The Key to Happiness: Fine Friends and Fun in the Forest

Last Tuesday, The New York Times featured a two-page spread in the "Well" section called "The 7-Day Happiness Challenge."  The article offered a weeklong regimen of activities to "help you focus on a crucial element of living a good life: your relationships," and also presented a quiz to assess "the breadth of your social ties."  Well, I sure aced that quiz! Especially such questions as "Do you participate in any group activities?" or "When was the last time you said 'yes' to a social plan with others?"  As any long-time reader of this blog would know, I am certainly blessed with (and eager to participate in) many opportunities to join with friends, with our social pleasure amplified by our walking in wondrous nature.  In fact, I  had just ventured out with the three friends pictured below (L-R: Dana Stimpson, Sue Pierce, and Tom Callaghan) to walk a favorite wooded trail at Moreau Lake State Park called the Cottage Park Trail.

 The trailhead for the Cottage Park Trail lies across Spier Falls Road from the Sherman Island Boat Launch Site on the banks of the Hudson River, which is where we met, arriving from points north and south.  Before heading off to our trail, we had to linger a moment just to marvel at the beauty of the river islands and forested mountains so perfectly reflected in the quiet water.

The Cottage Park Trail is named for the various structures that housed workers who labored to build the nearby Spier Falls Dam that crosses the Hudson. Remnants of those buildings can still be found near the trailhead, the old stone foundations now thickly covered with lush green mosses.

This trail eventually leads to the heights of the Palmertown Mountains that rise from the riverbanks, but it first heads through a wooded lowland that's home to several species of birch.  This Yellow Birch (Betula alleghaniensis), lit by the low winter sun,  shone in that light as if its bark were composed of hammered gold leaf.

We found Black Birch here, too, but this Gray Birch (B. populifolia) caught our attention more, thanks to the very obvious chevrons that climbed its nearly-white trunk.  These inverted Vs are a helpful distinguishing mark, for the Gray Birch's bark can be nearly as white as that of a young Paper Birch. (We did find some Paper Birch in this woodland, too.)

Sadly, almost all of the mature American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) in this woods showed the pock-marked bark that is a result of the mortal disease now infecting most of our native beeches.  Luckily, the disease did not deter our resident Pileated Woodpeckers from searching the dying wood for the insects that live within. There is no mistaking the very large, long oval pits hammered out of the trunk by this, our largest woodpecker.

We enjoyed searching the forest floor for any evergreen plants that thrive there, and we were lucky to find a patch where numerous plants of the moonwort called Dissected Grape Fern (Botrychium dissectum f. obliquum) were thriving. Close by was a second form of this same Grape Fern species with more intricately cut leaves, that one known as B. dissectum f. dissectum.

This time of year, the winter-persisting fungi offer us nature lovers many examples to ponder, and almost all of them resemble in some way that most ubiquitous shelf fungus called Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor). The Turkey Tail fungi feature zonal stripes of alternating smooth and furry textures and of  alternating colors.  Most of the true Turkey Tails we found today were in shades of tan and gray with vivid gold stripes.

But here, sharing the same ailing beech limb with the specimen shown above, were some Turkey Tails featuring stripes of avocado green.

On another beech limb were Turkey Tails that reserved the green color for patches near the base.  (Or is that a green alga using the fungus as a host?)

Here's a close look at how truly furry the furred regions of a Turkey Tail cap can be!

No matter the varying colors and textures of the Turkey Tail caps, the pore surfaces underneath appear the same pale beige color with minute pores.

The caps of these stripy shelf fungi do look kind of like Turkey Tail, do they not?  But wait!

Turn them over and find pore surfaces of a fine-toothed texture and rusty color, quite unlike the pore surface of Turkey Tail.  And then, to confuse us even more, this Violet-toothed Polypore (Trichaptum biforme) displays neither the pores that the name "polypore" would suggest, nor the purple color that the name "Violet-toothed" would suggest.  This time of year, the vivid purple seen in the summer has faded nearly completely.

When I came upon this log that was nearly completely covered with these pure-white caps that resembled sea shells, I probably should have tried to determine the species.  But I didn't. I just stood and admired them for their beauty, even in their bleached-out state of decrepitude.

