April Violets!

When I was in high school (way back in the 1950s), I used to love a perfume called Yardley's April Violets.  It had a marvelously sweet fragrance, so I always poked my nose in the violets that popped up in the Michigan woods where I grew up, hoping to find a violet that smelled as wonderful as that. I never did. At least, not back there. But 40 years or so later, while walking a woods where I now live in Saratoga Springs, New York, I did find a violet that smelled just as sweet as that.  (No wonder its name is Viola odorata!)  A very early bloomer -- usually in early April -- it looked a bit different than other small white violets I'd find a week or more later, native species like Viola pallens and Viola blanda.  Most notably, its petals were snowy white with absolutely no dark veining, as these flowers I photographed yesterday demonstrate. That remarkably warm day, with temps near 80, had inspired a whole patch of them to bloom.

Another distinctive feature of these otherwise snowy-white basal-leaved violets is that the spur is a deep purple.

It took me several years to learn the actual name of this species, thanks to help from professional botanists Steve Young and Harvey Ballard, who told me to look for the distinctly hooked style, a feature that helps to distinguish Viola odorata from our native North American small white violets.  

 So yes, this is not one of our native wild violets (in fact, its vernacular name is English Violet), but I didn't care.  After all, I'd been looking for this flower for over 60 years!

Yet another surprise awaited me a couple of years later, when I happened upon another patch of early-April-blooming, super-fragrant violets, only these were an entire college-campus distance away.  And they were not white, but purple!  But only a moment's research informed me that the flowers of Viola odorata could be either white OR purple.

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And a close inspection revealed the clincher:  that distinctly curved style that distinguishes this species of violet.  Along with its marvelous fragrance. And the purple variety seemed to be even more fragrant than the white one.

Viola odorata's fragrance is so heady, just a tiny nosegay (like this one I brought home a few years ago) could perfume an entire room.  I normally would never pick any wildflowers, but these were growing near the edge of a busy road where crews were trimming back trees, and heavy equipment would soon have run over them.  Just looking at my photo of this tiny bouquet elicits an actual experience of their sweet scent.

As it happens, I do have a patch of native North American violets blooming in my Saratoga Springs backyard today.  And they are both white and purple!   Sadly, though, I never have detected any fragrance from them. But there's no denying the welcome beauty and generous growth habit of our native Viola sororia, otherwise known as the Common Blue Violet, which will shortly be gracing every untended lawn and alley edge. They appear without our bidding or effort, mostly the blue variety but occasionally this bi-colored variety with the vernacular name of Confederate Violet (V. sororia f. priceana).  They don't usually bloom quite this early in April, but hey, who's complaining?

I Can See Clearly Now, The Pain is Gone!

Hurray and Hallelujah!  The stem-cell therapy I mentioned in my last post has worked to relieve my severe eye pain, and over time, the stem cells, now absorbed by my own eye, should assist my injured cornea to heal deeply and completely. Thanks be to God!  And to Google, where I learned there was actually a name -- Recurring Corneal Erosion (RCE) -- for my eye condition.  And to a bright young ophthalmologist named Brett Campbell who confirmed my suspicion and knew exactly how to treat it.   After just three days of wearing a stem-cell infused contact lens, the severe pain that had caused me to limit my activities was completely gone, and now my cornea, having absorbed those cells, should continue to achieve deep healing.   I now was pain-free enough to wander the woods once again, looking for new signs of Spring.  And find them, I did!  In two separate locations over the weekend.

Ballston Creek Preserve

My friend Sue Pierce, shown here teetering across a muddy spot on the trail, has volunteered to lead a nature walk at this preserve in a few days. When she signed up to do so, she had every expectation that the pretty wildflower called Carolina Spring Beauty (Claytonia caroliniana) would be carpeting the forest floor in uncountable numbers.  We had come to see if her expectations might be met.  The deep snows that fell two weeks ago had melted, but had their cold delayed the Spring Beauty's flowering? We'd soon find out.

 

We made our way from the trailhead all the way to this open marsh.  We had yet to see the masses of Spring Beauties we had hoped to find, but an open marsh in the spring is always a great place to observe lots of birds.  We could hear many more of them than I could see, but Sue reported the calls of Wood Ducks and Brown Creepers, and of course even I could hear and identify the quacking of Mallards and the honking of Canada Geese. We'd been hoping to hear the loud croaks of mating Wood Frogs in the nearby vernal pools, but the previous night's cold must have dampened their ardor for now.

