoma and I can say with all sincerity, it ain’t no fun.
I found a maple dust lichen (Lecanora thysanophora) on a tree. These are one of my favorites, beautiful in their simplicity. There is a pale greenish body with a white fringe around it, so it doesn’t bend the mind when trying to identify it. The white fringe is called the prothallus and seeing it is a great way to identify this lichen. This lichen likes to grow on smooth barked trees. The spidery leaves encroaching on it are Frullania liverworts, which are very common.
I had to go to the local hospital for a physical the other day and since I know the lichens that grow on the trees there I was glad to have the chance to see them again. But of course I forgot my camera and I had just a few extra minutes, so I had to do a quick “snatch and grab” with my cell phone camera. I was especially interested in the the tufted ramalina lichens (Ramalina americana) because everything I’ve read about them says they shouldn’t be growing here in a parking lot surrounded by cars. They are very susceptible to air pollution and many have died off because of it. In fact this is the only place I’ve ever seen them.
Tufted ramalina lichen has a green body (thallus) with flattened strap like branches and white fruiting bodies (apothecia) and there are many here in all stages of growth. The only thing that makes sense to me when I see this lichen in this spot is that they can thrive here because lead has been removed from gasoline. Unleaded gas might be why these “very susceptible” lichens are thriving where they are, bathed in car exhaust all day every day. Maybe it was the lead that was killing them off. And not only are they thriving but many other lichen species are as well. They really seem to love it here, and since lichens are a in general a good indicator of air quality, that just seems odd. I’ve never seen a study done on how lead affects lichens. Starting one could turn out to be a feather in the cap of a first year biology student.
Star rosette lichen (Physcia stellaris) is another of my favorites. It’s another I find on the trees at the local hospital and it’s usually easy to spot with its big dark, eye like apothecia. Though their natural color is brown they can be gray and sometimes they appear more blue than gray. That’s because they have a powdery wax coating that can cause their color to change depending on the light. Plant parts with this powdery waxy coating are said to be pruinose and a good example of it is the “bloom” on blueberries, grapes, plums, and other fruit. This example seen here shows nearly their whole color range. The trees in this spot are so covered with lichens and mosses in places you can’t even see their bark.
I went to Beaver Brook thinking I might see icicles on the ledges but instead I had to settle for Ice baubles hanging from fallen branches. This was a very dim, cloudy day and my camera (and my eyes) struggled in the low light.
Earlier this month I sat at a picnic table and left when I realized that I was late putting eye drops in my eyes. I walked away leaving my camera on the picnic table, not catching my blunder until hours later. I thought it was gone for good but with the help of social media and three helpful people, it was returned to me. There’s always something to be thankful for.
It isn’t hard to find something to be thankful for each and every day without having to think too hard about it. Gratitude comes easily, and it is a key that will open many doors. I know of people my age who are housebound, or worse. The other day I ran into an old friend who’d had a stroke and had spent months in a hospital. Knowing such things, it’s easy to be grateful for just being able to still see, and to be able to get out and walk.
This colorful turkey tail was my favorite find on this day, but it really doesn’t matter because no matter where you go at any given time there is beauty to be seen, and that’s because everything has beauty. How can you lose? Time spent with nature is never wasted.
I didn’t think it had been cold enough to turn white pine sap blue as often happens in winter but I saw a tree that was just dripping with it. When I got close I saw that there was also a feather on the tree. Since there were a lot of pileated woodpecker holes in the tree I thought it might be a woodpecker feather. All the sap I saw was leaking from those woodpecker holes.
Near the pine was an oak with a deep frost crack in it. These cracks happen when temperatures cause rapid shrinkage or expansion in the wood as opposed to the bark, and when walking down winter roads at night you can sometimes hear them go off with a loud crack like a rifle shot. What will happen on this young strong tree is tissue will grow and heal over the crack to the point where it will stand proud of the surrounding bark, and then it will be known as a frost rib.
A beautiful, colorful beech tree in the sunlight on a cold November day. It was enough, and I was grateful for it.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. ~Tecumseh, Shawnee
Thanks for coming by.
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 