Tag: swamp

Edible

nonmigratory?

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Thursday last, grandsons Sam and Rory and I visited Sapsucker Woods, enjoying a late summer morning from a wooden observation platform over this watery swamp. “Look, hot dogs!!”

“Typha is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in Australia as cumbungi or bulrush, in Canada as bulrush or cattail, and in New Zealand as reed, cattail, bulrush or raupo.”

“Many parts of the Typha plant are edible to humans. Before the plant flowers, the tender inside of the shoots can be squeezed out and eaten raw or cooked. The starchy rhizomes are nutritious with a protein content comparable to that of maize or rice. They can be processed into a flour with 266 kcal per 100 grams, and are most often harvested from late autumn to early spring. They are fibrous, and the starch must be scraped or sucked from the tough fibers. Baby shoots emerging from the rhizomes, which are sometimes subterranean, can be picked and eaten raw. Also underground is a carbohydrate lump which can be peeled and eaten raw or cooked like a potato. The plant is one championed by survival experts because various parts can be eaten throughout the year. Plants growing in polluted water can accumulate lead and pesticide residues in their rhizomes, and these should not be eaten.”

“The rind of young stems can be peeled off, and the tender white heart inside can be eaten raw or boiled and eaten like asparagus. This food has been popular among the Cossacks in Russia, and has been called “Cossack asparagus”. The leaf bases can be eaten raw or cooked, especially in late spring when they are young and tender. In early summer the sheath can be removed from the developing green flower spike, which can then be boiled and eaten like corn on the cob. In mid-summer when the male flowers are mature, the pollen can be collected and used as a flour supplement or thickener.”

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Reference: text in italics and quotes is from the Wikipedia, “Typha.”

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.

Fragrant

Native Americans used it as a herbal remedy for a variety of ailments.

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Thursday last, grandsons Sam and Rory and I visited Sapsucker Woods, enjoying a late summer morning we clambered onto a wooden platform over a watery swamp.

Look closely for flowers and buds of the White Water Lily native to New York State. 

Although the young leaves of White Water-lily reportedly can be boiled and served as a vegetable, the main human use of this plant appears to have been medicinal. Native Americans used it as a herbal remedy for a variety of ailments, including colds, tuberculosis, bronchial complaints, toothaches, and mouth sores.

The many names for this plant: American White Waterlily, American White Water-lily, Fragrant Water-lily, Fragrant White Water Lily, Fragrant White Water-lily, Sweet Water-lily, Sweet-scented Water Lily, Sweet-scented White Waterlily, Tompkins County, Water, Water Lily, Waterlily, White Water Lily, White Waterlily, White Water-lily (Nymphaea odorata ssp. odorata)

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.

Scarlet

nonmigratory?

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Thursday last, grandsons Sam and Rory and I visited Sapsucker Woods, enjoying a late summer morning we came upon many scarlet beauties.

Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) is also known as Bog Sage, Cardinal Flower, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Finger Lake Region, Hog’s Physic, Indian Pink, Red Bay, Sapsucker Woods, Scarlet Lobelia, Slinkweed, Water Gladiole.

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.

Soft Landing

nonmigratory?

MichaelStephenWills

Thursday last, grandsons Sam and Rory and I visited Sapsucker Woods, enjoying a late summer morning. From the north side on Wilson Trail, these Canada geese landed on the pond. 

In North America, nonmigratory Canada goose populations have been on the rise. The species is frequently found on golf courses, parking lots, and urban parks, which would have previously hosted only migratory geese on rare occasions.

Owing to its adaptability to human-altered areas, it has become one of the most common waterfowl species in North America. In many areas, nonmigratory Canada geese are now regarded as pests by humans.

They are suspected of being a cause of an increase in high fecal coliforms at beaches. An extended hunting season, deploying noise makers, and hazing by dogs have been used to disrupt suspect flocks. 

A goal of conservationists has been to focus hunting on the nonmigratory populations (which tend to be larger and more of a nuisance) as opposed to migratory flocks showing natural behavior, which may be rarer.

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.

