For my Northern friends who may not see Spring for a few weeks or even months.
- Curious about something you saw while walking in the woods? Spot the coolest bug ever? The prettiest flower and butterfly? Stumble on a rock and found a fossil? Or was it? This is the place to show your discoveries and share in the knowledge of the natural world right outside our doors. Join in the fun everyday at The Daily Bucket.
Mid-January 2015
One of the first plants to leaf out early each year is Red Buckeye. Here is one I found Sunday along the rim of the Apalachicola River floodplain at Torreya State Park.
Another early bloomer at the park is the endemic Leatherwood. Noted for its "bend but don't break" branches, this understory shrub has small yellow flowers that bloom as the leaves emerge. We saw one flower way down the slope in a protected area, a micro-environment so to speak. No photos tho.
Switching over to my backyard, the day before I saw a Red Maple flowering down in the wettest area. These trees also bloom before leafing. While at Torreya, I showed my friend the river and floodplain from the campground up top. You could barely make out in the distance the red glow of Red Maples almost open.
more below the fold....
Another early bloomer is Wild Olive. This one in my bottomland (with standing water and some flow) is a couple weeks from blooming. The ones up on the top of my property will bloom a few weeks after that.
If anyone has seen my comments for the last few weeks - Trilliums are up. So far I have seen them at Gholson Nature Park in Chattahoochee; Wolf Creek Trout Lily Preserve on the FL-GA border; Bear Creek in the Lake Talquin State Forest; Torreya SP; and in my woods. This one I transplanted last year from the woods at Spring House - Tallahassee's Frank Lloyd Wright designed house.
By the way, I will probably be going to Spring House today to add a spur trail around the springhead. The big rain events back around Christmas (7-8" in 1 day) caused some serious damage. The county failed to keep the storm drains open and tons of water sheeted down the street onto the property and across the woods. Not good.....
I showed this photo in comments yesterday. Always happy to see Southern Crabapple leafing out and hopefully with its pinkish blooms soon.
Unknown plants at Torreya:
We saw lots of this round-leaf plant growing along the tiny streams running down and thru the slopes. The red berry is a Partridgeberry with the smaller leaves.
I saw this last year at Torreya but if I figured it out, I forgot. The trouble with some of these plants is that they grow along the heavily-used trails so I don't know if the seeds got carried in or not. That is a common Violet to the left. There are a few of those blooming now in the more protected places.
Maybe if I catch the flowers, it will help with ID.
That's it for this bucket; hope you enjoyed my Signs of Spring!
See ya in the comments, and yes, photos of snow and ice are OK. Those too are pretty and a great reminder of why I moved south 40 years ago.
* * * * * * * *
"Spotlight on Green News & Views" is posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time and Wednesday at 3:30 on the Daily Kos front page. It's a great way to catch up on diaries you might have missed. Be sure to recommend and support. It's not all bad news...