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Urban Nature Pictures 10/29
Oct. 30th, 2010 08:28 am
Leaves of a street tree (shagbark hickory?) illuminated by Halloween decorations.
Leaves of a street tree (shagbark hickory?) illuminated by Halloween decorations.
Urban Nature Pictures 7/12
Jul. 21st, 2010 06:12 pm
I was fascinated to see palms not only here (St. Helier, Jersey) but throughout Cornwall and Wales. Then again, this may not be a palm at all, but perhaps a cold-hardy lookalike, like Cordyline australis, native to New Zealand. Anyone know what it is?
Extremely weird advice on how to identify edible vs. poisonous mushrooms, from a culture that is neither mycophobic nor especially mycophilic, to my knowledge. Interesting article, I do not endorse it. There are no shortcuts to knowing what you are doing.
More beautiful than purple loosestrife, more toxic than a cane toad, an invasive species from the Caribbean all the way up to the coast of Massachusetts (gulp!)
The death cap mushroom. A non-native (to North America) mushroom species with genetically distinct populations in California, New York and New Jersey, Newton Massachusetts (really? so localized) and New Hampshire. Apparently it has a knack for colonizing locations named "new" something.
Identify trees like a birder. From a distance, by color, in springtime.
More beautiful than purple loosestrife, more toxic than a cane toad, an invasive species from the Caribbean all the way up to the coast of Massachusetts (gulp!)
The death cap mushroom. A non-native (to North America) mushroom species with genetically distinct populations in California, New York and New Jersey, Newton Massachusetts (really? so localized) and New Hampshire. Apparently it has a knack for colonizing locations named "new" something.
Identify trees like a birder. From a distance, by color, in springtime.
Urban Nature Pictures 3/25
Mar. 25th, 2010 08:24 pm
Katsura tree flowers.
Some workers from the Boston Water and Sewer Commission working on a clogged culvert on the Muddy River.
Speaking of the Muddy River:
I haven't met Kirsten, but she takes some nice pictures of the Muddy River.
Urban Nature Pictures 3/22
Mar. 23rd, 2010 05:53 am
Mist enshrouds the golf course at Franklin Park
Which sets the fruiting bodies of coral spot fungus into delicious high contrast.
Old pictures, Summer 2001, Rio De Janeiro
Feb. 28th, 2010 08:48 pm
In the spring of 2001, my marriage had fallen apart, I moved in with my friend Alexis, and my Dad called me one day: "How would you like to come with me to Rio De Janeiro." I was almost angry at him: "What kind of a question is that?! OF COURSE I want to go with you to Rio De Janeiro!"
( 22 more pictures, including many which depict urban nature )
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Urban Nature Pictures day 2
Jan. 3rd, 2010 01:00 pm
This carriage bridge is one of my favorite features of the Riverway. It has a stairway on it, which is the way that thousands of people per day get from the Longwood trolley stop to their schools or their jobs in the hospitals nearby. When Olmsted designed the park, there was a path for horse-drawn carriages, and they would pass underneath.
The arch underneath I've heard described as a "musical (or acoustical) arch;" if you have your back at one wall you can speak quietly and be heard perfectly clearly by someone at the other wall. (A similar effect happens inside the walk-through globe at the Christian Science Center.) Sometimes musicians practice within it. On one memorable occasion, I saw a band and did a reading underneath the arch.
The visible big trees are mostly red oaks, and the biggest ones had to have been there in Olmsted's day.
Two recent books in my life.
Nov. 12th, 2009 07:35 pmThe other day, on a whim, I grabbed a book off the recent arrivals shelf of my local library. It was In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent. The author is a young linguist who made a project out of researching the history of "made up" languages--those languages invented whole cloth in most cases by idealists trying to perfect language itself.
She spends a good amount of the book discussing three of the most successful invented languages: First, Esperanto, an attempt at a universal language using mostly Latin roots, with simple grammar and syntax and pronunciation rules, with vague notions of world peace and harmony as its origins. It lives on today, is pretty easy to learn (I'm taking a half-hearted whack at it), and has a body of literature, and even a William Shatner movie.
Of course, the same can be said for the Klingon language, and Okrent explains how a few gutteral hacking noises were assembled by a scholarly linguist into a working language with hundreds of casual users and a couple dozen conversational speakers. She goes deep, taking the Klingon language aptitude exam and accompanying the Klingons as they embarrass the crap out of her at a restaurant.
