A Mud Pond Meander

Oh boy. Just as we're getting excited about Spring, the forecasts now predict a return to sub-freezing temps, maybe even some snow, for the coming week. Darn!  And this past Friday wasn't exactly inviting for a woods walk, either: dank and cold with a low gray sky and wet underfoot from the previous night's rain. But at least the temps were still a bit above freezing, and my friend Sue Pierce and I already had made plans to visit Mud Pond at Moreau.  We didn't expect to find many flowers blooming yet, but at least the snow was now mostly melted from the open areas under the powerline that runs just north of the pond.  And here in this place, an amazing variety of evergreen plants could now be seen and delighted in -- as Sue is doing here, preserving her find in a photo.

How wonderfully the winter's snow preserves the beauty of the many mosses and lichens that thrive in this open area! This gorgeous patch of Juniper Haircap Moss (Polytrichum juniperinum) looked especially beautiful when centered with a cluster of scarlet-topped British Soldiers Lichens (Cladonia cristatella).

Several species of clubmoss thrive in this open sandy area too, including  the aptly-named Tree Clubmoss (Dendrolycopodium obscurum). Could those golden sporestalks have stayed this fresh-looking all winter?  Or are they newly emerging already this spring? I confess I do not know.

These furry-tipped spiky green stems belong to another clubmoss called Running Clubmoss (Lycopodium clavatum), looking as fresh and sprightly as ever.

Abutting that open powerline clearcut is a woods populated mostly by White Pines, which carpet the forest floor with golden needles.  Those acidic needles, along with an underlying sandy soil, provide perfect habitat for abundant populations of two of our native orchids,  Pink Lady's Slippers (Cypripedium acaule) in May, and a bit later in summer, a smaller, white-flowered orchid called Checkered Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera tesselata).

We found more of the evergreen basal rosettes of Checkered Rattlesnake Plantain than we ever have in this woods, and all were looking just as green and lovely as they were before the snow came to cover them all winter.  It should be a great year for finding abundant stalks of their tiny white flowers, come mid-summer.

As usual, many different species of fungi delighted us with their wide variety of shapes and colors. In fact, this sprawling patch of Wrinkled Crust (Phlebia radiata) looked even more colorful than ones we had found last fall. Such a rich, deep red!

Also richly colored, this long stretch of multi-striped Stereum fungi (probably the species S. ostrea, also called False Turkey Tail) looked especially beautiful underlaid by the green and gray lichen covering a fallen log.

The dark rain-dampened bark of this small tree provided a perfect foil for the brilliant color of the Orange Jelly Fungus (Dacrymyces palmata) that ornamented its green moss- and lichen-speckled trunk.

I guess you can't call a coal-black fungus "colorful", but this Black Witch's Butter (Exidia glandulosa) certainly was remarkable.

Many different species of lichens abound on the trunks and limbs of the trees in this woods, and some, like this ruffly brown-edged green one (species unknown to me) were quite beautiful.

UPDATE: My friend Evelyn Greene, a very savvy admirer of lichens and liverworts, has sent me some information about this lichen and its possible ID:  "If you found that lichen on the ground or on a tree limb at least, it is Plasmatia glauca, ragbag lichen.  I first read about it in The Wild Trees by Richard Preston, about the ten-year search for the tallest redwood.  It grows only on tree limbs, here on pines, so we only see it when it falls to the ground and then it is not very obvious.  Mostly it gets stepped on.    It grows in the tops of the redwoods so it likes heights!"  And by the way, we did find it on a tree limb.

After a while, the damp cold had penetrated all of our several layers of warm clothing and began to  prompt thoughts of going home.  But all of a sudden, the sky cleared and a warming sun flooded the powerline trail.  Go home now? No way!  Not until we have checked the thickets of American Hazelnut shrubs (Corylus americana) that line this trail, to see if any had sprouted their tiny red female flowers.

And, lo and behold, they had! Teeny-weeny tufts of scarlet pistils had erupted from cone-like buds, ready to receive pollen from the ripening male catkins on separated shrubs.  But we really had to search for them, since we could find very, very few pistillate flowers among the thousands and thousands of Hazelnut twigs that line this trail.  I bet these female flowers are waiting for more male catkins to start wafting their pollen.  On this day, most of the catkins were still closed tight.

Here's a photo that better reveals how truly tiny these American Hazelnut female flowers are. Tiny they may be, but always worth searching for, signaling as they do that Spring is here at last!

Here's one more interesting organism I always search hazelnut shrubs to find: the Glue Crust Fungus (Hymenochaete corrugata).  See how this smaller twig is stuck to the larger one by that reddish and whitish blob?  Believe it or not, that blob is a fungus that has a good reason to do just that. Its strategy is to hoard dead hazelnut twigs for itself, gluing the dead twigs to living ones high in the shrubs, so they won't fall to the ground, where other, rival fungi could compete to consume them. Who could have guessed that a fungus could strategize like this? Sometimes, Nature absolutely astounds me!

UPDATE: A reader has suggested to me that the species Hymenochaete corrugata is strictly a European species, so that this fungus is more likely the related Hydnoporia diffusa instead.  I could not find much information about this on Google, although this site does mention that "Hydnoporia diffisa [sic] is described from eastern United States . . . . It is an American relative of the European Hydnoporia corrugata (syn. Hymenochaete corrugata)."

Meanwhile, the day had turned so sunny and pleasant, Sue and I decided to continue our walk, enjoying the trail that circles Mud Pond, one of the prettiest trails in Moreau Lake State Park.

There were a number of interesting waterfowl on the pond, paddling the open water revealed by the receding ice.  Sue located both Hooded Mergansers and Buffleheads out there.  Sue has incredible eyesight!  And she also carried binoculars.

Again, we found lots and lots of winter-surviving fungi, and probably some that had newly emerged.  We couldn't get close enough to ID these that mounted the trunk of this birch, but we could still marvel at their variety of shapes and colors.

Patches of Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) bore shiny red berries, as shiny and red (and tasty!) as ever, even after enduring months under the snow.

The same could be said for the patches of Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens).  Except that their berries, while just as shiny and red as those of Winterberry, are tasteless in comparison.  They are equally as welcome a sight, though, as the snow recedes from the forest floor.

Have I mentioned Sue's excellent eyesight?  Well, I would have passed this rotting log lying on the forest floor without a pause, but Sue immediately noticed the tiny critters crawling around on the barkless wood.  SNOWFLEAS!  We'd both been looking for them on the melting snow as the winter waned, and here they were, scads of them, scurrying about on the golden surface of this fallen log.

Here's a closer look at these tiny critters, a fascinating being that occupies a taxonomic niche all its own.  Even though Snowfleas have six legs and they hop, they are neither insects nor are they fleas but belong to a class all their own: the Collembola, or Springtails. There are lots of articles you can find online that offer much fascinating information about these creatures, and here is a link to one I enjoyed.

As we rounded the end of Mud Pond and turned toward home, I paused for a moment to enjoy this view that spoke to me so encouragingly of Spring, with the melting ice revealing open water that reflected a beautiful blue sky. With freezing nights yet to come, that water may yet ice over again, but I hold on to this vision to remind me that Spring is truly here.