FIVE MINUTE VIDEOS - WALKS IN THE WOODS
Trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants and ferns are identified late in the season - mid-late October, 2023.
These videos seem to be a lot clearer and with better sound on an iPhone than on a laptop.
If you note any errors, please send me an email.
Trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants and ferns are identified late in the season - mid-late October, 2023.
These videos seem to be a lot clearer and with better sound on an iPhone than on a laptop.
If you note any errors, please send me an email.
Common polypody, lady fern, coltsfoot, bracken, New York fern, ostrich fern
American elm, red maple, royal fern, coltsfoot
Spinulose woodfern, marginal woodfern, coltsfoot, red oak
Speckled alder, sweet gale, sensitive fern, bittersweet nightshade, eastern white cedar, panicled aster, American beech, balsam fir, wild mint
American beech, striped maple. hobblebush, red oak, eastern white cedar, basswood
JOURNAL
March 26, 2022
BUDS
Striped maple buds are quite different from sugar and red maple. They are big, dark red and appear to have no scales On the web it says few to no scales. The branches are well-spaced. The bark is striped and several are often found together in a clump. Always pretty small.
Red maple buds are red usually with a white outline to the scales which is very helpful.
Sugar maple buds are brown, often with two smaller buds beside the larger terminal bud.
Red oak buds are similar to sugar maple but often appear as several small terminal buds clustered, mousy and not very pretty.
Birch buds usually are at the end of a much ringed little branchlet giving a wormy appearance
Beech buds are characteristic. Sharp long needle-like on spreading branches. Sometimes short ones.
American elm buds: the terminal bud is angled. Still I am not sure of these.
Ironwood (hop-hornbeam): the buds are often tinged with green; slightly hairy under magnifying glass; notably they diverge from the twig
Trembling aspen: long narrow buds like fingernail closely appressed to branch
Large-toothed aspen:
Ash: have opposite, blackish buds
Basswood have reddish or yellow/green quite round buds with almost a little beak
Speckled alder have "naked"-looking buds, dark, flattish with one side more convex; grey/brown
March 28, 2022
The young tall and thin basswood we have at the back are heavy with white blotches and black developing moss, like the ash.
On the new property, there are some young injured? trees with small wide-spreading keys still attached - striped maple?
Also: an ironwood with three or four still-attached leaves, which is unusual
March 30
Recognizing young still-unfurrowed trees from their bark
Red maple, sugar maple, beech, red oak: All have light gray smooth bark.
Red oak: shiny; roughest texture to touch of the three; if mature enough, you can see pink striae and below expansion of these into black splits which is how the mature oak will look
Red and sugar maple: the smoothest of this group; no lenticels
Beech: smooth but lenticels give it a slightly rough feel
Eastern white pine saplings have regular smooth bumps on feeling the trunk
Striped maple saplings are much darker than the others; a deep dark green; like bamboo
Sugaring off
I set up two buckets about 5 days ago. Good collection of close to 1/4 bucket in one and 1/8 in the other on day one but nil the last 4 days. It has been either above zero day and night or below zero day and night. Today it reached plus 2 but still no flow (March 30). On April 2, Len said buckets were overflowing on trees near him in town. When I checked the drip was every 2 seconds but on the nearer tree it was dripping around the spout and down the tree. The hole was too big. I drilled another beneath it and got that same rate of flow but not for long. It seems that the spout has to be placed just right: not too far in but far enough. It seems like the channel of flow is a pretty narrow band. The weather April 1-2 was below zero at night and up to 8 degrees or so today.
March 5: It was about -2 C last night, 5 at 10 am and 11 degrees at 3 pm. At 10 am flow was very good at 2 drops per second in the closer bucket, every 2-3 seconds in the further one. A lot slower at 3 pm. It seems like morning has a stronger flow.
Conclusion: About April 10, we'd collected about 7 liters of sap which we boiled (evaporated) on the BBQ, removing it to the stove inside for the last hour or so. It took a good part of the day on the BBQ, with the propane tank empty just in time. I don't know how full it was at the start though. We got about half a jar of syrup.
Notes
Birch's wormy base on which the buds sit are consecutive leaf scars very close to each other
April 1, 2022
Basswood young tree new branches have oval, elongated lenticels.
Maple, striped and sugar, young saplings have few lenticels.
April 2, 2022
Tall red maple seem to have somewhat shreddier bark than sugar maple.
Very tall maple have branches only up high. They can be recognized without leaves though because the opposite arrangement of small branchlets is pretty clear. Only ash would appear the same and the bark pattern is different. I don't think I see very tall ash here.
I think tall red maple may be starting to bud.
Looking at the very tall poplar toward Sylvain's house while on Bob and Anne's road: they have a somewhat curvy pinstripe bark pattern from a distance. They get less furrowed and lighter grey higher up, looking almost like birch.
Looking at young maple, the bark is light grey but has a vitiligo appearance. I'm not sure how universal this is.
Beyond the woodpile and to the left there are 2-3 saplings which I can't identify. Buds are nondescript small brown, alternate.
April 5
It seems that red oak fully grown have thick broad bark plates that don't peel off. Maple (?) have thinner plates that peel easily.
April 19
Today I see definite bud changes.
Sugar maple: the buds are a little fuller and the colour seems to have changed from dull brown to a rich deep red-brown.
Striped maple: the buds are not bigger though possibly a little less deep red.
Red maple: not checked
Basswood: no real change
Beech: some buds have become longer, white-tipped and somewhat thicker
Oak: not checked
Leatherwood: no change
Willow: across the road from our recycle and garbage containers - pussy willows in bloom. It's a clump of bush-sized trees. The trunks are heavily lenticeled. The buds are reddish, small and appressed.
