Species in the Spotlight - Archive
Pussy Willow, Salix discolor
March 01, 2006
Last fall, I went to a nearby wetland with a pair of clippers and cut twigs from one willow shrub after another. It wasn’t hard to tell the willows from the non-willows because willows are the only woody plants in this area whose buds are covered by a single bud scale. These cute, pointy caps are very different from the …
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Gray birch, Betula populifolia
December 01, 2005
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
(Robert Frost, “Birches”)
Thanks to Robert Frost, when you see a birch bent to the ground, it’s almost impossible not to imagine a boy climbing it, hand over …
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Hobblebush, Viburnum lantanoides
September 01, 2005
Forests would be a lot less interesting and not nearly as beautiful without ferns, wildflowers, shrubs, understory trees, and other small plants. But as the canopy closes in a forest, the amount of light that filters through to the ground diminishes greatly, slowly starving all but the most shade-adapted residents of the lower layers.
Hobblebush, a sprawling shrub …
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Mountain Maple, Acer spicatum
June 01, 2005
Sometime in June, just after its bright, light green leaves have fully expanded, mountain maple’s delicate, yellow-green flowers begin to bloom. The very un-maple-like, tiny flowers are on long, upright stems, well above the leaves, and they are attractive to insects as well as to people. Striped maple, the other shrub-size maple species in the Northeast, has flowers in drooping …
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Speckled Alder, Alnus incana
March 01, 2005
One way to find speckled alder in the spring is to listen for the plaintive fee-beo of the alder flycatcher. Whenever I’ve followed this little bird’s song to its source, it’s been in or near a patch of speckled alder. You don’t really need a flycatcher as your guide because alders are quite easy to find in any season, since …
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Eastern Redcedar, Juniperus virginiana
December 01, 2004
This “cedar,” like most of the many other trees given that name, is not a cedar at all. It’s a juniper. And despite having round, blue fruits that look just like berries and not at all like cones, eastern red cedar is a conifer. The skin of the berry consists of soft scales that have coalesced, so in theory it …
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