And she also hangs out with the speakers of Lojban, a mind-bogglingly complicated set of logical rules that comprises a language that enables incredibly precise and non-ambiguous statements to be made. Of course programmers love it, and I can only imagine its appeal to the Asperger's community. This was a good lead in to the modern "comlang" community of people who spend an awful lot of time making up languages and arguing with others about made up languages. I suspect that many of the people reading this know a lot more about this than I do.
I enjoyed the discussion of what made an invented language a success or a failure, and about what each language actually reveals about language itself. The stories about language inventors of the past, and what lengths they took to promote their creations tell us much about human nature, ingenuity and passion. I love the inescapable conclusion that there is no such http://www.livejournal.com/update.bmlthing as a universal set of symbols: they all reveal individual and cultural influences and biases.
Today I came home to discover an autographed copy of The Sibley Guide to Trees on my front step. A friend who still works at Drumlin Farm sent it to me, an extremely thoughtful gift. (I did telegraph my great desire to own it across Facebook and Livejournal.) I haven't even flipped through it yet, but I have a long weekend to try and soak it up and use it. Alexis, her IM voice dripping with vitamin D deprived scorn, said "does it have a way to identify trees using their leafless silhouettes?" Of course it does, where appropriate. Bark, buds, and twigs are also depicted, so I believe it is a guide that will be useful year round.
The friend who got it for me described talking to Sibley about the book: "He had a great analogy comparing bird field guides of 100 years ago with the still current tree ID guides that start with ‘is it opposite or alternate’. 100 years ago the way to ID a bird was to shoot it and then look at it in your hand. He’s trying to get people to look at trees in a similar way to bird guides now where you ID from distinguishing characteristics of the whole organism – the geist of the tree as it were." Well, hopefully after this weekend I'll have an idea of what that means.
ĝis revido!
She spends a good amount of the book discussing three of the most successful invented languages: First, Esperanto, an attempt at a universal language using mostly Latin roots, with simple grammar and syntax and pronunciation rules, with vague notions of world peace and harmony as its origins. It lives on today, is pretty easy to learn (I'm taking a half-hearted whack at it), and has a body of literature, and even a William Shatner movie.
Of course, the same can be said for the Klingon language, and Okrent explains how a few gutteral hacking noises were assembled by a scholarly linguist into a working language with hundreds of casual users and a couple dozen conversational speakers. She goes deep, taking the Klingon language aptitude exam and accompanying the Klingons as they embarrass the crap out of her at a restaurant.
And she also hangs out with the speakers of Lojban, a mind-bogglingly complicated set of logical rules that comprises a language that enables incredibly precise and non-ambiguous statements to be made. Of course programmers love it, and I can only imagine its appeal to the Asperger's community. This was a good lead in to the modern "comlang" community of people who spend an awful lot of time making up languages and arguing with others about made up languages. I suspect that many of the people reading this know a lot more about this than I do.
I enjoyed the discussion of what made an invented language a success or a failure, and about what each language actually reveals about language itself. The stories about language inventors of the past, and what lengths they took to promote their creations tell us much about human nature, ingenuity and passion. I love the inescapable conclusion that there is no such http://www.livejournal.com/update.bmlthing as a universal set of symbols: they all reveal individual and cultural influences and biases.
Today I came home to discover an autographed copy of The Sibley Guide to Trees on my front step. A friend who still works at Drumlin Farm sent it to me, an extremely thoughtful gift. (I did telegraph my great desire to own it across Facebook and Livejournal.) I haven't even flipped through it yet, but I have a long weekend to try and soak it up and use it. Alexis, her IM voice dripping with vitamin D deprived scorn, said "does it have a way to identify trees using their leafless silhouettes?" Of course it does, where appropriate. Bark, buds, and twigs are also depicted, so I believe it is a guide that will be useful year round.
The friend who got it for me described talking to Sibley about the book: "He had a great analogy comparing bird field guides of 100 years ago with the still current tree ID guides that start with ‘is it opposite or alternate’. 100 years ago the way to ID a bird was to shoot it and then look at it in your hand. He’s trying to get people to look at trees in a similar way to bird guides now where you ID from distinguishing characteristics of the whole organism – the geist of the tree as it were." Well, hopefully after this weekend I'll have an idea of what that means.
ĝis revido!
Would you like to make a trade?
Sep. 16th, 2009 05:39 pmIt's been a while since I've seen the image of a product and felt a visceral desire to own it. Someone just posted a link mentioning The Sibley Guide to Trees and I felt that desire grab my chest.
