Erythronium americanium AKA Trout Lily, Yellow Dog Tooth Violet  

This a beautiful little flowering plant is native to Connecticut, and a harbinger of spring.  The leaves have a mottled splotched pattern as well as a shape that much resembles the body of a trout hence Erythronium americanium's most common name trout lily.  You will find this plant growing on the damp forest floor during the months of April through May where it takes advantage of the sunlight before the forest canopy fills in.  The plant is a reluctant bloomer with only a fraction of plants producing blooms during the month of April.   A short time after any blooms fade the foliage of all the trout lily plants dies back for the year.  The leaves turn yellow and wither away returning again the following April. 

 Many of the trout lily colonies you encounter in the woods can be hundreds of years old.  When you encounter a large colony, you will likely notice only one or two plants with flowers.  Because the flowers are one of the first in the season to bloom, they are pollinated almost without fail by bees that are extremely hungry after a long winter.  A great deal of energy goes into producing any of the flowers you see. It may take up to five years of stored energy to produce it.  The stored energy comes from the process of photosynthesis, which these days may be best explained using the analogy of a solar panel connected to a battery. A solar panel gathers energy, and when connected to a battery any of that energy not expended for other things is stored within the battery for future use.  In the case of the trout lily, it can take up to five years of stored energy finally allowing for the production of a single bloom making you wonder how a colony of trout lilies can be so massive when there are so few flowers resultant in so few seeds.  Trout lily plants have a second method of reproduction, an unusual cloning method.  Each plant sends out a long slender threadlike stem called a dropper.  These droppers grow up to 10" long.  As they grow, they turn a 45-degree angle and burrow deeply into the ground.  After planting themselves the droppers gradually form a corm (sort of a bulblike structure) that grows into another plant.  This is how trout lilies are able form a dense carpet on the forest floor.  The seeds that form from the flowers are also viable.  Several are produced within a capsule.   They are designed to be planted by ants.  Each of the seeds within the capsule is coated with a sugary substance irresistible to an ant.  They carry the sugar-coated seed home to share with their buddies. After the coating is consumed, the seed gets tossed in their trash pile where it eventually germinates creating another trout lily plant that over time given the right growing conditions can develop into a new colony. The ant feeding process is called myrmecochory.  A variety of plants share this method of survival.   

 

Hate To Rush Things but Spring Now Please!

I am so thankful for the folks who put together the 10-day forecast.  I don't know what I would do without them.  I study that forecast with great anticipation every morning during the winter.  I frequently look several times a day, in hopes it might improve. Today, just when I didn't think I could take another day of ridiculously frigid snowy weather, and snow squalls, I see there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Finally, a warming trend is included in the forecast, and it seems to include several days predicted to be in the 40s! Combined with days getting noticeably longer, and the occasional calls of a few very brave early voyaging birds, it gives me hope that spring may be in the air!  It may be time to at least consider emerging from hibernation and pondering some potential tasks for the days ahead. One of the first I'm contemplating, once the snow cover melts back some, is cutting the bittersweet vines as low to the ground as possible. I promised one of my partially strangled sycamore trees I would do that last year, but time got away from me. Late winter is a great time to accomplish the job as there is no competing vegetation and best of all no ticks!  It is a fairly easy job, a good way to break into the gardening cycle slowly.  There is no need to remove the vine from branches of the tree. Once the vine dies back it becomes light and fragile and it will lose its chokehold.  There is no need to paint herbicide on the cut portions at this time either.  Herbicides aren't effective during the spring months.  Plants are busy sending stored nutrients from the roots to the upper story beginning to produce foliage during the spring months.  Herbicides are always best applied when a plant has fully matured foliage.  It is at that point when the transfer of nutrients reverses and nutrients are transferred from the leaves back to the roots.  This allows the herbicide to be carried to the roots along with the nutrients which effectively kills the plant.  Sometimes herbicides aren't even needed.  Provided you have the time and patience, just keeping up with cutting the bittersweet vine, and pulling it out, when possible, will in time be enough to control an infestation. Cutting the lower branches of adjacent trees also helps as it deters the vine from climbing them.  Yup, after my second cup of coffee, I am actually looking forward to the physical aches that the spring tasks will bring!  In addition to the extended forecast, I am especially grateful for caffeine and Aleve!

