Bobo Brazil: NOT a taxonomist

In the previous blog post, read by many, there is a reference to the CocoBOP, also call the Coco Butt--a move where Bobo Brazil smashed his head into that of his opponent's. This man, called the "Jackie Robinson of Professional Wrestling" broke the color line in fake, TV, staged, totally fake wrestling. He was not Brazilian. He was born in Little Rock, and established a famous restaurant in Benton Harbor, Mi. He died from a series of strokes, which is the opposite of ironic. He was father to six children. He was not a plant taxonomist but he could kick the crap out of Linnaeus.

Tricky Taxonomy

The plant you see here is Euthamia gramifolia. It use to be a Solidago. So really when you get right down to it and put a taxonomist in the Claw or give him the CocoBOP, then he or she will tell you that yes, this is the seventh goldenrod at 42.31, -73.55.

A New Season: Solidago

Those of you who have been following the seasons here have realized that the season Day Lily is a long one, most of July in fact is Day Lily. But life goes on. And sometime in end of July the early goldenrod, Solidago juncea, blooms, followed by FIVE MORE species of goldenrod: S. gigantea at 8.4; S. bicolor at 8.27; S. canadensis on 8.28; and on 9.6 S. nemoralis and S. rugosa.

This is a season of yellow flowers, in which the whiteness of Queen's Anne's lace in fields gives way to a number of species with yellow flowers that persist to mid September. This is the season called Solidago. To me, even though it is August, it is a sign that summer is turning the corner. Welcome to Solidago. PS Solidago bicolor is white.

Philip Larkin poem

One of the legion of readers of this blog (actually 3 people) sent in this poem. And to that person, yes I was a professor of botany at UW Madison in the 1970s.

The Trees
By Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Day Lily: Queen Anne's Lace

As July rolls on the fields of the Taconics have a white cast because of so much Queen Anne's Lace. If you look closely at this picture you will see on tiny black flower right in the center? Why does this occur, you ask, pleading for knowledge. I don't know. I'll Google it and get back to you.

A lot of you (actually not a single human being on the face of the earth) have asked me why the season Day Lily has gone on so long. "Dan," you ask, " why had the season Day Lily has gone on so long?" July is actually, in my sense, a time of stability when compared to May and June. It really is a time of invertebrates, of insect such as wasps that build and flies that, ah, fly. But look, do you se that golden color here and there?

Invertebrate of the Year nominee: Hummingbird moth

You know how nature likes to fool you, like you have a meeting with your boss and you can't keep your hair from looking like a mop and you lose your job? You all know what I mean. Anyway, this is the humming bird moth--nature fools you in many ways. It LOOKS like a little hummingbird AND it is a moth that flies around in the day. So you go, "Neptune's Barcalounger! What a tiny bird." Then when you realize it's moth you look around to see if anyone heard you? You all know what I mean. Invertebrate of the Year Nomineee: the White-lined Sphinx Hummingbird Moth, Hyles lineata.

Plant of the Year Nominee: Galium verum

If there is any more beautiful yellow I'd like to see it. This is a great year for this plant, called lady bedstraw.

Seasons to Date

These are the seasons at 42.31, -73.55.


1. Amelanchier (March 26)
2. Taraxacum (April 21)
3. Sweet Vernal Grass (May 10)
4. Viburnum (May 27)
5. Galium (June 10)
6. Day Lily (July 4)

New Season: Day Lily

On or about July 4, the season of Galium gives way to a season that is more able to deal with the heat of what used to be called summer. I use the word summer in the same way that people use the words "wort" or "thy" or, "My mother will bake thee a bannock." We who follow this blog (which is actually nobody ) scoff--yea! we scoff!--at the use of outmoded words for seasons,

As summer progresses, Galium turns into the next season, Day Lily. I chose it because Hemerocallis fulva reminds me of a firework going off on the Fourth of July, which for the many of you reading this in Borneo is the US Independence Day, the day in 1776 when US botanists formally severed ties with the tyrannical English botanists lead by John Ray and his band of wild naked taxonomists. (Actually John Ray is a GOD, more on him later.)

Galium: Trifolium repens Plant of the Year Nominee

Every once in a while a plant has a banner year, can considering this is legume and its flower has a banner its a banner banner year

Trifolium repens: white clover. So common! And yet so overlooked. But not by me, no siree.

