Native to all of New England and commonly found along the edges of ponds, streams and other wetland margins, white turtlehead (Chelone glabra) is one of my favorite wildflowers. One to two inch white flowers grow in spikes at the apex of the plant, and bloom in late summer and early fall. The name is derived from the fact that the upper lip of each flower arches over the lower lip, somewhat resembling the head of a turtle. In fact,…
One of the easiest mushrooms to identify in our forests is the chicken-of-the-woods mushroom, also known as sulphur shelf, or more simply: chicken mushroom. Although they have similar names, chicken-of-the-woods and hen-of-the-woods are two entirely different mushrooms (although both are edible). Hen-of-the-woods was so named because someone thought the ruffled brown cluster of caps (usually growing at the base of a tree) resembled the fanned out tail feathers of a portly hen. Chicken-of-the-woods, on the other hand, was given its…
When we first booked our vacation to Nova Scotia, I imagined a world of plants and animals relatively unfamiliar to me. I figured since we were heading so far north (it turns out, Nova Scotia is really more east than north) and all the way to another country, I would be faced with an assortment of new species. But while the rocky coastlines and higher elevation ecosystems in Cape Breton were quite different from most of our Cape Cod landscapes,…