Red maple.
Wych elm.
Apple.
Cherry.
Star magnolia.
Ginkgo.
Henbit deadnettle. (These are tiny, you’ll need to get down on your knees to see the detail.)
Posts Tagged 'plants'
February Blooms
Published February 11, 2020 Fieldnotes 3 CommentsTags: Brooklyn, flowers, Green-Wood, plants
Crocus.
Prunus.
Veronica.
Whoa! Make sure the five foot long branches of poison ivy coming off the vine twirled up this old pine don’t get ya!
This is one of the best examples of the vine form of Toxicodendron radicans I’ve ever seen. It’s wild and wooly and has a hell of a wingspan. It would be easy to assume that these are just sprouts from the tree, but no sir, they ain’t.
Red tendrils are hairy, so scary.
Well, perhaps not as memorable as “leaves of three, leave it be” as a mnemonic for identifying poison ivy, but there you go. The climbing form of Toxicodendron radicans loves a good tree.
***
The USDA’s animal-killing division, named Wildlife Services in a touch of the Orwellian, wants to know what to do about all the supposedly destructive birds in New York State. They’ve had complaints about half the species found here. Their options for “bird damage management” range from doing nothing to killing everything. Here’s the draft report. Unfortunately, the comment period is already closed. Gives a good sense of the bureaucratic mindset, though.
Obviously, we’ve created some problems by introducing species that have become invasive. Management — stewardship would be a better word — is unfortunately necessary in the Anthropocene because the wild is very much in our hands. But look at their list of offending birds… it’s deranged.
Indian pipe in fruit.
A spider wasp of some kind, found dead on this car. The pearly paint really shows up in detail; I bet its production is toxic as hell. The Pompilidae family of spider wasps has some 5000 species in it…
There are a number of fungi that stain wood various colors. Denim blue may be the best known of these colors. Possibly something in the Chlorociboria genus.
An old park sign.
This pollen-smeared bee kept going into and under these clumps in the hexpavers. Searching for a place to quarry a nest?
Shadow of a skipper.
Fruit of False Solomon’s seal (Maianthemum racemosum). They’ll redden up as they get riper. Who eats these? Ruffed grouse and other birds, white-foot mice and a few other mammals. We don’t have grouse in the city. Of the leaves: deer sometimes eat them but not often, and other herbivores leave them alone. Penn State says “this lack of herbivore pressure greatly assists the continued persistence and growing abundance of false Solomon’s seal in its forest habitats.”
Room with overhanging roof…
Fall webworm around a walnut.
A silky hideaway.
Greta Thunberg on the Malizia II passing the Statue of Liberty yesterday afternoon. This is the view from the moraine.
If you build it, they will come… sometimes
Published June 23, 2019 Fieldnotes Leave a CommentTags: birds, Brooklyn, flowers, plants
But not always. This wannabe Purple Martin colony waits patiently at the Narrows Botanical Garden. The half dozen bird-shapes are decoys It’s thought that the birds like to see that someone has done some recon. The so-called “scout” phenomenon of martins who arrive weeks in advance of others at a colony is, in explained by this: veteran birds returning to their nesting colony do it faster than the year-olds. Having made it back once, they’re able to do the migration rather quicker in subsequent years. (The oldest Purple Martin on record was 13-years-old.)
I don’t know of any Purple Martins nesting in Brooklyn. It’s certainly possible to see them passing through during migration. Meanwhile, here’s an established colony on Staten Island. Here’s another at Great Swamp.
Meadows, meanwhile, are a very good bet for attracting: pollinators; the creatures that eat pollinators; creatures that eat plants; creatures that lay their eggs on plants. It cascades, it becomes more complicated, it triumphs over the sterile, water-wasting, poison-filled grass lawn.
This hillside in Green-Wood is looking good. More than 99% of the place is still grass, though. Gotta start convincing people that life is better than lawn, and Green-Wood that its honeybee hives are a mistake.
PSA
Published June 17, 2019 Fieldnotes Leave a CommentTags: Brooklyn, fruits, mammals, plants, trees
The serviceberries are ripe.
Cottonwood Air
Published June 10, 2019 Fieldnotes 4 CommentsTags: Brooklyn, Bush Terminal Park, plants, trees
There was so much Eastern Cotton fluff, it was easy to scoop up a handful off the ground. A single mature Populus deltoides can produce an estimated 40 million seeds in a season. The seed is inside the dried fruit or achene attached to cotton-like filaments that help transport it through the air.
Here’s my attempt to photograph the stuff in the air at Bush Terminal Park recently. Cottonwood time is a virtual snow storm.
And looking the other way: a thicket of the fast-growing saplings beyond the fence.
Liriodendron tulipifera.
And something in the Theaceae family…
***
As you know, the well of the federal judiciary is being poisoned by reactionary ideologues, shoveled in by Mitch McConnell’s corrupt control of the Senate as part of the culmination of the Federalist Society’s long effort to return control of the law to the corporations and plutocrats, like in the good old days of the 19th century. This article argues that impeachment isn’t the only way of getting these bastards.
A jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) wonderland. But shouldn’t they get darker, more stripey? Or does that come with age?
The smell of the flowers of Liriodendron tulipifera incites reveries in my smell-brain. Where do I know that smell from? The ants, too, are intrigued. Wonder what they think when they fall out of the sky?
While we’re on the subject of the Magnoliaceae, will you look at these dinosaur plants? 
Umbrella magnolias, Magnolia tripetala, an understory tree.
I’d never seen these before.
En garde!
Another understory tree along the same path: pawpaw (Asimina triloba).
Flowers of. Now, I have seen these before, but only in botanical garden and arboretum settings. Here in Williamsburg, VA, they were all along this path, like the jacks, tulipitrees, and magnolias. Funny thing: we found this woodland path via the hotel book; they recommend it for joggers — good gravy, think of all they miss as they stomp through!
Ferns and pines elsewhere in the state.
***
Backyard and Beyond 