Disappeared

Very Rare

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I was lucky enough to live near the site of these wild orchids back in the early 2000’s, close enough to enjoy serial visits, enough to find this perfect moment titled “After the Rain.” In recent visits there were no specimens to be found. The reasons for the disappearance are not clear.

Click me to view “After the Rain” from my Online gallery.

Showy lady’s slipper, scientific name Cypripedium reginae, is also known as pink-and-white lady’s-slipper, and queen’s lady’s-slipper, is a rare lady’s-slipper orchid native to northern North America. Although never common, this plant has vanished from much of its historical range due to habitat loss. It is the state flower of Minnesota.

Cypripedium reginae grows in wetlands such as fens, wooded swamps, and riverbanks.  Cypripedium reginae thrives in neutral to basic soils but can be found in slightly acidic conditions. The plants often form in clumps by branching of the underground rhizomes. Its roots are typically within a few inches of the top of the soil. It prefers very loose soil and when growing in fens it will most often be found in mossy hummocks.

It can tolerate full sun but prefers partial shade for some part of the day. When exposed to full sun, the flower lip is somewhat bleached and less deeply colored. It is occasionally eaten by white-tailed deer.

Cypripedium reginae can be found in Canada from Saskatchewan east to Atlantic Canada, and the United States from North Dakota east to the Atlantic and south to Arkansas and Tennessee.

Cypripedium reginae is quite rare. Its increasing rarity is attributable to destruction of a suitable alkaline habitat; it is sensitive to hydrologic disturbances, and is threatened by wetland draining, water contamination, habitat destruction and horticultural collectors. Browsing by an exploding deer population stunts or eliminates the plant’s growth.

Cypripedium reginae contains an irritant, cypripedin, a phenanthrenequinone. The plant is known to cause dermatitis on the hands and face. The first report of the allergy reaction was in 1875 by H. H. Babcock in the United States, 35 years before the term “allergy” was coined. The allergen was later isolated in West Germany by Bjorn M. Hausen and associates.

Reference: “Cypripedium reginae” wikipedia

Images and captions Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Glacial Erratic, unremarked

This maple tree is one of the first plants to flower in spring.

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Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing.

Click Me for “Finger Lakes Memories” my online gallery.

All photography using the IPhone 14 ProMax triple camera, raw format, edited on the phone.

We find boulders of crystalline rock, commonly derived from Adirondack sources, left behind on the surface of ablation moraine, in the Finger Lakes Region.

Cornell finds some and move them, maybe the case for this unremarked erratic found along the Allen Trail of FR Newman Arboretum.

Another enormous erratic, brought in from the Sixmile Creek valley, was carved into a seat as a memorial to Professor R.S. Tarr who deciphered much of the glacial history of the Finger Lakes Region. Find it at the southwest corner of McCraw Hall on the Cornell University Campus.

History (from wikipedia)

During the 18th century, erratics were deemed a major geological paradox. Geologists identify erratics by studying the rocks surrounding the position of the erratic and the rock of the erratic itself. Erratics were once considered evidence of a biblical flood, but in the 19th century scientists gradually came to accept that erratics pointed to an ice age in Earth’s past. Among others, the Swiss politician, jurist, theologian Bernhard Friedrich Kuhn [de] saw glaciers as a possible solution as early as 1788. However, the idea of ice ages and glaciation as a geological force took a while to be accepted. Ignaz Venetz (1788–1859), a Swiss engineer, naturalist and glaciologist was one of the first scientists to recognize glaciers as a major force in shaping the earth.

In the 19th century, many scientists came to favor erratics as evidence for the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (ice age) 10,000 years ago, rather than a flood. Geologists have suggested that landslides or rockfalls initially dropped the rocks on top of glacial ice. The glaciers continued to move, carrying the rocks with them. When the ice melted, the erratics were left in their present locations.

Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (v. 1, 1830) provided an early description of the erratic which is consistent with the modern understanding. Louis Agassiz was the first to scientifically propose that the Earth had been subject to a past ice age. In the same year, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Prior to this proposal, Goethe, de Saussure, Venetz, Jean de Charpentier, Karl Friedrich Schimper and others had made the glaciers of the Alps the subjects of special study, and Goethe,[15] Charpentier as well as Schimper had even arrived at the conclusion that the erratic blocks of alpine rocks scattered over the slopes and summits of the Jura Mountains had been moved there by glaciers.

