Spruce tip syrup

I'm about to head to France for 10 days so I thought I'd post one more before I leave. Expect more in June!


What: Spruce and fir buds burst in late spring (which means it's almost summer!!). I heard about spruce syrup in November while up in Juneau, Alaska. They use Sitka spruce, but I used an ornamental white spruce. I imagine that spruce syrup is a rather recent invention, following the spread of cheap sugar to the northwest. I prefer the taste of the raw hemlock buds to fir and fir to spruce. Spruce was the most abundant so I used this for making syrup.

Dandelion

What: Dandelion is one of my favorite flowers and edibles. It's one of the first to pop up and last herbaceous plants to send it's energy back to its roots for the winter. More often than not in any given area you can find the plant in all four stages of its reproductive life during the whole growing season (with flower buds, flowers, pollinated flowers, and seeds - or achenes - sticking out from the "receptacle").

In the photo on the top left, the early and abundant flowers are providing some of the first food for a pair of house flies (Musca domestica). Dandelions are in the Aster family and have what's called composite flowers meaning that the big round yellow guy sticking up (called a calathidium) is actually closer to a 100 mini flowers (called florets) than one flower (similar to how coral or the Portugese man o' war are not individual organisms but a collection of organisms that resemble and function as a single organism).

I didn't find a good source on the anatomy of a dandelion flower, so I thought I'd offer one here. In the bottom left photo of the dandelion in cross-section you can see the bracts - the little greenish purple guys beneath the flowers, the receptacle - the u-shaped structure that holds the seeds and has sap oozing out of it, and ray flowers - which are bisexual flowers that are attached to the receptacle and give the flower head - or ligulate head - its appearance. If you look at the underside of the flower head, the outer most florets have a beautiful maroon coloration to them and look like the bracts. If you look closely, each "petal" is actually 5 fused petals (notice the teeth at their tips) and corresponds to an individual flower.

The white fluff are the pappus and will form the all to familiar white parasols that float the seeds up to 5 miles away. Just above this, the split curly structures are the pistils (female) and fused to this in a ring at the base of the pistils are the stamen. I got this all straightened out after conferring with Liz Thompson and Matt Kolan. The fat short stubs in the middle of the flower head are florets that have yet to open (and might not open at all). And that's it! If you're going to learn flowers, dandelions probably aren't the best place to start.

Ecological notes: Dandelion thrives in places with little nutrient availability. As such, it has deep taproots that can access scant minerals deeper down. It's leaves spread out generously (called a basal rosette) and lay flat both to block other plants from sprouting near it (which would siphon away nutrients) and to take full advantage of the sunlight. The biggest one I've seen was more than 2' across! They're perennial so they can sprout up early in the spring and get their basal rosette out before other things can germinate.

Where: Everywhere (but the photos were taken in my backyard and an access road adjacent to Centennial Woods).

Other notes: Because of how common this plant is, it has lots and lots of names. Dandelion - Taraxacum officinale - translates in to "Tooth of the lion" because of the large teeth on the leaves. The French call it pissenlit, or "piss in bed" because of its diuretic qualities (often used to purify the liver). The species epithet, officinale, is mideval-Latin and indicates that it was used medicinally (as with the specific epithet for jasmine, lavender, rosemary, comfrey, ginger, fennel, rhubarb, and speedwell).

Jewelweed & Poison Ivy

What: I got poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), at least I think I did, this year for the first time ever. I know I've been exposed to it numerous times before so I was disappointed that I might have finally reacted. This year I thought I'd try what Eric Garza (http://path2resilience.com/) had mentioned to me a few years ago: nibbling a bit of the leaves to build up immunity. I started small, with a bit no bigger than my pinky nail. I waited a couple of days without reaction and nothing happened so I ate another one of the small leaves. That was two days ago and I'm still here. I'll try one more small leaf this year and see if I react to the plant again.

An old timey journal says that anything alkaline (or basic) will temporarily alleviate symptoms but does not grant long-term immunity to poison ivy (Dr WF Dieffenbach's "Treatment of Ivy Poisoning" in Southern California Practitioner v.29). The author describes his experience developing a strong adverse response to poison ivy, finding out about auto-lacto therapy (drinking milk of an animal that had grazed on the toxin), and testing the treatment with success. He fed a cow grass and poison ivy then consumed a pint a day for two days. That year he developed no further rashes. In following years he developed a rash again, indicating that immunity is not permanent and follow-up treatments are required. Admittedly the article is quaint in its anecdotalness (it was published in 1917), but warrants a closer look at treatments for ivy poisoning. **It is appropriate to note here that the plural of anecdote is not data. Also pertinent is that I'm not an apothecary, healer, or medical professional and I only recommend doing this after doing your own research/asking the plant itself.

