Wintry Mix Brings Wintry Woes As Well As Wonders

First came the rain, all Friday morning. Then came the sleet. Then finally, the snow.  And then the power went out.  Ice-laden limbs and whole trees came down all over the area, and our house grew darker and colder as the hours went by.  As night fell, we escaped for dinner and a movie on the west side of town, which remained unaffected by the power outage, and when we returned home by 10pm, we rejoiced that our lights were back on. When we awoke on Saturday morning, we found the world transformed by amazing beauty.

By the time I had scraped the thick ice and crusted snow from my car, I didn't have much energy left for a long woodsy walk, but I did manage to muster enough to carry me along some snowy trails in our nearby Saratoga Spa State Park.  The Avenue of Pines (my typical route into the park) was closed off due to fallen limbs,  but I made my way by another route and entered the woods near the Ferndell Ravine.  The snow was not deep, but my pace was slowed by the tangle of toppled trees.

The trail through the Ferndell Ravine was transformed to even greater beauty than usual by the snow-covered branches of stream-side shrubs.

The weight of the snow and ice on the limbs brought many of their twigs to eye level, where I could better appreciate the lacy filigreed snow and crystal droplets.

These American Hornbeam seed clusters held icy globules among their bracts.

When I reached the picnic area along Geyser Creek, I was delighted to find this new installation of a fountain, with mineral water spurting up from a handsome basin of carved stone.  It was easy to taste the water from this bubbling column, and I found it was mild in flavor but really salty.

I continued along Geyser Creek, which was full and roiling from the recent rains, the creekside forest a froth of snow-covered boughs.

The creek takes its name from this mineral-water spouter, which technically is not a geyser at all, since its spouting is caused by a buildup of gasses.  Geysers spout because of a buildup of heat.  This water is icy cold.

A fringe of icicles decorates the edge of an impressive dome of mineral deposits, called a tufa, that surrounds the spouting mineral-water spring.

As the sun dipped lower in the western sky, the snowy forest along the creek was transformed by a golden glow.

A Winter Walk at Bog Meadow

In a couple of weeks, it will be my turn to lead my friends in the Thursday Naturalists on a nature walk somewhere near Saratoga.   But where should we go?  My first thought was the Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail, starting from the new trailhead off Meadowbrook Road.  This new entrance takes us immediately into a wide open marsh, a habitat thriving with plant and animal life, even though winter is not the best time to look for the beavers or herons or waterfowl that make their homes here in the warmer months.  Right now, the marsh is solidly frozen over, but it's still an interesting habitat to explore.

One of the plants that thrives here is Swamp Dock (Rumex verticillatus), and I keep hoping to collect a specimen of it to document its presence in Saratoga County. To date, there is no official record of it growing in this county, although its presence here is obvious, even in winter. I could easily walk out on the ice to obtain a specimen, but it has no leaves right now, and I know the remnants of its flowers will shed as soon as I disturb the plant. If the water in the marsh stays high come spring, I will return with my canoe to collect it when it's in bloom.

As I proceeded along the trail, I began to question the wisdom of leading my friends on a long walk here, unless trail conditions change.  Since our last snowfall, the snow and slush have been pitted by hiker's boots and are now frozen into rock-hard ruts that are miserable to walk on.  After only a half hour of struggling along the trail, my ankles began to ache from constant twisting. But who knows what the weather will bring in the next two weeks? Either a thaw or a nice deep snowfall could make the trail much more passable.  In the meantime, I continued just a bit farther, making my way along a boardwalk that crosses a frozen pond.

The boardwalk at this location is lined with small willows, all of which were ornamented by various galls that are best observed in the winter, when leaves do not obscure them.  This photo shows the most common of these galls, the Shoot-tip Rose Gall, which resembles a dried-up rose atop the twigs, and the Willow Beaked Gall, a hard, ruddy-colored gall that creates a spindle-shaped swelling on the twigs.

Here's a closer look at the Shoot-tip Rose Gall, which results when a tiny fly (Rhabdophaga rosaria) lays its egg in a slit of the twig.  The tree then is chemically induced to produce this flower-shaped rosette of tissue surrounding the egg, protecting the larva until it matures.

