Even in March Berries Go Round

Ah me, I failed (til recent reminders) to let you know about the current edition of Berry-Go-Round, number 38, which is now up at Anybody Seen My Focus?. Puca, a first-time host, has done a smashing job of rounding up the latest and greatest plant posts, and even included FF's recent contribution on big bluestem, below.

Hustle on over and check out lettuce-growing tips, SPAM (not the bad kind), spring flowers, and much more. Do drop a comment or two on posts you enjoy; it helps keep our participants motivated!

Then, when you're ready, be the first to try out the new BGR submission form to deliver your post on plants, botany, green news, etc. directly to my doorstep, where the next edition will be hosted at the end of April. Or, if you're not excited about such technovation, email me your link directly at FFnaturalist AT gMAIL you-know com. Okay?? Deadline is April 25th, please...

Preliminary indications are that the April edition will have a bit of a tree focus (Arbor Day and all), but plant posts of all types are welcome. Lines are open...

Big Blue: A Grass for the Times?

Last fall I had an email from a botanist friend: What’s going on with big bluestem? After he pointed it out, I noticed that, sure enough, this species, one of the dominant grasses in the tallgrass prairie (as in the source of the original Kansas sods that once housed the homesteaders), was bustin’ out all over the foothills!

Above: Fall color in "turkeyfoot," Big Bluestem grass (Andropogon gerardii), looking across Section 16 and Boulder's Jewell Mountain Open Space. (You can even see the turkey feet in this photo!)

Normally, Big Bluestem does occur on the slopes of our mountain front in sporadic patches, but has been expanding in recent years. In 2010, this warm-season grass had an extraordinary year. Its abundance first drew attention at Lookout Mountain, on the slopes of Windy Saddle Park and adjacent areas, where patches of last fall's russet color could still be spotted in January, even from a distance, as long as the ground was free of snow. Big bluestem and its cousins in the grass family provide great winter color in the landscape.

[This post is a revised version of an article that appeared in the March edition of the Plan Jeffco newsletter, and is therefore oriented toward local open space parks.]

Tallgrass prairie, whether here or in the East, is a tattered remnant of what it was in its glory days. We’re lucky to have sizable patches in Jefferson County; efforts to protect some have been underway for more than 20 years. It’s been years since we talked tallgrass prairie here at FF, but we have continued to monitor developments in the Rocky Flats area, where our best examples of this rare ecosystem survive, including the Ranson/ Edwards property and Jewell Mountain, where Boulder conveniently protected several hundred acres. Patches of big bluestem on the foothills slopes are fine, but limited, reminders of the more extensive remnant prairie that once rolled out across the county but now have retreated to a fringe along the mountain front. Most of what you see west of Highway 93 and north of Hwy 72 is tallgrass prairie.

Big Bluestem (grass)
Andropogon gerardii

• Warm-season sod-forming grass.
  
• Height: 4-5 feet in Colorado; to 8 ft in prairie states.
  
• Range: All but the five westernmost of the lower 48 states, as well as the central provinces of Canada.
  
• Dominant and characteristic grass of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem.
  
• Flowering heads are 4-5 inches long, with 3 (sometimes more) spreading branches, suggesting its other common name: turkeyfoot
  
• Links: At USDA Plants database; at Illinois Wildflowers.
  

Don't Confuse Big Bluestem with:
Smooth Brome (Bromus inermis; Bromopsis inermis) is a ubiquitous pasture grass that was introduced in the late 1800s for livestock forage and erosion control. A sod-former, it tends to grow in extensive monocultures, unlike the patch effect of bluestem, although it is a similarly robust grass that turns color in the fall (more brownish than reddish, however). Smooth brome has leaves on the stem, not just at the base, and lacks the characteristic "turkey foot" seedhead. It is invasive in prairies, and some states consider it a weed. According to the USDA, Smooth Brome now occurs in every state except Hawaii, Alabama, and Florida.

Big Bluestem in Jeffco’s Landscape
Look for these foothills patches primarily on unforested south- and east-facing slopes: on Mt. Morrison, most central-county slopes visible west of Highway 93, and on the north slopes of our canyons, from Bear Creek to Golden Gate. In Mt. Galbraith Park, you can see the colorful auburn patches across the canyon opposite as you make your way up the trail. Driving west on I-70, look for it to the north as you enter the foothills, on the slopes in Matthews-Winters Park.

In the southwest part of Red Rocks Park, bluestem occurs on more prairie-like level sites, because that area has been long protected and contains isolated spots where the Rocky Flats alluvium persists on lands that would otherwise have been cultivated or developed. In fall, Big Bluestem blends perfectly with the outcrops of the Fountain Formation that define Red Rocks.

Lack of development, and a somewhat inhospitable climate, have also protected the Rocky Flats area. The extremely cobbly soils, beloved of gravel companies, hampered agricultural attempts on much of the area, and enhanced the available moisture content for the growth of these taller species. These soils are considered among the oldest in Colorado, in part because the area is unplowed, with some estimates placing their age at 2 million years. But Big Bluestem’s visibility in the landscape of any given year reflects how we’re doing on overall precipitation and temperature.

The Water Year and Other Influences
Based on the 30-yr average precipitation, our wettest month of the year should be May. When it is, that’s about perfect for big bluestem and other warm-season grasses (including blue grama, sideoats grama, little bluestem, and switchgrass), which are just getting started as the weather warms toward summer. By June, the cool-season grasses (such as the common lawn grasses, including Kentucky bluegrass, which take advantage of early season moisture to start growth) will be ready to flower and set seed, but you’ll still have to hunt around on the ground to find evidence that big bluestem is even alive. Large clumps of hairy, velvety blue-green leaves will be your hint.