I was also content to "let the mystery be" regarding these pretty mushrooms, too.  Pretty on the gill-side, that is, while faded to a generic white on what was visible of the caps' surface, mostly hidden as it was by the twig the caps were attached to. I believe at least one of my companions got an i-Naturalist suggestion that these might be a species of the Crepidotus genus. 

And now for something completely different!  Still a fungus, though, but one without gills or pores: a purple-tinged crustose fungus called Silverleaf (Chondrostereum purpureum).

We continued on the Cottage Park Trail, crossing two powerlines with open-meadow habitat lying beneath the pylons and wires.

Here in this open grassland we found the remnants of many sun-loving flora, including the intricate seedheads of many Wild Bergamot flowers (Monarda fistulosa).  Even the dried remnants were beautiful, and they still possessed the strongly minty fragrance they emitted when in flower.  After I pinched one of these seedheads, the fragrance remained on the fingers of my glove for the rest of our adventure here.

Another common denizen of sun-baked clearings like this is the Round-headed Bushclover (Lespediza capitata). This plant's multiple round flowerheads are stacked on a single stem, and its floral bracts, empty now of seeds, remain visible all winter.

Ah, now we have reached today's goal destination! Near here is where the Cottage Park trail starts to sharply ascend toward the mountainous heights of the Palmertown Range, and this photo reveals how precipitously the terrain has changed. But the four of us have no desire to climb a mountain today, for what interests us are not mountaintop views but rather what plants we might find on this bedrock or inhabiting this forest floor with its soils enriched by lime-delivering springs and streams.

We particularly wanted to see this patch of Foamflower plants (Tiarella sp.) that have crowned this steep bedrock cliff.  Because of the plants inhabiting this bare rock instead of growing on softer woodland soil, we can see its long stolons dangling over the face of the rock, stolons that in a woodland would grow invisibly under the ground or beneath the leaf-litter of a forest floor.

Here's a closer look at the Foamflower stolons dangling over this cliff.  When I first encountered this particular Foamflower patch and showed photos of these dangling stolons on Facebook, I heard from some botanists who informed me that the presence of such long stolons had convinced some taxonomists that the species of Tiarella found in this part of North America is NOT the species we have always known it by -- cordifolia -- but rather the species these botanical taxonomists are calling stolonifera.  We wildflower-obsessed amateurs were excited to have this chance to observe in person what the professional flower folks were discussing among themselves.

While combing the forest floor at this site below the rocky cliffs, we found little evidence of other of the many native wildflowers that abound here in the spring, including some -- Canada Violets, for example -- that would indicate the presence of lime in the soil.  We did, though, find these colorful wintering-over leaves of Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba),  a calciphile species that definitely prefers a lime-rich woods.

An unexpected final delight greeted us when we discovered the pooled remains of a tiny creek that had only recently been flowing across the forest floor, thanks to recent rains.  Another habitat to explore, the habitat of flowing water rendered in frozen crystal!

And oh, what exquisite icy wonders awaited, each tiny pool offering different beautiful forms that flowing water can assume in freezing temperatures.  Some pools held glassy bubbles.

Other tiny pools held curvaceous swirls and curving lines.

Although solid now, the ice revealed so clearly the swirl and flow of the water as it incrementally froze. 

This starburst pattern of radiating crystal needles had me audibly gasping with delight.

I think I could add "seek out some dangling Foamflower stolons and frozen crystalline forms" to that New York Times article about how to find happiness. With the added advice, that you will be even happier when you find them along with good friends.

A Short Walk Along the River

Well, darn it all! I wasted most of yesterday's mild and pleasant day doing housekeeping stuff that could have waited, and all of a sudden it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  That gave me only an hour or two before I had to start dinner.  Lucky for me, I'm surrounded by gorgeous areas that can feed my nature-needy soul in brief visits.  And many are also easy to access.  The Hudson River along Spier Falls Road at Moreau is a case in point. I made a quick trip over Mt. McGregor, zipped down the road to the Sherman Island Boat Launch Site, stepped from my car, walked to the riverside, and stood in awe at the beauty before me, the momentarily sunlit shore bathed in the golden light of a wintertime late-afternoon.

Even the seedpods of last summer's flowers appeared lovely in this light.  The spent Meadowsweet's stems were gilded, and the split-open pods of Great St. John's Wort seemed to glow as if lit from within.

The stillness was unbroken by sounds of birds or beasts, but this felled birch testified to the presence of beavers nearby.

