On the Rocks!

Our thirsty earth got a nice big drink this week, with two rainy days (one of them a long slow soaker) after weeks and weeks of no rain at all. This drought was so prolonged, even the spring-watered cliffs that line Spier Falls Road at the foot of the Palmertown Mountains had been looking really dry.  I treasure these cliffs for providing a perfect habitat for some of our region's most beautiful mosses, lovely masses of greenery that persist in their beauty throughout the year, even after most other plants have withered and dried or are buried beneath heaps of snow. This recent rain must surely have brought refreshment to these beautiful bryophytes.

 

 A true beauty-queen of these mosses, Marsh Cardinal Moss (Ptychostomum pseudotriquetrum) thrives on these spring-watered rocks, where the water's constant dripping adorns each star-shaped leaf-cluster with sparkling droplets.  

In the winter I have found Marsh Cardinal Moss looking quite red, both its leaves as well as the translucent stalks of its sporophytes.  I wonder if this seasonal redness suggested the "cardinal" part of Ptychostomum pseudotriquetrum's vernacular name. Marsh Cardinal Moss sure is easier to spell than that scientific name!

In this photo, the Marsh Cardinal Moss (center) is crowded on all sides by a second water-loving moss, Spring Apple Moss (Philonotis fontana, also known as Fountain Moss). I believe both mosses prefer a calcareous habitat, and I wonder if the springs that normally wet these rocky cliffs are delivering lime to the habitat. I am not sure if the rocks themselves are rich in lime. 

The vernacular name "Spring Apple Moss" relates both to the wet habitat that Philonotis fontana prefers, as well as the round, apple-like shape of its spore capsules, which often can be seen emerging from the mossy clumps in May.

There's another moss, called Bartramia pomiformis, that shares this same spring-watered rocky cliff, and it is in the same family (Bartramiaceae) as Philonotis fontana. This delicate-looking moss has longer and more slender leaves than Philonotis pomiformis, but it also produces round "apple-shaped" spore capsules, hence its vernacular name Apple Moss. I was lucky to find some to photograph while it was fruiting in the spring:

Common Haircap Moss (Polytrichum commune) can tolerate drier conditions, but it also can share the damp habitat of these rocky cliffs.  I loved the contrast between the spiky-leaved green moss and the rough, dark, lichen-dappled rock of the ledge it was growing on.

Wherever there's rock, there's likely to be Rock Polypody Ferns.  And like the mosses that share this site, they persist in their green state on these rocky ledges all winter. 

I am not sure whether this is the Appalachian Polypody (Polypodium appalachianum) or the Virginia Polypody (P. virginianum), since P. appalachianum is a relatively recently described species that refined the description of Polypodium virginianum.  Since the New York Flora Atlas describes the habitat of P. appalachianum as "rims of cliffs, ledges, tops of boulders in forests, and talus slopes on thin mesic soil over rocks,"  I'm going to bet that this bunch of Polypody Ferns is Appalachian Polypody. The habitat  certainly seems right.

During the growing season, these cliffs are also home to many beautiful flowering plants as well.  (See this post from a visit in May for proof of that.) But the same plant, Early Saxifrage (Micranthes virginiensis), that turns these cliffs into a gorgeous rock garden in May, also beautifies them all winter long, with elegant rosettes of evergreen leaves with purple ruffled edges.

And then, when Winter arrives in earnest, the springs keep dripping and ice takes over the role of roadside beautification!

Natural Consolations

I am very much aware that I haven't posted a blog since November 7.  That was the day I learned that a convicted felon, serial adulterer, pussy-grabbing sexual predator, habitual liar and business cheat who was considered incompetent to serve by nearly all who worked for him in his last go as President would be our President once again.  And that's not the worst of it.  Of all his faults (and who doesn't have faults?), the worst is his failure to give a damn about climate change, as he promises to withdraw from international efforts to address this emergency and urges fossil-fuel industries to "drill, baby, drill!" His only concern for the natural world seems to be how businesses can make a buck from destroying it.  I confess to feeling so hopeless and fearful, I could not focus on blogging.

Meanwhile, we in the northeast are suffering from prolonged and serious drought, with wildfires raging in New Jersey and along New York's Hudson Valley.  Thankfully, some rain is finally falling today, which helps to contain those fires, and also gives me a good excuse to stay indoors and finally try reviving this blog. I have ventured out to some of my favorite places, although I was often saddened by how our unnaturally hot and dry weather has altered what I expected to find there.  Fungi and fruits are few this fall, and frost came late. But still, I did find solace in what remained.