Charles Darwin published extensively on geologic phenomena including the distribution of erratic boulders. In his accounts written during the voyage of HMS Beagle, Darwin observed several large erratic boulders of notable size south of the Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego and attributed them to ice rafting from Antarctica. Recent research suggests that they are more likely the result of glacial ice flows carrying the boulders to their current locations.

References:
“The Finger Lakes Region: Its Origin and Nature,” O.D. von Engeln, Cornell University Press, 1961 page 106.
Wikipedia, “Glacial Erratics”
Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Red Maple Flowers

This maple tree is one of the first plants to flower in spring.

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Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing.

Click Me for “Finger Lakes Memories” my online gallery.

All photography using the IPhone 14 ProMax triple camera, raw format, edited on the phone.

Acer rubrum is one of the most abundant and widespread trees in eastern North America. It can be found from the south of Newfoundland, through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and southern Quebec to the southwest west of Ontario, extreme southeastern Manitoba and northern Minnesota; southward through Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, eastern Oklahoma, and eastern Texas in its western range; and east to Florida. It has the largest continuous range along the North American Atlantic Coast of any tree that occurs in Florida. In total it ranges 2,600 km (1,600 mi) from north to south. The species is native to all regions of the United States east of the 95th meridian. The tree’s range ends where the −40 °C (−40 °F) mean minimum isotherm begins, namely in southeastern Canada. A. rubrum is not present in most of the Prairie Peninsula of the northern Midwest (although it is found in Ohio), the coastal prairie in southern Louisiana and southeastern Texas and the swamp prairie of the Florida Everglades. Red maple’s western range stops with the Great Plains where conditions become too dry for it. The absence of red maple from the Prairie Peninsula is most likely due to the tree’s poor tolerance of wildfires. Red maple is most abundant in the Northeastern US, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and northeastern Wisconsin, and is rare in the extreme west of its range and in the Southeastern US.

On the arboretum northeast side is a collection of native maples, this Red Maple is represented caught our eye.

These metal tags are excellent signposts hanging from the branches on coated wire. Red maple’s maximum lifespan is 150 years, but most live less than 100 years. The tree’s thin bark is easily damaged from ice and storms, animals, and when used in landscaping, being struck by flying debris from lawn mowers, allowing fungi to penetrate and cause heart rot.[8] Its ability to thrive in many habitats is largely due to its ability to produce roots to suit its site from a young age. In wet locations, red maple seedlings produce short taproots with long, well-developed lateral roots; while on dry sites, they develop long taproots with significantly shorter laterals. The roots are primarily horizontal, however, forming in the upper 25 cm (9.8 in) of the ground. Mature trees have woody roots up to 25 m (82 ft) long. They are very tolerant of flooding, with one study showing that 60 days of flooding caused no leaf damage. At the same time, they are tolerant of drought due to their ability to stop growing under dry conditions by then producing a second-growth flush when conditions later improve, even if growth has stopped for 2 weeks.

Acer rubrum is one of the first plants to flower in spring. A crop of seeds is generally produced every year with a bumper crop often occurring every second year. A single tree between 5 and 20 cm (2.0 and 7.9 in) in diameter can produce between 12,000 and 91,000 seeds in a season. A tree 30 cm (0.98 ft) in diameter was shown to produce nearly a million seeds. Red maple produces one of the smallest seeds of any of the maples. Fertilization has also been shown to significantly increase the seed yield for up to two years after application. The flowers are generally unisexual, with male and female flowers appearing in separate sessile clusters, though they are sometimes also bisexual. These pistillate (female) flowers have one pistil formed from two fused carpels with a glabrous superior ovary and two long styles that protrude beyond the perianth. These flowers were formed on the tree labeled “Frank’s Red.”

These staminate (male) flowers are sessile (grow direct from tip of branch without a stalk) containing between 4 and 12 stamens, often with 8. These seem to have 12 stamens.

The above flowers were formed on a “Schlesinger I” Red Maple Tree (see following lable).

