plants
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A Great Wall
Sunset Park is buttressed by a rough stone retaining wall that has become the home of numerous lifeforms. Above is the southwest-facing flank. Here’s the northeast wall, along 41st St. That’s where all the following were found:The presence of lichen, which doesn’t tolerate pollution, means the air here is relatively good. Indeed, elevated near the…
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Butterfly Dependence
A short walk on the High Line yesterday morning:There were several Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta); this one was all over the Purple Coneflower (Echinacea).Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). Not as close to the camera: my first Monarch of the year. On Blazing Star (Liatris spicata).
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Milkweeds
While I was away, the milkweeds of Brooklyn all came out. Some of them in Brooklyn Bridge Park are nearly as tall as I am. But here is my favorite, Butterfly Weed, which usually stays pretty close to the ground: Asclepias tuberosa.
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Poison Ivy
The bright shiny new leaves of Toxicodendron radicans in its tree-climbing vine form.
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Springing
When last we saw some blooming Round-lobed Hepatica, it was the white variety in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Over the weekend, we found a little cluster of the pink variation further north in Black Rock Forest.We initially took this pleated beauty for Skunk Cabbage, but further research by the Horticulturalist tells us this is actually False…
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Earth Day
In reality, of course, everyday is Earth Day.From the Black Rock Forest, here’s an emerging Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense) flower. An Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis).And some Green Frogs (Rana clamitans), before or after amplexus?
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Skunk Cabbage Again
The spathes of Symplocarpus foetidus surround a spadix, which produces first female and then male flowers.I’m afraid a fence keeps me from getting closer, but a portion of a grenade-like spadix can be seen here. It’s this that produces the heat, through rapid respiration (burning carbohydrates via oxidation), that give this plant its early spring,…
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Skunk Heaven
Hear ye, hear ye! The Skunk Cabbage is up at the Native Flora Garden at Ye Brooklyn Wedding Venue! Symplocarpus foetidus favors wetlands, as this plant demonstrates from mid-gurgle of the stream.Of course, this earliest of spring plants was up already down south weeks ago, but Brooklyn is where I am, so I celebrate it’s…
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Signs and Meanings
“‘You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.’” ~ A.C. Doyle.
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Common Reed
It’s certainly photogenic, if nothing else. You don’t find much life in a patch of Phragmites, although Downy Woodpeckers and, as here, a Black-capped Chickadee in winter extremis, peck and poke among the dry stalks for evidence of invertebrates.
Backyard and Beyond 