 

Brush Fence

Somewhere along the line, I came across a photograph of a brush fence and thought what a good idea!  There are so many dead trees in the woods everywhere, and while there are many ways to dispose of the resultant branches, this one seems less labor intensive then most, and it creates an attractive border.  With the vertical posts in place additional brush can be added as it falls.  Best of all it makes a great home for the tiny creatures that populate the woods.

 Connecticut Flower and Garden Show

Experience spring even if it is only for a day!  The Connecticut Flower and Garden Show will be a great place to get some gardening ideas for the coming year!  The show will be running Thursday through Sunday February 19th - 22nd at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford on Columbus Blvd.  For more detailed information regarding hours, admission prices, parking options, and exhibitors, I have provided a link. https://ctflowershow.com 

 

Variegated Pipsissewa AKA Chimaphila maculata

Shortly after we moved here, a friend visited to see exactly what we had gotten ourselves into with this old house.  While we were walking along Merrick's brook his booming voice called out.  "Christine, do you know what this plant is called?"  Before I could guess an answer, his authoritative voice replied "Christine, this is variegated pipsissewa."  Now years later my friend Lou is gone, but each and every time I see that plant growing, I hear his voice, I mean he may as well have invented the darned plant!  Variegated pipsissewa always makes me think fondly of Lou, and I believe that is typical of the sentiment inspired by certain plants.  Plants have the ability to haunt us with our own memories.  Sometimes it's a memory of a person who perhaps gifted the plant from their garden, or perhaps a plant will inspire a memory of a place you once visited. For some it may be a fond memory of a home left behind, willingly or not.  Perhaps a plant serves as a fond reminder of a distant country once home and sadly never to be revisited.  Bringing a plant or a seed with you is as close as you can get to bringing a piece of your past with you, and as the seed grows into the plant it was meant to be, it feels like you are visiting with a familiar friend, in my case that is Lou.  

Variegated pipsissewa is a small 8-10" tall plant considered native to Connecticut, as well as much of eastern North America.  Another of its common names is spotted wintergreen.  It is a pretty little plant bearing small white flowers during early to mid-July. It is an attractive plant year-round because of its striking variegated evergreen foliage.  Unfortunately, this plant does not have the minty wintergreen fragrance or flavor of Gaultheria procumbens, the other wintergreen plant from which that flavor derives.  In the case of spotted wintergreen, the wintergreen portion of its common name seems to refer to the fact the plant has evergreen foliage. The plant often grows in a shaded upland forest setting in dry sometimes sandy or acidic soil.  It spreads in colonies by underground rhizomes but can also reproduce through the very tiny seeds released from the seed capsules that follow the flowers.  It is in the heath and heather family and like those plants it is capable of growing in what may seem harsh conditions.  The reason it can do so is that it has a mycorrhizal relationship with certain fungi. Pipsissewa exchanges sugars and lipids gathered through the process of photosynthesis with the fungi. In exchange minerals are broken down from the soil and leaf litter and provided to the plant by the fungi.  Mychorrhizal relationships are extremely common in the plant world.

This plant has a history of use by Native Americans who would brew a medicinal tea from the leaves. The tea was said to relieve arthritis.  Another of the plant's Indigenous medicinal uses was as a cure for gallstones or kidney stones. For that reason, the Creek Indian name for the plant is pipsisikweu which translates roughly to breaks apart into smaller pieces. 

Keep an eye out for variegated pipsissewa when hiking, and when you encounter this plant be sure to say hi to my friend Lou! 

Recreational Trails Proposal

Here's my artistically untalented picture of what we are asking DEEP to pay for. There's actually a 20% match but that can consist mostly of volunteer time, so we're hoping people will step up. If you have any comments or suggestions, please do leave a comment. Any suggestions or possible resources are welcome. And neighbors, don't worry, we're going to have the property surveyed and the boundaries clearly marked. 

