and now for something completely different.

In honor of International Monty Python Day – tomorrow – we’re going someplace new today. Up into the woods.

last year’s beech leaves.  not too many of these left.

A decaying stump serves as a nursery for moss and canada mayflower

sweet little canada mayflower!

I spent a lot of time with maples.

I found myself puzzling over how to tell the difference between red and sugar maple, when it’s past bud season (the buds are a no-brainer to tell apart) but leaves are not necessarily easily at hand either (because the trees are too tall and no branches are accessible.) In the following few pictures…

…I tried to figure out if the two distinctly different guys above are the same species, with the younger one (less furrowed) at right, or just Awfully Close Neighbors.

Maybe the trunk will provide a clue. To me, the bark is the same from one side to another, so I think they’re differently aged stump sprouts. When you chop down a tree – certain species, in particular – sometimes you’ll get a bunch of sprouts growing out of it that do well enough to turn into pretty big trees themselves.

So I think this is a stump sprout. The one on the right is older – you can tell by the more-furrowed bark.

farther up the tree, one trunk has split a second time. From left, we have the youngest, the middle, and the oldest, all accessing the same root system. Or so I speculate.

And now, for white birch.

Birch I

Birch II

(note: correct orientation is actually the other way – I just think it’s prettier in this direction)

 

Birch III

baby fern.

baby fern and jack-in-the-pulpit

Another decaying stump…this whole back part of the property has been logged, obviously, as everything in this state has been logged at one (or four or five) points along the way.

OH! An ash sapling. Already leafed out. The big trees haven’t leafed out yet. It’s like they’re taking turns with the maples, letting the maples go first.

An ash bud when it’s on a sapling. So cute.

Remember the fern I thought was maidenhair but I was totally wrong? [Except that later, I realized I was right? It is maidenhair fern.] Here’s what it looks like these days.

imagine the trauma that resulted in this. such a survivor.

Just Good Friends. An ash and a yellow birch.

And now, for a finale, back to beech.

I wonder what function the hair serves. As packing material separating the folds in the leaves when they’re still super-tiny and compressed?

a 5K, two new flowers, and a spider

First up: the incredible athletic prowess around here. Yesterday, we ran in a 5K fundraiser benefitting the non-profit that Best Beloved is the executive director of  executively directs. (Apparently I’ll do anything to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition.)

Third, baby. I came in third in my age group, tenth overall. Actually, I did the same thing two years ago, she said modestly. Well, I was third in my age group then, but 23rd overall – this year was much faster.
But that’s nothing. Guess who came in first in his age group? Sweetpea. He won a prize, and I made him give it to me. A sweet CamelBak hydration system water bottle. C’mon! It was hot pink! That’s clearly mine!

I’m just awful to him.

We had a good time at the race. It was a gorgeous day – just enough clouds to make it interesting, and the apple blossoms are just about to open.

A lot of people worked hard to put it together, and there was a great turnout. The T-shirts are cool, too. Lime green! Love it.  We had fun hanging out at our table o’ brochures. Well, I was naughty and played in the adjacent woods a lot.

There wasn’t a whole lot going on wildflower-wise, but there was this:

shagbark hickory!

On the forest floor, squat-all for flowers, except for what I’m currently thinking is Solomon’s Seal.

CHECK OUT THAT SPIDER! I didn’t see it until I got the shot up on the computer.

…and I learned that baby pinecones look like raspberries.

And now for today’s report. Strap in, it’s a long one.

A violet. There’s that bearded thing going on…

One of these red ferns I’ve been seeing around…

Canada mayflower. (Maianthemum canadense). A queen on her throne.

Bluets! (Houstonia caerulea). It was hard to get a shot that doesn’t include Maggie’s paw, stepping on them.

Foreground: the informant. Background: the lookout. I’m not just making this stuff up, am I?

Back to another batch of bluets. Doesn’t this look like it’s floating in space?

yeah, ditto.

Here’s a flower ID project. I use Newcomb’s Guide. (Got it cheap years ago in grad school; for some reason this edition costs – on Amazon – a ton. Maybe something better’s come along, but some folks are still hanging on to this one. Who knows.) There’s a simple methodology for looking at a flower to figure out what it is.
1. how many petals?

four.

.

how are the flowers arranged? on a single stalk, arranged in terminal cluster

what about the leaves? two of them – opposite one another – each of them subdivided into three leaflets, each of which is toothed.

we have white toothwort.
You may recall we’ve been waiting for beech buds to open. We’re using our patented time-lapse technique to show the process in slow motion. (Um, the technique is where you just look for a bunch of different buds, occasionally on different trees, at different stages in the process. I tell you, I am made of magic.)

The end sets of bud scales finally can’t hold it in any longer…

A pair of leaves make their escape.

The rest of the scales give up any hope of stopping the explosion.

ta-dah! whew.

Can it be? another flower ID project?

Wow. Um. Never seen that before, up close. Thank you, macro lens! Tiny, bell-shaped? Five petals, each a trippy snowflake.

arranged along a stalk…

two leaves, partway up, opposite, each toothy.

ladies and gentlemen, we have miterwort (Mitella dyphilla).

Another violet. This picture is upside-down, since I held the camera upside down to get it (we’re pretty low to the ground here). I love the blurriness of it. usually blurriness bugs me, but I think this one’s cool. I know it’s just blurry, but I like to think my camera’s capable of capturing auras. Wouldn’t that be something?

happy mother’s day!