While walking in the nearby woods, I came upon another downed birch, this one's decomposition helped along by a mass of the black-colored, pebbly-textured fungus called Birch Woodwart (Hypoxylon multiforme).

As I walked along Spier Falls Road toward the dam, I paused to observe this waterfall plunging down the mountainside, its waters noisily splashing and dancing, fed by snowmelt and recent rains to an unexpected fullness for this time of year.

Directly across the road from the Spier Falls Dam lies one of the quarries where rock was carved out of the mountainside to provide material to build this hydroelectric dam, the largest privately-owned dam in the country at the time of its completion in 1903.  During the winter, cascades of ice form on the face of these quarry walls, fed by springs that constantly water the rock.  Recent rains and above-freezing weather have diminished the ordinarily thick ice sheets that normally cover these cliffs.

But enough of the ice remains to remind us of how beautiful frozen water can be.

The spring-dampened rocks here are home to a marvelous variety of mosses, all plumped by the wetness and gorgeously green all year long.

This Dog Lichen, too, looked especially glossy and plump where it clung to the rock, its wrinkled dark-green leaves interspersed with upright flaps of tan fruiting bodies.  I suspect this might be the species called Peltigera membranacea, due to its glossiness and the upright nature of its fruiting bodies.  (Opinions from folks more knowledgable than I are very welcome.)

UPDATE:  I have heard from bryologist Tom Phillips that this Dog Lichen is much more likely the species Peltigera praetextata, a much more common species than the similar-looking P. membranacea, which Tom told me is quite rare in New York.

Chunks of quarried rock lie scattered across the forest floor, and a hibernal pool, fed by melting ice and snow,  has formed in a deep depression

Bright-yellow Lemon Drop Fungus (Bisporella citrina) has decorated a fallen limb that lies near the edge of the pool.

If our winter would only grant us some cold and snow, it's likely this quarry site will be visited by folks who practice their ice-climbing skills on the ice-covered quarry walls.  For the present, the steep walls and jutting rocks offer some challenges to those who like to climb rocks.

My own challenge at this point was to make my way back to the road and arrive home by dinnertime. To do this, I pushed through Asian Bittersweet tangles and climbed over some largish boulders.  This particular boulder caught my eye because of the big pink crustose lichen that decorated its face.

Unfortunately, my only lichen guidebook contains no photos of pink crustose lichens, and a Google search turned up only those pink crustose lichens that thrive in the tropics.  Global warming may be robbing us of our normal snow and ice, but we're definitely not the tropics! So this pretty thing will remain a mystery to me for the present.  Its name will, that is.  Its beauty and interest won't.

Making the Most of No Winter

My snowshoes are still in the attic.  My Yaktrax wait in the trunk of my car.  I'm one of those oddball folks who really loves winter, and here it is, January, and what little snow we've had is long gone, and the beautiful ice that formed on the lake now lies watery along the shore.  Sigh!  But lucky me, I have some pals who know how to make the most of whatever the weather may be, and we got together yesterday to walk in Cole's Woods in downtown Glens Falls.  Here we are -- Dana, Sue, Noel, and Tom, with me behind -- setting off on soft frost-free ground through the rising mists of the morning's fog.

We always like to greet winter's evergreen plants, like this pretty little red-berried plant called Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens). This miniature prostrate woody shrub carpets the forest floor at Cole's Woods and is gorgeous in every season, whether in bloom or in fruit or simply in glossy-green leaves.

I know of no other location than Cole's Woods to find thousands of Pipsissewa plants (Chimaphila umbellata) thriving en masse, and the glossy green leaves still look as fresh as ever, despite several freezing days.

Many species of evergreen clubmosses thrive in this woods, including this Blue Fan Clubmoss (Diphasiastrum tristachyum), distinguished from other Diphasiastrum species more by its deep-lying underground runners than by any detectable blue cast to its leaves.

The dried husks of summer-blooming flowers can also have their charms,  like these wispy little three-pointed baskets that once held the seeds of Blue Curls (Trichostema dichotomum) and look as if they were made of sheer organdy.

The Mint-family plant called Heal-all (Prunella vulgaris) bears sturdy spikes of blue-purple flowers when blooming, and even after the florets have fallen, the plant presents an impressive appearance.

