Swamp Slogging With Evelyn

After such a busy nature week as I'd had, I'd planned to maybe sleep late on Sunday and wake to the Sunday papers and a lapful of cuddly cats.  But then I got the invitation from Evelyn Greene to come explore "her" cedar swamp up in North Creek.  Well, I never can resist when adventures with Evelyn beckon.  So off I went, rubber boots on my feet and well bundled against the damp cold day.

 I just have to trust that Evelyn knows where she's going when she leads me into such trackless swamps as the one she took me to.  At first glance, I sure didn't see any way to penetrate this gnarly wet mess.

But Evelyn did, since she'd been working to lop crowding limbs and lay branches across mucky areas so that we could make our way deep into the heart of the swamp.

It's in mineral-rich swamps such as this that we're more likely to find certain orchids and other rare flowers, although we will have to come back later when the weather is warmer to look for such flowering plants.  For the present, we could satisfy our botanical cravings with a marvelous diversity of mosses and liverworts.  Let's see if I can remember the names of some of the ones we found.

This pretty, ferny-looking stuff is Hypnum imponens, which Evelyn told me is also called Brocade Moss.

Evelyn told me that this ruffly tree-loving moss is Neckera, although she wasn't sure of the species name.

Here's one that has a most appropriate common name, Shaggy Moss.  But I'd love to learn the Latin name for this one, because it's so much fun to say it: Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus.  There!  Now, you try it.

Then there were liverworts, such as this Bazzania trilobata nestled into a clump of Dicranum moss.  On one website dealing with such bryophytes, I found this species called Millipede Liverwort, which I thought was a very descriptive common name.

Another liverwort, which looked like tiny cedar boughs, was growing on the trunk of a tree.  This is one of the Porella species, I couldn't determine which one.

In the midst of all that mossy green, this vivid orange polypore (species unknown) sure stood out.

Update:  One of my blog readers, the author and wildflower expert Carol Gracie, has written to tell me that this is the aptly named Red-belted Polypore (Fomitopsis pinicola), found year-round on many species of dead trees.


We made it through the cedar swamp to higher dryer ground that was home to an amazing number of Dutchman's Breeches plants, more than I had ever seen in one place.

We also found an abundant patch of tiny pale purple violets.  We almost passed them off as nothing more interesting than Common Blue Violets, but then we noticed the remarkable bulging spur on the back of the flower.  Hmmmm,  what species could this violet be?  I knew it couldn't be Long-spurred Violet, since that's a stemmed violet with a very skinny long spur, so might this be the one called Great-spurred Violet?

A closer look inside the flower revealed no sign of hairs on any of the petals,  one of the diagnostic details for Great-spurred Violets, also called Selkirk's Violet (Viola selkirkii).

We took one of the plants back to the house where we could examine it in better light, and there we confirmed that this was indeed V. selkirkii.  Other diagnostic details include the deep notch where the stem meets the leaf, and the fine hairs on the tops of the leaves.

It's always fun to play plant detective, to parse a plant until you can determine its species, and I felt an extra pique of pleasure, since this was a new flower for my life list.  I have also since learned that there is no record of this plant growing in Warren County, where we found it.  I shall have to ask Evelyn to go back and obtain a fresh specimen to press and dry for the state herbarium.  I'd do it myself, but I'm not sure I could find my way back through that cedar swamp.  But Evelyn knows the way.

Bright Spots of Color in the Dull Winter Woods

I missed getting outdoors this bright beautiful morning, since each Tuesday morning I volunteer at a local hospice home, and by the time I was free to head to the woods the sky had clouded over.  Oh well, I thought, nothing but dull dead browns and grays out there, anyway, so I'll just go to the nearby Skidmore Woods and give myself a bit of a workout hiking the hilly trails.

The Skidmore Woods is remarkable for its limestone substrate, which provides a rich habitat for an amazing variety of rare and beautiful wildflowers.  Of course, no wildflowers are blooming now, but the rocks that leach their minerals into the soil are evident throughout the woods, their pitted surfaces covered with velvety green mosses.

Some of those rocks are a most remarkable blue.

Today I came upon a fallen log that appeared to be covered with velvet of a most remarkable red.

