Category Archives: Ridge Hill Reservation, Needham MA

First sign of spring: Skunk Cabbage

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Skunk Cabbage in black swampskunk cabbage sproutsSkunk Cabbage and oak leaves

The skunk cabbage has been up for weeks. It came up through the ice and snow—skunk cabbage flowers make their own heat, so that the temperature inside the sculptural spathe is considerably warmer than the surrounding air. You can see in these shots that some of the tips got frostbitten. Now that everything is melted, this marsh looks black and primordial, with green and wine-colored fingers reaching up through the muck. Native to eastern North America.

I first heard the peepers on April 5. It’s been a long winter—last year the peeper debut was March 28, the year before was March 12. This afternoon at Ridge Hill, they were dazzlingly loud. It was fantastic. The winter forest roaring back to life!

Eastern Skunk Cabbage, Polecat Weed, Swamp Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)

Bonus picture: this is the kind of action that immediately follows sloshing around in the swamp. Lucy with a stick

 

Pinesap

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Pinesap 1Pinesap 2The most exciting new wildflower discovery in a long time! A bit of shocking pink among the September leaf litter. Kudos to AF Brian for spotting it first. It’s very like Indian Pipe, but this wonderful color, and it’s rare. It’s a mycotrophic flower — it has no chlorophyll and gets its nutrition from host green plants like a fungus. But instead of being a direct parasite on the host roots, it taps into an intermediary fungus on the roots of the host. Unlike a fungus, it does flower and bear seeds. Can be 12 inches high! Native. Pyrola family.

Pinesap, Dutchman’s Pipe, False Beechdrops (Monotropa hypopithys)

Destroying Angel

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Destroying Angel

I’m new to identifying mushrooms, but apparently this is a poisonous mushroom that causes death by liver failure from eating just one. Identifying features: has a smooth white cap (sometimes with a tan tint in the center, like this one), gills, and a drapy skirt-like ring near the cap. The first stage of poisoning is called the incubation stage: 6-12 hours with no symptoms while it takes over without you noticing. Don’t eat white mushrooms!

Eastern North American Destroying Angel, Deadly Amanita, White Death Cap, Angel of Death (Amanita bisporigera)

Bluets

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Bluets

Beautiful delicate little flowers. A delight to spot them. Madder family. Native. Last week, we went to an oratorio which included this short poem written by a troubled WWII soldier (John Meneely) to his wife:

I know a land where roses bloom
And bluets mark their compass points.
The oriole with findlong tongue
The breeze anoints.
This land I know within my heart
Is lost unless you bring the chart.

Bluets, Quaker Ladies, Azure Bluets, Innocence (Houstonia caerulea)

Cypress Spurge

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SpurgeNative to Europe, introduced to North America in the 1860s as an ornamental, and now, a harmful invasive that has really colonized Charles River Peninsula. Forms a dense ground cover. Tiny flowers that start lime-green and yellow, and age to red. Poisonous sap.

Cypress Spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias)

Marsh Marigold

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Marsh marigold closeup Marsh marigold in situI’ve seen this two places this year, both times with its feet in the water. The foliage is bad-tasting and toxic, and thus avoided by mammalian herbivores. (I just like to say mammalian herbivores.)

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)

Skunk cabbage is the first

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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

Grass Spider Webs

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It looked like someone had too many diamond-studded hairnets, so they had just tossed them all over the grass. Here’s one in sun and one in shade. In the sun one, you can see the sky reflected in the dew. In the shade one, you can see the dark funnel-shaped hole that the spider hides in. Evidently these webs are not sticky, so if anyone (very small) happens on to it, the spider is just very speedy zipping out to grab it. Their bite paralyzes their prey, but their chompers are too small to pierce human skin. Genus Agelenopsis.

Grass Spider

Blue Toadflax

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You know, you just can’t walk outside without seeing a bunch of new wild things coming into blossom. Great name — why is it called Toadflax? Figwort Family. Native.

Blue Toadflax (Nuttallanthus canadensis)