Cinnamon Fern: Summer Plumes
Cinnamon Fern. Osmundastrum cinnamomeum. (At least that’s the Latin name as of the moment, they seem to keep on changing names and reclassifying plants more often than I change my socks.) Many thanks to Frank Knight for this lovely photo–what a nice birthday present! Delicious as it looks, the brown stuff isn’t really cinnamon, of course. In fern-speak, the fuzzy brown stalks are called fertile fronds–leaves whose function is to help the plant reproduce. The fertile fronds grow sori, which are containers for dust-like brown spores. The green leaves are called sterile...
Read MoreTulips: Old Masters
This is the most bustling, enticing, delicious farmer’s market I’ve ever been to. Local spring greens, potatoes, herbs, leeks. Muffins, honey, goat cheese, maple syrup. And flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers. The famous Greenmarket in Union Square. Funny, I had to go to New York City to find flowers blooming. It was a refined form of torture for me to have to walk past dozens of stalls selling plants of every description, and not be able to buy any. But the daffodils and the pansies wouldn’t survive being stuffed in a backpack and carted around the city. And it’s not...
Read MoreThistle: No More Waiting
Last December, I was at the Beacon train station, and I noticed a really magnificent specimen of a thistle. It was growing, still green in December, thriving among the gravel so carefully placed to keep weeds down (see Thistle: Waiting for the Train). Well, today I happened to be at the Beacon train station again, waiting for the New York City train, and there was my prickly friend. The thistle has weathered the winter, better than I did–no colds, flu or dry skin–and is in fine shape. No more just a flat basal rosette of leaves–now it’s time to spring into action....
Read MoreFabric Flowers
Okay, this is sort of cheating for a blog that’s supposed to be about nature, but I’m an absolute sucker for quilts. Real old-time, traditional quilts like these ones, I mean, made from honest-to-god scraps. I once met an elderly quilter, who wanted to bang her head against the wall at the very idea of buying brand new fabric and then cutting it up into little tiny pieces and sewing it all back together again…Of course, I do it myself, but it does seem absurd when you think about it. Anyway, the Quilt Bug in Esperance, New York, is a great little shop with gorgeous fabric,...
Read MoreYew: Life and Death at the Mall
Sears department store is better known for tractors and washing machines than for floral arrangements. The landscaping around the Sears in Colonie Center Mall, Colonie, NY, is pretty sparse. Actually, once you get up close to these plump round balls of bushes, the foliage is quite nice–soft and green. This is Yew. Planted in almost every American shopping mall and housing development. It’s also planted on zillion-dollar estates and world-famous historic sites, like Windsor Castle and Versailles. Because yew is an obedient plant. You can shape it into almost any shape you...
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