Ants can be found in any season but they are most conspicuous in the spring when they are enlarging or excavating their nests or engaging in mating and dispersal flights. This weekend, as I was doing yard work, I noticed multiple colonies of particularly large reddish ants making their way in and out of holes at the base of oak trees and around old oak stumps. With a little research, I was able to identify them as ferruginous carpenter ants…
Violets are blooming everywhere right now. I see them in fields and along the edges of forested trails. I even have wild violets growing in my gravel driveway and through the cracks between the bricks in my walkway. One of my favorites though is the bird’s foot violet (Viola pedata) – one of the most distinctive of the Violas. And with its ability to thrive in sandy, gravelly soil, these violets are quite common on Cape Cod. Unlike most violets…
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day. It’s worth acknowledging all the positive changes that have been enacted over the last 50 years – the enacting the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, endangered species like the bald eagle have rebounded from the brink of extinction, rivers are no longer on fire and don’t run the color of whatever the upstream dye factory happens to be producing on a given day, and renewable energy options…
This past weekend my boyfriend and I went for a walk to gather stinging nettle for dinner, and came across a large patch of young garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) as well. One of best parts about picking garlic mustard as a wild edible is that it’s also incredibly invasive, like Japanese knotweed and autumn olive. So you’re doing the ecosystem a favor when you harvest it. In fact, one of my wild edible books describes garlic mustard as “universally despised…
This book was a beautiful blend of detailed botanical science and a deeper connection with nature. In Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, Robin Wall Kimmerer takes readers on a journey into a part of our landscape that is so frequently overlooked and ignored due to its small size, and she inspires a new respect and admiration for the small wonders of the world. Personally, I’ve always been rather enamored with mosses: how vibrantly green they shine…
The genus Colletes is a large group of ground-nesting bees with more than 450 species worldwide. Although they tend to be solitary nesters, they will often nest in close aggregations. Female cellophane bees create nest cells in underground burrows in sandy soil, which they line with a cellophane-like, waterproof secretion from their abdominal glands, giving rise to the various common names of this group; they are referred to as cellophane, polyester or plasterer bees. This past Saturday afternoon, I came…
In all of the disruption related to COVID-19, I hope you’ve all found some time to get out, enjoy nature, and soak up some of the early signs of spring. Although yesterday (March 19th) was the official first day of spring, given the extremely warm winter we had, many of the natural bench-marks that I personally watch for as hopeful “signs of spring” have been occurring earlier than normal this year. Trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) is blooming almost a month…
Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) is an introduced wildflower from Europe, likely from early settlers that cultivated it for its medicinal value. It had been one of the most popular European remedies for a wide range of chest complaints. In fact, the root of the genus name Tussilago comes from the Lain word tussis, which means ”cough” – a reference to the supposed curative powers of coltsfoot. The flower buds, young flowers, and young leaves are also edible raw or cooked. Some caution…
This past weekend I took a walk at the Eel River Preserve in Plymouth. This site had historically been used as a cranberry bog, but was restored in 2010. The restoration project included restoring 1.7 miles of sinuous stream channel, reconstruction of the floodplain, removal of dikes and water control structures, and planting 17,000 Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) trees. Although these trees are only 10 years old, and still have a long way to go, it was encouraging to…
While hiking through the East Over Reservation in Marion on Saturday, I noticed a large patch of a type of clubmoss that I don’t usually see. These were interrupted clubmoss (Spinulum annotinum). Although interrupted clubmoss is native and found throughout New England, it is not generally found along the coastal plain counties like Barnstable, Dukes, and Bristol, and is therefore not generally found on Cape Cod. It always amazes me how different the plant communities can be just over the…