Fieldnotes
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The future
To be honest, until fairly recently I thought buds grew in the spring. In fact they are produced in the later summer and early fall. They winter over, cold-hardy, then burst forth unraveling the spring. These are particularly large examples, approaching an inch in length, but many are much smaller and harder to see. Above…
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Nuts! Kentucky Coffeetree
The Kentucky Coffeetree, Gymnocladus diocius, produces a pod that usually gets three times as big as this and stays on the tree through the winter. This developing one was probably downed by the wind.A larger one wrenched opened by a mammal (me, duh!). The thumbnail-sized seeds within were sometimes used, after roasting, as a coffee…
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Spotted Mystery
A storm-toppled tree in the Ravine in Prospect Park made a natural bridge for squirrels and chipmunks before it was sliced up. The horizontal trunk was also being used for a plucking station, as these remains attest. The main predators of birds in the park include other birds, raccoons (but mostly of nestlings), and cats.…
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Nuts! Hazel
Exotic and glorious, the Turkish hazel, Corylus corlurna. I’ve seen them in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, but this one I found in Green-Wood. Sibley notes that this species is used as rootstock for commercial hazelnut production. (I love hazelnuts, particularly when drowned in chocolate.)
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Cyclops
Do you know how hard it is to get a photo of a Common Green Darner? Anax junius. Well, for one thing, they are not one of the perching dragonflies, but every once and a while they do have to take a break. At about three inches long, these are one of the largest species…
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Aedes albopitcus
Though locked in ceaseless struggle with these dipterous beasts — mid-air slapdown palm smear wins this round, but I couldn’t take pic with my left hand — vectors of dengue fever, dog heartworm, eastern equine encephalitis, West Nile virus, and infuriating itchiness (finger and toe joints the worst!), I can’t help but admire them for…
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Hedge Apple
The fruits of the Osage Orange are falling. They are sap-sticky and alien-brainy when fresh.
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WTF?
Is it the curse of Backyard and Beyond? Today I walked by the site of the Chinese persimmon I photographed Tuesday and blogged about yesterday. It was gone. Uprooted, like the Billionaire Mayor wants to do to the Occupy Wall Street movement. There was a hole in the soil in the large wooden planter, a…
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Iceless Age
My apocalyptic post on the acidification of the seas, complete with junior home science experiement, turns out to be old news. Earth has been there, done that. Fifty-six million years ago, to be somewhat exact about it. This month’s National Geographic details the PETM: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, in which a huge influx of carbon…
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Bergen Persimmon
Seen yesterday on Bergen Street, a persimmon. Diospyros kaki. A common name reported by Sibley is “tomato tree” and this un-ripened fruit shows why. The Chinese or Japanese persimmon is obviously native to those parts of the world and is the source of commercial persimmons, a delicacy, I’m told (they don’t travel well). Now, there…
Backyard and Beyond 