Ecological notes: Centennial Woods is filled with poison ivy, as are most places that are wet, but well drained, and rich, but not excessively so. As is convenient with mugwort growing near poison oak out west (mugwort can be used as a poultice to treat the itchiness caused by urushiol in poison oak), here in New England jewelweed (Impatiens capensis and I. pallida) almost always grows near poison ivy (but the reverse is not true as poison ivy is much less common).

Where: The photos are from Centennial Woods. Below are a couple of look-alikes, at least in the early stages. On the left is sarsaparilla, which has 3-5 leaflets, doesn't have a woody stem, and splits into three branchlets. On the right Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), which has suction like discs on the ends of their tendrils and five, not three leaflets.

Warning: While I've seen catbirds eat poison ivy berries with gusty, people should never eat older leaves or berries and definitely don't burn poison ivy. If you do try eating young leaves or milk from goats be extremely cautious. Only try exceedingly small amounts at first. And most importantly, do your own research. I'm quoting stuff that I found that proves what I want to believe, I'm sure there's a thousand other anecdotal sources out there that contradict what I've written.

Other notes: Poison ivy is in the same genus as other toxic plants like Poison sumac (T. vernix), poison oak (T. diversiloba out west and T. pubescens out east). The genus is in the Cashew family, Anacardiaceae, which also includes staghorn sumac (delicious) and, not surprisingly, cashews. Members of Toxicodendron are occasionally placed in Rhus, the same genus as staghorn sumac.

Game cam in Centennial Woods

What: When we heard about the proposed development near the section of Centennial Woods next to the Sheraton we thought it would be a great idea to go set up a game cam on one of the nearby deer trails.  We  wanted to capture some of the wildlife traveling through this corridor so that we can show the importance of this area to the development council and the public.  This is a really remote part of Centennial Woods in that no human trails run very close to it.  When we were out exploring it for the first time we found parts of a deer skeleton and we were struck by the unique feeling that this section of the woods has.

Three species crossed the game cam's path during the three weeks we left it out there.  We saw a pair of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), an eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus), and the rare Homo sapiens :).  We were surprised that we didn't get more animals coming through this trail but we didn't bait the game cam and these animals have a very wide home range, so this is understandable.

Ecological notes: This area of the woods is unique because it acts as a border for Centennial Woods.  Borders are special areas in the woods because we see different species composition and activity in these parts.  It is important to protect these areas that act as a buffer zone and provide corridors for wildlife to pass through.

Where: Centennial Woods near the Sheraton hotel

Other notes: You may be able to see the nubs on the buck's head where his antlers will emerge later this season.  It was exciting to examine this remote area that we would have not likely spent much time exploring if it hadn't been for the proposed development.

Here's a map showing where we set the game cam up.

View Game cam in a larger map

View Game cam in a larger map

Spring peeper & Toads

What: I can now hear the chorus of American toads (Anaxyrus americanus) in the retention pond under the power lines in Centennial Woods, which is about .2 miles from my house. There are fewer gray treefrogs this year, but the trade off is a solitary spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) and a solitary bullfrog, Lithobates catesbeiana (you can barely hear the bullfrog around 55 seconds in to the video), both are firsts for me in the last 4 years of monitoring amphibians in Centennial Woods. The wood frogs are no longer making any noises.

Ecological notes: Toads sing when the temps get around 60 degrees or higher. The recent rains seems to have brought out more of them. If these temps keep up, we should start seeing some fireflies in the near future! I was also surprised to see a beaver swimming around in the retention pond. I haven't seen them this far from Centennial Brook before. This one slapped its tail at me three times indicating that it might be an different beaver than the three that live in the brook that know me much better.

Where: Centennial Woods power line retention pond

Other notes: The taxonomic groups of bullfrogs, spring peepers and toads have recently been changed. When a species gets moved to another genus it keeps its specific epithet (the second part of the latin binomial). The former names for the three are Rana catesbeiana, Hyla crucifer and Bufo americanus, the bold parts changed, the non-bold parts remain the same by convention. I personally prefer the old names for reasons outlined quite well in this article on the taxonomy of treefrogs: Pseudacris vs Hyla