 

 

 

 

Witch Hazel AKA Hamamelis Virginiana

While pondering my next subject for this blog, it occurred to me that even though it is nearly December, cold and likely to snow any day, there remains a native plant in the woodland that may potentially still be blooming. That plant is a shrub or occasionally a small understory tree commonly known as American witch hazel.  Its ovate blue green leaves transition to yellow in autumn months.  Late autumn is also when its somewhat bizarre spidery looking yellow flowers with four ribbon like petals come into bloom.  They remain in bloom for many weeks clinging relentlessly to the plant well after the leaves have fallen and first snow appears. Their lengthy bloom time is likely one of the plant's attempts to increase fertilization as there are fewer insects to complete that job during that late time of year.  Witch hazel flowers are visited by a variety of pollinators such as late season moths in the Eupsilia genus who have the capability of thermoregulating their bodies by shivering to survive in these chilly months.  Other visitors include flies, certain species of bees, and even gnats.  The resultant seed capsules are of the type that explode, catapulting the pair of seeds contained within a good ten-foot distance where they gradually germinate. It can take up to two years for them to finally do so. The seeds are a food source for a variety of birds such as ring-necked pheasant, wild turkey, grouse, and cardinals as well as cotton tail rabbits, beaver and even black bear. The late season pollinators also provide a food source for those birds who require protein.

The botanical name Hamamelis from the Greek, translates to hamma=together and melis=fruit.  This is in reference to the fact that the plant bears both its flowers and ripe fruit at the same time.  The Virginia portion of the name was added because that is where the plant was first observed by colonists.  The common name witch hazel is likely adapted from the Anglo word wych or wice which means to bend or be pliant. The hazel portion is likely used because in Great Britain a type of hazel tree with pliant branches was used as a divining tool and the American witch hazel had a similar appearance.  Witch hazel has had quite a variety of uses over the years, divining being but one.  Divining was an ancient practice used for locating underground water sources.  The Y shaped branches from the English hazel tree and in America, the American witch hazel were used as divining rods.  The sensitive branches when used in the right hands were said bend or shake when held above areas where water flowed below ground.  The practice is still in use.

American witch hazel as a long history of medicinal use by indigenous cultures.  The Mohegans produced a healing decoction by boiling the branches of this plant in water which produced a medicine used to treat such afflictions as inflammation, arthritis, and tumors.  Other Indigenous communities made a healing tea from the leaves.  This plant provided a wide variety of medicinal uses in many different Native American communities.  These uses were shared with the colonists.

Have you ever seen or perhaps used an astringent called Dickenson's Witch hazel?  It is part of Connecticut's industrial commercial history.  Commercial production of distilled witch hazel extract first began in Essex Connecticut in 1846 when Dr. Charles Hawes used a steam distillation process to extract various compounds.  He sold his product in a relatively small-scale manner under the name Hawes Extract through a druggist named Alvan Whittemore.  Theron Pond of Utica, New York was another entrepreneur who successfully created a cosmetic empire that began in 1846 with a product called Golden Treasure later marketed as Pond's Extract.  Both created from distilled bark of witch hazel. Back in Connecticut in the year 1866, Thomas Newton Dickinson Sr. manufactured a liquid product called Dickinson's Witch Hazel.  His son E.E. Dickenson became a partner in 1895, and his other son Thomas Newton Dickenson Jr. also ran a witch hazel distillery in Connecticut.  By the 1900's Dickinson manufacturing plants were operating in nine different sites in in Eastern Connecticut.  Their product was widely used by barbers to cool the skin after shaving.  Dickenson Sr.'s two sons continued the family business finally selling it in 1997 to the American Distilling Plant of East Hampton, CT.  I have a friend who still gathers branches of witch hazel during the winter months for this distilling company today.  Fortunately, large scale commercial production over the years in Connecticut has not put this plant into the endangered category.

There are nurseries that sell witch hazel plants, and there are a variety of cultivars, and some are of Asian descent.  If you are looking to grow the native variety, check the label carefully before making a purchase