Back To Irma's Woods

The need to explore these woods is made obvious by this photo.  A tree trunk, wild leeks, hepaticas in bloom and unfurling trillium leaves in the foreground and the promise of more in the background creates a strong desire to explore this land.  We can only imagine the promise of beauty likely to be found further up the hill.  Passersby have yet to be seen while walking on this dirt road but still that is where we stay.

This brown growth is something that we have never seen before either in person or in a book.  If we hit a day with little to do, a search might be made to try and identify this splat.  We find this on each visit here but have yet to notice any change at this busy for plants time of year.  It is growing on a moss covered rock rather than a piece of a long ago fallen tree.

Hepatica have been the star of the early show.  This cluster of many white flowers is unusual because of their closeness to each other while spread along a line.  Two of the blossoms have dropped their colored petals revealing their three green backings.  Seeds may be forming in the dangling white dots in the center.  What really caught our eye is the cluster of three connected larger leaves marking an early appearance of a Trillium.  A second plant is seen under the upper one.  A third is at the right edge of the picture.  A massive past display of white Trillium flowers is what first caught our eyes here.   It is somewhat impressive that we have finally noticed just how many more plants are also growing here.

Spring Beauties are a personal favorite because they connect me to my maternal grandmother. She may have used that name when showing off her violets but seeing this wild flower always brings back pleasant memories of her.  In many ways she introduced me to the wonder of plants.  Most of my past attempts to get a decent photo of these beautiful blossoms have been disappointing with the lines of color largely invisible.  Somehow today was the day to capture a complete and accurate picture of these tremendous flowers.

 This is just a small corner of a huge collection of Spring Beauties growing on the top of a large flat detached chunk of the bedrock ridge. Spring Beauty leaves, pointy and narrow, are easily seen in this photo.  This surface is above the soil level of the forest floor.  Here a thin layer of rotted vegetation enriched with the minerals dissolved from the rock supply nutrients to these plants.  Yesterday, carefully working among our garden plants reopened a leg scrape resulting in wisdom demanding that a light day would move it toward healing.  Part of this down time was spent next to plants that require no human intervention.  It was a day well spent. 

Buck Rub

We have occasionally seen a young buck mixed in with the does and their fawns that seem to live here.  This buck is protected by NYS game laws which require at least three protrusions all of which must exceed one inch in length before it can be hunted.  This young stud only carries four points in total on both antlers so he is safe from hunters unless they are children.  Initially the antlers are covered with super soft appearing velvet.  When the antlers firm up the velvet must be removed by rubbing against small tree trunks.  Tree bark is removed in the process.  The tree in the right foreground carries the healed scab from an older rub.  Our authorized hunters were pleased to find this unmistakable sign of the presence of a male deer.  Perhaps a larger older male will take his gathering of potential mothers.

 

While tramping around looking for the buck rub, we brushed against Witch-Hazel branches.  The late in the year occurrence of flowers is this plants claim to fame.  We would like to have one of these trees under cultivation but digging a tree in our stony ground would likely kill the tree and injure us.  These specimens will be left to grow where they were planted.  It appears that last night's hard frost took most of the shine off of these flowers.

This moss is an absolute marvel.  How it can appear this bright at this time of year is a question without an answer known to us.  We purchased a moss book in an attempt to learn the names of the many mosses that grow here but we made absolutely no headway.  Moss names are incredibly long with the words providing no clue about the name.  So we are limited to simply expressing our appreciation of their bright color on a cold day.

Princess Pine is in a different class name wise.  Its growth visually resembles a small pine tree.  How could any plant so demure not be called a princess?   We would like to transplant this species but all we can find on that subject is descriptions that say transplanting is difficult with no explanation of why that is the case.  We suspect the the long somewhat deeply placed horizontal rhizomes connect with a mother root.  Without a connection to the vertical root, the plant piece may well perish.  To date we only visit this plant where it grows.

 

Back at the garden, we found this Gloriosa daisy flowering way out of season.  We found it to be a promise of what is to come after we both survive another winter.