May 3
Sugar maple: the triple-fingered end buds are larger and some blackish
Basswood: buds a little chunkier
Oak: not a lot of change
Striped maple: a lot of white showing from inside red buds
Beech: somewhat larger, longer
Willow: buds now green, hugging stem
Ironwood: buds stick out at a big angle; still green and brown; small catkins
Honeysuckle: starting to leaf; this is the first leafing shrub or tree that I see
Leatherwood: the yellow tassel flowers have been out for a while; the bark is "golden"
Garden flowers: Primrose (primula) was in bloom even two weeks ago; daffodil about April 30; Virginia cowslip about April 25; Carolina anemone about April 30;
Wildflowers: coltsfoot about April 12-15; round-leaved hepatica seen May 1
May 4
Round-leaved hepatica fully in bloom (by the woodpile)
Garden: hyacinth in bloom
May 12, 2022
Spring has really sprung in the last 2 days. Hot weather, sunshine.
Red maple emerging leaves have definite reddish tint and the V notch is quite obvious. Maple leaves are emerging at the same rate and have a U-notch. Some are entirely green, some may have a faint reddish tint.
The small tree on Kamanik with very warty bark and an opposite configuration: I thought it would prove to be an Elderberry but it's not. Leaves are not compound. It is likely a dogwood. I will wait for the leaves to unfold.
Ferns are unfolding. There are tall ones with black hairs everywhere, possibly lady fern. There are tall ones with a grey stem,
It turns out we have a serviceberry right beside the parking area. Flowers are out.
Coltsfoot flowers have been out a good while. Now the leaves are. There are numerous bi-lobed very small ground-level plants which I think might be early coltsfoot leaves.
September 9, 2023
It's been a busy botany spring and summer both here and three weeks in Norway from Aug 3-22. I identiufied about 70 plants there and will try to make a page of these.\
Today:
On the island in the river: virginia creeper, reddening; water-horehound and bugleweed, I believe. The water-horehound leaves are very narrow and somewhat folded. The deep lobing is noticeable at the base of the leaf. Also, wild mint. Stooping down to sniff is not as good as gently pinching the flower area and sniffing your fingers. The mint smell is very strong. Also: panicled aster, tall meadowrue, sweet gale, silvery cinquefoil, strawberry, pale plantain. A bumble bee landed on a turtlehead and crawled right inside. Bees seem to be the main easily-visible insects landing on these, asters and goldenrods.
Asters
I am mostly working on asters and goldenrods. Panicled asters form large colonies but nearby in two different locations is another aster which I cannot identify. The flower looks like panicled aster but the leaves are not the lanceolate, almost grass leaves of the panicled aster. They are broader and lower down are spatulate and petiole-tapering to the stem. Despite using three books including Cultivated and Native Asters of Ontario and the internet, I cannot identify it.
I am also having great difficulty differentiating New England aster from purple-stemmed aster. I have a feeling they will be easy to tell apart once I see an example of each. New England aster has 50 or more petals while purple-stemmed aster has up to 50 petals. The examples behind the house here: approximately 50 petals! The phyllaries are very curly unlike the appressed of many asters. But this can apparently be the case for both. I examined the achene under the microscope and it looks hairless which would imply purple-stemmed. The stems of purple-stemmed are said to often be zigzag. These 5 or so are not. The stems are hairy but that does not differentiate. The site is moist which favours purple-stemmed.
According to Gillett's Ottawa Field Naturalist Club paper on Ottawa region asters, there are 14 species here. I have identified: panicled aster, heart-leaved aster, large-leaved aster, whorled wood aster, white flat-topped aster, New England/purple-stemmed aster. That is 5 (6).
There are several which are quite special or rare: A brachyactis (rayless aster); A nemoralis (bog aster) occurs only in bogs and fens; A ontarionis (Ontario aster) is rare; A ericoides (heath aster) is uncommon. This leaves only 5 asters to otherwise find: calico aster, Lindley's aster, rush aster, New England/purple-stemmed aster.
Lindley's aster which is said to resemble heart-leaved aster but has winged petioles.
Calico aster can resemble panicled aster but has all flowers on one side of the branch. Rush aster also can resemble panicled aster but has even narrower leaves. The leaves and flowering branches are oriented vertically.
Goldenrods
Through the last two weeks I spent a lot of time on these. I am reasonably sure I have identified the following:
Grass-leaved goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod, gray goldenrod, Canada goldenrod, Tall goldenrod (S altissima), and rough-stemmed goldenrod. Canada and tall goldenrods are parallel-veined. The former is smooth-stemmed inferiorly and a bit fuzzy superiorly. Tall goldenrod is mildly hairy throughout and leaves are some wider than Canada's narrow leaves and more toothed. Rough-stemmed is very roughly hairy throughout and has rough feather-veined leaves. It's almost possible to spot these three by leaf width and by the clearly green, almost shiny largely hairless stems of Canada goldenrod. Canada goldenrod petals are very small as are... one of the other two...
Despite its small size, blue-stemmed goldenrod has easily discerned petals.
I am looking for S gigantea, early goldenrod.\
Trees
A stubborn problem has been easily differentiating four leaves without looking at the tree itself: white birch, yellow birch, ironwood and beaked hazelnut. At this point, my quick ID is:
Leaves in twos, thick wormy petiole = birch; if 8 or so veins, it's white birch. If 14 or so, it's yellow birch.
Leaves not in two, thin short petiole, regular teeth, minimal to no side veins coming off basal vein: ironwood,
Leaves not in two, thin longish petiole, raggedy toothed margins, side veins come off basal vein: beaked hazelnut
Confirmations: Ironwood usually fuzzy texture; beaked hazelnut sometimes has very small whitish "cones"
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