Sunday, May 20, 2007

A spring walk

This is my first attempt at blogging. Please bear with me. I want to use the space to write about the things that are happening in the north woods. I hope you will take the time to share with us your own observations. It would be a good place to ask questions or answer them. We can share our knowledge and educate each other as we move through the year. Currently there are some brand new flowers beginning to bloom. Goldthread, a small, white, five petaled, flower with scalloped leaves is blooming under the pines. The starflowers are blooming again. They are white as well, but have seven petals which is a bit unusual. The other flower just starting to bloom is gaywings or fringed polygala. Small magenta flowers growing close to the ground are the identifying characteristic. The ferns are past the fiddlehead stage and now exhibit some of the more mature signs of adult ferns. The interrupted ferns are just that, interrupted. The fronds are bright green with a dark green sori about 2/3 of the way up. The bead ferns are unrolling and the stems are bright red. The ostrich ferns are up and nearly fully unrolled. Their sori will appear in June as a separate structure. The sori reminds me of a rough feather.

1 comment:

Sandy said...

It's always interesting to hear your comments about what's blooming in the woods John.

We've re-found the huge patch of jack-in-the-pulpit in our little patch of woods and late last week the pink ladyslippers began blooming.

Found a very large black fishing spider in the bathroom, hiding out on the black ceramic tile floor this morning and safely moved her outdoors.

We've been hearing common yellowthroats and black and white warblers along with all the other "usual suspects".