Gray Squirrel

From a handbook of years gone by:

"In purchasing a squirrel, be careful to select a young one: when taken old, they are sulky and morose in disposition, and almost incapable of being tamed, besides being far less beautiful in their appearance. Old squirrels may easily be distinguished from the young, for they are larger, have stouter limbs, are of darker colour, more inclining to sandy-brown, with less of the reddish tinge in it; their teeth are also larger and stronger, and perfectly yellow, and their tails by no means so full and bushy as those of young animals. A fine young squirrel may be purchased of a bird-fancier for about five shillings. In the country they may be obtained, much cheaper, of the boys who sometimes catch them. They are often brought to Whitechapel hay market by the farmers' boys."


Cassell's Handbooks. Handbook About Our Domestic Pets. New York, London, 1862. 60. Web. Google Book Search. 21 Jul 2009

Alder

This is the kind of stuff I envisioned back when the blog got underway--that is, revisiting species as they progress through the seasons. Back in March, we first looked at Smooth Alder when I found some old and tiny cones. I recently discovered fresh cones! Now how cool is that? :-)

I don't know why one set of cones is clean and the other has all those flowery remnants but I suspect at some time I'll find out.


From American Forest Trees:

The alders are old inhabitants of the earth. They had a place in the Eocene and Miocene forests of the old world and new. It is not apparent that they have either gained or lost in extent of range during the hundreds of thousands of years which measure their tenancy on the earth. They have not been aggressive in pushing their way, nor have they shown a disposition to retire before the aggression of other trees. Some alders bear seeds equipped with wings for wind distribution, others produce wingless seeds which depend on water to bear them to suitable situations and plant them. Of course, the water-borne seeds are planted on muddy shores or on the banks of running streams, and the trees of those species are confined to such situations. The alders belong to the birch family.


Gibson, Henry H. American Forest Trees. Chicago, 1913. 589. Web. Google Book Search. 21 Jul 2009.

Buttonbush

I've been taking photographs of buttons for over a week and quite stumbled upon a few fully opened. Isn't it an amazing flower! There are earlier posts on the Buttonbush, way back when the snow was flying and the blog was young.

Today's quoting comes from Rhodora, the journal of The New England Botanical Club first published in 1899.


From Rhodora:

REMARKABLE PERSISTENCE OF THE BUTTON-BUSH.

Walter Deane.

It seems a strange and anomalous condition of things, a perversion of the laws that govern the distribution of plants, to see our common Button-bush (Cephalanthus occidentalis, L.) growing in a dry hen- yard behind a barn. Yet such is the case and the shrubs flourish from year to year in this quaint spot, though their natural habitat is swamps and the wet borders of ponds and streams. The story is an interesting one and illustrates well the dogged persistence that some plants show in the hard struggle for life.

The scene is in Shelburne, New Hampshire, on the farm of Mr. A. E. Philbrook. On one part of this farm, as early as 1860, there stood a small pond on whose borders grew in greater or less abundance the Button-bush. The water was shallow and muddy, and in summer the pond was reduced to a very swampy piece of land. Between 1860 and 1865, the owner of the land, in order to make a suitable site for a barn, decided to fill up the pond. To lighten this task a small neighboring stream was turned so as to flow along the foot of a sandy hill close by the pond. The water undermining the bank brought down a good supply of sand, and the pond was finally filled, the level of the ground being about three feet above the former surface of the water. The Button-bush was buried out of sight, for whatever may have been above ground was cut off or trampled down, and on this new land the barn was built and an area left in the rear was used as a wood-yard. Soon sprouts of the buried plants began to appear, but they were continually cut off or trodden under foot until finally the place was turned into a hen-yard and fenced in. Not long after this, the sprouts again appeared and ere long the plants were of normal size, in good condition, and flowering and fruiting regularly, though the roots were buried at least three feet deeper than when the plants grew beside the pond. The place has been fenced in ever since and used either for hens or pigs or both, and yet through all this time to the present day the plants have continued to thrive.

I first saw this Button-bush on the Philbrook Farm in the summer of 1882. It was growing in a thick clump, some four feet high, the bushes were in full flower and the hens sought shelter from the hot sun under the shady branches. The next time I saw the plants was in October of the present year, fifteen years since my last visit. On repairing to the spot I found the conditions in no wise changed. The little yard was still there, fenced in as formerly. Fifteen little pigs and some hens were roaming about the enclosure. There on one side within a space thirty-three by twenty-eight feet in extent grew the Button-bush. I counted as many as seventy stems rising above the ground which was dry and hard as formerly, and packed closely about the plants by the many feet of the strange companions of these water-loving shrubs. They were from three to seven and one half feet in height, and were setting a good crop of fruit. Mr. Philbrook who has kindly given me the early history of this plant says that the roots are at least six feet below the surface of the ground, but that at that depth the soil is always wet in this particular locality. In this respect only does the plant in any degree follow the normal habit of the species. The shoots of the Button- bush are not so numerous as they were a few years ago, but this is due to the fact that they receive pretty hard treatment from the pigs that root about the stems and rub continually against them. The hens also pick at the young shoots within reach. Still for thirty- seven years under these unnatural conditions have the plants flourished and, if unmolested, there seems to be no reason for putting any limit to their vitality.

Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Rhodora, Journal of the New England Botanical Club. Volume 4. No. 37. January.1902. 243 .

Birdfoot Trefoil

Recently, I came across a little bit of Birdfoot Trefoil and really took my time trying to get a nice shot. One thing led to another and this weekend I spent a good deal of time working out new processing techniques.

Red Clover or... Facts Are Stubborn Things

Here's a bit of Red Clover, Trifolium pratense.


From Forage Plants and Their Culture:

"Red clover was not known as a crop by the ancient Greeks and Romans. It was apparently first cultivated in Media and south of the Caspian Sea, in the same general region where alfalfa was first domesticated. In Europe its use as an agricultural plant is comparatively modern, the first mention of its use as feed for cows being by Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth century. There are definite. records of its cultivation in Italy in 1550, in Flanders in 1566, in France in 1583. From Flanders it was introduced into England in 1645, and shortly afterwards its culture was described in several books. Its use in Europe became extensive about the end of the eighteenth century.

It was probably introduced into the United States by the early English colonists, but the first published mention of its culture was by Jared Eliot, who wrote of its being grown in Massachusetts in 1747."


From The Farmer's Manual:

"Some farmers complain that red clover, when sown for mowing upon their orchard grounds, causes the trees to wither and decay. This may be remedied by sowing plaster of Paris upon your clover; your orchards will flourish as well as upon English mowing; one bushel to the acre in the spring, or fall, annually, will answer. It is of no consequence to inquire, why a crop so fertilizing as clover, should injure the orchard, nor why the plaster should prevent it; facts are stubborn things, and are generally, all that are of importance in good farming."

Piper, Charles Vancouver. Forage Plants and Their Culture. New York, 1916. 361-2. Web. Google Book Search. 18 Jul 2009.

Butler, Frederick. The Farmer's Manual. Hartfort, CN, 1819. 7. Web. Google Book Search. 18 Jul 2009.

Color

Seek the strongest color effect possible... the content is of no importance.

~ Henri Matisse

I really like this quote and held it in mind during yesterday's walk.

Pennsylvania Smartweed

There's a good deal of Pennsylvania Smartweed, Persicaria pensylvanica, around the lake and most of it likes to grow out of cracks between sidewalk and curbstone.


From A Manual of Weeds:

"A pest of lowland clover fields, as it ripens its earlier seeds about the time of clover cutting. Stems two to five feet tall, somewhat hard and woody when old, and of rather branching and sprawling habit, the lower part smooth but the topmost leaves and the flower- stalks set with gland-tipped hairs. Leaves two to ten inches long, lance-shaped, with short petioles; sheathing stipules smooth and thin. Flowers in short, crowded, erect spikes, cylindric, often blunt at the end, deep pink; they are frequently affected with a smut or fungus which turns the heads into a mass of purple spores, destroying the fruits so that "purplehead" is a benefit from the farmer's point of view."




Georgia, Ada Eljiva. A Manual of Weeds. New York, 1919. 100-1. Web. Google Book Search. 16 Jul 2009.

Purple Loosestrife

When I used to commute, flying up and down route 495, day after day, year after year, I always wondered what all that pretty purple stuff in the lower and damper sections off the highway was. I wonder no more! :-) Purple Loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria.


From Wild Flowers:

"The Long Purples, as country people call the Loosestrife, are among the most conspicuous as well as the most richly- tinted of all the flowers which grow among the rushes and sedges of our streams. Far away, and long ere any other blossom can be discerned, the tall rich spikes may be seen bowing slightly to the breeze which ripples the current, and colouring the landscape for miles along the margin of the waters. The square stem is two, three, or sometimes even four feet high, and often more than a foot of its upper portion is during July and August crowded with the whorls of blossoms."



Pratt, Anne. Wild Flowers. London, 1853. 189. Web. Google Book Search. 15 Jul 2009.

Pokeweed

Last night I stood in front of the pokeweed patch that will soon be looming overhead. It seems just the other day when I searched out Spring's first signs. Before long, Pokeweed berries will be busting with ripeness, assurance of summer's end and bounty.


