Site Discussions

  Jack-o-lanterns and me

Every fall there is a beautiful fruiting of jack-o-lanterns (Omphalotus Illudens) on my neighbors lawn, probably growing on the dead roots of a tree that used to be there.
Do they really glow in the dark?  I wonder.
So when they first appeared last September, I picked one, brought it home and put it on the shelf in my bathroom.  That way, I figured, when I wake up in the middle of the night, my eyes should be sufficiently adjusted to the dark that I might see the glow.  But it didn’t glow.
Day 2: picked one more, brought it home, put it on the shelf in the bathroom next to the first one, but it didn’t glow either.
Day 3:  picked one more.  Same thing.  No glow.
Day 4:  picked one more.  Same thing.  Still no glow.
Day 5.  picked one more.  Same routine.  This one did glow beautifully!
Day 6:  picked one more.  Again, a beautiful glow.
Day 7 and 8: Added one more mushroom each day, and now lots of glow.  Day 5 mushroom and day 6 mushroom both continue to glow.  The first four never glowed.
Day 8:  The lawn-care people came and mowed the lawn, thus bringing my study to an untimely end.
But the four mushrooms in my bathroom continued to glow for a couple more days, until they finally dried up.
Whether to glow or not to glow must be a matter of maturity. 
(Would this observation apply to people, too?)
Oh, by the way,  the spore prints never glowed..

  I have caught 2 of these Whitespotted Sawyer Beetles just recently , Both males. they are huge . I have a lot of pine trees around here but I don’t wish to get bitten..I also don’t want my great grandsons to get bitten….

Great article. I’m wondering about the honey mushroom grown “in the lab”. Whose lab was it?
Thanks,
Laurie

A few days ago I went to my friends’ cabin deep up north in WI. And this morning I woke up with a mysterious rash that was not there a few hours earlier when I went to sleep. My friends say it looks like a bad case of acne and my dad says it looks like poison ivy… but it didn’t start to even show til 2 days later?

It doesn’t itch, and didn’t show up on contact, it is on both sides of my face and is covering my jaw, and looks like a major breakout of acne. I want to know what it is so I can watch out for it next time. Got any ideas?

Thanks for writing an article about an under-appreciated tree (and a favorite of mine). One thing I would take issue with, however, is the comment that black birches are going to become more successful because of their ability to grow up above the fern later.  Here in southern Vermont, the black birches are one of the absolute last trees to leaf out in the spring, along with hickories and ash.  Perhaps this is a regional difference?

Molly was my woodworking teacher. At only 8 years old she showed me how to use a lathe to make beautiful bowls on my own; dovetails, joints, etc., as she guided me in making a piano bench, bookshelf and little milking stool all by myself. When she helped me build my first project; the stool, we went to the wood pile to pick some wedges to affix the legs. She suggested I select a rich mahogany piece that she suggested would offset the lighter color of the wood nicely. As we drove the three in, the third cracked in half leaving it with a gap in the middle and causing each end of the wedge to sit a bit crooked. I remember feeling panic and disappointment that it was “broken” . . .  and her smile when she noted how lovely it looked; just like that “winking at me”.

I found a nest like a robin’s, however it was mud lined. What bird makes such a nest?

Hi Bruce,

Unfortunately the tree may be too far gone to help. If there are no visible culprits causing the decline (bugs, for instance, or recent construction that disturbed the roots), it was probably road salt. Sugar maples are very intolerant to salt.

If you want to try to help it anyway, i’d prune the dead branches and use a balanced fertilizer. The general recommendation is 2 to 4 lbs fertilizer per inch of tree diameter (0.35 to 0.7 kg per cm of tree diameter at 1.5 m above ground), or so says this ag bulletin: http://ccesuffolk.org/assets/Horticulture-Leaflets/Maple-Decline.pdf

If the tree doesn’t bounce back you might consider planting a new one nearby so it can get a jump start on establishing itself as this one slowly dies. If you think road salt is the issue, black ash, cottonwood, tamarack, northern red oak, balsam poplar, gray dogwood, staghorn sumac, choke cherry, and serviceberry are all relatively salt tolerant. You might consider one of these species instead of a hard maple.

Never would I have thought that a walk on my lunch break at work would bring me to this - spotted a catamount for certain. Of all places in Littleton NH. Right near Remick Park in the woods out back at the end of Pine Hill Road. Reported this to FIsh & Game.

Dear Sir or Madam,
I would appreciate it if you could help me in regard to the following:
I have a beautiful maple tree on my boulevard which has maple tree
decline. I would like to save this tree.
I have found research on the internet which indicated that the addition of calcium to the soil could halt this decline.
Last year and this year I added gypsum to the soil along with liquid
gypsum this year.
This year with our early Spring and Summer the leaves have started
falling off the tree.
I would like to know what source of calcium to add and how long it
will take to see results. Also, how much?
Is this an excerise in futility or could it possibly work?

Well written article! Both hysterical and informative - a real pleasure to read.

Really nice job, Dave Mance. This is the kind of thoughtful prose I’ve come to expect from Northern Woodlands. Great short story with an underlying message we can all take with us into the weekend and the summer ahead….  slow and easy trumps work hard, play hard. Bravo for reminding us about what is most important when fishing… or playing at anything: enjoying ourselves and relaxing.