In July, those spreading clumps send up tall flowering shoots, which produce the “turkey-foot” seedheads by August. When cool-season grasses are giving it up and their seed has scattered, Big Bluestem ripens into the terra cotta masses that reveal its presence even from a distance.

This seasonal habit represents an entirely different metabolism (called “C4”) in these warm-season plants, which use carbon along different pathways than many familiar plants. According to some researchers, this may give them an advantage under conditions of elevated carbon dioxide (think global climate change), especially during drought.

Interestingly, although it seemed, until February snows, that it’s been droughty for several months, 2010 was a good moisture year during its first half, giving Big Bluestem the start it needed. In fact, rainfall in this part of the county has been at or above normal every month from April 2009 through last June. (Later records have not yet been posted online; I’d guess July stayed high as well.) Average temperatures have also hovered a degree or two above normal since late in 2008. Both conditions have supported growth of Big Bluestem, a species that prefers it a little more moist and warm than is the rule in Colorado. If we go too dry and warm, we’re apt to see more of its cousin, little bluestem, but as long as it finds a moist spot, Big Bluestem will remain a part of the county’s natural prospect.

——
Further Reading
Many more references—bison grazing effects, mycorhizal associations, fire, etc.—can be found via Google Scholar; here are a few to get you started. If you've been following our Indian Gulch fire, some of the articles on fire may be of interest; parts of Mt. Galbraith Park, mentioned above, burned. Note that most articles are in Jstor, and only abstracts are available to those of us without university connections.

Biomass production and species composition change in a tallgrass prairie ecosystem after long-term exposure to elevated atmospheric CO2
Clenton E. Owensby, Jay. M. Ham, Alan. K. Knapp, Lisa. M. Auen, 2001, Wiley Online Library.

Photosynthetic and water relations responses to elevated CO 2 in the C 4 grass Andropogon gerardii
AK Knapp, EP Hamerlynck, CE Owensby, International Journal of Plant Sciences, V 154,#4, pp 459-466, 1993.

In absence of water stress, such systems don’t respond to elevated C, but in water-limited envts, levels of leaf phi, leaf-level ps rates, and stomatal conductance are all likely to be affected by elevated atmos CO2, with the net result being inc in biomass productn.

Growth and Gas Exchange of Andropogon gerardii as Influenced by Burning
Tony J. Svejcar and James A. Browning, Journal of Range Management, Vol. 41, No. 3 (May, 1988), pp. 239-244

Long-Term Effects of Annual Burning at Different Dates in Ungrazed Kansas Tallgrass Prairie
Gene Towne and Clenton Owensby, Journal of Range Management, Vol. 37, No. 5 (Sep., 1984), pp. 392-397

Fowl Weather*

Dire predictions for weather here these last few days have uniformly failed to materialize. That's unusual for March, storms of which routinely produce whatever snow piles are forecast. We woke today to a proper pea soup of fog, as yesterday, but only a skim of white crystals has reached the ground. For the life of me, I can't find the camera, but it looks a lot like this out there, minus the heavy snow.

(Ah, ha! You have only to retrace your steps, and remember that you were trying to snap the lovely crystals on the gate, without success, then came in by the fire, and voila! Here's this morning's actual view.)

It's produced a nice feathered frosting of white on everything, one of the occasional attractions winter provides. Even the chain link gate to the chicken yard looks like a piece of delicate lace...









And the trees! Yesterday I attended a 1 p.m. meeting atop Lookout Mtn, which was in dense fog. The storm, scheduled to move in at 2 p.m., made us hurry through the meeting, but we left in dense fog and clear roads, allowing a view of white-laced trees. Much like this view from February 25th, only a mountain away, but with the ground whitened as well.

Anyway, the point of all this was to talk about chickens. My friend at the Hoosier Horse Farm took a whim in the chicken direction recently, and has been entertaining me with questions and, now that she has her chicks, reactions.

First, a debate on "what kind"... answered in favor of Barred Plymouth Rocks and Ameraucanas (aka "Easter Eggers"). Then the excitement of fluffy little bits of incipient chickenhood at home—"You didn't tell me they'd be so much fun to watch!"

(They aren't nearly so pink, but it is hard to get good photos in indoor light. The 'Canas are the ones that look like chipmunks... very cute!)

The first night she made coffee and stayed up to watch them. First they run around pecking, then they drop, wherever they find themselves, down for a nap, then up and down... Chicken TV. (Networks take notice.) It's especially entertaining to watch them drink.

Last night an update arrived: "They double in size every 12 hours! They are bored... they can fly." (She also mentioned poopy and smelly.) Uh, oh... now she'll be in a race to get them outdoor housing. All too soon, they'll look a little like this photo of our 2008 batch, miniature adults.

Months later, eggs will start arriving. A regular reader wants to know what green eggs look like: here's the answer. (See, we do requests, eventually, here at Foothills Fancies.) It's a good thing she only got 7 chicks—she might be able to keep up!

I have nine (9) dozen eggs in the fridge as I write this, and have just eaten two (one brown, one green) for breakfast. (Not two dozen.) I gave some to Cat Woman (giving them to everyone these days...); she's the only one I know who has been able to distinguish the green eggs from brown; she says they give her indigestion!

I'm finding eggs all over in the coop; last night I even stepped on one, much to the appreciation of the three hens that hurried over to clean it up. This rate, with Easter still six weeks away, is a little alarming. But it won't last...








* Forgive me that one...

The Mysterious Internet

It's a tangled web out there, for sure, and its ways are beyond mysterious. The Phytophactor offered kind words about FF re: the latest Berry-Go-Round, prompting me to go look at my own stats again. I'd decided last time that this is a futile exercise yielding little in the way of intelligible results. It still is. And, of course, it's hard to tell whether people are satisfied with what they find when they arrive.

Speaking of the Phactor, don't miss his posts from early this week on the evolutionary timeline, and one on endangered plants. He's been very prolific lately, and these two are great.

But I just know you'll be interested in some fascinating details about the appeal of Foothills Fancies to the online world at large. Here's a list of my all time top posts (all time being "since Blogger installed stats" or mid-2010).

• Scales and Tails
  
• Best Botany Blog
  
• My Kingdom for a Domain…
  
• Whatever Happened to Sphenopsida
  
• High Color: Alpine Tundra
  
• Live at Bear's Lair
  
• Tree Cholla
  
• Stuff Plants Do
  
• Summer Feast BGR
  
• Snowy Sunday Visitors

The moral of that story is that old posts live for...ever. A sobering thought. The twin two-year old posts on obsolete plants (Sphenopsida, 27 in Feb) and obsolete taxonomy ("My Kingdom...", 38 in Feb) are still tops in this past month's searches. Several people wanted to know about Zosterophyllum and Asteroxylon? If FF comes up, that surely speaks to the paucity of information out there on fossil plants.

It's heartening to know that people are also out there looking for botany blogs. That means I should be doing more botany, right? (We all should...) A little post I wrote five years ago, simply pointing to the wonderful Botany Photo of the Day is still a top-notch vote-getter.

How do people find us? It's clear from the above list that participating in carnivals adds to one's visibility, as most of those posts were included in one carnival or another. Google, in all its guises, is always a great source of traffic; this month the new listing FF got from Online College Courses is already being productive.

Other bloggers, and being well connected, also help. I already miss the Watcher, who sent more people my way than anyone until he stopped posting one month ago today. Inexplicably moving to the top of the referral list lately is the terrific bird-blogger Bootstrap Analysis. As far as I can tell, my only acquaintance with her was a post I submitted to I-and-the-Bird FIVE years ago! (Thanks, Nuthatch!)

But the all-time top of the Foothills Fancies hit parade, with more than twice as many visits as any other post, is the delightful Scales and Tails, documenting a fascination with snakes we might not have expected. In particular, strong in the search terms are things like "baby rattlesnake identification," "images of baby prairie rattlesnake," and so on. (We can only hope these weren't emergency searches.) Thanks go to this little guy. I hope you're doing well, sweetie, wherever you are.

I think I feel a rattlesnake post coming on... stay tuned!

Bright Spots in Winter: BGR #37

If winter's lingering a little too long where you are, you can always turn to the Berry-Go-Round for a touch of life and color. The Phytophactor has corraled a red-carpet-runway-free batch of plant posts for this month's carnival.

Contemplate invasive (?) orchids (we should have such weeds) or bryophytes-du-jour (such as this loverly liverwort), explore tasty wild edibles (with care!), tropical vines, or Great Basin conifers. You can even try your hand at making soup—but brush up on your Latin first to get the ingredients right...

And of course, FF's own lichen post below is featured too.

Thanks, Phactor!

Opposites Attract, or What’s Up with Lichens

What is it about lichens that’s so fascinating?? I caught “the bug” many years ago, but I guess unless you’re exposed, your immunity remains intact. Once you start noticing them, though, they can be hard to resist.


First, there’s the startling array of shapes and colors. That trait they have in common with other fungi so maybe it’s not lichens’ most unusual feature (those are fungi, above, by the way). Still, for everything from barely perceptible crusts to wacky forms worthy of a sci-fi movie, lichens are hard to beat.

Second, they’re pretty much everywhere. Once you start spotting them, you can find them in deserts or high mountains and everywhere in between, growing on rocks, old stumps, tree bark or twigs, mosses, soil, or substrates provided by humans. Some even live underwater.

And everywhen. Fossil lichens have now been reported as far back as 600 million years ago (in China, 2005), and it’s been proposed (though not widely accepted) that the famous Ediacaran biota of Australia may have represented fossilized lichens (Retallack, 1994; refuted by Waggoner, 1995). They’ve even been given credit for, very early on, building the oxygen atmosphere and making the planet fit for habitation.

Okay maybe that’s a stretch… and probably we should call them "lichen-like symbioses" rather than the lichens we know today. There is, however, an "unequivocal report" of lichen fossils from 400 million years ago, and that's not half bad.

Lichens are tough. Studying them in the harsh environment of the Arizona desert, where they’re lucky to get a few minutes to photosynthesize using dew at dawn before they dry out for another day, one develops a certain respect for these crusty critters. Imagine the temperature on a dark volcanic rock at midday of an Arizona summer... you'd be crustose too.

Lichens survive in the even harsher Namib and Negev deserts, where dew and fog are the only sources of water. We used to speculate that, if there was life on Mars, it was most likely in the form of lichens.

That latter hypothesis has since gotten a boost from actual research. As reported in New Scientist, 2005:

In an experiment led by Leopoldo Sancho from the Complutense University of Madrid, two species of lichen—Rhizocarpon geographicum and Xanthoria elegans—were sealed in a capsule and launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket on 31 May 2005.

Once in Earth orbit, the lid of the container opened and the samples were exposed to the space environment for nearly 15 days before the lid resealed and the capsule returned to Earth.

The lichens were subjected to the vacuum of space and to temperatures ranging from—20°C on the night side of the Earth, to 20°C on the sunlit side.

We just knew it!! When the lichens came home from their jaunt in space, and were returned to reasonable conditions, they came back to life and actively metabolized, just as if they hadn't been subjected to intense solar radiation and a huge range of temperatures, not to mention absolute vacuum. They have remarkable recuperative powers.

By the way, that temperature has got to be wrong; space is no where near that warm!! According to Answers.com, "In Earth orbit, the temperature of objects in sunlight can rise to 120°C/250°F. The actual temperature in space is about 3°K (-270°C or three degrees Celsius above Absolute Zero)."

That's literally cool, but what about the attraction?

Maybe the neatest thing about these incredible organisms is that they're not one organism at all, but a combination. The lichen symbiosis is not unique, but has happened many times, and with many different partners. Now that fungi, and therefore lichens, are no longer considered plants but their own entire kingdom as are algae, the lichen combination unites members of two extremely distinct groups of organisms. (Ever think it's tough to get along with mates of our own species?? Consider the lichen.) The photobiont consists of algal or cyanobacterial cells immersed in the hyphal strands of the mycobiont, or fungal partner. Here's a great orange lichen; note the green layer of algal cells in the lower right of the photo, where the thallus has been cut.

Above: Xanthomendoza mendozae close-up. Photo by Chris Wagner, U.S. Forest Service. By the way, the Forest Service has a well-written section on lichens; worth checking out for more on the basics!

In some lichen species, the symbiosis gets really interesting. They may have a primary union with, say, Trebouxia, the most common green alga in lichens, but they also have a little cyanobacterial thing going on. Take this Peltigera for example. When wet, its bright green color tells us that most of the thallus contains green algal cells (Chlorophytes, eukaryotes). But see those darker bumps on the surface? Called cephalodia, those harbor cyanobacteria (Protists, kingdom Monera), adding a third kingdom to this particular symbiotic union.

In our neck of the woods (Pelts are creatures of the forest-floor), most Peltigera species are grayish or brown and never show green, even when wet. Those species, including the abundant Peltigera canina, have remained true to their original cyanobacterial commitment.

Back with more on these wonderful beings soon!

Brown is Back: the February Thaw

This week, brown is the new white. Most of the evidence of the storms of early February has disappeared from the view, if not from the north-facing front yard.

The rainbarrels were 350-lb ice cubes little more than a week ago, but with temperatures in and above the 40s and 50s since the 11th, they’ve returned to liquidity. Tonight the chance of precipitation moves a bit above slim, so white may make a return as temps are expected to be more seasonal than springlike tomorrow.

Meanwhile, it’s a comfortable 52 degrees at midday, and Cat Woman and I are going to attempt to revisit the jelly lichens at the Bear's Lair this afternoon.

Inspired by Swamp Things and her photos of spring (snakes? salamanders?... mink??) already, I went out to look. Even the currants (usually first) are resisting the temptation to show green, but I did spot some early leaves of grape hyacinths, so the bulbs are considering a new season.

What We're Used To

Yesterday I had another of those startling encounters with a "foreign" culture when someone visited from downtown Denver to install equipment. Really a nice guy, but he always has trouble finding the place even though he's been out here before (we're 20 miles from Denver). To get here, after exiting the highway, you have to make all of three turns, all on paved roads. More than getting lost, though, I was surprised by his concern that he might encounter a snake. Not just a rattlesnake, but apparently any kind of snake.

It's February. I explained that his chances of seeing a snake were somewhere between extremely slim and zilch, no matter how mild the day. We also talked about bears and mountain lions, neither of which I've seen in person in my 30 years here. We know they're here, we just don't see 'em. In fact, we've grown used to not seeing 'em. (Photo by H. Barrison via Wikipedia.)

We don't live in a remote mountain cabin without services. This is, for all intents and purposes, civilization. There are neighbors within shouting distance; we even have regular trash pickup. But when I thought about the "other foot"—how I feel when I go to downtown Denver—I got it. It's culture shock; it just wasn't what he was used to. I can function downtown, more or less, and he can function here; it's just outside of the comfort zone.

In fact, I can navigate fairly well downtown, as long as I'm going somewhere I'm used to. But set me down in San Francisco or St. Louis, and I'm a fish out of water. Big cities make me nervous; if I went to New York City, I'd turn into a basket case utterly dependent on my guide. There would have to be a guide. (Photo adapted from Wikipedia.)

I had the same experience decades ago when I was in college. I tutored a young man from The City who found himself unsettled by the surroundings of the rural college we attended. Drop him off the subway in the middle of Queens or Yonkers, he'd be fine. The green hills of upstate New York, though, freaked him out. I doubt he ever left the campus. As we talked about it, we realized I'd be equally freaked on his home turf.

We humans are adaptable creatures, and that's the problem. We're able to get used to whatever's around us, and it becomes a new norm, a new basis for future comparison. Scientists call it shifting baselines and Wikipedia does a pretty good job of explaining the basics. Originally applied to the oceans and perceptions of fish abundance, the concept works marvelously for just about everything. We can only compare with what we know. That's why the older we get, the more different the "good old days" look.

The message, I guess, is be careful what you get used to, whether it's the new superhighway, more convenient shopping, having 100 TV channels, or never seeing open lands and wildlife. It will end up in your future. Sci-fi writers have suggested that humans can adapt to planets and environments that are entirely manmade. At the rate we're going, some of us may get to find out.

Every day we all make choices, says a student at Scripps. Make sure your choices count.

The Week That Was: February So Far

January's last gasp was almost tropical, with clear skies and shirt-sleeve weather most of that last weekend. The groundhog brought change, for sure, this time! The cold started on the 31st, and we (and the groundhog) were in the deep freeze on his day, with the added touch of several inches of snow. Mind you, I'm not complaining (especially after lamenting December's lack of moisture in any form). I was lucky, I got to stay home feeding the woodstove and keeping the chickens in liquid water (or trying to) as we spent a couple days in the teens below zero.

The slideshow covers the past two weeks, starting with the brown views of late January, and ending with this morning's sun shining on a foot of new-fallen snow that began arriving yesterday morning. By 10 a.m., it will be above freezing and I won't have to worry so much about the chickens' thirst. Colorado blue skies have returned for the moment, though more snow is expected tonight and tomorrow.

I did worry about the birds, most of whom flocked to the feeders. Food was no problem; they had plenty of that, but I was out of suet. I invented a substitute of sorts, that immediately attracted a little Downy Woodpecker, but she soon lost interest. Even the starlings didn't find it tempting. Finally, I fed it to the more appreciative chickens, once proper bird suet arrived.

I tried to provide the little birds with water too, but it was rejected. Juncos, finches, and assorted sparrows foraged inches from the dishes without indulging. Everyone looked like little puffballs, all fluffed against the cold.

Both Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks have also been coming by regularly. (I'm finally getting better at telling them apart, at least when the size differential is visible.) I've found little evidence of their success, but they keep the little birds on their toes.

January Berries

The latest edition of the Berry-Go-Round plant carnival is now posted at Seeds Aside.

This month's eclectic collection offers a look at a dozen record-holding plants, news about Sphagnum genetics, book reviews, the evolution of C4 photosynthesis, and the stunningly unique Fern Rap. Or how about the oldest evidence of plants found to date in Florida? All of these tasty tidbits, and many more, can engage your brain cells if you wander over to edition #36 of the Berry-Go-Round.

Nice job, Laurent! Thanks for the great reading...

"Botanical" Wonders

Two events conspired to renew my level of botanical engagement this month. The second was Mary, the Accidental Botanist, who posted a piece about ThePlantList.org, a great resource for people (Mary aptly calls "plant nerds") who want to figure out more about a plant.

But the original reason I needed to re-engage was work-related: a project that gave me an excuse to learn more about the rare plants at Summit Lake Park, the alpine contribution to Denver's Mountain Park System. I need to know what these plants look like, and I won't be making any trips to Mt. Evans or Summit Lake in January (see photo). Could the new PlantList site help me?

In two clicks, on my first attempt*, I found myself looking at an image of herbarium specimen #K000697587 of Draba exunguiculata at, incredibly, the Kew Herbarium! It was collected near Gray's Peak in 1885!

*Okay, not quite that easy. Plantlist has a typo; I had to add an "n" to the species epithet to make it work.

Quite a few of the rare plants at Summit Lake are mosses and liverworts (bryophytes). In another two clicks, this time over to the New York Botanical Garden, I was studying a map of locations of specimens of the rare moss, Oreas martiana. Although 16 of the 39 specimens at NYBG are from Colorado, the map showed only six locations on the North Slope of Alaska, one in northern British Columbia, and two in Greenland. Ahh, there's the wrinkle: The specimens have to be "georeferenced," that is with coordinates recorded, in order to be plotted, and many, it seems, are not.

The Plant List, sad to say, deals only with vascular plants and bryophytes. You'd think 298,900 valid names (and more than a million total) would be enough to satisfy anyone, no?

As I said in a previous post about Summit Lake:

I’m a bit daft about cryptogams, and it seemed everywhere we tried to put a flag, the “bare” ground was thick with lichens and mosses. Tundra lichens are a special breed—most are species that dominate arctic ecosystems and aren’t seen down here in the lower 48 states, except at very high altitudes. So they’re special, at least to me.

What about my favorite arctic tundra lichens that also occur at Summit Lake? No help from the PlantList there, but I was hooked on the concept. Lichen images are rarely a problem; Steve and Sylvia Sharnoff have helped us out with their definitive book and website at Lichen.com. (And Steve's more extensive photo gallery, a wonderful place to explore on a snowy winter's day.)

A quick visit over to the American Bryological and Lichenological Society (ABLS) website reminded me I should drop in on the lichen herbarium at Arizona State University, where Dr. Thomas Nash has amassed more than 109,000 lichen specimens. Searchable... Now that sounds promising!

Instead of searching only the ASU collection, though, I found myself presented with this opportunity to search lichen herbaria across the US and Canada! Enter a taxon, and/or maybe some criteria, and pow! you've got label data from any of the 15 institutions in the Consortium of North American Lichen Herbaria.

A few more clicks, and you'll have a map of all the georeferenced specimens in the database, or maybe a list of all the lichen specimens collected within a given distance of whatever coordinates you care to enter. If you ask for all the occurrences of the arctic lichens Dactylina madreporiformis (aka Allocetraria madreporiformis) and Thamnolia vermicularis, you get 515 specimens in ten (counting subspecies) taxa, that look, on the map, like this. The Dactylina is red; Thamnolia blue.

The armchair explorer can click each little map bubble to view a specimen label for that site. If multiple specimens occur there, a list of them pops up, and you can pick which label you want to see.


If you have a microscope handy, you can even try using a Dynamic Key to the lichens of an area, as in this one for the 348 lichen species within 40 miles of Summit Lake. The key will walk you through the characters, eliminating species at every choice (pick a feature you know, if possible, or can make an educated guess at), until you arrive at your answer. Unfortunately, the first big steps in elimination require you to know quite a bit about the lichen's innards, like spore features and what the photobiont (algal partner) is. If you happen to know it's cyanobacterioid, you're in luck; you'll only have to work through 36 species. Alas, about 90% of lichens involve green algae, often Trebouxia, as the primary photobiont.

Easy way to lose a week or two (as I did)... If Dr. Weber's lichen collection* at the CU Boulder Herbarium (COLO) was in the database, I'd be in real trouble!

You say you're not particularly fond of lichens? We'll have to address that in a future post...
——
* Specimen data aren't online, but you can explore his Catalog of Colorado Lichens.

For Berry-Go-Round #36... "Botanical" is in quotes because lichens aren't really considered to be plants by most people. These days they're organized as "lichenized fungi." But BGR says it's okay "as long as a reminder clearly indicates fungi and algae are not considered plants anymore." This is my reminder.

How to Start a Year

So far, 2011 has shown promise, in its small moments and quiet observations. Just the way we like it here at FF... Dawn photo, on the 2nd, finds the Sun in its notch, already a bit to the north of its Winter Solstice position.

Our New Year's storm was followed by an even more productive one the next weekend. So far, we are two for three on weekend snow. With temperatures plus-50F (above 10C) this past weekend (and a few minutes of actual rain, in January yet, yesterday morning), the entire foot (30 cm) of snow is now also gone. On January 6th, the calm between the storms is reflected in a pink morning.

Trips to the coop after dusk have, a time or two, been accompanied by the hooting of Great Horned Owls, and early one morning, we could hear two calling to each other in the neighborhood. It's that time of year already. One night, even a sighting, as an Owl flew low past the house.

The youngest girls, last year's pullets, have starting laying seriously, and we are already overwhelmed with luscious eggs, many of them in shades of green. In another month, the older hens will start again too; I'd better get my "customers" primed for a busy season.

The Sharp-shinned Hawk is becoming a regular, often spooking from the chicken area each morning when I open the coop door, and sometimes not going far. To date, I've found Junco feathers by the gate, by the fence, and under her tree. Why she isn't eating more Starlings is still a mystery.

On a sad note, Bob the Quail has not shown his adorable little face, or that roundish shape lurking under his favorite shrub, since January 4th. I still hope for his return, but know as well that his visit was a special glimpse and not necessarily a long-term liaison. Cat Woman's friend and I will remember a special sighting of him on New Year's Day.

No evidence suggests that the resident sharpie was the cause of Bob's sudden disappearance. He made it through the first cold spell, but left before the second, so it wasn't the cold either.

For several days, a Red-tailed Hawk screamed from a power pole down the street. One morning, he took off as I was driving away, making a low pass just above my windshield. Too quick for the camera, that close look sticks only in memory.

One morning, I met Bee Lady and Flame at Red Rocks to check out the birds there. With several "unusuals" reported, including a Curve-billed Thrasher, we had high expectations. We saw, that day, only the Golden-crowned Sparrow, a new one for me. Neither the Harris's Sparrow nor the Rosy Finches put in an appearance. The thrasher has been reported back since, and Cat Woman got to see an entire flock of Rosy Finches there this weekend.

On the domestic front, we've had some serious cold, during which the woodstove served cozily, and the Chocolate Cat discovered the cryptic qualities of the new blanket "Grandma" brought him for Christmas.



That's January—and domestic tranquility!

Welcoming the New Year

...with a little moisture! At least it kept up through the day, giving us this view about 4 p.m. yesterday afternoon.


And, bright and early this morning, a crisp 6-8 degrees (-15 C), and we have, maybe 6 to 8 inches (15-20 cm) of snow to match... seems like less by this afternoon.


The view this afternoon includes our semi-domestic herd of ungulates, come to see if there's chicken food or birdseed available. Bob the quail has been pretty invisible all day. Now that it's warmed up to 15 (10 C), I took hot water out to the coop area an hour ago, and there he was, right in front of the coop door. We've been half expecting an extra during beak count—is tonight going to be the night?

Also hanging out near the feeder is the current generation of Artemis. (Artemis helped start this blog, so we really enjoy seeing her and/or her relatives.) I finally had to go out anyway; the little birds are relieved that I've incidentally chased her off so they can have a snack before bedtime.

Upslope: Color It White

Boy, howdy! It's a bouncing baby (or maybe not so baby) upslope storm! It finally arrived this morning, though I think the weatherfolk thought it would be a little later. We've been waiting for a storm to go south, but everything lately has moved north of or straight over the center of Colorado. (For the whole deal on upslope storms, see Second Storm from last March, our usual upslope season.)

For some reason, I thought this one might arrive from the south, but clearly (8:15 a.m.) the action was going to be in the north.



By 9:45, I was slightly optimistic.



And, at 10:30 a.m., my dreams were coming true! If it just stays all day and gives us the 6-12 inches expected (15-30 cm), I'll consider my wishes fulfilled! For now...

Red Sky at Morning

This bodes well! A break in a long-drawn out drought today would be most welcome. The weather forecast supports this sky, which, as you'll recall, suggests:

Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.
Red sky at night, sailor's delight.

Unfortunately, I can't find this one in my lovely weather lore book, discussed earlier this month. I do see something similar:

Rainbow in the morning, shepherd take warning.
Rainbow toward night, shepherd's delight.

But we have neither rainbows nor shepherds. For that matter, no sailors handy either. Still, we are hoping for a nice pile of heavy, wet snow. It's just what the foothills need!

Eric Sloane does offer another reassuring thought from lore; this one, he assures us, is true:

Evening red and morning gray sets the traveler on his way.
Evening gray and morning red brings down rain upon his head.

Oh, yes, please!!

In other news, I pretty much failed to take my usual Solstice sunrise photo. Apparently I didn't last year either. I did bracket this one, so here's this morning's shot, a picture-perfect match for 2008's pre-solstice view!



It's been a long time since I did one of these, too. See how dry?



I'd best be off about my errands before the storm hits!

The Holly and the Ivy

Christmas, and the whole winter season in general, is brightened by a host of plants we traditionally associate with this time when we are, in the Northern Hemisphere temperate zone, largely plant-deprived. Lately it seems The Tree and the ubiquitous modern Poinsettia get most of the glory, but in times past many other plant species lent color and meaning to our festivities. As this song has been trickling through my head all week, I thought I'd explore a few of its historic associations, and give you a reason to keep your holiday greens up a little longer.

In days of yore, when certain Europeans placed great emphasis on the symbolism associated with plants and animals, the year was divided into two parts: the waxing year, into which we pass on the Winter Solstice, is ruled by the Oak King; the waning half is ruled by the Holly King. (Photo from Wikimedia commons.)

As the song (circa 1710) says:

The Holly and the Ivy, now are both well grown;
Of all the trees that are in the wood, the Holly bears the crown.

The Holly (always symbolically male, though botanically coming in both flavors) is "best in the fight;" he wins the crown at Summer Solstice but rules only until displaced by Oak on December 21st. (The "boughs of holly" tradition predates our image of Victorian Christmases; the Romans used holly in similar fashion a millenium earlier for celebrations of Saturnalia, associated with December 17th.)

The Ivy is traditionally female, and her place in symbolism sheds a more sinister light on the festivities:

Holly stands in the hall, fair to behold:
Ivy stands without the door, she is full sore a cold.
Holly and his merry men, they dance and they sing,
Ivy and her maidens, they weep and they wring.

Ivy hath chapped fingers, she caught them from the cold,
So might they all have, aye, that with ivy hold.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.

This sad story actually makes logical sense, in that Holly has been brought inside to decorate the mantel, while Ivy, being attached to the outer walls of our hypothetical English country house, must spend the winter outside.

Holly and Ivy Here and Now
Neither of these excellent plants of the British Isles escapes sinister implications on this side of the pond. English Ivy (Hedera helix) and English Holly (Ilex aquifolium) both can, and have, become invasive here in North America. Here one of the benefits of Colorado's harsh and droughty climate presents itself; neither species, thankfully, has escaped from cultivation in our fair state. Elsewhere it's not so comfortable: English Ivy is a designated noxious weed in Oregon and Washington, whose forests, coincidentally, provide most of our domestic holiday greens. (See another essay on the holiday harvest over at Small Wonders. Apparently I've long been interested in this topic.)

H. helix can grow to choke out other plants and create "ivy deserts" in the United States. State and county sponsored efforts are encouraging the destruction of ivy in forests of the Pacific Northwest and the Southern United States. Its sale or import is banned in Oregon. Ivy can easily escape from cultivated gardens and invade nearby parks, forests and other natural areas. Ivy can climb into the canopy of trees in such density that the trees fall over from the weight, a problem which does not normally occur in its native range. In its mature form, dense ivy can destroy habitat for native wildlife and creates large sections of solid ivy where no other plants can develop. —from Wikipedia.org.

English Holly is also plantae non grata in the Pacific Northwest, despite its commercial production there, which may well have been a source for the invasion. It is considered naturalized in many forests in our western tier of states, where it occurs in the westernmost counties, but hasn't spread in the eastern U.S. forests as ivy has, according to the USDA distribution records. It has not, so far, been listed as a noxious weed, though it is projected to change the composition of the Pacific Northwest forests in the decades ahead.

Household Decor—and More
It's not just about decking the halls to bring inside a little spirit of the forest at Christmas; in older days, the practice of using plants indoors was year-round, each with its season. This tradition supported not just comely decorations, but practical applications of sanitation and, no doubt, sanity in times when people were not in the habit of bathing regularly and often lived with their animals. In this critical role, plant use was known as strewing, and involved a wide variety of herbs and other species, as partially outlined below.

Candlemas Eve, by Robert Herrick, published 1648
(found online at The Hymns and Carols of Christmas)

Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the mistletow;
Instead of holly now upraise
The greener box for show.

The holly hitherto did sway,
Let box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter day,
Or Easter's Eve appear.

Then youthful box which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.

When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin,
To honour Whitsuntide.*

Green rushes then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oaken boughs,
Come in for comly ornaments,
To readorn the house.

Thus times do shift;
Each thing his turn doth hold;
New things succeed,
As former things grow old.

* "Whitsuntide" is the Christian celebration of the seventh Sunday after Easter. This puts it more or less coincident (given Easter's variable date) with and apparently a replacement for the pagan celebration of May Eve/May Day, aka Beltane.

Obligatory botanical note: I'm going to go out on a limb (or bough) here, and try to put names to these plants, for those of us not conversant with the more common decorative and strewing herbs.

"The Greener Box": Buxus sempervirens, in the unappetizing Euphorbiaceae, is an easy one, and grows in Europe, the Orient, and temperate Asia. Given its toxic nature, unlike the rest, we'd perhaps count on this green primarily for decoration.

"The Crisped Yew": Taxus baccata occurs in north temperate Europe and Asia; in North America, substitute Pacific Yew (Taxus brevifolia).

"Birch" would most likely be Betula alba , which grows in Europe, No. Asia, and No. America, or in No. America, perhaps also Sweet Birch, B. lenta.

For "green rushes," we could use Sweet flag, Acorus calamus, a plant of north temperate regions, as is the Bulrush, Scirpus lacustris, both widely used for strewing.

"Bent": Agrostis stolonifera, perhaps, or others of the more than one hundred species of this grass. Pasture grasses and sometimes weeds, these would have been part of the straw commonly used as floor covering.

Perhaps not surprising is the fact that all of these mentioned have one other thing in common, in addition to this use. These species all come with an "L." after their names, signifying the Linnaean origin of their binomials.


