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| Virgin's Bower Clematis virginiana |
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| White Beautyberry Calicarpa americana v lattea a first bloom for this shrub - berries?? |
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The Dry Season, Answer to Prayer, and yet more in The Woods
This has been a very difficult summer for us all, Burlington seems to be in a magic ( bad) place relative to passing storms - they go to our north, they go to our south, they pass to our east and our west, but rarely, since June have we hit the jackpot. As a result, we have been having to water regularly and heavily - an acre+ of woodland is not an easy thing to keep hydrated, and our "new babies" are particularly vulnerable. Last night we received almost 1/2" of rain - a blessing! And in The Woods, the beat goes on - more lovely plants coming to bloom:
Friday, August 19, 2011
Tricky Trillium
Follow this link for a very delightful and informative video produced by the New England Wildflower Society. It is most interesting!
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| White trillium Trillium grandiflora |
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Crane Fly Orchids
Tipularia discolor Crane Fly Orchid
This intriguing little plant has captured our curiosity. We first became aware of it in July of 2009, our first month working in Sullivan Woods, while cleaning up dead fall and poison ivy. Sandy Kerbow spotted a couple of bloom stalks. You can imagine the excitement when we found out we had "orchids in our woods". That alone made our entire effort worthwhile, the preservation of wild orchids!
By late September all that remained of our orchids was a happy memory and a dry bloom stalk, but what is this emerging at many locations in the Woods - delightful little magenta leaves all over the place!
They are the leaves of the Crane Fly orchid, they remain all winter, disappearing in May. In late June, the bloom stalks reappear, first as a tiny magenta nose, peaking through the leaf litter.
Only a very few of the leaf colonies produced bloom stalks - here comes the curosity part:
We excavated 3 of the leaves: a small one, a larger one and one with a bloom stalk associated with it.
Our supposition was correct, the bloom stalk had a much larger root complex than the other two.
Now the next question: If a root blooms this year, will it bloom next year as well. In the summer of 2010 we marked 5 of our bloom stalks, three of them rebloomed this year. Today, we marked 32 new bloom locations. Why do we have this explosion of orchids? Not that we are complaining of course, but why? and will it continue? We think we may, in irrigating the Woods, have created a more favorable environment, or maybe our population is maturing?
This intriguing little plant has captured our curiosity. We first became aware of it in July of 2009, our first month working in Sullivan Woods, while cleaning up dead fall and poison ivy. Sandy Kerbow spotted a couple of bloom stalks. You can imagine the excitement when we found out we had "orchids in our woods". That alone made our entire effort worthwhile, the preservation of wild orchids!
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| Crane Fly Orchid -photo by Linda Lafferty |
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| Crane Fly Orchid leaves -photo by Bob Herbert |
By late September all that remained of our orchids was a happy memory and a dry bloom stalk, but what is this emerging at many locations in the Woods - delightful little magenta leaves all over the place!
They are the leaves of the Crane Fly orchid, they remain all winter, disappearing in May. In late June, the bloom stalks reappear, first as a tiny magenta nose, peaking through the leaf litter.
Only a very few of the leaf colonies produced bloom stalks - here comes the curosity part:
We excavated 3 of the leaves: a small one, a larger one and one with a bloom stalk associated with it.
Our supposition was correct, the bloom stalk had a much larger root complex than the other two.
 |
| As an aside, the excavated orchid bloomed again this summer! -photo by Bob Herbert |
Now the next question: If a root blooms this year, will it bloom next year as well. In the summer of 2010 we marked 5 of our bloom stalks, three of them rebloomed this year. Today, we marked 32 new bloom locations. Why do we have this explosion of orchids? Not that we are complaining of course, but why? and will it continue? We think we may, in irrigating the Woods, have created a more favorable environment, or maybe our population is maturing?
 |
| Today we marked 35 bloom sites -photo by Linda Lafferty |
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