plants
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Bottle-brush
This Eastern Redcedar has mostly been taken over by a vine, possibly poison ivy, but I wasn’t going to get that close to find out.
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I Like Lichens
It being such a mizzling day, I needed some color. Luckily, this kind of weather brings out the vibrancy of the lichens on our street trees.Air pollution is generally bad news for lichens, as is ozone depletion. Walking through City Hall Park in Manhattan just before I took these shots on Union Street in Brooklyn,…
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Ever green at JBWR
Transitioning away from my posts on the trip to St. John, what could more appropriate than Yucca, Yucca filamentosa, or Adam’s Needle? It looks like it belongs down there in the tropics. In fact, it grows up here at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Baring a patch or two of grass and some pines, this plant…
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Februarius Mirabilis
Are you old enough to remember when winter used to be winter, damn it, and spring, spring? On the way to Prospect Park today, the second day of February, I saw the flowering quince on Congress St. in bloom:And then, in a tree pit in Windsor Terrace, some bulbs were pushing up into the light:In…
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Ground Pines Up Close
Looking like a baby pine tree, these tree clubmosses, Lycopodium obscurum, are in fact also known as ground pines or creeping cedars.What we see sprouting from the ground of the woods is the sporophyte; most of the action is going on underground, where rhizomes spread unseen. When you see a cluster of these, they are…
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Downy parachute
This is the seed of a milkweed, several different species of which are found in Brooklyn Bridge Park. According to this site, it’s a parachute seed, one of seven different wind-dispersal types.A framed version that I found down the block. Looks homemade, using the same techniques my old stained glass artist of a roommate used.…
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Navy Yard
The human/nature… intersection? continuum? state-of-being? Whatever you want to call, it certainly is. What it means here on this blog is that I always keep a weather-eye out for manifestations when I’m up to other things. So, checking out the new museum at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, I found this Henson Creature Shop animatronic pigeon.…
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Cattails in Autumn
The rooftop cattail colony on Furman St. Uh-oh, is that phragmites in the corner? There goes the neighborhood!
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Autumnal Details
Autumn lingers…. I keep expecting to be greeted by an embrowned world when I venture outside.
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Back 40 Update
A better view of the pin oak sapling. The Staten Island native meadow mix bed. This is my biggest pot; like most everything in my backyard, it was found on the street and recycled. While moving some soil, I found a number of grubs who had buried into the earth for the winter:They buried themselves…
Backyard and Beyond 