Few of us have backyards that could sustain a year-round harvest of greens for strewing and freshening our houses; most likely, we also lack the time to harvest and redecorate seasonally. As the practice has faded, it seems our winter holiday decorations are the only remnant of a once wider traditional practice of bonding with plants. (At left: Burning The Christmas Greens, from Harper's Weekly, 1876.)

On this day [Candlemas] the Christmas ceremonies, which had lingered on after Twelfth-day, finally closed, and all traces of them were removed. The custom long prevailed, and there must be many still living who can remember the evergreens with which our churches were decorated at Christmas, remaining until Candlemas [February 2nd]. from William Henry Husk, Songs of the Nativity (1868)

Do we have, today, less need in our homes of the freshening effects of greens (not to mention the antimicrobial properties that were probably also a benefit)—or are we just now more inclined (or able) to get those benefits from a commercial product than from our backyards?

Watching the Watcher

Over at Watching the World Wake Up, the Watcher recently completed a marvelous four-part Thanksgiving chronicle that dredges up all kinds of memories of the more adventurous days of my own youth. He covers dinosaur tracks, muddy roads, rock art, geology, and of course desert botany in this quadruple tour-de-force. I'm in awe of his blogging talent, so, yes, I'm a Watcher Watcher.

Watcher's contributions to the blog world include the invention of the tangent and the nested tangent, without which his posts would be eversomuch more straightforward and possibly even dull. Some visitors flock to his site just for the tangents! And, of course, the allusions to Selma Hayek.

And his posts are LONG! Settle in, it's going to be a substantial visit, but you will come away having learned some remarkable tidbit of esoteric knowledge you would never have thought to look up for yourself. On average (n=1), his posts are 12,500 pixels long, or 2,300 words (n=2). I thought that chicken post below was long; it comes in at less than half the length of a typical Watcher post.

Nor does the Watcher neglect illustration. If he fails (on the rare occasion it's been known to happen) to capture a photograph, he will create an Awesome Graphic, an art form he invented (along with the subcategories Expand-o-graphic and Action Graphic). Some complex concepts, of course, demand an Awesome Graphic and could not be otherwise illustrated. [This one is from his post on seeing the Mexican flag come to life.]

I don't know how he does it all, but I'm glad he does!!

He can't stop, apparently, with knowing that birds have pentachromatic vision, or that some, but not all, Springbeauties are tetraploid. Instead he takes his readers into the nitty gritty of what that means, plumbing the depths of whatever science (astronomy, psychology, physiology, genetics, geology, archaeology, zoology, botany) presents itself. It's like he has a post for everything!

Want to know How Magpies build their nests or All about Greek Mythology? There's a post for that!

One aspect of the Watcher's work, however, fills me with dismay. He thinks of his blog as a "project" that will, one day, be "completed." On that day, the blog world will be an emptier place.

———

Off Topic: The little sponges we are as children just soak up all kinds of stuff, and just thinking of writing this post brought back memories of the Watchbird. For those whose childhood was more deprived, here's a bit about the Watchbird:

In the baby boom years, I suppose parents needed all the help they could get rearing responsible offspring of good character. Some of that "help" came from the Watchbird, a cartoon created by Munro Leaf to remind us how to behave. Apparently some of my peers have more sinister recollections of the Watchbird, but I (of course) was trying to be good, and the Watchbird regularly showed us examples of bad children: the Whinie, the Sneaky, the Pusher... (honestly, I've forgotten all of them!) I guess you could say it was negative reinforcement, and maybe that's why it's frowned upon today. Like spankings and other forms of archaic parental guidance, however, it was effective! Contrariwise, as Hootsbuddy recalls:

Maybe it was this early training that made part of me into a Watchbird. I dunno. In any case, it missed the mark. I was suppose to identify with someone in the cartoon, not the Watchbird. I guess even at that early age I was more prone to judging than being judged.

(As long as I'm being quantitative, I should mention that Hootsbuddy's Place (which I found on a "Watchbird" search) looks pretty interesting. He managed to rack up more than 3,000 posts featuring all kinds of commentary in less than six years... and then stopped abruptly in mid-2009, as we all probably will someday.)

My Visit to the Book Cliffs
At any rate, the Watcher's posts quite often strike a chord. This last one especially brought back days of trucking around the Book Cliffs on (gulp) synfuels reconnaissance. (Ah, the last big boom; those were the days, eh?) I remember two special events. [Pic right, not mine.]

Watcher reports: "Once you get off the asphalt, Mancos is both wonderful and horrible. In dry conditions, graded dirt roads across the Mancos are often smooth and fast, allowing a passenger car to zip comfortably along at 40 or 50 MPH. But when wet, forget it." (Whence he goes on to explain, in true Watcher-style, about smectitic clays.)

I can't say I remember that it was Mancos Shale we were driving on, but I do remember "smooth and fast." As you approach the Book Cliffs (which in my day were apparently closer to I-70 than they are now), you start winding around the toes of the cliffs. Cruising around one such hairpin, a bit too fast probably, I found myself face to face with a huge logging truck (he was probably also moving right along). We both slammed on the brakes, and came to a mutual stop with our side mirrors almost touching. Whew! Survived that one...

While in the Cliffs, we had a good time cruising across washes, which of course are more fun if they have water in them. If you went fast enough (it was a rental vehicle, and I was, after all, young), you could get a good splash going!

Anyway, when we left to return to Grand Junction, it was beginning to snow a bit. In fact, it quickly became a whiteout, though I don't remember that there was much accumulation. As we drove south toward I-70, confident it was out there somewhere, a helicopter landed next to the road to ask us for directions!! In the decades since, I can't say that's ever happened again!

So, Watcher, as always "Thanks for the memories!"