Sunday, July 27, 2014

Differences in green; sunflowers?

The Russell Peterson Wildlife Preserve. Dark green is cattails, medium green is pickerel weed, yellow green is wild rice. Good job on the phragmites eradication, DNREC!

Friday, July 25, 2014

Recon mission

We walked out along the train tracks to see what kind of building DNREC is up to in the marsh.
Viceroy (smaller than a monarch)
The old electric box for the train
A closer view of the osprey nest
Green frog at one of the frog ponds out in the marsh
The first frog's cousin Bob
One of the trees DNREC planted...maybe we'll be back in fifty years and see it huge!
When the gates open again, this will all be underwater.
Nice black gum tree...likes lots of water
Leaves of a black locust tree
Train going by; DEEC is tiny square in the distance.
Butter-and-eggs, in the snapdragon family

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Looking for ferns, finding the kitchen sink

Beetles on blackberries
This snake was basking near the bridge.
I think this is a kind of coral fungus.




Moss with spores
Closeup of spores


A tiny mushroom with a velvety cap. Not sure what kind.
This looks like a teeny oak apple gall, but it also seemed lodged in the log, so maybe it's some kind of fungus.

A nice stand of monotropa uniflora
Blue stump
 
Puffball mushroom--I can't begin to figure out what genus and species!
THE FERNS:
 
 


Friday, July 18, 2014

A very pretty evil bug

Colorado potato beetle found in St. Nicholas church garden, July 18, 2014.

Monday, July 7, 2014

Fern Learning Pt. 2 (Wildflower Certification Class #2)

Ferns are nonflowering vascular plants that reproduce by spores. As a group, ferns date back to the Carboniferous period, 359 million years ago.

The spore-producing structures on a fern are called sporangia. Clusters of sporangia on the underside of fern fronds are called fruit dots or sori.
Fruit dots



More fruit dots
Very few herbivorous mammals eat ferns. A cover of ferns can actually be a sign of ecological imbalance, indicating that too-numerous deer have eaten all the rest of the plants. Some insects, however, make use of ferns for shelter, as in the picture below.



Some ferns also have a mutually beneficial relationship with insects--the Bracken Fern, for instance, is protected by ants that eat a liquid it produces.

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On June 28th, the Wildflower Certification class took a walk at Flint Woods preserve in Hockessin to look for ferns. These are some of what the group found:

Silvery spleenwort (Deparia acrostichoides) is a twice-cut fern with blocky pinnules.
Silvery spleenwort


Hay-scented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) is a thrice-cut fern that can grow to two feet.
Hay-scented fern
Interrupted fern  (Osmundia Claytoniana) gets its name because the fronds in the middle are missing.
Interrupted fern
Lady Fern (Athyrium filix-femina) is a thrice-cut fern. It can grow between two and three feet tall.
Lady fern
Marginal wood fern (dryopteris marginalis) gets its name because the sori are on the margins of the underside of the pinnules.
Marginal Wood Fern
The fronds of the New York Fern (Thelypteris noveboracensis) taper to its base. This is a twice-cut fern that grows to between one and two feet.
New York fern--tapers to base
The Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnnamomea) has woolly tufts at the bade of the fronds. It grows to between two and three feet.
Woolly tufts on the back of a cinnamon fern (where the  leaf meets the stalk).  


Witch hazel (not a fern)--in the family Hamamelidaceae; usually a shrub but sometimes the size of a tree
The Christmas Fern (Polystichium acrostichoides) is recognizable by the bootlike shape of its fronds. It is an evergreen fern that grows between one and two feet tall. It has sori only on its upper leaflets.

Two ferns that I did not get a picture of were

 -the Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum), a twice-cut fern that grows between one and two feet tall. It is recognizable by its curved stalks

-the Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis), a once-cut fern that can grow up to four feet in height. 

Another fern that we found a few days before at Ashland Nature Center was the Purple-Stemmed Cliffbrake (Pellaea atropurpurea).