Reference: “Red Maple” Wikipedia
Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

A large and varied genus

“Water Banana”

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Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing. We discovered this seeming lily growing from the muck along the Treman Woodland Walk. Scientific Name: Lysichiton camtschatcensis. Common names: Asian skunk cabbage, white skunk cabbage, Far Eastern swamp lantern or Japanese swamp lantern.

This is a plant found in swamps and wet woods, along streams and in other wet areas of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin and northern Japan. The common name “skunk cabbage” is used for the genus Lysichiton, which includes Lysichiton americanus, the western skunk cabbage, noted for its unpleasant smell. The Asian skunk cabbage is more variable: plants have been reported in different cases to smell disgusting, not at all, and sweet.

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All photography using the IPhone 14 ProMax triple camera, raw format, edited on the phone.

In Japanese it is known as mizubashō (lit. “water-banana”) from a supposed similarity to the Japanese banana, a name with poetic rather than malodorous associations. It is not closely related to the true cabbage.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Stone Bench Memorial

Old Testament

MichaelStephenWills

Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing. We found a path new to us, with this memorial stone bench, a biblical quote engraved on the seats. Biblical Quote on bench: “What doth the lord require of thee / but to do justly and to love mercy / and to walk with thy god.” Micah 6:8

The Book of Micah is the sixth of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Ostensibly, it records the sayings of Micah, whose name is Mikayahu (Hebrew: מִיכָיָ֫הוּ), meaning “Who is like Yahweh?”, an 8th-century BCE prophet from the village of Moresheth in Judah (Hebrew name from the opening verse: מיכה המרשתי). The book has three major divisions, chapters 1–2, 3–5 and 6–7, each introduced by the word “Hear,” with a pattern of alternating announcements of doom and expressions of hope within each division. Micah reproaches unjust leaders, defends the rights of the poor against the rich and powerful;[ while looking forward to a world at peace centered on Zion under the leadership of a new Davidic monarch. While the book is relatively short, it includes lament (1.8–16; 7.8–10), theophany (1.3–4), hymnic prayer of petition and confidence (7.14–20), and the “covenant lawsuit” (6.1–8), a distinct genre in which Yahweh (God) sues Israel for breach of contract of the Mosaic covenant.

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All photography using the IPhone 14 ProMax triple camera, raw format, edited on the phone.

In the quote tract, (6:6–8), Micah speaks on behalf of the community asking what they should do in order to get back on God’s good side. Micah then responds by saying that God requires only “to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Thus declaring that the burnt offering of both animals and humans (which may have been practiced in Judah under Kings Ahaz and Manasseh) is not necessary for God.

Reference: “Micah” Wikipedia

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

A Personable Tree

Gifts from the past

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Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing. Found here growing outside native range, being the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to southern Pennsylvania, the Table Mountain Pine is named after the landform, not a particular mountain.

Click Me for “Finger Lakes Memories” my online gallery.

All photography using the IPhone 14 ProMax triple camera, raw format, edited on the phone.

Its pinecones drew me to this scraggly, ungainly, poorly formed tree. All general mankind finds useful in the, scientific name, Pinus pungens, otherwise known as Hickory Pine, Prickly Pine and Mountain Pine, is to grind it up for pulp or chop it for tinder.

Last of the Mohicans

That said, the final scene of the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans takes place in a nice Pinus pungens stand on a rocky mountaintop in North Carolina.

Personality

The tree has personality. Pinus pungens is the Lonesome Pine of the 1908 novel The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox, and popularized in the Laurel and Hardy film Way out West: “On the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine” Several “Lonesome Pine” hiking trails have been waymarked in the Blue Ridge Mountains and elsewhere in the Appalachians.

Pinecone Bud

Pinus pungens prefers dry conditions and is mostly found on rocky slopes, favoring higher elevations, from 300–1,760 meters (980–5,770 ft) altitude. It commonly grows as single scattered trees or small groves, not in large forests like most other pines, and needs periodic disturbances for seedling establishment. The three tallest known ones are in Paris Mountain State Park, South Carolina; they are 26.85 to 29.96 meters (88 ft 1 in to 98 ft 4 in) tall.

Reference: “Pinus pungens” Wikipedia.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved