Browsed by
Tag: trailing arbutus

Preparations

Preparations

Everywhere you look, preparations are underway. Sometimes those actions are easily observable. For example, people are preparing for holiday gatherings and festivities, and gray squirrels are lining their nests for additional warmth and stashing away acorns in preparation for winter. Even within our own house, my husband and I have been doing our own preparations – getting ready for the birth of our first child (who’s due any day now!). But sometimes those preparations are more subtle, and require a…

Read More Read More

Happy Earth Day 2020

Happy Earth Day 2020

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…

Read More Read More

Wildflower Wednesday: Trailing arbutus

Wildflower Wednesday: Trailing arbutus

If you look along the edges of wooded trails, where the land rises up slightly from the level of the path itself, you may notice low mats of rough, sand-papery, hairy, evergreen leaves. Although younger leaves are a brighter green, they become rust-spotted with age, eventually browning and dying on the stem, leaving patches of rather worn looking vegetation by early spring. This low, creeping shrub is trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens), also known as mayflower. One of Cape Cod’s earliest…

Read More Read More