The Sibley Guide to Birds upended the status quo in bird guides by simply being better than anything else out there. It meticulously depicted all the North American bird species, the plumage of both sexes and that of juveniles, as well as regional and unusual variations. It included how postures and temperature can change the silhouette of a bird, and detailed the anatomical terms of different plumage areas. There was a huge one for both coasts and field-sized east and west coast editions.
The fact that it was also a labor of love of one self-taught birder crossing the country for a decade in a van full of paint and canvases made me feel great to buy it. I met David Sibley at the Audubon Shop in Lincoln, and found that he was humble and personable, and living in Concord, practically a neighbor.
I have an ugly void in my field guides where a great tree guide belongs. I have an ancient golden guide, which has sufficed, and a guide to urban trees which helps fill out the commonly planted exotics. The fact that Sibley has now applied his "formidable skills of identification and illustration to the trees of North America" is the best news I've read in a long time.
I am loathe to add more possessions to my life, but I am willing to trade. If you have an extra copy of this book, I will gladly exchange a huge amount of used CDs--in excess of double the value of the book--for it. I know it's a long shot, and that I'll probably just buy myself a copy at the Audubon Shop when I go to Drumlin Farm September 27th to teach a mushroom class. But if you want a huge amount of used CDs, this would be a great opportunity for you.
I hope he's working on a shrubs and herbaceous perennials book!
The Sibley Guide to Birds upended the status quo in bird guides by simply being better than anything else out there. It meticulously depicted all the North American bird species, the plumage of both sexes and that of juveniles, as well as regional and unusual variations. It included how postures and temperature can change the silhouette of a bird, and detailed the anatomical terms of different plumage areas. There was a huge one for both coasts and field-sized east and west coast editions.
The fact that it was also a labor of love of one self-taught birder crossing the country for a decade in a van full of paint and canvases made me feel great to buy it. I met David Sibley at the Audubon Shop in Lincoln, and found that he was humble and personable, and living in Concord, practically a neighbor.
I have an ugly void in my field guides where a great tree guide belongs. I have an ancient golden guide, which has sufficed, and a guide to urban trees which helps fill out the commonly planted exotics. The fact that Sibley has now applied his "formidable skills of identification and illustration to the trees of North America" is the best news I've read in a long time.
I am loathe to add more possessions to my life, but I am willing to trade. If you have an extra copy of this book, I will gladly exchange a huge amount of used CDs--in excess of double the value of the book--for it. I know it's a long shot, and that I'll probably just buy myself a copy at the Audubon Shop when I go to Drumlin Farm September 27th to teach a mushroom class. But if you want a huge amount of used CDs, this would be a great opportunity for you.
I hope he's working on a shrubs and herbaceous perennials book!
Margaret, as far as the American Chestnut Tree goes, I don't know much. I see that there is a preservation society trying to breed blight-resistant trees from existing survivors. There's a page of photographs of existing trees, but locations are not very specific. I will throw the question out to my readers:
Do you know of any surviving American chestnut trees? Especially in New England. My friend would like to visit one (or many).
Do you know of any surviving American chestnut trees? Especially in New England. My friend would like to visit one (or many).
Mulberries, by request
Jul. 12th, 2009 08:51 amThis is the first in a series of posts done by request in exchange for a donation to my Bowling For Rhinos efforts. (There's still time to donate!)
Mulberry (Genus Morus) is a small fruit-bearing tree of a couple dozen different species. In urban areas, the species most often encountered is white mulberry (M. alba, urban species number 311 in my 2006 project). White mulberry is native to east Asia, and was imported around the world in the 1700s, when intercontinental trade of life forms was booming. Mulberries were already well-known, mainly as the primary food source for the caterpillars that produced silk in Asia. Attempts to start a silk industry in North America were halting at best.
Still, the trees are quick growing, attractive, and produce fruit that is edible to humans. This alone would be reason to see them throughout the cities and suburbs, but humans are not the only agents spreading these trees around. In fact, birds probably plant more mulberries than humans do, through eating the fruit and depositing seed-rich droppings. During the fruiting season (the past 3 weeks or so, this year) you can eat more than your fill of wild mulberry fruits on a short walk in Boston. I find that they vary wildly in flavor from tree to tree, but that even the best ones aren't as tasty as the average black raspberry. Apparently other species of mulberry are tastier, but since white mulberry was cultivated to be worm food, not people food, it doesn't devote as much sugar energy to the fruit as some other kinds. (Probably there are white mulberry cultivars that are selected for tasty fruit, and their genes are out there in the city, accounting for the some of the variability in wild trees.)