The reddish, spindle-shaped Willow Beaked Galls are caused by another tiny fly, called Mayetiola rigidae.  The larva is wintering over within the gall and will emerge in the spring.  While reading up on these galls, I also learned that willows play host to more kinds of galls than any other woody plant.

Those galls might be of interest to my naturalist friends, but I confess I did not find much more to amaze me along the trail today, aside from enjoying the beautiful blast of bright red from the many Red Osier shrubs (Cornus sericea) that line the banks of the marsh.  The similarly red-twigged Silky Dogwood also thrives along these banks, but the pin-dot lenticels pictured here are distinctive to Red Osier. The Silky Dogwood has lenticels that look like stripes instead of dots.

Another nice find was the wintering-over seedpods of the Loesel's Twayblade Orchid (Liparis loeselii), one of New York's native orchids that prefers a muddy habitat like that along the Bog Meadow Trail.

Since Loesel's Twayblade is a tiny, greenish-flowered orchid that blooms in summer, it is much easier to spot in winter, when its pale-tan pods stand out against the dark background, rather than when its blooms are hidden among surrounding greenery.

Royal Ferns (Osmunda regalis) are not evergreen ferns, but their curling wiry stems persist all winter.  I enjoyed the beauty of these coiling stems, like a graceful ink drawing, dark against the white snow.

Looking For Inspiration

I am so ashamed!  After spending a week napping in my recliner as I recovered from an illness, I have grown to crave naps more than outdoor adventures each afternoon.  Granted, the damp dark days have not drawn me out, although crummy weather never stopped me before. Seeking inspiration, I started perusing old blog posts from years past, trying to re-discover what inspired me to get out there before. 

One post that particularly struck me is one I composed way back in January, 2009, the first month I started blogging.  I was sitting on some snowy rocks overlooking the frozen Hudson River, where I had discovered the trails of two minks scooting across the snow-covered ice, and I mused about how much this amazing wild place meant to me. Here are photos of that location and the mink trails I saw, followed by my response to them.

"On days like this and in places like this, I feel like a 12-year-old kid, like a kid in a candy store with a hundred bucks in my pocket.  Most people I know love to travel to foreign places and visit exotic sights.  I've done some of that.  But all  the time I was passing through it felt like I was only looking at places through glass.  I didn't know how to truly inhabit them.  But here . . . . Here on this river . . . .  I've  been here at least fifty, sixty, maybe more than a hundred times, in all seasons, weathers, times of day;  I know the names of just about everything that grows and lives here, flora and fauna;  I know what plants are good to eat and where the orchids grow; and yet, every time I visit, it all seems terra incognita. 

"I never know what I  might find.  One spring morning I nearly stepped on a tiny brand-new fawn curled in the grass at my feet, so close I could sense its breath pass in and out of its nostrils.  One autumn evening I watched a young beaver drag a twig to the water's edge and proceed to gnaw away on it.  One cold but brilliant January afternoon I saw a pair of bluebirds high in a tree,  their rosy breasts the only color in the winter landscape.  And some day . . . maybe one of these days  . . . I just might lay my eyes on the actual creatures who inhabit these surrounding woods and whose trails criss-cross this snow-covered ice -- the coyotes, foxes, minks, and fishers, and every rare once in a while, a pair of playful otters."

Amazing! I still feel just as much in awe of this special place, even after 11 years and dozens and dozens more visits.  I should have given up on actually spying the critters I mentioned, since in all these years I've caught only fleeting glances of one single coyote's retreating rear end and one surprised mink's little bright-eyed face before it disappeared behind some riverside rocks. But hope never dies! Their myriad tracks reveal that these creatures still live here. And the magic of this marvelous place still beckons.  Time to get out of my chair and back to the riverside!

What Friends Are For!

Thanks have to go to my good pal Sue Pierce (that's Sue in this photo) for urging me out on this gorgeous winter day.  After spending a whole long week resting in my recliner while recovering from illness, I still felt a bit wobbly this morning, but as soon as I stepped out under that wide blue sky, breathed in that crisp cold air, and started kicking that soft fresh snow before me as we walked on the frozen Moreau Lake, I sure felt a whole lot better.  We didn't walk for more than an hour, but we were rewarded with finding lots of fox and coyote tracks following the shore and climbing the banks, and then we found a quiet place out of any wind and basked in that bright sun, just so happy to have such a gorgeous place to go for a healing walk in.  Let's hope our beautiful winter hangs around for a little longer. As soon as I feel up to it, Sue and I hope to snowshoe up to some limestone caves on the western ridge and follow the porcupine trails from where they den in the caves to where they feed in the mountaintop hemlocks.  Winter adventures await!

Waiting for Snow

It's Saturday afternoon, and our predicted snow has just begun to fall. Since I have been sick all week, I am hoping I feel well enough by the time this storm is over that I can get out to revel in its beauty and share images of that beauty here on my blog. In the meantime, and on just one day past the first anniversary of the poet Mary Oliver's death, I have steeped myself in the beauty of her poem about pending snowfall.  I  share that poem here.

Walking Home From Oak-Head
by Mary Oliver

There is something
about the snow-laden sky
in winter
in the late afternoon

that brings to the heart elation
and the lovely meaninglessness
of time.
Whenever I get home -- whenever --

somebody loves me there.
Meanwhile
I stand in the same dark peace
as any pine tree,

or wander on slowly
like the still unhurried wind,
waiting,
as for a gift,

for the snow to begin
which it does
at first casually,
then, irrepressibly.

Wherever else I live --
in music, in words,
in the fires of the heart,
I abide just as deeply

in this nameless, indivisible place,
this world,
which is falling apart now,
which is white and wild,

which is faithful beyond all our expressions of faith,
our deepest prayers.
Don't worry, sooner or later I'll be home.
Red-cheeked from the roused wind,

I'll stand in the doorway
stamping my boots and slapping my hands,
my shoulders
covered with stars.

Odd Finds in a Once Off-limits Woods

Since our so-far snowless winter has deprived me of most of my usual winter fun, like snow-shoeing and animal tracking, I've been feeling a little desperate for SOME kind of woodland adventures. So I decided to do a little trespassing today, and headed over to the former Finch Pruyn lumberlands that will soon become part of Moreau Lake State Park.  Last time I went there, the property was surrounded by high chain-link fences posted with No Trespassing signs.  But today, I didn't have to be sneaky at all about entering these lands.  A gate stood wide open, and an obvious lane led me right to an old cemetery in the middle of the woods.  And I mean a REALLY old cemetery!

Even if the date had not been posted on that sign, it was obvious from the state of the gravestones that they were very old. Most were tilted, some were broken or fallen over, and all were weathered or covered with lichens sufficiently to obscure the names and pertinent dates of those whose bones lay beneath them. I certainly could not read a word on these two stones.

Ah!  If I looked at the other side of those stones, I COULD see some names inscribed.  But they were too obscured by lichens and weathering for me to read them.  Perhaps if one made rubbings from these stones, the inscriptions would be clearer.

Of all the stones in this graveyard, the only one that had a clearly legible name was this one.  And poor Jane doesn't even get a last name of her own, only the notice that she was the wife of E.H. Wood.  At least she was able to live to a ripe old age of 65, pretty old for a woman of her time.

This stone, too, had a semi-legible inscription, but I wasn't able to make it out through the dark stains.

Mother Nature had inscribed these next two stones with some beautiful lichenous growths.

I felt an odd peacefulness, gazing at these stones made lovely in -- and by -- their decrepitude.  No one alive today would remember either the good or unpleasant things that characterized the folks whose flesh once surrounded the bones that now lay beneath my feet.  Perhaps it is right that our names disappear from our gravestones as the details of our lives disappear from living memory and our mortal bodies return their elements to the soil that embraces them.



I had last entered these woods back in July, when the shrubby undergrowth was in full leaf and the woods closed in densely around us.  I remember we had to push our way through bushes to reach the creek where we'd come to assess a population of rare wildflowers, and we weren't sure which direction would take us there most directly. But today, with the bushes bare and sightlines clear, I could see the creek from where I stood in the graveyard, and promptly walked right to its banks.