The Hudson Crossing Trail near Schuylerville

This is a pleasant easy-walking trail that is bordered by the Hudson River on one side and an old barge canal on the other. Scenic views of both waterways abound, and informational placards tell about  both the natural and social history of this place, where significant events of America's Revolutionary War occurred.  All is peaceful now, with benches situated for overlooking the river.

Remains of old structures contribute a picturesque beauty to this trail.  My dear friend Sue came with me this day, but we did not tarry here long, since Sue was concerned about the health of her mother, who lived with her. Sad to report, her mother did die this same week, so I'm glad we had these few pleasant moments together. May Sue find comfort in the love of family members and her many friends.

We were quite intrigued by these "toothpick-like" projections on many of the shrubs that line the trail. Since we have explored this trail many times and know by name most of the plants that thrive here, we were puzzled that we couldn't immediately put a name to this shrub.

Ah, but then we saw these pods!  Of course!  The shrubs were American Bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia), a native shrub that produces these hollow pods.  The pods contain hard seeds that rattle around inside when the wind sways the dry pods.

 

I opened one pod to examine the hard seeds.

Powerline at Mud Pond, Moreau Lake State Park

Was November 13 our latest date for a hard frost at this site?  I'm not sure, but that was the first date this year that seemed cold and still enough to visit this powerline in hopes of finding the wildflower called Frostweed (Crocanthemum canadense) doing the thing that suggested its vernacular name.  Before I even set eyes on the Frostweed, I was struck by how frost-free all the low plants appeared to be, despite the sub-freezing temps.  In other years, all the plants would be sparkling from the frost crystals that spangled all the twigs and blades and leaves.  But our prolonged drought had desiccated the sandy soil here as well as the air, so no moisture rose from the soil nor condensed on the ice-cold plants.

 

But I did see abundant examples of Frostweed doing its frosty thing: when frozen, the stems split lengthwise, and the plants' internal moisture escapes through these splits, immediately freezing in frothy curls around the stems. The frothy curls did seem a bit puny, though, not nearly as robust as in other years.

Here's a closer look at those diaphanous curls of frost:

(To see a more typical first-frost morning along this same powerline, when frost spangled everything that grew, come visit this blogpost from 11 years ago.)

Flocks of Canada Geese were resting on the quiet still-open water of Mud Pond, muttering and hooting to each other with cacophonous music.

Shore Walk at Moreau Lake State Park

Although moderately warm, this day was evenly overcast, lending both sky and lake a silvery cast. I convinced my husband Denis to walk the shore with me, assuring him that I would not stop every few feet to take a photo or try to ID a plant or insect. Most flowers are faded by now, and most insects have fled.  Note how the beach has widened since Spring.  Moreau Lake is a kettle lake that depends for its water mostly on rainfall and snowmelt, both of which have been in low supply this past year.

Ah, but the multi-colored shoreline rocks were lovely, especially when adorned with these small evergreen Wild Strawberry leaves (Fragaria virginiana). Even Denis stopped to examine the colors and textures of the rocks (see photo above).

This fading Heath Aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides) was almost as pretty in seed as it was in bloom.

And Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata) maintained a stately appearance with gracefully curving tawny seedpods.

I was amazed to see that the ribbon-like petals of Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) had already fallen, since this is ordinarily a late-fall blooming tree.  The four-pointed calyx lobes maintain their yellow color all winter, though, giving the impression that the tree is still blooming with tiny yellow flowers.

We did not walk all around the lake, but retraced our steps to go home.  As we turned around,  this scene of still water reflecting the forested mountain and sandy shore seemed somehow both comforting and distressing to me.  I am aware that climate change has already affected the eons-long weather patterns and life-cycles of plants and insects in this part of the world, and that this lovely landscape will be altered in the decades to come because political leaders around the world have not and probably will not rise to the challenge of addressing this climate emergency with the urgency it requires.  But if I am lucky, I might have ten years left to live, time enough to still be consoled by such life-enhancing beauty as this.

The Subtle Season

November!  It's that time of year here in northeastern New York I call "The Subtle Season." The bright florals of Summer faded long ago, the glorious Technicolor hues of Autumn have dimmed, and the sparkling snows and crystalline ices of Winter have yet to arrive.  But still, much beauty persists for those of us who love the tawny tans, cinnamon browns, old golds and deep russets that color the countryside now.  While I gazed at the landscape pictured here --  high rolling hills beneath a powerline that follows a mountain range along the Hudson River -- I thought of the lovely textures and colors of a fine Scottish tweed. Even the seedpods of Bee Balm in the foreground reminded me of the braided leather buttons on a Harris Tweed Shooting Coat.

Amid the forest-green conifers and russet-leaved oaks that line the clearcut here, this Witch Hazel tree stood out, both for its size and for the brighter yellow of its branches thick with flowers.

The oaks do provide most of what remains of the colorful autumn foliage now, but the grassy, ferny, shrub-studded rocky meadows are lovely in their own right.

I believe this yellow-leaved shrub might be an invasive non-native honeysuckle, so I was not at all disturbed to see it being overwhelmed by the fluffy seed-heads of Virgin's Bower vines.

Pale-yellow, curving seedheads of Foxtail Grass stood high above the other meadow grasses and low-growing plants.

Vast patches of our native lance-leaved, linen-tan Deer Tongue Grass filled areas under the lines.

Where tiny rills dampened their banks, mosses like Common Haircap spread across the ground.  This mossy patch was punctuated by a large prickly rosette of thistle leaves (species unknown).

When this high trail descended toward the river, I followed it down to the banks of the Hudson.  There I stood in awe at the serene beauty of this scene, where still-colorful forested mountains reached all the way to the water's edge, and tiny pine-studded islands dotted the mirror-still surface of the river.

Shuffling through the fallen leaves along the banks, I discovered this pretty pair of acorn caps, each of which appeared to be etched with an image of a pale-gold flower surrounded by a dark brown wreath.

This frond of Long Beech Fern was remarkable for its total lack of color, truly striking against its background of still colorful fallen leaves.

While kneeling to photograph that fern, I thought I detected some movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to notice this hole at the base of a tree.  Nothing there.  But then this little beady-eyed, pink-nosed, white-chinned face suddenly appeared peeking out at me.  The small Deer Mouse quickly disappeared when I pointed my camera in its direction. But the dear little critter promptly re-appeared for just an instant, just long enough to snap this slighty blurry photo.  How cute is this?  I was happy to see that this wee one has a nice sheltered spot to spend the winter. Or so I hope.

A Celebration of Leaves in Every Season!

As I turn the leaf of my calendar from October to November,  many of our deciduous trees have dropped their leaves by now. Although I now look forward to the different kind of nature's beauty that awaits in snow-spangled winter, I do feel a bit sad to say goodbye to this year's leaves. So I spent an hour or two looking through my photo files for my most intriguing shots of leaves, just to keep them with me a bit longer.  Here are some of my favorites, photos of leaves from springtime bud break to winter's absence.

In Early Spring, the copper-colored bud scales of American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) open to release the tender baby leaves within, fluffy with down as soft as a kitten's fur.

The scarlet baby leaves of Red Maple (Acer rubrum) burst forth from their overlapping bud scales atop sceptre-like twigs.

When backlit by a low spring sun, these newly opened Red Maple leaves glowed like stained glass.

Lit by the sun, these translucent baby Red Oak leaves (Quercus rubra) also glowed like stained glass with multicolors of red and gold and green.

These baby oak leaves are probably another species of oak than those in the photo above, appearing less translucent and also much furrier.  But almost all tender baby tree leaves are tinged with red to some extent, due to the presence of anthocyanins, chemicals that carry a red color along with protection from the sun's burning rays.

Note how the presence of anthocyanins have also tinted these baby Bigtooth Aspen leaves (Populus grandidentata), adding an apricot-colored tinge to the fuzzy lime-green leaves.

Even from a distance, that apricot tinge can be seen on these sunlit Bigtooth Aspen trees, a warm color matched by the newly emerging Little Bluestem Grass that surrounds the trunks.

Because Summertime unifies most tree leaves in a nearly uniform green, I have failed to take much notice of them photographically,  although I am always deeply grateful for their cooling shade.  Occasionally, though, one may strike my eye because of remarkable circumstances.  A case in point was this Quaking Aspen leaf (Populus tremuloides) resting on gravel, a recent rain having splashed bits of gravel onto the leaf, where raindrops both large and small encapsulated them to fascinating effect.

I could do an entire post or two or three to include the many different kinds of galls that oak leaves play host to, but I'm limiting myself to just two for the purposes of this post.  The Dryocosmus deciduus galls pictured here, looking like tiny pink jugs with yellow stoppers, are caused by a tiny wasp in the Dryocosmus genus that lays her eggs on the midveins of leaves in the red oak group. Each tiny "jug" shelters a single larva.

This second gall, found usually on leaves of the white oak group, is called the Hedgehog Gall.  It is remarkably fuzzy, with red fuzz covering pebbled yellow spheres, which shelter eggs of the tiny wasp Acraspis erinacei. 

As Autumn arrives, the paths below Quaking Aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) will be littered with yellow leaves, almost every one of which may display green patches caused by the tiny larva of a small moth in the family Nepticulidae that resides within the leaves.  This tiny larva exudes a chemical that preserves the chlorophyll in the otherwise dying leaf, which allows the larva to continue feeding on living leaf tissue until it is ready to pupate. It will then retreat to a tiny brown patch at the base of the leaf to pupate there until it emerges to fly away as a moth in the spring.

Over the more than 30 years I've been paying attention to the leaves of Bigtooth Aspen (Populus grandidentata),  I've noticed that in most autumns (including this year) their leaves turn a uniform golden color.  But now and then we have a year when their leaves turn many different and spectacular colors. While walking a leaf-littered trail two years ago, I gathered together as many different color variations as I could find in just a small area, so I could include them all in a single photo.  So beautiful! I have no idea why some years the Bigtooth Aspen leaves produce such a gorgeous range of colors, and in other years they do not.

The leaves of American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) always turn a gorgeous copper color each fall, and when they fall and carpet the forest floor, they cause the woods around them to glow with a warm light. In this case, each leaf retained a trace of green color, matching the fern's frond that rested among them.

This Red Maple leaf (Acer rubrum) was floating on the quiet waters of the Hudson River.  I was struck with delight by the simple beauty of this gold and scarlet leaf so perfectly at rest on the water, with no background busyness to detract from its elegance. At the time, we were surrounded by masses of trees in their multicolor autumnal splendor, and there's no doubt they were glorious. But like a ruby solitaire, this single leaf epitomized the essence of autumn loveliness!

On another occasion, this Pickerel Frog eluded my efforts to take its photo by leaping onto this floating Red Maple leaf.  Which then provided the perfect foil for the picture-taking!

It almost seems unreal, does it not, the luminous pinky-purple these Maple-leaved Viburnum leaves (Viburnum acerifolium) appear?  No other understory shrub bears autumn leaves of this unusual color, the color in this event made extra-luminous, lit by sunlight veiled by wispy clouds.

The leaves of seedling oaks often contain all the colors of autumn in a single leaf.  A bed of Common Haircap Moss formed a perfect foil for the vibrant beauty of this one.

Talk about vibrant beauty!   The leaves of this small Sassafras tree (Sassafras albidum) glow with the color of fire!

The golden leaves of this American Witch Hazel shrub (Hamamelis virginiana) are rendered doubly beautiful by their rippling reflection.

Autumn draws to a close, and even the Red Oaks (Quercus rubra) start to drop a few of their leaves. I was struck by how lovely this pair looked, speckled with black and white dots and resting so quietly on the water. The river must have recently risen to cover a patch of still-blooming pink-flowered Smartweeds, creating a subtle green and blue background to set off the tawny leaves.

As Winter approaches, I await the first sub-freezing mornings, when sparkling frost crystals outline the leaves that remain on the American Hazelnut shrubs (Corylus americana) and other plants under the open sky.

The remnants of tattered oak leaves form a frame around a cluster of British Soldier lichens (Cladonia cristatella) amid an ice-frosted patch of Juniper Haircap Moss (Polytrichum juniperinum).

As a rising sun begins to melt the frost on this vividly colored seedling White Oak (Quercus alba), the leaves seem to glow from within.

Young American Beeches hold onto their translucent golden leaves all winter, but as snow begins to fall, occasional leaves flutter free to rest on the snow-covered forest floor.

A few minutes later, that same golden American Beech leaf faintly showed through a veil of fresh snow.

Winter's cold deepens and the lakes freeze over, allowing me to freely walk across them.  That's how I happened upon this large oak leaf arrayed within an escutcheon of white opaque ice resting atop the bluer-ice surface.  How unusual!  I figured that the dark leaf, absorbing the heat of the sun during a sunny day, must have melted the ice beneath and around itself, which then refroze overnight, creating this remarkable sight.

This oak leaf left evidence of its presence in the center of the road that will last through every season!