We both gazed with some regret at the dead trees that stood in the marsh, recalling how they had once supported the nests of an amazing group of large birds: Great Blue Herons, Ospreys, and one Great Horned Owl and her fuzzy babies. Sadly, over the years, windstorms have toppled many of the trees or torn off the lateral branches that once supported the huge nests of these giant birds. We have not seen the nests of any of these birds at this locations for several years. (Here's an old post of mine that shows how abundantly the birds once nested here.)

As we walked the wooded trail on this cloud-covered chilly morning, we did spy evidence of spring wildflowers that will soon be bearing flowers.  The speckled Trout Lily leaves have only just emerged, while the wintered-over mottled leaves of Round-lobed Hepatica reveal the spots where new spring blooms will soon spring forth. If we searched beneath the leaf cover, we could see some fur-covered hepatica buds, but no open flowers as yet.

And lo!  We did see a few bud-bearing plants of Carolina Spring Beauties.  But would they be in full bloom in time for our coming nature walk? It didn't look promising.

As it happened, though, the sun soon broke through the clouds, and it was as if Mother Nature had waved her magic wand!  Where we, on our first pass through this wood, had searched in vain for the lovely pink-anthered, purple-striped blooms of Spring Beauty, now we found them abounding throughout the woods. The few tight buds we'd earlier found had opened to display how this flower was worthy of its name.

So unless we have another deep snow,  I have no doubts our friends will find much to delight them when we return in just a few days.

The Skidmore Woods

Sunday was so sunny and warm,  I just had to head to the Skidmore woods to see how the wildflowers there were responding to this delightful change in our weather. One of the earliest flowers to bloom in this woods is a small fragrant violet called English Violet (Viola odorata), so I stopped off first at the spot  where I know it to grow.  Its leaves were quite evident, but no open flowers beckoned me to peer closer and I turned to leave.  But aha!  There was a spot of white amid the green leaves that called me down to my knees.  And there it was!  The white form of an English Violet, not yet open to show off its pure white unveined face, but its distinctive purple spur was clearly evident.  I will come back soon to delight in its beauty as well as its exquisite fragrance.

I fully expected to see open blooms on two hepatica plants that had actually started barely blooming before our Palm Sunday snowfall.  And I sure did see some!  Quite a few pretty pinkish eight-sepaled blooms were now wide open on one Round-lobed Hepatica plant (Hepatica americana).

And this nearby six-sepaled Sharp-lobed Hepatica plant (H. acutiloba) had wide-open flowers of a gorgeous blue hue.

Another early bloomer in this woods is the Giant Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum giganteum), so I hurried along the trail to where I know a large patch of them will emerge. At first examination I felt only disappointment.  But then I spied this wee little sprout poking up from the leaf litter, and there was no mistaking the purplish color of its still-folded leaves and buds.  And look! An already pollen-yellowed anther could hardly wait to escape its bud.  This species of Blue Cohosh has flowers that open wide even before its leaves completely unfurl.

There was one more early bloomer I hoped to find starting to flower, so I continued along the trail to where I knew many shrubs of Leatherwood (Dircus palustris) were known to grow. Would any of these native shrubs have survived deer-browsing over the winter?  I began to fear for them as I passed many shredded Leatherwood remnants stripped of all budding twigs.  Ah, but then a flash of bright yellow off in the woods caught my eye. Hurrah!  Here was a patch of mostly intact Leatherwood shrubs, and clusters of pollen-laden anthers were spilling out of fat fur-covered buds.

And oh!  I then spied a whole shrub entirely festooned with dangling bright-yellow trumpet-shaped Leatherwood blooms.  What a sight for my once-sore eyes! It felt as if this lovely shrub was celebrating with me.

To top off my visit, here was a beautiful Mourning Cloak Butterfly, recently roused from its wintertime rest to waft about the warming woods, sipping sap from trees and spreading its brown-velvet wings to absorb the warming rays of the sun. Life is good!

Where Was I?