It is rewarding to rear, mate and release cecropia, or any of our other Saturniid moths, but don’t be lulled into a false sense of silken security.  The Compsilura concinnata, which is the tachinid fly you alluded to introduced in 1906 by the USDA (in some areas released as recently as 1986), still takes quite a toll on our native Saturniid moths.  In 2009, I did a local study using Antheraea polyphemus caterpillars and approximately 90% of those recovered had been hit by Compsilura.  Odd as it may seem I was always a bit relieved to see external eggs knowing they were most likely of a native fly parasitoid (such as those Peter mentioned/showed in his comment.  Lucky for his very cooperative patient, these were removed before hatching and having a chance to burrow).  What I did know, they had not been left by the exotic gypsy hunter, which directly deposits larvae (as do our native wasp predators).  In the case of Compsilura, the life cycle is then quite short and the demise of its host can be as little as 5-7 days.  C. concinnata has 3 to 4 generations, gypsy moth only one, thus the need for future hosts throughout the season.  The many weeks of feeding and large size make many of our native wild silk moth larvae an easy target for this fly.

Since a very small percentage of the hundreds of eggs deposited by each moth survive to the adult stage in nature (not only due to other insect predators), it is likely that the dozen or so you released made some, no matter how small, difference.  I rear and release a number of species every year (this is my 14th) and figure for every pair of mating moths that continue to produce one more pair my local population gets a helping hand.

If interested, I just updated images from this study: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54787179@N00/sets/72157627565358450/

This came in as a Letter to the Editor

Thank you for the excellent issue, as always. One comment: Rather than a full page lamenting hyperbole in journalism, I would rather have read a cogent article on what data does exist regarding the start and duration of sugar season in the northeast, sugar content and such, and what conclusions can be drawn from that data. I’ll be surprised if no credible data exists. Mr. Mance seems to say that no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from data that exhibits a wide degree of variability, which in general is not true.

Thank you

Timothy Budell
Westford, VT

I am late to this discussion but I find it interesting in that I have a 150+ acre woodlot in Southern VT that is being over run with hayscented fern.  I have spoken with Mr. Post personally and he is a wealth of knowledge.  For those who believe that any intervention is incorrect or worse, I respectfully disagree.  My lot has been manipulated by humans for at least 150 years.  It was pretty much clearcut in the mid 1800’s for sheep and has been more or less selectively harvested since.  It has a lot (too many I think) of resident deer as well as several moose and lots of other wildlife.  We have a forestry plan in place that attempts to balance aesthetics, wildlife, lumber production, recreation, etc. 

The parcel got hit pretty hard in the ice storm at the end of 2008.  The canopy was opened siginificantly and the already omnipresent hayscented fern has fully overgrown many large areas.  These plants grow chest deep and obliterate any chance of other species sprouting.  Add to that the overbrowsing by herbivores and one can see that the long term outlook for hardwood regeneration is very bad without intervention.

If the lumber value becomes very low over time, then the likelyhood of the parcel being clearcut and developed will be higher. It is in the best long term interest of the forest to promote healthy, valuable trees for a very long time.

Glyphosate does not spread like ring waves in a pond.  It binds tightly to the soil and degrades rather quickly.  I avoid contact with plants other than invasives and unless directly treated, those plants survive indefinitely.  I find I have to revisit areas I have treated with glyphosate several times to really eliminate the hayscented fern.  If I don’t, the ferns quickly take over again and overshadow the many seedlings that have sprouted before they can get big enough to survive and outgrow the ferns.

Many of us who own woodlot properties put a lot of time and treasure into plans and goals that we will not be around to see to fruition.  I personally find this satisfying and rewarding in ways that I can’t explain.  I think the idea that any “non-natural” method is bad or ill considered is rather shortsighted and counter productive.

Pete Silverberg

I live on 30 acres in Sharon Vermont.As cabinet maker I have harvested many standing dead butternut trees.The largest exceeding 30 inches at the stump.As a woodworker and guitar builder I regard this wood right up there with mahogany for its workability and beauty.There are no harvest-able trees left on my land, but in recent years I have found many young trees coming along. Some as big as 6 inches at the but with no sign of disease. I’ve got my fingers crossed. I love this tree. If anyone knows where I can get clear quartered butternut in excess of 8 inches, I’m looking.

We had an ax but I never used it. Always the splitting maul and wedges.  I tried the ax a few times but had the problem described, handle was too short.  Plus it would just bounce off rounds of Douglas Fir. Might not have been sharp enough, or I didn’t have the right technique.  The ax might be faster but speed never seemed like an issue. My brother and I had all summer to fill up the woodshed so if it took all day, it took all day. The hatchet was for chopping (yes, chopping) kindling, although we were really just splitting cedar shakes.

This came in as a Letter to the Editor

Dear Sir/Madam,

I thoroughly enjoyed Rebecca Rule’s article in the Summer 2012 issue.  There is a little known chapter that could be added to this article that covers this fascinating history of paper production in northern New England.  During World War II, a prisoner-of-war camp was constructed in Stark, NH, to house German prisoners.  During the entire operation of this camp, all prisoners worked for the Brown Paper Company - a considerable wealth of free labor.  What is fascinating to learn is the relationships that developed over the course of time the camp was in operation.  It’s chronicled in a book written by Allen V. Koop (history professor at Dartmouth) entitled Stark Decency.  I strongly urge readers to get a copy of this wonderful story.  Dr. Koop, after researching the POW camp and penning the history, arranged for a reunion between surviving prisoners and the families in Stark, on the 50th anniversary of the end of hostilities.  The town of Stark celebrated a fascinating get-together in the mid 1990’s, and it showcases the strong ties two countries can develop after having been at war with each other.

Sincerely,

Dick Strifert
Essex Junction, Vermont

All wood start as sapwood but in young trees and young parts,all of the word is in the stem is sapwood. Sapwood is living , outmost portion of a woody stem or branch, while heartwood is dead, inner wood,which often comprises the majority of stem cross-section.You can usually distinguish sapwood from heartwood by its lighter color.

I’m seeing rich and dense wildflowers everywhere. Also, everything approx. 2 weeks early.

Odd for the season: A big pine needle drop. Usually those are April and September, but we’re getting one in June.