The craze of introducing plants and animals around the world seems baffling these days, especially since eastern North America had a perfectly good native mulberry (Red mulberry M. rubra) already living here. (Much as we had perfectly good red foxes, sparrows, game birds, and various wildflowers--but those Europeans loved to make everything look like Europe.) White mulberry is more successful, having survived artificial conditions in Asia for centuries before being brought to a continent with none of its natural enemies. It also hybridizes with red mulberry, and there is some worry that white mulberry will overwhelm red, causing the North American mulberry's extinction. Red mulberry is listed as endangered in Canada, and white mulberry is considered invasive by many agencies.
Mulberry is an exceeding common "weed tree" at the zoo where I work. Mulberry branches have to be cut constantly, often because the tree has sprung up in an inconvenient place, blocking a gate or a pathway. Fallen berries are so profuse that they cause pest issues, fattening rodents and attracting flies. In some places they have to be cleaned up or they form a slick of rotting goo that is slippery and dangerous to walk on! Fortunately, unlike Ailanthus, another weed tree from Asia, mulberry foliage is edible. Branches of this Asian plant are cut and fed to herbivores from Africa and South America, in the urban environment of North America. White mulberry, wanted or not, is a most cosmopolitan tree.
A plaque honoring white mulberry, in Portland Oregon's Chinatown,/a>.
A blog post from summer 2008 where I mention the different tasting mulberries from three different trees in a parking lot.
My 365 species entry on white mulberry. (with lots of pictures!)
Mulberry (Genus Morus) is a small fruit-bearing tree of a couple dozen different species. In urban areas, the species most often encountered is white mulberry (M. alba, urban species number 311 in my 2006 project). White mulberry is native to east Asia, and was imported around the world in the 1700s, when intercontinental trade of life forms was booming. Mulberries were already well-known, mainly as the primary food source for the caterpillars that produced silk in Asia. Attempts to start a silk industry in North America were halting at best.
Still, the trees are quick growing, attractive, and produce fruit that is edible to humans. This alone would be reason to see them throughout the cities and suburbs, but humans are not the only agents spreading these trees around. In fact, birds probably plant more mulberries than humans do, through eating the fruit and depositing seed-rich droppings. During the fruiting season (the past 3 weeks or so, this year) you can eat more than your fill of wild mulberry fruits on a short walk in Boston. I find that they vary wildly in flavor from tree to tree, but that even the best ones aren't as tasty as the average black raspberry. Apparently other species of mulberry are tastier, but since white mulberry was cultivated to be worm food, not people food, it doesn't devote as much sugar energy to the fruit as some other kinds. (Probably there are white mulberry cultivars that are selected for tasty fruit, and their genes are out there in the city, accounting for the some of the variability in wild trees.)
The craze of introducing plants and animals around the world seems baffling these days, especially since eastern North America had a perfectly good native mulberry (Red mulberry M. rubra) already living here. (Much as we had perfectly good red foxes, sparrows, game birds, and various wildflowers--but those Europeans loved to make everything look like Europe.) White mulberry is more successful, having survived artificial conditions in Asia for centuries before being brought to a continent with none of its natural enemies. It also hybridizes with red mulberry, and there is some worry that white mulberry will overwhelm red, causing the North American mulberry's extinction. Red mulberry is listed as endangered in Canada, and white mulberry is considered invasive by many agencies.
Mulberry is an exceeding common "weed tree" at the zoo where I work. Mulberry branches have to be cut constantly, often because the tree has sprung up in an inconvenient place, blocking a gate or a pathway. Fallen berries are so profuse that they cause pest issues, fattening rodents and attracting flies. In some places they have to be cleaned up or they form a slick of rotting goo that is slippery and dangerous to walk on! Fortunately, unlike Ailanthus, another weed tree from Asia, mulberry foliage is edible. Branches of this Asian plant are cut and fed to herbivores from Africa and South America, in the urban environment of North America. White mulberry, wanted or not, is a most cosmopolitan tree.
A plaque honoring white mulberry, in Portland Oregon's Chinatown,/a>.
A blog post from summer 2008 where I mention the different tasting mulberries from three different trees in a parking lot.
My 365 species entry on white mulberry. (with lots of pictures!)
This morning my father in law and I went for a walk up the hill. I didn't identify the flowering plant breaking through the pavement. Can you?
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