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Category: Plants

Smooth vs Speckled Alders

Smooth vs Speckled Alders

Both Smooth Alders (Alnus serrulata) and Speckled Alders (Alnus rugosa) are commonly found near streams, rivers and wetlands.  Both species are deciduous trees with alternate, simple, serrated leaves.  And they have distinctive flowers, called catkins, that take on two different forms: the male catkins, which are pendulous, and the female catkins, which are smaller and develop into cone-like structures in the fall. Despite many similarities, there are noticeable differences between the two species: The cones of the Specked Alder are…

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Zimmerman Moth (Dioryctria zimmermani)

Zimmerman Moth (Dioryctria zimmermani)

While exploring Johns Pond Park in Mashpee a couple weeks ago, I noticed one pine tree that was covered in hardened sap blobs, each with a distinctive circular hole leading back into the tree’s trunk.  At the time I attributed the condition to a pest infestation, but had no way of identifying the specific pest. Thanks to some asking around and sharing the photos of the sap blobs with a professional entomologist, I now know that these “wounds” were caused…

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Faraway Places: Trees at Barataria Preserve, LA

Faraway Places: Trees at Barataria Preserve, LA

A few days ago I posted about the reptiles and amphibians I saw while at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. This post will focus on some of the dominant tree species. The three most notable trees were bald cypress, dwarf palmettos and live oaks. Bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) are one of only a handful of deciduous conifer trees (other North American examples include the Dawn Redwood and various species of Larch).  Like other conifers, they have needle-like…

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Winterberry and other winter berries

Winterberry and other winter berries

Although most people are probably more familiar with berries that ripen in mid-summer, such as blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries, many plants not only produce berries in the late fall, but they persist through winter.  Like the high bush cranberries described in a recent post, these winter berry-producing plants provide a welcome splash of color to the landscape. Common Winterberry One of these, aptly named common winterberry (Ilex verticillata) produces round red berries about a quarter inch in diameter, each with a…

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Highbush Cranberry

Highbush Cranberry

The bright red berries of the highbush cranberry plant growing along the pondshore near my house seemed like an appropriately festive subject for a Christmas Eve blog post. With its coarsely-toothed leaves, which loosely resemble those of a red maple, long fallen to the ground, the bright red berries of the highbush cranberry are readily visible, and add a splash of color to the otherwise tan/gray landscape. But highbush cranberries, in the genus Viburnam, are not cranberries at all; true…

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Faraway Places: Redwoods in California

Faraway Places: Redwoods in California

While in Oregon last week, I was able to take a day trip south to California and visit Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, the northernmost location in a string of redwood parks stretching up California’s northern coast. Most of the park consists of an old growth forest, which had never been logged, giving the forest a primeval feel. It is unsurprising then, that one of the park’s groves contains four of the ten largest coast redwoods measured, including one called…

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Faraway Places: Roseburg, OR

Faraway Places: Roseburg, OR

On a recent trip to Roseburg, Oregon, I got to spend two days exploring the North Bank Habitat Management Area, a 6,500+ acre property, which is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for Columbian white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus leucurus). Columbian white-tailed deer are one of three subspecies of white-tailed deer in North America. They were listed as federally endangered in 1968, but the populations in Oregon and Washington have since rebounded enough that in 2013 their status…

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Rose Hip Jam

Rose Hip Jam

Two weeks ago I had a post about rose hips from Rosa rugosa (click here to read the original post), and discussed that they were a readily available wild edible, and a great source for vitamin C. I’d tasted the fruit in the past and really liked the taste, but I have been generally dissuaded from eating them more often due to the tediousness of picking out the seeds and scraping the small bit of flesh off the inside of…

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Tar Spot Fungus on Norway Maples

Tar Spot Fungus on Norway Maples

While admiring the colors of some of the remaining fall leaves on the trees around my neighborhood, I noticed that all the Norway maples (Acer platanoides) had leaves with conspicuous black spots on them. By late fall, its not uncommon for leaves to have a number of marks and blemishes, but these seemed unique to me in the regularity of their shape (the spots are almost completely round) and the darkness of the marks (almost black). Norway maples are not…

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First Frost and Rose Hips

First Frost and Rose Hips

Last night marked the first frost of the season in Bourne. Recording occurrences such as the first frost is important to the study of phenology. Phenology is the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena. The word itself is derived from the Greek word phaino, which means “to show or to make appear”, and the Greek word logos, which means “study”. Therefore, phenology is concerned with the dates of the first occurrence of biological events and natural phenomena in their…

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