Last weekend Dianne and Bob Machesney visited Buck Run in Washington County and saw 36 species of flowers and 13 butterflies.
One of the prettiest flowers was this Wild Blue Phlox. I found it blooming at Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve in Beaver County last weekend, too.
I had feared that March’s summer weather would give us an April without flowers, but two weeks of cold weather slowed things down a bit. The flowers are lingering after all.
Good!
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
Over the weekend I hiked in both Greene and Allegheny Counties where I concluded there are more leaves on the trees near Pittsburgh than in the rural areas south of us.
I suspect that’s because Allegheny County is more densely populated, has more pavement and heated buildings, and thus is slightly warmer.
Sugar maple leaves in Greene County were still in the bud on Saturday but I found these newly unfurled leaves at Barking Slopes on Sunday. They’re four weeks ahead of schedule.
I love how red and wrinkled they look.
It won’t be long before they’re green.
(photo by Kate St. John)
Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Spring.
… Time throws off his cloak again
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain.
— from The Return of Spring by Charles D’Orleans
(Large-flowered Trillium at Enlow Fork, 7 April 2012, photo by Kate St. John)
Squawroot (Conopholis americana) is a plant in the Broomrape family that produces no chlorophyll and has no leaves. Instead it’s parasitic on the roots of trees, especially oaks.
The only time I notice squawroot is when it blooms in the spring.
I found these flowers on Monday in Schenley Park.
p.s. The green leaves on the left are an invasive plant unrelated to squawroot. Anyone know its name? (See the comments for the plant’s identity. It is not invasive.)
(photo by Kate St. John)
Pennsylvania birders were treated to a surge of ducks last weekend when Friday night’s storm forced migrants to stop in our state to wait for better weather. The migration fallout was especially large on Saturday.
A day late, I went to Moraine State Park hoping to see a few stragglers. There weren’t as many ducks on Sunday but I found a nice variety: ruddy ducks, buffleheads, horned grebes and five long-tailed ducks.
My own notes indicate that long-tailed ducks usually come through our area about a week earlier, approximately March 25. This group was a little late, but I was too, so our paths crossed.
Meanwhile, the plants and insects are still early even though our weather has moderated.
A week ago, on March 25, I found this large-flowered bellwort blooming at Barking Slopes. It usually blooms around April 25 so it was one month ahead of schedule.
A little late. A lot early.
What will happen next?
(photo of long-tailed ducks by Steve Gosser, photo of large-flowered bellwort by Kate St. John)
Trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) is a rare evergreen plant that usually blooms in April in our area. This year it’s blooming early, just like everything else.
Both of the plant’s first names — trailing and epigaea — refer to its woody, hairy stems that trail on the earth in a dense mat. The leaves are oval and leathery, smooth on top and hairy below.
The plant is unremarkable until it blooms. The flowers are tubular, 5-lobed, pink or white, and usually in clusters at the branch tips. They’re quite fragrant with a spicy smell.
I’ve seen trailing arbutus on Arbutus Trail at Bear Run Nature Reserve. Dianne Machesney photographed them last week at North Park.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
26 March 2012
Yesterday I hiked at Barking Slopes to see what was blooming after 11 days of June-like weather.
So many flowers had opened that the ground was carpeted with them. Squirrel Corn (Dicentra canadensis), Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria), Spring Beauties (Claytonia virginica) and Cut-leaved Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata) were all at their peak.
So were Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis, above) that normally blooms in late March and Large-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum, below) that normally blooms in late April.
It was an odd juxtaposition of two flowers that never bloom at the same time.
Tonight we’ll have a killing frost. The March flowers may be able to cope but I doubt the April flowers will survive.
(photos by Kate St. John)
Spring came fast last week, as shown by the pictures I took at Schenley Park on Wednesday and Friday, March 14 and 16.
Spring morning with dew, Wednesday March 14.
Coltsfoot starting to bloom (Wednesday).
Magnolia bud opening (Wednesday).
Female flowers on red maple (Wednesday).
And by Friday….
Spicebush flowers are open.
…and Wednesday’s magnolia bud is now a flower.
(photos by Kate St. John)
Well, it’s still winter out there. It was 18o F at dawn in Pittsburgh but by Monday it will be back to 41o.
These yo-yo temperatures can wreak havoc on roads and bridges and our landslide-prone hillsides. If the temperature drops fast and far enough it even hurts living things. At super low temperatures the trees explode.
I had never heard of this phenomenon until a conversation in Maine last fall when I asked Ann Sweet, who runs the Harbourside Inn, how cold it gets in winter at Acadia National Park. Ann said the ocean keeps the island warmer than interior Maine but every once in a while it gets so cold that the trees explode.
Wow! And why?
Tree sap contains water and water expands when it freezes. The expansion increases pressure under the bark and in extreme cases causes the bark to explode. This doesn’t happen all the time because trees draw down sap into their roots in autumn, leaving room under the bark for expansion. If they didn’t do this they wouldn’t live through the winter.
The danger for cold-explosion comes when the trees haven’t had time to draw down their sap or when the temperature falls extremely low. Both occurred in north-central Washington in December 1968 when temperatures fell to -47oF. The fruit trees in Wally and Shirley Loudon’s orchard exploded.
Native Americans were well aware of this phenomenon. According to Wikipedia, the Sioux and Cree called the first full moon of January “The moon of cold-exploding trees.”
When the moon was full on January 9, Pittsburgh’s average temperature was 10 degrees above normal. I don’t think we’re in any danger of exploding trees.
(photo of tree exploded by lightning in Central Park, New York by David Shankbone. Click on the image to see the original on Wikimedia Commons)
p.s. It is much more common for trees to explode when hit by lightning.
It’s winter. Mostly. The plants are dormant but there’s no snow to brighten the ground. With temperatures in the 40’s and overcast skies the landscape is brown in Pittsburgh.
But what is this? A spot of green on this last day of 2011. What plants are braving the cold in Schenley Park?
Two alien invasives:
Goutweed …
… and Garlic mustard.
Perhaps it’s not wintry enough for them.
(photos by Kate St. John)