Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

flowers

  • Green-Wood

    Fringetree. Galls clustering on a hickory. The leaves of one of that cluster of Common Persimmon trees. A Great Egret being photogenic as always. Water Lily in the Valley Water; there were only a few blossoms yet. American Lady butterflies amid a horde of honey and bumble bees.

    mthew

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  • Roses

    Roses are everywhere in my neighborhood. Here’s a hybrid of these over-fiddled with flowers that I particularly like, found overflowing on the Block of Perpetual Renovation. They remind me of Rosa rugosa.

    mthew

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  • On Nantucket

    Going to Nantucket is like going two weeks back into the past. Spring comes a little later there, even in this year of early spring. Although just a touch more north of us here in NYC, the island is thirty miles off-shore and surrounded by an ocean holding onto its cold. The Japanese Flowering Cherries…

    mthew

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  • Now Blooming, Now Flying

    In Prospect Park this morning:Wild Geranium, a.k.a. Spotted Cranesbill (Geranium maculatum).Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis), as punctual a name as the very, very similar Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma): (picture from my archives)– so named because of small silvery marks on their underside of their hindwings, unseen while wings are spread.Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis). Red Admiral…

    mthew

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  • The Weekend in Blooms

    Bursting out all over the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, azaleas (genus Rhododendron). Meanwhile, the hawthorns (genus Crataegus) in Prospect Park. Also in Prospect, some other kind of azalea. Butterflies, ladybugs, flies, and bees were happy to see these blossoms, too.

    mthew

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  • More Tulip

    I like these things.

    mthew

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  • Tulip

    Eye-candy on the street.

    mthew

  • Prom Dresses

    Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Japanes Flowering Cherry (Prunus) on Pacific Street.

    mthew

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  • Spring Beauties

    We found two woodland wildflowers in bloom yesterday on Staten Island:Trout Lily, a.k.a. Yellow Adder’s Toungue (!) Erythronium americanum. Lots of these handsome, mottled leaves poking out of the carpet of leaf litter. Note that the particular plants above are single-leaf. It’s the ones with two leaves that produce a flower:A buzz of insects were…

    mthew

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  • Skunk Cabbage, Take Two

    So I just missed the blooming of the skunk cabbage this year. In fact, I’ve never seen it. The photo in my previous post was taken in the Native Flora Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Tuesday; there were just a few post-bloom leaves there. The pictures in this post come from today on…

    mthew

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