Closer inspection revealed that that red velvet was composed of what looked like tiny dreadlocks, the plaited leaves of a liverwort called Nowellia curvifolia.

Sharing the same log was a nice cluster of a lovely moss with a flower-like shape, possibly the moss called Mnium hornum.  Those ruddy threads arising from the center of each moss stalk are most likely the immature spore stalks.

This time of year, one does get greedy to find any traces of color in the woods, which perhaps explains how I happened to spy this tiny dot of orange at the base of a rotting tree.

With my bare eyes, I could not really see this cluster of cottony orange balls resting in tiny cups, so I tried a number of macro shots with my camera, then blew up the image to see it better.  The photo's not quite in focus, but it gave me enough information to recognize it as similar to a slime mold pictured in one of my books, Hemitrichia clavata.  These little puffs would be the fruitbodies (sporangia) of what my book calls a "common and widespread" slime mold.    Widespread and common it may be, but I had never seen it before.  And who would think to look for fruiting bodies of any kind in the very dead of winter?  Those empty cups on the lower left and the yellow dust beneath seem to indicate that some spores have already been spilled.

Here are some of the brightest spots of color I found in the woods today, two girls and a boy, the 8-yer-old triplet children of their mother pictured here, too. They were coming along the trail while I was crawling around in the woods and,  curious as to what I was doing, they gathered close while I showed them my photos of what I had found.  I just love how excited kids can be when they experience cool stuff in the woods.  As they scampered off to see if they could find that orange slime mold for themselves, I sent my blessings with them.

A Walk on the Ridge

What an awful dream I had last night!  I was supposed to get to my job in Glens Falls by hopping on foot all the way from Saratoga (that's about 20 miles), but after a few blocks I just couldn't make any progress because I was so exhausted, with legs as heavy as lead.  So when I woke up, I was already feeling tired.  Oh boy, I think that dream was a message that I need to exercise more.  So I made myself go for another hike that took me up and down hills, the Red Oak Ridge Trail at Moreau Lake State Park.

This trail is probably my favorite in the park, requiring enough effort to get my heart pounding at times, but also with relatively level stretches that allow me to enjoy the walk and look around at the scenery.   During the leafy seasons, that scenery consists mostly of close-by trees and dramatic rock formations, but this time of year you can look right through the trees to the lake below and mountains beyond.

I had planned to keep up a good pace on this hike, not expecting to find much along the trail to interrupt my stride.  But I did have to stop to take a closer look at the abundant growth of mosses adorning these rocks with different textures and colors.

One of those "mosses" (the one on the right side of this photo) turned out, on closer inspection, to be not a moss, but a liverwort called Scapania.  This is one of the very few liverworts I know the name of, thanks to my friend Evelyn Greene, who first showed it to me.   The moss on the left I believe is one of the Dicranums, possibly Dicranum scoparium.  Liverworts and mosses are related, both being bryophytes and lacking in vascular tissue, but I would be very hard pressed to give a simple explanation of how to distinguish them from each other, other than what they look like. Something I need to study up on.

Here's a closer look at that liverwort, showing its individual leaves.

During this season of dull browns and grays, the vivid green of the moss on these boulders certainly catches the eye.

A closer view of that vivid green moss, most likely Dicranum scoparium.

Lots of different mosses can be found along this trail, including this delicate fern-like moss.

And these cute little hedgehogs of spiky green.

Aha!  I found another moss I do know the name of:  these cute little green "posies" are called Rhizomnium punctatum.   Without any snow cover this winter to protect them, they look a little frayed around the edges.

Here's a photo of another, less tattered R. punctatum I took in the spring two years ago.  See how the center is filled with shiny black sperm, just waiting to be splashed out by falling rain.

One-way, the Red Oak Ridge Trail is about 1.35 miles from start to finish, where it descends the mountain ridge to meet the road that circles the lake.  But of course, that terminus is just about that far again from where I parked my car near the park office.  Since the day was growing late, I tried to pick up my pace, a difficult thing to do when descending a steep rocky trail.

