Fun with the Treeweenie

Any expedition with my friend Irene is bound to include studying trees. That's her self-declared nickname, the "Treeweenie." She actually is less interested in looking at leaves than she is at tree shapes, bark and buds. So a hike when the trees are bare is just her cup of tea.


On our road walk back to the truck we passed the beautiful tree that you see above. Both of us were sure that we should recognize its unusual shape. Note how the branches curl up at each end? (see picture to the left) We knew that was a definitive feature! Then there were the buds. They were large, over 1/2 inch long each, a rich reddish brown, and.... sticky, yes, really sticky!

We walked just a few more yards and encountered a tree covered with these odd growths. Here was mystery number two. We were pretty sure that it was some sort of gall caused by an insect, but this was not one that I had seen before. The tree it was growing on was an oak, in fact a pin oak (which has a distinctive shape of its own). There were so many galls that I took my penknife and cut one branch off to take home to study.

Here is another example. Most of the galls were all on one tree.

The minute we returned to Irene's she pulled out the tree books, and we quickly identified the tree with the sticky buds and turned up branches. Boy did we feel foolish. We should have recognized it for sure. It is a horsechestnut. They have large palmate leaves with 7 leaflets and a beautiful showy flower in the spring. At any other time of the year we would have known what it was!

Not so many years ago identifying the gall would have been tricky. Now, thanks to the internet it was a snap. This is a horned oak gall, created by a stingless wasp, the Callirhytis cornigera (horned oak gall wasp... duh). They can disfigure trees and cause branches to die back. In some areas of the country they are a bigger problem than others. One adult wasp emerges from each horn when they mature!

Finally, here is just a fun picture of the underside of a downed tree. I just liked the star shape of what is left of the roots.



See Letchworth and Gibsonville

Letchworth and Gibsonville

Today and tomorrow I want to show you some really interesting things from a hike I took while on my trip last week. So that I wouldn't have to drive home in one long, long day I stopped at my friend Irene's house. She lives about 10 minutes from Letchworth State Park in New York. Letchworth is an amazing glacial gorge, sometimes called the Grand Canyon of the East. But these pictures aren't going to show you any of the really interesting features because we chose to hike on a less-traveled trail.

She's a hiking buddy so our favorite way to spend a day is to find a new path to explore (with her dogs of course). She recently discovered that there is a trail in the park where the map doesn't show one. So....



We started at the point that I have marked with a red 1 on this map, and followed the green line. But first let's talk about the view at point 1. Notice on the map that North is not "up" but angled toward the upper right corner. So if you stand at point 1 and look east across the Genesee River you will notice a long point of land on the map labeled a hogsback. That is what you are seeing in the next picture. These kinds of ridges are called hogsbacks because they supposedly resemble the spine of a wild boar. The river has to flow an extra mile to find its way around this point.



We followed the unlabeled trail to point 2 in red on the map. That is where the Silver Lake Outlet (a large creek) flows into the river. So the next picture, which looks similar to the first one, is completely different. The Genesee River is on the left, flowing from the back of the picture to the front. Silver Lake Outlet is on the right, also flowing from the back to the front. Just out of view, at the bottom of the ridge I was standing on to take the picture the creek makes a sharp turn toward the river.



It was quite a surprise to me to see how the creek and river met during the winter. With the ground frozen the creek took a long meandering pathway beside the open water of the river before finally joining up with the main waterway. All the shiny, crackled coating is ice. The water in both channels is flowing from right to left, and meets out of view.



We continued on to red point 3 where in the 1800s there was a village called Gibsonville. Then in the 1930s it was the site of a Civilian Conservation Corps work camp. This chimney is all that remains of a number of barracks, staff and officer's housing. There was an interpretive sign and we spent a lot of time trying to orient the camp with an aerial picture because it wasn't obvious which building this chimney was part of. We finally found some other foundations which helped us figure it out. It turned out that this building and a bridge that still remains don't even show in the picture. Nevertheless we liked another shot that showed the chimney in happier times.



This view shows two of the CCC men relaxing. Some of the work they did included constructing the main park road, building shelters and bridges, removing dead trees, and operating two stone quarries in the area. From point 3 we walked along the road back to the vehicle.

Tomorrow I'll show some other interesting features from our hike (clue- Irene's nickname is "treeweenie").

Philadelphia Flower Show 2009 - V

 
This will be the last day to focus on the flower show because other things are showing up that I also want to share. Below is a collage of three rather odd looking plants, balanced on the bottom by some colorful and common spring flowers



Next is a dining room that was part of a group of displays of three rooms each on the theme of Italian Villas. I just liked the way the colors and shapes worked in this one.



One of the things I like about the big shows is how they bring whole landscapes indoors and take you to different places. Here is an Irish cottage.



Although there are a whole lot more succulents that I want to show you there may be some future chances to sneak some of those in, so I will close with a sculpture that everyone thought was pretty strange. Are these evil fairies, or just plain ugly? It was certain that anyone who saw them had an opinion! Happy Flower Show 2009.

	See Philadelphia Flower Show IV See Philadelphia Flower Show III See Philadelphia Flower Show II See Philadelphia Flower Show I
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Bluebird News Flash

This will not be my regular post for today, but I just had a bluebird sitting on our deck, right outside my window. Couldn't react fast enough to get a picture, but HOW COOL IS THAT. I am leery of thinking spring is here, but it's really tempting!

Philadelphia Flower Show 2009 - IV

I thought that today might be the last day for flower show pictures, but there will probably be another day after this one.

Today I have a few odds and ends that I just like. On the right is one of the "hats." It actually looks very much like an actual hat from the 1930s, decorated with the pheasant feathers.

The next one is back to the entrance where the formal Italian theme was the most obvious. There was an opera singer performing most of the time. One was this man, and there was also a woman.



Now we will go from the grandiose to the miniature. This was one of a class of gardens that had small buildings and sometimes figures included in them. This one did not win a prize, probably because it only has a few kinds of plant material, and the building seems too large for the composition.



Next up is a display with a reflecting pool. I got lucky and got a pretty good picture of the reflection. This isn't perhaps spectacular on its own, but I'm trying to show a selection of some of the variety today.



Finally for this batch I will just show you a variety of Hosta. This one is just called "June." I'm hoping that I can find this one to buy for my garden.



See Philadelphia Flower Show III
See Philadelphia Flower Show II
See Philadelphia Flower Show I