Oh gosh, where was I, last time I posted here?  I think I was celebrating that flower buds were opening  and feeling happy that Spring was truly arriving. And then, the snow we missed out on all winter came down all at once on March 23:  about 18 inches of it.

Discouragement and an eye-pain problem dissuaded me from any nature adventures since then, but I am happy to report that the snow is mostly gone by now, and that the budding flowers took it all in stride. By yesterday, the Hepaticas and Snow Trilliums had opened their beautiful blooms.

Snow Trillium (Trillium nivale) always lives up to its name and opens its miniature flowers even as snow remains in shadier parts of the wood.  You can note how truly tiny this flower is, by comparing it with the acorn cap lying beside it on the pine needles.

I also returned to the Skidmore woods to see how the furry just-peeking-open Round-lobed Hepatica buds had fared beneath the snow.  And there they were, buds unfurled, flowers wide open, turning their lovely faces to the sun, as if no snow had deeply buried them for over a week:

I am so glad I did get to see these pretty blooms now, because I don't know when I'll be able to see them very well again for a while.  The eye pain I mentioned above has been caused by an injury to my right-eye cornea that originally happened over a year ago, but which has failed to heal completely.  The cornea's surface healed over promptly, but the underlying layers have never adhered properly, so that even minor irritations -- like over-dry eyes that make the eyelid feel scratchy, or the pressure test my ophthalmologist uses to test for glaucoma -- re-injure the cornea, causing both temporarily blurred vision and severe pain. So my doctor has proposed a treatment that should help the cornea fully heal: a stem-cell-infused contact lens that should both protect the cornea from further abrasion while it stimulates deep healing of all layers.  And to support this healing process, my eye will be covered with an opaque patch for several days.  Further complicating my life, my vision through the opposite eye is already impaired by wrinkled scar tissue on the retina, so I cannot really read with that eye, since the print is blurred and wobbles up and down.  Neither can I comfortably write on my computer using just that eye, nor focus my camera to take new photos.  So once again, I have to take a break from nature adventures, photography, writing, and posting new entries on this blog.  I promise, though, to return as soon as I can. The floral explosion is fast upon us now. Readers can search 15 years of previous posts to learn what plants should be emerging on similar dates.  I sure hope to be back soon, with vision restored and pain relieved, to report on new adventures.

Skunk Cabbage Paradise!

I know, I know, I've been posting photos of Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) for a couple of weeks now. But all those specimens were total wimps compared to the gigantic ones that thrive in a swale at the Orra Phelps Nature Preserve in Wilton.  I'm not sure what kind of nutrients this particular mud provides, but the Skunk Cabbage plants that grow here are prodigious both in size and in the number of spathes that constitute a cluster.  By my count, I discern EIGHT flowering spathes in this one.

As for size of individual spathes, just look at how tall these gorgeously scarlet ones have grown!

And this was my lucky day for photographing a cluster with spathes so wide open that their flowering spadices within were completely visible.  How often have I found examples where both sexes of the florets -- pistillate (top left) and staminate -- were displaying within the same plant at the same time?  Never, before I encountered this lovely clump.

Sadly, while trying to get close enough to photograph these plants, I inadvertently stepped on one. In that mishap,  my big foot crushed the spathe but did not damage the spadix within.  And what a find this spadix was!  Never before had I encountered a spadix displaying the spent pistillate florets yielding to the staminate ones emerging around the base of the pistillate ones! How cool it that?

Finds of the Fault Line and Forest Floor

'Twas a good day for the wearin' o' the green!  So what better day than St. Patrick's Day to visit the woods at Skidmore College, where the forest floor is paved with calcareous boulders covered with moss as green as any moss that grows on the Emerald Isle!

The Skidmore campus lies right along the geological fault that brought all the mineral springs to the city of Saratoga Springs and also paved the college's 200-acre woods with limestone and chert-embedded dolomite rocks.  One might think that dry, hard rocks would not be hospitable as a home for growing plants, but here it is obvious that many mosses, liverworts, and lichens just adore it atop these rocks!  As do some ferns and a few flowering plants.  I came here today to see if any of the flowering plants were actually blooming yet.

The mosses, liverworts, and lichens were certainly looking happy.  And many of these organisms happily shared their rocks with one another, as this brown Dog Lichen-embedded, green Poodle Moss-carpeted boulder displayed.