Nominee for Plant of the Year

Fabre

"After eighty-seven years of thought and observation, I say not merely that I believe in God –I can even say that I see Him."

Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915) Frog Nature Writer

OK, so he was a religious nut who didn't believe in evolution and I probably wouldn't have been able to talk with him for 10 minutes UNLESS we were outdoors studying spiders and insects, in which case I would really really have found a friend of the closest kind. If you read Life of the Spider you will get a sense of one of the most remarkable nature writers of all time. His work is brimming with affection for living things.

Galium: Plant of the Year Nominee

OK. They are weedy, and I cut off all young trees on my land. But let's face it, this year they are amazing beyond amazing. Here at June 25 there are some trees with so many huge white flowers that you HAVE to swallow your predudice and nominate Catalpa speciosa as Plant of the Year

Galium: Great Weed #7

Galium is the season of the legumes. Among the most brilliant is the pretty week, Lotus coniculatus, the bird's foot trefoil. Trefoil, a stupid word; it means three leaves. I think the word trefoil is dorky, but on the other hand I like the word "wort." It's from the Middle Ages and it means plant. But best, it goes very well with eye of newt.

Galium: Invertebrate of the Year Candidate

There are more than 2000 species of fireflies in the world. I nominate all the ones around here whatever they are. One day I will make friends with an insect freakazoid who will help me identifiy ours. The enzyme that catalyzes the reaction that gives light is LUCIFERASE, named after Lord Voldemort.

Galium: Season checkllist

It is now June 16th and we are in the 5th season of the year. Here is a recap for those of you (and that includes every other human being on the face of the earth except me) who have lost track.

1. Amelanchier (March 26)
2. Taraxacum (April 21)
3. Sweet Vernal Grass (May 10)
4. Viburnum (May 27)
5. Galium (June 10)

Great Weed #6 Bishop's Weed

http://www.ehow.com/how_16306_grow-bishops-weed.html

There's a dumb web site.

Aegopodium podograria, the scourage of gardens, one of nature's most useful and most insidious weeds. It's dominance in June is unparalleled among weeds but only in gardens--go figure. Also call goutweed, as it was used in the year 1000 for just about everything but let's face it, science wasn't exactly on the front burner in the Dark Age.

I have a hill here that is pure bishop's weed in June. An amazing and actually delicate plant. When you weed whack it you get sprayed with juice.

Great Weed #5 Rosa multiflora

Well, at least we don't have blackthorn.

Invertebrate of the Year Nominee: Whitetail

This is our first nominee for Invertebrate of the Year. This is the whitetail dragonfly, Plathemis lydia.

This from William T. Hathaway: The male White-tailed Dragonfly is easy to identify because of its bright white abdomen. Another interesting characteristic is its habit of resting with head facing down while wings are drooping in a forward position. The white abdomen is held in a raised position.

Galium

On or about the 10th day of June, you just can't deny that summer has arrived--it arrives in our world as the season called Galium. Galium is the genus of bedstraw. Its foamy, creamy flowers can turn whole fields, ah, foamy and creamy. Of great importance is Galium mulligo.

At the commencement of Galium the legumes go wild. All of the clovers (or many of them) are up, Lotus corniculatus, the bird's foot trefoil, Melilotus alba, and the black medic Medicago lupulia. And though it may seem that summer is all about legumes, it is Galium that gives its name to the season, Galium with its four parted flowers of the Rubiaceae.

Summer has come to Spencertown.

"Spring: Theirs and Ours

Let us review the seasons so far, because our summer is right around the corner;

March 21 to June 5

Their (stupid) idea of Spring
Spring
and this ends on June 21? no way!
Who are "they" you ask. Druid Astronomers!

Our idea (less stupid) of Spring
Amelanchier
Taraxacum
Sweet Vernal Grass
Viburnum

Viburnum: Rise of the Clovers

Concomittant with the flowering of the viburna is Rise of the Clovers, the first flowering of Trifolium repens, the white clover and shortly thereafter the flowering of Trifolium pratense, red clover.

Both of these will hang around all summer to be joined shortly by the the yellow members of the clover posse ("Linneaus meet Tupac") T. dubium, T aureum, T. hybridum.

Along with these clovers, and dominated by their big brother the black locust, is the really weird and sneaky weed Medicago lupulina whose legumes curl up into a crafty little spiral, which is the only way to tell it from the smaller yellow clovers.