With the temperature approaching 60 degrees F. today, most of the snow was gone from the woods, as was the ice from the creek.  A gentle rain began to fall, decorating the surface of the creek with dancing circles.

It surprises me how much green remains in the winter woods, with so many evergreen ferns and mosses retaining their vivid color.  What could be prettier than the starry sprouts of Haircap Moss poking up from the brown leaf litter?

The rare wildflowers my friends and I had come here to assess last summer were still in evidence today. Called Great St. Johnswort (Hypericum ascyron), the plant lives up to its name by being of considerable stature.  It holds its large bright-yellow flowers on erect stems that stand over four feet tall, and the dry seedpods of those flowers were as evident today as those flowers had been last July.

I think these large tulip-shaped seedpods are almost as handsome as the flowers were when in bloom.  And this particular cluster held a mid-winter surprise today, with the presence of an active spider hiding among the seedpod's segments.

Returning home along Butler Road, I pulled over to observe the extent of logging now taking place within this large parcel of land that will eventually become part of Moreau Lake State Park.  This particular plot is being groomed to become open land planted with Wild Lupine, Horsemint, New Jersey Tea, and other pine-barren plants that support many beneficial insects, including the endangered Karner Blue Butterfly.  The transformation of the land is being conducted by the Open Space Institute, which currently owns the land and can sell the timber as it is harvested. Once the timber is cleared, the park is expected to take ownership of the land and begin planning trails throughout the hundreds of acres, with access to the adjacent Hudson River.

I continued home along the river, where fog lay thick over the water, transforming the landscape into a marvel of beauty on this most unseasonably warm January day.

Waiting for Winter

Where the heck did our winter go?  We had some wintry weather a couple of weeks ago, but now we've got rain and fog instead of ice and snow.  Ah well, I'm trying to make the best of it.  It was rather beautiful along the foggy Hudson River today.

Because of a fine mist in the air, every twig of the riverside trees held shining droplets that resembled  twinkling Christmas lights.

The lush emerald hue of this Green Velvet Moss (Dicranum montanum) seemed to glow in the dim light of this damp misty afternoon.

Beavers are causing some serious deforestation along the river banks near the Sherman Island Boat Launch.

It will be interesting to see what vegetation takes over, now that the banks are exposed to direct sunlight.

Walking along Spier Falls Road, I was surprised to see how this oak leaf had left its profile on the painted strip at the edge of the pavement.

That leaf reminded me of one I had come across just one year ago, embedded within a frosty escutcheon on the frozen surface of Moreau Lake.  This was what winter looked like about this same time last year.  When I searched for this photo in my blog archives, I discovered that winter came late last January, too.  But it did come,  eventually.  This post from January 14, 2019, reassures me that winter may yet arrive this year, too.

A Year of Floral Rarities!

For a wildflower enthusiast like me, 2019 was one terrific year. After nearly 30 years of stalking wild plants, I don't discover many new ones anymore. But this year, eleven new plants joined my life list, and wonder of wonders, three of those new discoveries turned out to be quite rare.   To add to the surprise, at the time I first saw these rarities, I assumed they were common ordinary plants, ones I had seen many times before. But thanks to the help of some friends who are far more expert than I am, I now know differently.

The New England Violet (Viola novae-angliae):
When I first saw the violet pictured below, I nearly passed it by as just another Common Blue, a denizen of every suburban lawn and city alley.  Ho hum, dime-a-dozen . . . .

But wait a minute!  The vivid reddish-blue of the flowers, those tapered leaves, and the overall furriness of leaves, stem, and flowers drew me in to take a closer look. Intrigued by these characteristics that seemed quite odd for a Common Blue, I took photos of the salient points and sent them to Steve Young, chief botanist for the New York Natural Heritage Program.  It was he who informed me that I had happened upon the truly rare New England Violet (Viola novae-angliae) in the only place it has ever been found in all of New York State, along the banks of the Hudson River in Warren County. That's right.  This violet has never been found at any other site but this in all of New York State! For obvious reasons, it is ranked as an Endangered species in New York.  (You can click on this link to visit the post where I recount the day I found these and other unusual violets.)

