Tuesday, June 28, 2011

cluster bombs and flammable bathtubs

Today has been occupied by two projects: coming up with my own names for grasses and sedges, and adding things to the communal burn pile out in the meadow.
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I’ve decided to learn about grasses.
grass book The guide I’m using promises that I won’t need a hand lens or much experience with botany to identify species.  It will be a while before I manage to ID anything.

For now, my tactic is just to discern what the different species ARE, and to give them homemade names, so that I can recognize them from day to day.

I call this one “chevron”, because of the herringbone pattern of the flower bits.
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You know how you can buy a Christmas tree that’s been tightly wrapped in mesh, and you bring it home and clip the mesh off, and then the branches relax away from the trunk?
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This one’s “honey bunches of oats”. My question is, is it the same thing as chevron, but it’s been around a bit longer and it’s relaxed? Or is it a different species?
What about this one? It seems like the middle point of chevron and honey bunches of oats.
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Hm. I only just got started and already, I have no clue. Yay! The cognitive dissonance that is necessary for learning and growth! I alternate between being annoyed, and being delighted. Much like life itself. Let’s move on, shall we?
Here’s green chevron – not an imaginative name, but hey.
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Here’s one that I think I actually may have correctly identified – I’ve posted about it before – Timothy grass (Phleum pratense)
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Here’s golden christmas tree. I don’t think it’s the same as honey bunches of oats.
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This delicate one is pretty distinctive.
Oh! Here’s one that I may have ID’d – barberpole sedge (Scirpus rubrotinctus). I prefer my name for it: cluster bomb.
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Backing up for a broader view, check out the proliferation of cluster bomb in the picture below:
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Interestingly, not 30 feet away, the species composition of the unmowed part of the meadow we’re in is totally different: ferns and milkweed.
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Earlier, Charlie helped me read the intro to my new book.
On to the other project du jour.
Today I crossed the line from just blithely observing and appreciating Nature’s Bounty, to deciding to kill stuff. Enough is enough with the one-seeded bur cucumber. ‘Tis a vine, whose primary purpose in life seems to be to take over the universe, or at least, the hillside along our driveway – the scene of all the siberian iris, ferns, playtex tampon applicator flowers, spiderwort, wild madder, jack-in-the-pulpit, raspberry, black raspberry, and wild rose. 
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I filled up the back of the Escape TWICE with great mounds of this stuff. I dumped it in the burn pile out in the meadow, which is very close to just looking like an impromptu junkyard. What with there being a bathtub in it, and all. I’m not sure how flammable that thing’s going to be.

1 comment:

  1. Love the common names you've come up with and I'm sure you'll have good fun figuring out the botanical ones.

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