Viburnum

At the end of May and the beginning of June there occurs a short very intense season that can go unnoticed by gardeners and professional botanists but which never goes unnoticed by the true amateur naturalist.

This season--the season Viburnum--is THE portent of summer, and the last of the spring seasons. It is NEVER more than two weeks long, and often occurs in a single week between the two longer seasons Sweet Vernal Grass and Galium.

This is the time of the flowering of no less than four species of Viburnum:

Viburnum dentatum--yellow arrow wood (shown above)
Viburnum lentago--nannyberry
Viburnum rafinesquianum--downy arrow wood
Viburnum acerifolium--maple leaf viburnum or dockmackie

It is impossible to underestimate the power of this season as it stands between the greater seasons of the land's spring and summer

Sweet Vernal Grass: Great Weed #3

The season Sweet Vernal Grass is a season of maturity. Huge changes occur that might be called a filling of the world. Trees change from chartreuse to green and by the end of Sweet Vernal Grass the world is a more uniform green than ever.

A lot of plants bloom, including Robinia pseudoacacia, the black locust which makes some of the hills around here white--though at 42.31, -73.55 there are none.

One plant that blooms on or around 5.15 to 5.20 is Great Weed #3, Dactylus glomerata, orchard grass.

Sweet Vernal Grass is the land's first maturity, fullness of cover in field of forest, whose plants provide the cover from which the next seasons are built. Astronomy freaks and Keplar heads note we are not yet in your summer.

Sweet Vernal Grass: Lilacs

from Walt Whitman

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle......and from this bush in the door-yard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig, with its flower, I break.

Sweet Vernal Grass

Sometime around May 15th many of the dandelions have set seed and their blowpuffs are ready to be, well, blowpuffed.

This is a time when the surrounding area is white with apple and honeysuckle. this is the season of the lilac, which turns any garden into something that smells sweet. This is the time of the next season, still in the astronomer's spring, the season called Sweet Vernal Grass.

Let's review the REAL seasons while thumbing our nose at astronomy.

Season Begins when Ends when
1. Amelanchier Skunk Cabbage blooms 3.26
2. Taraxacum Dandelions bloom 4.21
3. Sweet Vernal Grass Dandelions fruit 5.15

Taraxacum: Chartreuse

The development of new leaves on the trees in the season Taraxacum mean that the period from about May 1 to May 15 is a time when the world is chartreuse.

To see four RGB colors named chartreuse, go to the following website.

http://www.livjm.ac.uk/cwis/colors/Chartreuse.htm


The name of the color is derive from the color of a liqueur. The following is copied from a website about the color chartreuse.

Chartreuse is an herbal liqueur made by the Carthusian Monks near Grenoble, France. According to the tale, the formula for chartruese was invented by a 16th century alchemist as an attempt to create aqua vitae (the waters of life.) Aqua vitae was believed to restore youth to the aged, endow animation to the dead, and be a key ingredient in the creation of the philosophers stone. Though this attempt at its creation seems to fall somewhat short of the legendary effects, it was promoted as a heal-all tonic by the descendant of the alchemist, and was bequeathed to the Carthusian Order upon his death. This formula of 130 herbs has been secret for nearly 400 years. Today, only three brothers of that monestary know how to make chartreuse.

Taraxacum: Great Weed #2

A bit after the garlic mustard blooms, the second great weed blooms--and it's a far prettier sight both during blooming and after than Alliaria. Great Weed # 2 is the Barbarea vulgaris, the yellow rocket. At this spot and throughout mid May in this region, fields are yellow with this member of the mustard family.

Taraxacum: Great Weed #1

Throughout this diary I will be naming the Great Weeds. A Great Weed is 1) one that is truly present in its time, and 2) strikes my botanical fancy.

Great Weed #1 is Alliaria petiolata, the garlic mustard. It is found in field and forest here and dominates. One really great thing about it is that gardeners and landscape freaks hate it, a sure sign of its worth--and it really does get ugly after a while, brown and big and ugly. That's part of it's greatness.

Other names for it are: hedge garlic, sauce-alone, jack-by-the-hedge, poor man's mustard, jack-in-the-bush, garlic root, garlicwort, mustard root

For those of you who are wondering why dandelions or creeping charlies or dooryard violets (Violoa sororia) are not Great Weeds, it's because my instincts tell me they're not.

Taraxacum: Flowering Trees

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the season Taraxacum is the blooming of trees. In Amalanchier most blooming takes place before leaves, whereas in Taraxacum trees put out leaves and flowers simultaneously. Apples, which are wild thoughout this area because of its agricultural history, cherries, and other species bloom during this season. Here I am standing in front of a crab apple. Note: when making any kind of apple jellies you do not need pectins to gel the liquids. This tree goes nuts every other year, and every other year I make crab apple jelly. My most famous batch was "Gabe up a Tree," made in 2003.

Taraxacum: Morning Storm

Enough said. Courtesy Elka Rostal

Taraxacum: Clock Dude

For those of you who thought my reference to clocks and longitude was the result of drugs long past or a science historian's wet dream, the man's name was John Harrison. He developed a clock that was accurate to 3 mintues after a passage from London to Jamaica. Here is his story.

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.355/viewPage/1

Taraxacum

In the days when people where trying to find out how to determine longitude, everyone knew you needed some kind of universal clock that was constant everwhere. That way you could determine noon in London no matter where you were, even at sea. By comparing your noon to London's noon you could calculate longitude and not run your ship into various islands or continents and have to come back to London looking like a dork. For a while people tried to use the regularity of the motion of moons around Jupiter as proposed by Galileo, but try to find them when your ship is going up and down, or in the day. Finally some dude invented a good clock and got to go on London's Greatest Inventors--The Reality Show.

I digress. Taraxacum is the second season of the year. The whole first paragraph means: You can compare YOUR season Taraxacum with MY season because I have found the universal clock--the day that dandelions bloom, and they bloom EVERYWHERE, unless you live on the ocean like Kevin Costner in Waterworld.

It begins when Taraxacum vulgare and Glechoma heteracea bloom. This year that date was May 3. Last year that date was 4.15. It was a long cold April. The season ends when the last dandelion fruits have blown away.

http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Plants.Folder/Dandelion.html

http://www.ppws.vt.edu/scott/weed_id/glehe.htm

Amelanchier 2

I consider the beginning of Amelanchier to be on or about March 26. That is the day the two species bloom here, neither on this land but I consider them the beginning of the season. The first is Symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage)

http://www.wschowa.com/abrimaal/araceum/symplocarpus/foetidus.htm

and the second is Corylus americana (American hazelnut).

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=208

The end of the season Amelanchier occurs when the Glechoma (ground ivy) and Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) bloom.

5.3.07

Amelanchier
Saying summer, fall, winter, spring is fine if you are a Howdy Doody fan or an astronomer; to a mentally healthy person (an amateur naturalist) they are gross. They are too long in time and not expressive of the natural world. Being of sound mind, I have named the first part of spring Amelanchier.

From March 26, when the Crocus cvijicii (crocus) may bloom (this year they waited until April 21) until ground ivy blooms is a time of son-before-flower; those plants bloom whose chief strategy is to produce flowers prior to leaves. Included in this season are its namesake Amelanchier canadensis (shadbush), Tussilago farfara (coltsfoot), and Acer rubrum (red maple). Most of our oaks, aspen, and willows are part of the season of Amelanchier.

http://www.naturehills.com/new/product/productdetails.aspx?proname=Serviceberry

This is a cold area in winter and many people here weaken emotionally in March. But to leave the Taconics for warm weather any time between March 26th and the blooming of Glecoma heteracea (ground ivy) indicates mental illness.

Stand in the wind on a hill facing southeast on the first really warm day of Amelanchier. It's insurance against being taken off to the nuthouse screaming about illegal wars and unfaithful women.

Amelanchier is just a season of health--and anyone in any temperate zone north or south knows what I mean. And even naming this season has risks; when this diary rolls around to next Feburary we will see that all the signs are there of the growing explosion of this time.

Remember to email me at dhfranck@gmail.com for an Excel document showing a full list of all species and first blooming dates (and photographs) of all species in 42.31, -72.55.

4.30.07

Greetings
I am beginning this blog as a way of communicating to those who are interested in aspects of nature at this site in the NE United States. The blog begins on 4.30.07 and will be a nature diary written both for students of science and those who enjoy nature writing and sharing local nature information. If you are interested in this blog, you will benefit from having an Excel document that I have developed showing the 244 or so species of plants that grow in the two acres immediately surrounding the central geographic location, along with first flowering dates and picture links. As I cannot provide a link to this database directly, please email me at dhfranck@gmail.com and I will send you the file. This file will be undated regularly.