My winter walks are often focused on lichens, winter tree ID and birdwatching (birds are so much easier to see when there are no leaves in your way!). But every now and again there’s an interesting unexpected sighting. With the exception of a few species of evergreen fern, notably Christmas fern, rock polypody and evergreen woodfern, winter is not generally a good time to locate and identify ferns. But there are a couple species that have parts that are persistent…
This is a great time of year for nature observation in Massachusetts. Almost every day something new is happening: a new plant is flowering, some new insect has emerged or I’ve spotted a new bird, recently returned from its winter away. So these days, when I’m out and about, I try to keep my eyes pealed to spot these “happenings”. A few days ago, while poking around the woods in my backyard where I was checking on the blooming mayflower…
Here in late November, we are solidly into autumn. The temperature has dropped, the days are getting short, most of the leaves have fallen from the trees and shrubs, and the predominant landscape colors are brown and gray. But lichens, clubmosses, and some ferns remain green year round, providing splashes of vivid green throughout the landscape. One such fern is the aptly named evergreen wood fern (Dryopteris intermedia), which is indeed green year-round in areas of mild winters, such as…
Earlier this week I completed my second state (Connecticut), in an effort to ultimately complete the entire Appalachian Trail (AT) in sections. (Click here to read about my ~100-mile Massachusetts section hike from 2017). While Connecticut was a little less rugged than Massachusetts (with the exception of Bear Mountain at an elevation of 2,326 feet, the rest of the Connecticut AT is under 1,500 feet), it had beautiful open forests, very few “road walks”, and numerous wide sweeping views of…
Ferns are among the few plants that reproduce via spores rather than seeds. The basic life cycle of a fern consists of alternating generations of sexual and nonsexual individuals. The gametophyte, the sexual stage of the fern life cycle that develops from spores, tends to be so small as to be inconspicuous. The larger, visible plants we know as ferns are actually the asexual stage of the fern’s life cycle, known as the sporophyte stage, which will produce the spores…
Yesterday I attended a guided walk within Mt. Toby State Forest, with the goal of finding, and learning about, as many species of fern as possible. Due to the varied habitats, soil types, and pH measurements (an important environmental component for ferns) found throughout Mt. Toby State Forest, there is exceptional fern diversity at this location. All told, we found 23 species of fern (listed below), with at least 3 others likely present at the site. Fern identification can be…