From Wild Flowers Worth Knowing:

"When the Pokeweed is "all on fire with ripeness," as Thoreau said; when the stout vigorous stem (which he coveted for a cane), the large leaves, and even the footstalks, take on splendid tints of crimson lake, and the dark berries hang heavy with juice in the thickets, then the birds, with increased hungry families, gather in flocks as a preliminary step to travelling southward. Has the brilliant, strong-scented plant no ulterior motive in thus attracting their attention at this particular time? Surely! Robins, flickers, and downy woodpeckers, chewinks and rose-breasted grosbeaks, among other feathered agents, may be detected in the act of gormandizing on the fruit, whose undigested seeds they will disperse far and wide. "


And here Doctor Laurence presents a rather uncomfortable assessment of Pokeweed's medicinal abilities:

"All parts of the plant possess acrid and somewhat narcotic properties. The juice of the fresh plant, or a strong decoction of the root, applied locally, may strongly irritate the skin, especially if tender or abraded. Taken internally it produces nausea, vomiting, and purging, and, in overdoses, acro-narcotic poisoning. It has been employed with more or less satisfactory results in a great variety of cutaneous affections, and in rheumatism, especially when chronic or of a syphilitic origin. There is little doubt that, in view of the uncertainty which at present exists regarding it, this plant would well repay further careful experimentation."


Blanchan, Neltje. Wild Flowers Worth Knowing. New York, 1917. 47. Web. Google Book Search. 14 Jul 2009.

Johnson, Laurence. A Manual of the Medical Botany of North America. New York, 1884. 234. Web. Google Book Search. 14 Jul 2009.

Monarch Butterfly

The Monarch Butterfly is known for its intimate relation with the Milkweed and a few have recently been floating around those plants. I've found the secret to photographing these active little critters--stand still and they will comply in their own time. Efforts to chase down the shot leave me without results and looking darned silly! :-)

My sister called last year from Nebraska in awe with word that the trees were absolutely covered with the migration resting while on its way to Mexico.






I thought I'd add a couple of extras to today's post. Here's a recent look at one of the Wood Sower Galls we viewed in an earlier entry. It looks like this marshmallow has seen its better days.


And here's a little bunny who posed for me before ducking into the brush.

Beaked Hazelnut

Here's to another botched identification! Live and learn! :-) I had originally identified the Beaked Hazelnut, Corylus cornuta, as Yellow Birch, so here's a link to those updated posts.


From Nut Growing:

"Hazels belong to a very ancient family, and some of the fossil hazel leaves are hardly to be distinguished from those of species which are living today. The American hazels comprise two species, Corylus americana and Corylus cornuta—the latter being called the "horn hazel," "beak hazel," "tail hazel," and other names referring to the shape of the involucre, which extends out into a prolongation beyond the apex of the nut. The quality of the kernel is inferior to that of the common American hazel. This latter species constitutes almost a weed and a nuisance in miles of old pasture, bearing a nut of good quality as a rule, but seldom large enough to be of value in the market. The shell is for the most part too thick to please any connoisseurs aside from jays, boys, and squirrels. Doubtless a number of thin-shelled, large-meated American hazels will be found eventually and I have two varieties which are being cultivated experimentally, because they are superior to the common hazel crowd out in the pasture."


Morris, Robert T. Nut Growing. New York 1921. 203. Web. Google Book Search. 11 Jul 2009.

Elderberry

I got in plenty of practice shooting white flowers to get these exposures! :-) The term "blown out highlights" became oh so well known to me.


An excerpt from The Elderbush:

The little boy lay in his bed; he did not know if he had dreamed or
not, or if he had been listening while someone told him the story. The
tea-pot was standing on the table, but no Elder Tree was growing out
of it! And the old man, who had been talking, was just on the point of
going out at the door, and he did go.

"How splendid that was!" said the little boy. "Mother, I have been to
warm countries."

"So I should think," said his mother. "When one has drunk two good
cupfuls of Elder-flower tea, 'tis likely enough one goes into warm
climates"; and she tucked him up nicely, least he should take cold. "You
have had a good sleep while I have been sitting here, and arguing with
him whether it was a story or a fairy tale."

"And where is old Nanny?" asked the little boy.

"In the tea-pot," said his mother; "and there she may remain."

-Hans Christian Andersen


Here is a really fantastic article on Elder with even a recipe for Elder Fritters. The Hermitage is so touchingly beautiful to me.


Andersen's Fairy Tales. Hans Christian Andersen. Gutenberg EBook Posting Date: October 10, 2008 [EBook #1597] 4 Jul 2009.