ENHS Nature Trails November 2002 Article 2

Natural History and You - The President's Forum
by Dave Wagner

Signs of the Season

The rainy season has begun. You can see it in the hundreds of thousands of tiny seedlings that are appearing on what has been bare ground for months. They are still so small that the ground looks bare, but wet and bare instead of dry and bare; I have to look closely to see the hordes of double green pinheads. With only the tiny cotyledons showing, it's too early to tell what they are. I need the first pair of true leaves to do that.

The walnut trees are dropping walnuts. Actually, the squirrels are up in the tree cutting the walnuts off and letting them fall to the ground. Then they retrieve them and either bury them or sit on the fence gnawing loudly, "CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH," until they get into the interior. I've seen as many as six or seven squirrels tending the same tree. These are the eastern fox squirrels, not native but then neither are the walnuts.

The crows like the walnuts, too. They quite happily steal the walnuts the squirrels have cut down. The squirrels are not at all quiet about expressing their dismay. The crows can't chew open the walnuts, so they carry them away to deal with them. I saw one trying to beat a walnut on the corner of somebody's roof. When that didn't work, it flew up in the air and dropped the walnut in the street. A much better idea, like gulls dropping clams on the rocks along the ocean shore. The crows are happiest with the walnut tree that's close to a street corner where cars drive over the nuts before the squirrels get them, smashing the hull and releasing the meat for easy picking. The crows just have to watch out that they don't get run over themselves.

Up in the bigleaf maple trees the licorice ferns are uncurling their fronds. They will reach the peak of their vigor around Christmas and start shedding spores soon thereafter. Then they'll store as much energy in their succulent stems under the moss mat until the drying weather of June causes them to drop. A reverse cycle from the forest floor ferns, licorice ferns live more like the mosses they grow with. This is their season of prosperity.

The maple leaf tar spot is starting to show itself. Right now it is just at the stage of showing brown spots on still-green maple leaves. Soon the brown spots will turn black with a bright green ring, dramatic against the yellowing of the rest of the leaf. The other fungi that are making themselves seen are the mushrooms. Agarics are everywhere, most of them in the group that David Arora calls the "lose your lunch bunch." I've seen a nice patch of birch tree Boletes in a lawn. They are edible and look very good but I won't pick them because it is a lawn that is clearly maintained with a weed and feed product. The toxins of the "weed" are likely to be concentrated in the mushrooms, I'm warned by the cautious. So I'll wait and gather wild forest mushrooms for the table.

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