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.

I’ve decided to learn about grasses.

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.
 

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?

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.

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.

Here’s one that I think I actually may have correctly identified – I’ve posted about it before – Timothy grass (Phleum pratense)



Here’s golden christmas tree. I don’t think it’s the same as honey bunches of oats.

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.

Backing up for a broader view, check out the proliferation of cluster bomb in the picture below:

Interestingly, not 30 feet away, the species composition of the unmowed part of the meadow we’re in is totally different: ferns and milkweed.


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. 

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.

bugs, grasses, things going to seed

This is not a blog about bugs.

But when they keep showing up, they keep showing up. From nose to wingtip, this guy was about 3/16” long. He’s sitting on some kind of wild grass (sedge? rush?)

This is what he was sitting on.

Yes indeedy, my next project is going to have be learning grasses and sedges.

I want this book, but I want it to manifest for free into my life. Anyone want to sponsor me and just send it to me?

I guess I have to live with Not Knowing.

And I may have to resort to naming these things myself in order to keep track of them. The one above is going to be Rose-Dusted Bottle Brush. OK, that was easy.
The wild roses are just starting to bloom, and they smell divine. Imagine how much better it will be when they all open up.


Despite recent developments in the bloom cycle, purple is not willing to cede the field to white and yellow just yet: the spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) just started blooming.

According to a Japanese study cited on Wikipedia, “The cells of the stamen hairs of some Tradescantia are colored blue, but when exposed to sources of ionizing radiation such as gamma rays, the cells mutate and change color to pink; they are one of the few tissues known to serve as an effective bioassay for ambient radiation levels.”
Well, here’s hoping that doesn’t come in handy.
Remember how yesterday I couldn’t get a good shot of False Solomon Seal berries? Today went a little better.

False Solomon Seal berries. At this point, they are 1/16” in diameter. That’s it. Tiny.
I also ID’d this vine that is in perpetual warfare with the black raspberries:

It’s the one-seeded bur cucumber(Sicyos angulatus), of course. (I’ve been growing cucumbers all along? Wow. I had no idea.) Yes, it’s in the gourd family, but apparently the fruit isn’t really edible. But it does make fabulous squigglies with its vines.

Last, but not least, a quick visit to a tall buttercup

The edges are blurry, but the center holds. Take that, Yeats.

And this is what a buttercup gone to seed looks like. Very similar to the crowfoot of yesterday. In fact, eerily so, since they have nearly the same kind of leaf shape, too. Let’s review, shall we?

crowfoot	buttercup