Author Archives: Axie

About Axie

In 2012, I started to keep track of all the wild blooming things as they appeared. As I walk with my dog Lucy, I take note of wildflowers in our neck of the woods—mostly Needham, Dover, Wellesley, Natick, Sherborn and Dedham, Massachusetts. So if you hike in this region and have been wondering about some wildflower you've seen in the woods or meadows or weedy parking lots, there's a good chance you can find information about it here.

Siberian Squill

Posted on by
2

Scilla sibericaAt Centennial, I noticed a single beautiful little blue flower among the brown leaves. I wasn’t going to count it because it’s Scilla siberica, a spring bulb flower. But as I kept looking, I saw this big drift of color at the edge of the woods where this flower had been naturalized, and the single one I saw was clearly an escapee from this group. So let’s not count it as a wildflower, but the field of blue was so gorgeously springy as to require a post. Native to southwestern Russia, the Caucasus and Turkey. But not Siberia.

Siberian Squill (Scilla siberica)

Chickweed

Posted on by
Reply

Chickweed

Tiny… and the first wildflower I’ve spotted since the Skunk Cabbage. You can see it has five deeply-notched petals, so it looks like ten cute white bunny ears, as the botanists say. Non-native and somewhat invasive. Alert Flowerophile Donna points out: “I was just looking at last year’s entries … Definitely chickweed, creeping charlie and marsh marigolds. .. The thing was the DATES … All I’ve mentioned you have listed as appearing last year in March … The chickweed, if I remember right, was March 19th!  Of course, I’m pretty sure there was SNOW on the ground this year on the 19th of March. I am going to be very interested to see if the dates continue to be a few weeks off or whether they somehow “catch up.”  I guess I’m telling you this in order to memorialize my interest in the sequence of the flowers appearance…”

Common Chickweed (Stellaria media)

Spring peepers

Posted on by
1

pond surface in springThe first sounds heralding the arrival of spring: 1. The snarling, metallic, tiny weed-whacker sound of the beard trimmer. That’s B shaving his winter beard because it’s the vernal equinox, and like all the other creatures compelled by their DNA to respond to the seasons, he must shed his winter coat.  2. Spring peepers! This year I first heard them March 28. (Last year it was March 12.) They are “chorus frogs,” and can live in breeding groups of several hundred. Their bodies can be less than an inch long or up to about 1.5 inches. It’s only the males that make the sound (to attract their women). They hibernate under logs and leaves, and can survive being mostly frozen. Then in spring, you hear them especially in vernal ponds and other temporary wetlands. They lay their eggs in the water, and then live on land the rest of the year, feeding on insects. I’m sorry this photo is just a thawing pond with no actual frogs to look at, but here’s a video that shows some Connecticut peepers in action:

Spring Peepers (Pseudacris crucifer)

Skunk cabbage is the first

Posted on by
3

skunk cabbage 1 We first noticed the skunk cabbage emerging on February 16. Even though there had been a blizzard and there was snow everywhere else, this is a protected swampy spring-fed area, and the shoots were emerging up through the ooze, looking very primordial and eager to get on with it. This is their bloom, before they leaf out later in spring. From Wikipedia: “Eastern Skunk Cabbage has contractile roots which contract after growing into the earth. This pulls the stem of the plant deeper into the mud, so that the plant in effect grows downward, not upward. Each year, the plant grows deeper into the earth, so that older plants are practically impossible to dig up.” (I started this blog with photos from this location last March.)

Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)

Skunk cabbage in muck

Skunk cabbage first appearance: Feb 16, 2013

Bonus picture: except for down in the swamp, the snow blanket prevails.

Ridge Hill in the Snow

Amaryllis while we wait

Posted on by
3

AmaryllisWhile we dream of spring, here is a giant tropical ignoring the snow outside the window. I notice on my calendar that in 2012, the spring peepers started singing on March 12, now almost two weeks past. That was an eerily warm winter. This blizzardy year, they’re still asleep under the ice.

Amaryllis (Hippeastrum x hybridum)

Snow blanket on the purple loosestrife

Posted on by
3

Blizz2013river_tonemappedloosestrifemallow1Alert Flowerophile Sybil inquired about when I would start posting again. I’m thinking it will be awhile before we see any wildflowers… but here’s a comparison view: a bend in the Charles River, Dover MA at sunset after our most recent giant blizzard (Feb. 9, 2013) and how it looked back on Aug. 6, 2012.

Bonus picture: deer out foraging on that same evening, after about a day and a half when all creatures just had to hunker down and wait for the weather to ease up.

Blizz2013_deer

Giant Puffball

Posted on by
Reply

A giant puffball grows in our back yard every fall. When I first noticed it, it had just emerged from the ground and was the size of a baby’s fist. (September 26)

By October 1, just 5 days later, it was the size of a brain. We let it get a little bigger (3 more day’s worth of growth), and then picked it.

The consistency of the raw mushroom is like an especially dense, moist marshmallow. And there looks to be no circulatory system — they’re just solid white.

They were very good cooked — kind of like mozzarella sticks, melty and creamy. We also seared and froze some for later.

They’re edible only when young (when the inside is still pure white). Mature ones are greenish brown inside. All the spores are inside there — can be trillions of spores inside a single puffball. Native. Lycoperdaceae family.

Giant Puffball (Calvatia gigantea)

Lone sentinel down

Posted on by
1

Before it was conservation land, Charles River Peninsula was a meadow where dairy cattle grazed, and this shagbark hickory stood at the top of the rise overlooking the scene. A big limb came down previously and revealed that it was partly hollow … so it was not a surprise and yet, a very sad sight to see that a September windstorm had taken it down. 

Someone had tucked wildflowers into the gash… Below, the scene last summer. We’ll miss it.

Poison Ivy

Posted on by
Reply

I never got a good shot of the poison ivy when it was in bloom. But now it’s really drawing attention to itself with color. Many songbirds eat the seeds and fruit. Bears, rabbits and deer eat the foliage with apparent immunity–in fact only hamsters and primates are known to have allergic reactions to it! Of course, it is identifiable by its three leaves, regardless of other variables– it can be a shrub, a trailing or a climbing vine. The poison is urushiol, a compound found in the sap. Urushiol oil can still be active for years after the plant is dead, so an old vine is still poisonous. Also, mangoes are in the same family, and people who are sensitive to poison ivy can have a similar reaction to mangoes. Jewelweed is a natural remedy for poison ivy. Native. Virtually unknown in Europe. Anacardiaceae family.

Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans)

Black Cohosh

Posted on by
Reply

These are tall and beautiful right now. The books say they have a bad fetid smell, but to me it just smells like a sweet floral — very nice today perfuming the air after rain. Up to 8 feet tall. A variety of bugbane. Has long been used medicinally to treat practically everything, and currently is popular for treating problems associated with menopause (but its actual effectiveness is uncertain). Native to eastern North America. Buttercup family.

Black Cohosh, Bugbane, Black Snakeroot, Fairy Candle (Cimicifuga racemosa)