This rock that was almost completely covered with Porella liverwort made room for a bit of Hedwigia moss.

Some fluffy clumps of Wind-swept Broom Moss clung to chunks of pale-gray rock.

And this gorgeous patch of Baby-tooth Moss is so happy here, it has produced just scads of spore stalks.

A very few flowering plants prefer the stony habitat of a rock's surface, but that's exactly where I go to look for the earliest Hepaticas, both Round-lobed and Sharp-lobed, that will soon be blooming here.  They are actually rooted within the cracks of the rocks, while spreading their leaves across the surface.  Hepatica's leaves persist intact throughout the winter, which makes them easy to find once the snow is gone from the forest floor. And some of their leaves, such as these of this Sharp-lobed Hepatica, have turned a deep purplish brown color. 

I peek beneath those leaves to espy these furry flower buds unfurling, just about ready to poke their faces above their leafy cover.

Oh! Oh! Oh!  Here, the flower buds have not only emerged from beneath some mottled-green Round-lobed Hepatica leaves, but their furry bud scales have opened to reveal the pale-purple sepals within!

These flower buds were so open, I could peer into the flowers, where the anthers were already preparing to protrude.

Just a few more warm days, and Hepaticas of all the colors they come in -- from sparkling white or pale pink or bright blue to pale lavender to deep purple and even to deep magenta -- will be adorning the forest floor with one of our prettiest as well as one of our earliest-to-bloom native spring wildflowers.

And then there were the fungi.  All that I found today had fruited last fall but persisted virtually unchanged throughout the winter. Here's just a sampling:

The caps of Split-gill Fungus (Schizophyllum commune) seem to grow fur over the winter.

I turn the Split-gill Fungus over to observe the split gills that suggested this amazing fungus's name.

Split-gill Fungus is considered the most widespread mushroom in the whole world, and one with the amazing property of being able to dry out completely and then rehydrate to keep functioning sexually time and time again. Found on every continent except Antarctica (where there's no rotting wood for it to grow on), the Split-gill Fungus is one of the most studied mushrooms on earth, according to Tom Volk, author of the wonderfully informative mushroom site, TomVolkFungi.net.  Mr. Volk featured this mushroom in  a Valentine's Day tribute to one of the sexiest organisms imaginable, with at least 28,000 different sexes, according to mycologists' calculations.  The process is too complicated for me to repeat in my blog, but my readers can learn all about it (plus lots of other fascinating facts) by going directly to Mr. Volk's site.  Just click HERE and prepare to be amazed.

The striped caps of False Turkey Tail (Stereum ostrea) are just as beautifully colored now as when they first sprouted last fall. They can be distinguished from the real Turkey Tails by the lack of pores on the fertile surface of the caps.

We are most likely to see the rubbery brown caps of Amber Jelly Roll Fungus (Exidia recisa) on the forest floor in spring, after winter winds or ice have brought down the dead tree limbs they've grown on.

This abundant patch of Asian Beauty (Radulomyces coplandii) was so broad I failed to recognize it at first.  In the few times I have come across it before, it has always fruited in narrow strips sprouting from cracks in dead wood.  In this case, it was occupying a large chunk of peeling-away bark of a fallen tree.

Asian Beauty is thought of as relatively recent introduction to North America, having shown up only about a decade ago. Today, it has been reported from more and more places. That has definitely been my own experience, too.  It certainly produces lots and lots of spores on the slender teeth that protrude and point downward. But is it an invasive introduction?  Here's an interesting video that discusses this possibility.

Near where I have parked my car,  the edge of the geologic fault is readily observable, as the terrain falls steeply off with a series of rocky ledges.  In just a few weeks, these moss-covered ledges will be adorned with many spring wildflowers, such as Long-spurred Violets, Columbine, and Early Meadow Rue.

Meanwhile, these ledges are not without botanical interest and beauty.  I love the curvaceous and delicate-looking fronds of Maidenhair Spleenwort that emerge from deep cracks in the rock.

Another ledge-clinging plant is this little native geranium called Herb Robert, which prefers to spring from patches of cushioning moss.  These leaves have been green all winter and some show signs of how freezing can tatter them a bit.  But they will soon be replaced by new leaves as well as small pink flowers.