Pringle's Autumn Coralroot (Corallorhiza odontorhiza var. pringlei):
There's a tiny orchid called Autumn Coralroot (Corallorhiza odontorhiza) that grows abundantly in the woods of Moreau Lake State Park in Saratoga County, NY.  As a species, Autumn Coralroot is not considered a rare orchid, and I have been taking photographs of it for many years. Here's just one of my photos:

My friend Dan Wall is an orchid enthusiast and also an artist who paints careful renderings of all the orchids that grow in New York State.  He had seen my photos of these orchids, and it was he who first wondered if some of the ones I had photographed might be the rare variety called Pringle's Autumn Coralroot (C. odontorhiza var. pringlei). He based his suspicion on the open florets that revealed the pollen bundles within, as well as the broad lower lip of the floret. The standard variety of Autumn Coralroot produces closed florets that possess narrower lower petals, if they possess any petals at all.

Dan sent some of my photos to our leading state botanist, Steve Young, who sent them on to "the" expert in this taxon, a Professor John Freudenstein at Ohio State University. Noting the open-throated floret and the shape of the petal, Professor Freudenstein judged it to be the exceedingly rare variety, Corallorhiza  odontorhiza var. pringlei, last reported from only one New York county (Monroe) way back in 1903 and never found again there or in any other county in the state.  By now, this plant is  actually rated as Extirpated from New York. Well, I guess a plant can't be rated any rarer than that!  State-ranked SX!  I'm happy to report that a secure population is now known to be thriving at Moreau Lake State Park.  (You can click on this link to read my post about finding new populations of this super-rare orchid at the park.)

Green Rock Cress (Borodinia missouriensis):

Most Mustard-family plants look rather weedy. That's certainly the case for Green Rock Cress (Borodinia missouriensis), whose small white flowers don't exactly call attention to themselves, hidden as they are among other trailside greenery at Moreau Lake State Park. I'm sure I had ignored them for years, if I even noticed them at all.

But when Green Rock Cress goes to seed, the plant is pretty hard to ignore, with its long, slender, shiny siliques arching away from its tall stems, arrayed like water falling from a fountain.  I had definitely noticed this plant for a number of years, searching my wildflower guidebooks in vain for its identity, and finally giving up.  Hey, it's only one of those uncountable number of no'count mustards, I thought, and thought no more of it.  For a while, anyway.

But this year, my curiosity ruled.  I just HAD to know the name of this plant with its distinctively cascading siliques. So I posted several  photos of it on Facebook, including close-ups of leaves, stem, and basal rosette, and tagged some of my Facebook friends who are far more expert than I when it comes to plants. It didn't take long for a number of friends to chime in, and after some challenging back-and-forth among them, the consensus was that this is Green Rock Cress (Borodinia missouriensis), formerly called by the scientific name Boechera missouriensis. Thanks need to go to my dear friend Andrew Lane Gibson, a rare-plant monitor for the state of Ohio, for helping to bring this consensus about.

Once I learned the name of this plant, just imagine my surprise when I also learned that it was not just some no'count little weed, but rather a Threatened species in New York State, occurring in only 6 to 20 locations throughout the state. Now knowing that Green Rock Cress was considered a very vulnerable species, I asked Rich Ring, a rare-plant monitor for the state, to visit the park and assess the extent of the population. I'm happy to report that we found around 200 specimens at two different locations in the park.  Here's a link to my post recounting our several rare-plant searches at Moreau Lake State Park last July.

Remembering my friend Ed:
I'm sure most folks can imagine how happy I am to have found such super-rarities in my personal hunting grounds, as well as how lucky I feel to have such super-expert friends who are always willing to help me identify each find.  But I'm also feeling sad that I can't share my excitement about these finds with the man who more than anyone else helped to feed my passion for plants.  That man is Ed Miller, my dear friend, fellow wildflower nut, and mentor extraordinaire, who died this past March at the age of 94. I hope this photo below conveys some of the joy we found in each other's company.  To understand why I loved this man so much, here's a link to the blog post I wrote as a tribute to him on the occasion of his 90th birthday. I'm happy to report that he maintained his vigor of mind and spirit as well as his marvelous delight in the natural world until a very short time before he died, at peace, without pain, and surrounded by those he loved and who loved him.  May we all live and die so well.