Here's one of the rarest plants to thrive in Cole's Woods, a Threatened species called Green Rock Cress (Borodinia missouriensis), and we could recognize it even now by its long arching seedpods.

Ah, but if you're looking for botanical entertainment in the winter woods, there's no better place to look than the myriad fallen trunks that populate the forest floor.  Mosses! Lichens! Liverworts! Fungi! Slime Molds! These damp and debarked rotting logs support them all!

Various species of Cladonia lichens (including the red-bonneted C. cristatella otherwise known as British Soldiers) vie for space on this patch of rotting wood.

Among another equally varied patch of lichens we found this truly spiky-topped one.  We were not sure, but iNaturalist suggested it might be the one called Organ-pipe Lichen (Cladonia crispata).

This next log was decorated with a beautiful green patch of what looked like Broom Moss (Dicranum sp.) sharing its patch of decorticated wood with rows of the translucent  Orange Jelly Fungus (Dacrymyces palmatus).

These wee little dots of orange jelly could be the newborn-baby version of that same Orange Jelly Fungus.  Or something else.  Even if I don't know their true name, I thought they were awfully cute!

We found many whitish, vaguely striped shelf fungi that from the top rather resembled faded specimens of Turkey Tail, although some had gills instead of pores on their fertile surfaces. But this one was so obviously furry, what else could it be but the aptly named Hairy Polypore (Trametes hirsuta)?

And the fertile surface certainly was made up of pores and not gills. So I'm sticking with Hairy Polypore unless someone more expert than I am tells me otherwise.

I am pretty sure this bright-orange, thin-fleshed, wavy fungus is the one called Crowded Parchment (Stereum complicatum), a very common and colorful fungal denizen of the winter woods.

Here was another Stereum species of fungus, this one called Silky Parchment (Stereum striatum).  I thought it looked more like fish scales than parchment, myself.  This one prefers to grow on American Hornbeam limbs, and there certainly were many American Hornbeam trees (also called Ironwood) growing nearby.

The backside of this patch of Silky Parchment revealed how the caps of this fungus are known to fuse together.

I was pleased to find one of my favorite fungi, one that we can find all winter long growing on fallen limbs and rotting tree trunks. Its pale-vanilla rumpled caps crowd together in overlapping clusters, and the surface of the caps looks rather dry and grainy, reminding me of flour-dusted piecrust. Nothing about this rather plain-looking mushroom suggests its bright-sounding name: Luminescent Panellus (Panellus stipticus).

When I turned a cap over, the frilly orange gills radiating from an off-center stem were a telling clue to this fungus's identity, but they still didn't suggest one of the most fascinating traits of this fungus and how it might have been dubbed with a name like "luminescent." No, I would have to come back at night, and then in pitch dark I might make out its greenish glow.  For this is one of those mushrooms known to glow in the dark!

If you Google "Panellus stipticus" you will find many photos of this mushroom glowing an eerie green in the dark, like this one I found:

Here was another fungus I immediately recognize on sight, small and ruffly, with some of its caramel-striped caps edged with marshmallow white.

The undersides of these caramel-colored overlapping caps reveal the distinctively crinkled gills that suggested this fungus's vernacular name,  the Crimped-gill Fungus (Plicaturopsis crispa).  Gorgeous!

Here was a fungus I'd never seen before and probably wouldn't have noticed at all if Sue hadn't pointed it out. Very tiny, with whitish, globular, wet-looking orbs on thin black stalks.  Sue found a name for this -- Holwaya mucida -- on iNaturalist, although most of the images of it found on that site and on Google  show it in its sexually active form, as a floppy black disc.   Now that I've seen this once, I wonder if I will ever notice it again, in either of its forms.  It continues to amaze me, how much remains to be found, even in places I've explored again and again over many years.

Here was one last organism we found thriving on downed wood,  this one a slime mold called Hemitrichia clavata. I recognized it from a photo in my George Barron's mushroom guide, Mushrooms of Northeast North America, in his chapter on slime molds.  Slime molds are NOT fungi, as Barron explains, although they do produce spores as fungi do.  That fuzzy yellow stuff protruding from glossy yellow cones are the spores in this case.

This cluster of Hemitrichia clavata was truly tiny, and despite its bright color I might have missed it if better eyes than mine hadn't seen it first.  How lucky I am to have such friends to enjoy our natural world with, as informed, experienced, and eager to learn as they are delightful companions.