Readers may note that I sometimes add scientific names to the vernacular names I have called these plants and fungi.  And sometimes I do not.  More and more, I am discovering that the scientific names in my old wildflower, bryophyte, and mushroom guides are out of date.  OK, so be it.  But I can't keep up.  Happily, the vernacular names have usually stayed the same ones I have known for most of my life. Most folks know those names, too.  If I fail to include a scientific name and you want to know it, just google the vernacular name and you will probably find the most up-to-date scientific one. As I near 82 years old, I myself no longer care about being au courant!

Spring Is Bustin' Out All Over!

 Late last week, we had just a dusting of snow.  Will this be IT?  Is winter (if we can call this puny one that) really over?  All winter long, the snow in the woods was not much good for animal tracking, but at least I got to see these bird prints last week as a Starling made a bee line to the cat chow we put out on our porch for a feral cat. I thought the bird's trail looked as pretty as an ornamental frieze.

Today, it must have been close to 70 degrees under a clear blue sky, when I visited Mud Pond at Moreau Lake State Park. The pond was completely clear of all ice, and no snow remained on the ground. I walked the powerline that runs just north of the pond, curious to see if the American Hazelnuts (Corylus americana) that thrive there had come into bloom.

The dangling male catkins were evident on nearly every shrub, but it requires very close examination of every twig to espy the itty bitty female flowers.  And with so many hazelnut shrubs at this site, there were thousands of twigs to examine.

Ta da!  I found some! If the sun had not caused the tiny scarlet pistils to glow like miniature Christmas lights,  I probably wouldn't have seen them, they are so small.  These flowers vie with Skunk Cabbage to be the first flowers of spring.

I was surprised to see a few clusters of hazelnuts remaining on the shrubs.  Usually, squirrels and other animals strip the shrubs of their nuts even before the nuts are fully ripe.

Aha! Holes in the nuts reveal that a female Hazelnut Weevil got there before the squirrels and bored a hole in each nut to deposit her eggs inside, where the larvae hatched and consumed the nut from within.

Well, if the American Hazelnuts are blooming now, I surmised that the Skunk Cabbage plants (Symplocarpus foetidus) that thrive in the watery ditches along the Spring Run Trail in downtown Saratoga Springs should all be in full bloom, too.  We've been finding occasional plants in bloom so far, but most plants in a given population had not yet opened by late last week. I next stopped off at the Spring Run Trail to check on the Skunk Cabbages' progress.

Oh yes, progress had occurred!  Almost every Skunk Cabbage spathe was wide open now, with interior spadices covered with blooming florets.

All along the trail, many male Alder catkins (Alnus species) were already shedding pollen, even though the smaller female flowers on the same tree had not yet opened enough to receive the pollen as it wafted on the breeze (and dusted my hand). This is the Alder's strategy to avoid self-pollination. The females will open after the pollen from their own tree has been spent, ready then to welcome the pollen wafted from neighboring trees.

And here was the first wildflower of spring that actually LOOKs like a flower!  An abundant patch of Colt's Foot (Tussilago farfara) had sprung up virtually overnight from the muddy bank of the Spring Run Creek.

What a gorgeous sunburst of bloom, with staminate disc flowers already opening, surrounded by the wispy pistils. Colt's Foot is not a native of North America, but the bees that were visiting did not apparently disparage these immigrants.

I knew that if all these other wildflowers were blooming now, I would surely find masses of two super-early bloomers in an area enclosed by an old stone wall off Parkhurst Road in Wilton:  Winter Aconite (Eranthus hyemalis) and Snowdrops (Galanthus species).  And yes, I certainly did!

I don't know if these old stone walls surround a cellar hole or a former garden, but the latter seems a more likely spot for these two non-native species, popular with home gardeners for their exceptionally early bloom time.  On other years, I have seen these flowers poking up right through the snow,

The Winter Aconite blooms are so sunny, they almost seem to produce their own warmth!

So all these flowers must indicate that winter is truly over.  Recalling a three-foot snow that fell on St. Patrick's Day a few years back, I acknowledge we might yet get a wintry surprise, but these early bloomers can all keep blooming despite such deep snowcover.  I only wish we'd had such snow this past  winter.