On the White House’s website:
Meanwhile, spring trumps winter in Shakerag Hollow, with “harbinger of spring,” Erigenia bulbosa, emerging by the dozens. A warm winter…
The USDA’s plant hardiness zones tell a similar story. “Sorry, no results”? Rephrase, “Sorry, lots of results, more on their way.” Gag rules don’t apply to phenology.
In the bleak mid-winter…time to bloom? Witch hazel, Hamamelis, proffers its flowers to the snow. Such willful disregard for the seasons is a refreshing sight, suggesting that we, too, might sometimes deck ourselves in vernal finery, despite the weather. Expect little reward, though. So few pollinators visit that fewer than 1% of flowers form any seed. Why, then, such obdurate insistence by witch hazel on winter blooms? Perhaps to keep the few flying pollinators on warm winter days to itself and thus avoid cross-pollination with undesirable kin? Perhaps.
According to OED via Etymology Online, “witch” is “probably from Old English wice ‘Applied generally or vaguely to various trees having pliant branches'”. Bending the rules.
On MKL Day, January 15th, I’ll be joining other writers at a literary protest and march. PEN America and Writers Resist are co-organizing these events in response to threats to the press and to free expression under the Trump presidency.
The literary protest is on the steps of the New York Public Library. It will include readings of “inaugural” poems by American poet laureates Robert Pinsky and Rita Dove. The march will deliver a petition in support of press freedoms to the Trump transition team.
Please consider joining all living US Poets Laureate and over 150,000 others by signing the petition in defense of freedom of expression and a free press. If you’ll be in New York on the 15th, you can register to attend the literary protest and march here (or show up on the day, 2 p.m. on the steps of the New York Public Library’s Schwarzman Building at 42nd St.). Seventy five other Writers Resist events are happening across the country on the same day, listed here.
PEN America’s overview of the protest and summary of programs describe the many ways that the organization helps defend press freedoms in the US and abroad.
From the Open Space Institute:
“In a series of six targeted land conservation projects completed within a short six-month period, nearly 13,000 acres have been acquired and added to Tennessee state parks and wildlife management areas.”
These lands add to the 17,000 acres already protected by OSI in the last few years in this region. The grants that made possible these projects aim to protect biodiversity in a changing climate. The conservation lands will also provide public access to open space and encourage sustainable forest management.
Partners in these projects included The Nature Conservancy, The Conservation Fund, The Land Trust for Tennessee, and the State of Tennessee (TN Wildlife Resources Agency and TN Dept Environment and Conservation).
Read the full press release here.
The rails, gratings, and fences that enclose the trunks of New York’s street trees are signifiers and indicia. Some of the nature of the human community is revealed in these constructions. A sampling of this diversity follows, photos mostly from Brooklyn, a few from Manhattan. Each is a sculpture — sometimes self-consciously so, sometimes without such intention — or a fragment of narrative captured in concrete, metal, wood, and soil. I’ve photographed these tree surrounds in many seasons. Those that follow are from late December, 2016.
(Click on any of these images to see them in slideshow format:)
After editorial discussions that were “a bit more serious and somber …[than] in some other years,” Oxford Dictionaries has name “post-truth” as its international word of 2016. But of course we’re not “post” any truths, especially not the truths of biology and physics that don’t bend in the foul winds of demagogues.
Nor in the errors of bloggers like me. Some taxonomic truths have come to light about the not-so-somber matter of tree identification. So, with many thanks, I share my colleague Dr. Hill Craddock’s take on the “chestnuts” from my last post.
He writes that the plants in the “photo could be in the genus Castanea, with the true chestnuts…but I think they may really be fruits of trees in the genus Castanopsis. Castanopsis is a large genus (more than 100 species) of Asian trees closely related to, and very much resembling Castanea. Some species share characteristics of Quercus [oaks] and Lithocarpus [“stone oaks”].”
So, the chestnuts from China (see additional photo below) are in fact close relatives of chestnuts, sometimes called “chinkapin”. These trees are evergreen and generally not frost-hardy.
Dr. Craddock continues with “a curiosity: ‘Shii’ is the Japanese name for Castanopsis. Shiitake (Lentinula edodes) are grown traditionally on Castanopsis cuspidata in Japan, although in the US, they are mostly grown on oaks, or other hardwoods. Shiitake literally means ‘Castanopsis mushroom.'” So, next time you are eating some US-grown shiitake mushrooms, consider their genus-crossing journey. I’d be interested to know whether the different tree substrates result in different experiences on the palate. Does oak-grown shiitake taste the same as Castanopsis shiitake? I know that local shiitake growers here in Tennessee claim a much richer flavor for shiitake grown on solid logs rather than sawdust bricks. Perhaps the species of wood also makes a difference?
I send many thanks to Hill Craddock for taking the time to share his knowledge and to Todd Crabtree for making the inquiry that led to our exchange.
Truthiness in nuts. Castanopsis in southern China.
Our Chinese hosts kindly arranged a short visit to the forests Nan Kun Shan Forest Park. Driving inland from Shenzhen we first passed around the mega-city of Guangzhou — one of China’s tech hubs (the e-device that you are now reading with likely came from there) — which sits amid the anastomosing branches of many large rivers. From these urban flooplains we passed into low hills, mostly managed for timber and fruit production, then to the steep-flanked mountains. In the mountains, protected forest parks are interspersed with vacation resorts and small villages. One of China’s first ecotourism projects is located here, the Crosswaters Ecolodge. The American Society of Landscape Architects gave Crosswaters an “Honor Award,” writing that it is, “tremendously inspiring to see a project in China that is designed as a celebration of its natural and cultural place. Impressive and extraordinary resourcefulness in salvaged and native materials make a more elegant and beautiful environment. For projects in this region it stands out for using found and salvaged local materials.” Guests stay in rooms and cabins made from locally-harvested bamboo, built in riverside forest clearings:
The plant life in this region is an interesting mix of subtropical and temperate species. Here, bamboo grows alongside banana and oaks. Callicarpa bodinieri (or perhaps japonica), Asian relative of American beautyberry, is common in the understory.
Botanical confluence: subtropics meets the temperate zone.
A familiar face. Smaller, denser fruit clusters than the American species.
This oak or oak relative grows on the slopes that had not been converted to bamboo groves. I’m working on finding species/generic names…suggestions are very welcome!
Two different species of Castanea (relative of the American chestnut) grew on the slopes above the river:
Two sizes of chestnut. Neither looked or tasted like Castanea mollissima, the Chinese chestnut grown in cultivation in the US. Four other species of Castanea grow in south Asia.
Birds in this region are also spectacular:
Red-billed blue magpie, distant relative of crows and blue jays. Photo by Charles Lam, Hong Kong. Creative Commons copyright 2.0.
Black-throated tit. Relative of chickadees. Photo by Prateik Kulkarni. Creative Commons copyright 4.0.
Plumbeous water redstart. These birds cling to rocks in streams, then fly up over the water to snatch insects from the air. Member of the Old World flycatcher family. Photo by Ron Knight, Creative Commons copyright 2.0.
Our hosts were, as everywhere in China, extraordinarily welcoming. Part of our group, standing in front of the bamboo bridge at Crosswaters:
View of the forest from an observation tower at Crosswaters:
