How about an Urban Nature post?

[urbpan]

It's been a long time, but you've all been so kind and helpful! Here is a set of photos from our dogwalk this past Sunday, in Olmsted Park in Boston and Brookline.



I think I'll be collecting Signs of Spring until the third week of June. This week: Skunk Cabbage. These are the flowers, which appear before the foliage.



A little bit of wood ear.



A lot of wood ear.



Spring Pond, one of the least urban-looking urban places in Boston.



The Artist getting skunk cabbage flower pictures.





This rock was used as a perch for some rodent to eat acorns on.



Blocks of apartment buildings on the Brookline side of the park.

Comments

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Wow: those skunk cabbage flowers are exactly the same shade and coloration as the traps on the Nepenthes pitcher plant next to my desk. Thanks for sharing this.

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

You beat me on skunk cabbage this year. I've been looking this week, but it's still hiding. Love the wood ear, and Spring Pond is very cute - reminds me of my little pond.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Spring Pond is very cute - reminds me of my little pond.

That's what Alexis was trying to say about your post the other day! (She calls it Duck Pond).

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

I thought that might be the one!

[vyoma.livejournal.com]

Skunk cabbage! I'd almost forgotten about the stuff. When I was a kid, my friends and I used to throw that stuff at each other. Great fun.

That rown fungus is definitely a Peziza, but I'm not sure that it's actually wood ear. Thereare lots of brown pezizas; hard to tell them apart. Wood ear tends to be pretty stiff by Peziza standards, and it's usually very nearly black.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

we see a TON of it around here, it's fairly translucent.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

hmm - did i ever tell you i found ear fungus growing on carpet once?

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

I just learned about skunk cabbage - apparently it's part of the Arcto-Tertiary flora, which is this really strong floristic connection between Eastern North America and Eastern Asia. There is a closely related species of skunk cabbage in East Asia that looks just like ours, to the point where up until they did recent genetic testing they thought it WAS the same. There are lots of other species just like that, all part of what was once a northern-hemisphere-wide distribution of plants going back to the Tertiary period. Cool!

I've been wanting to start a community called "Signs of the Season," or some such. "Phenology" might confuse people. Anyway, the idea would be to post shots indicative of the season where you were.

[interfecta.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating -- I never knew anything about the Arcto-Tertiary flora.

Is there somewhere where I can learn more about it?

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

I just did a quick web search and didn't find anything right away - sometimes it's called the Arcto-Tertiary "Geoflora." I remember my biogeography professor telling us there was a good review paper on it, so if you don't mind academic journal articles, I could get the reference for you...otherwise I'm sure there are books (or chapters in books) about it...I'll see what I can dig up!

Ahhhhhh

[rockbalancer.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to see some skunk cabbage flowers! What an awesome picture. Totally jealous.