While I was completing the last stretch of the trail, it began to snow, just a flake or two at first, and then, by the time I reached the beach, the air became filled with flakes falling straight down, soft and silent and oh, so beautiful!  How I have missed the experience of snow this winter, the way it softens the edges of things and absorbs all sounds!  Maybe we'll get our fill at last, I thought as I hurried around the lake toward my car.  But then, by the time I got home, there was not a trace left.  Ah well.

Where is Winter?

According to my calendar, today is the second day of winter.  But it sure didn't look or feel very wintry when I walked along the banks of the Hudson River today.  Intermittent sun warmed the already balmy air, and puffy white clouds sailed above the top of West Mountain over on the Warren County side of the river.

With all the rain and warm weather of late, the woods have taken on the look of a mossy green rainforest.

Except for the thin ice that films the back bays of the river,  these rocky promontories look about the same as they would in mid-autumn.

Mountain streams that would normally be dry by now are running as full as in springtime.  This waterfall can be seen from the road that runs over Mount MacGregor.

This tumbling torrent was bounding down a mountainside along Spier Falls Road.

Many different mosses are thriving in the damp woods, where they share the leaf litter with such lichens as this many-tentacled one, a variety I haven't seen before.  I'm sure I've been told the scientific names of these two mosses, one furry, one ferny, but I confess that I have forgotten them.

I do remember the name of this liverwort, though:  Bazzania trilobata.  My photo doesn't show it, but each leaf of this leafy liverwort has three lobes, as its Latin name describes.

There were even some fresh-looking mushrooms in the woods today.  I don't know the name of these little tree fungi, but I thought their winter-white color looked very pretty against the red bark of their fallen limb, backed by the green moss that adorned the log lying behind -- Christmas colors!

I wonder if this sturdy toothed tree fungus will keep its vivid orange throughout the winter.  It certainly stood out as a flash of bright color in the dim woods.

What a pretty clump of Poverty Oat Grass (Danthonia spicata), with blades as curly and colorful as the ribbons on a Christmas package.

As shiny red and green as any holly, Partridgeberry carpets the forest floor with Christmas colors.

I found this cocoon lashed to a Black Tupelo twig and wondered what kind of caterpillar created it.  It was nearly four inches long, so perhaps this is the cocoon of a Cecropia moth, a very big and beautiful moth that, if all goes well, will emerge in the spring.  I'll be keeping my eye on it as the winter progresses.

A River Road Ramble

We've had such a nice stretch of blue-sky days, but I've been too busy at home to really get outdoors, except for a quick walk along the Hudson where Spier Falls Road hugs the banks at Moreau.  The river lay smooth as glass late Saturday afternoon, with the water reflecting the trees and hills and sky.  I was torn between letting my eyes rest on that serene sight or turning to explore the roadside cliffs that rise steeply into the mountains, the boulders watered with tiny springs.  Here and there a little rill splashed merrily down tiers of rock.

Those roadside boulders are veritable rock gardens, presenting a fascinating array of lichens, mosses, and the wintering-over rosettes of perennials.  Although the sun was bright, the air was cold,  and frost still clung to many of the plants, such as these little Pixy Cups furred with a fine fringe of ice.

I loved how this pretty pink sprig of Strawberry was nestled into a thick cushion of lush moss.

Where springwater seeped through thick mats of moss, glassy garlands of icicles sparkled in the late afternoon sun.

Thin sheets of ice coated the face of some boulders, enhancing the rich red of this ferrous rock.

When I reached the stretch of the road that looks out on this lovely river island, I sat for a while just to take in this scene, overwhelmed with gratitude that I live near forests that are left to grow wild and a river that runs clean and clear.

Taking the slow road home to Saratoga, I stopped by a farm to say hello to this sturdy pair of enormous Belgian horses.  Now that is a HORSE!

A lowering sun bathed the walls and roof of this handsome old barn with a golden light and cast the shadow of a little black goat against the siding.  And oh look, the buds on that Red Maple tree are as rosy and plump as if it were spring, and the grass looks like emerald velvet.  Stunned by the beauty of this scene, I had to pull over to gaze upon it, and also to let my eyes clear of tears.  Sometimes the gorgeousness of this world fills me with more joy than I can contain.