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The Season of Looking Closely

on December 28, 2019

Plant Progression: Starflower and Cucumber Root

When leaves first emerge, I often mistake cucumber root ( Medeola virginiana ) for starflower ( Lysimachia borealis ) at a glance. Both have a thin purple-ish stems and a whorl of similarly-shaped and colored leaves. They tend to appear in the same places, and are of comparable size early on. But look closer - starflower leaves have pronounced, branching veins. Cucumber root, as a member of the lily family, has veins that run parallel from stem to leaf tip. And starflower's stem is smooth while cucumber root's is positively fuzzy. Starflower on left, cucumber root on right: As soon as buds appear, the differences become obvious. Starflower has only a single whorl of leaves, and the buds appear on long, tiny stalks. Cucumber root develops a second, smaller whorl of leaves above the first, and the buds first appear nestled within them. Starflower on left, cucumber root on right: Neither have reached bloom yet in my woods as of May 19 - I'll update t...

Witchwood Biodiversity Report 2020

I am very excited to present the second annual Witchwood Biodiversity Report. Last year's was an informal summary of what I learned in 2019. For 2020, I'm attempting a more scientific style as a step toward publishing some day in a scholarly journal. Scientific reports aren't everyone's cup of tea, so I'm posting a short summary here and a link to the full document here . As always, questions, comments, and corrections are eagerly welcomed. I'm an enthusiastic amateur, and I know I have an enormous amount to learn. Witchwood Biodiversity Report 2020 - Summary This report documents the biodiversity of the Witchwood, six beautiful acres of forest in Windsor, New Hampshire, USA with a four-seasons brook, forest seeps, vernal pools, and a wonderful diversity of plants, animals, fungi, and more. In this survey, I opportunistically documented any macroorganism I encountered, but the main focus was plants. This report is the result of approximately 190 hours of active...

Plant Progression: Bunchberry

Bunchberry (Chamaepericlymenum canadense) was just starting to emerge this past weekend. I found three plants in various stages: See the buds starting to appear in the center? I'll add more photos as it flowers. June 1 edit: they're blooming! July 27 edit: they're in fruit. Supposedly they're edible, though I've never tried them. Some bunchberry leaves persist through the winter, so this was actually one of the plants I was able to identify before the snow fully melted. Here's how it looked then:

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