Manistee Riverwalk Reopens

 The Manistee Riverwalk is one of the nicest urban, water-side pathways anywhere. It's almost like a gamescape with varying surfaces, levels, views, etc. A part of it has been closed for repairs, but for once, my luck was fantastic. I had to go to Manistee today, and they just re-opened that section.

A lot of it is in sun, with pavement and flower beds. Lots of flower beds. You may see more of that tomorrow. Even this late, there were still nice things to see

Other parts are like shaded secret entrances to other worlds.

The primary business street, River Street, is a level above the walk. Many of the buildings are old. I love this section near the Cypress St Bridge. With the shadow of a railing from the upper level and the old stone and brick, it looks like a castle.

When you get out at the west end, the Manistee River empties into Lake Michigan. This is the Manistee Lighthouse.

On the walk back, there is this really nice view of the river. This is also a shipping channel as boats come in to Manistee Lake, so it has to be kept open and clear. In fact, it was a dredging operation that caused part of the walk to be closed for most of the summer. But this shows how there is a great variety of landscapes along the route.

Almost back to the beginning. This is the Cypress Street Bridge. It's a drawbridge and has been closed for repairs most of the last two years. I know everyone is happy to see it open again. You can just barely see the railroad swing bridge beyond in its open position. I know I did a post on that, but I can't find it to link. Another time.

Finally for today, another artsy shot. This is nothing but the reflection of a post. But I like it a lot.

Most of the day was spent finishing up the necessary stuff I've been working on and then getting it delivered. This walk was my reward.

Miles hiked in 2024: 473.9 Manistee Riverwalk, both directions. 3.5 miles

See Manistee Riverwalk

You Say Chasmogamous and I Say Cleistogamous

 The super quality of today comes from learning something completely new. I'm pretty sure this is not a case of my simply forgetting something I learned a long time ago. I'm totally blown away.

I couldn't stop thinking about the five-part violet flower having a three-part seed pod. Things in the mustard family have four-part flowers (four petals, four sepals, four part ovary, four-sided pods). Tulips and juncus have six petals, etc, which fuse into a three-sided seed pod. But five to three just doesn't compute.

I didn't really get the answer to my question. I thought maybe the lower petal, the "lip" was two fused petals such as in snapdragons, but that doesn't seem to be the case. (I suppose there doesn't have to be an answer, it just "is"). But I found out a whole lot.

Remember those little closed pods I showed you yesterday? I brought a few inside to look at more closely. Here's one.

Well, it turns out that the violet (and some other plants) produce two kinds of flowers. This is a cleistogamus flower. Huh?

First, let's sort out those big words. We already almost know them. We know monogamous and bigamous and polyagmous. Yup... all referring to a type of marriage. Well, it seems there are two more words in this series. Chasmo- is open, and cleisto- is closed. I will try to remember this because cleisto- sounds like cloister (not etymologically related), and chasmo- sounds like chasm, an open yawning gully (these are etymologically related). So chasmogomous flowers are open to pollination from anyone! These are the big, showy purple flowers we all know and love in violets in the springtime.

Well, in a plant, promiscuity can be a good thing. It leads to genetic diversity and strengthening of the population.

Now let's take a break from the big words and look at that little "pod" again. The little green pointed things that look like leaves are the sepals. And there are five of them, as you would expect from a plant that has five petals. If you rotate this, you see there are three sepals that are larger and wrap around to the stem, while two of them are smaller and lapped to the inner layer. In this picture you can see two of the larger sepals and one small inner sepal.

Those two inner sepals do not become major divisions of the pod. Looking at the end, you can clearly see there are three sections.

But, jumping Jupiter! This is not a seed pod. It's a cleistogamous flower. That means it's closed. As in completly closed. It never opens; it self-polinates, and is not even monogamous. More like a hermaphrodite. Some plants produce cleistogamus flowers in the fall, and violets are big on the activity. The process takes fewer resources than growing petals, necter, or large quantities of pollen. They insure reproduction even if slugs or rabbits eat all the pretty flowers, or someone mows the lawn.

Furthermore, these violet seed pods dehisce, which means they open violently and fling their seeds out into the world. In fact, this was closed when I brought it in the house but it split into that pinwheel in just a few minutes.

The next stage is the pinwheel full of seeds that I showed you a couple of days ago.

Now, I'll have to watch for the chasmogamous seed pods in the spring.

I worked on necessary stuff, punctuated by weeding the rock garden all day.

See Common Blue Violet's Promise

Patterns and Math

 You know I love things with patterns. Some of them can even be described mathematically. Maybe that's one reason I like sempervivum a lot. Here are three from my rock garden that have somewhat different growth patterns.

The first one is 'Gold Rush.' It's looking pretty happy, and is keeping its yellow color. This pattern is most typical of Sempervivum. Some are even spread open a little more, although they all tend to tighten up and circle the wagons, so to speak, when left outside as the weather cools.

This is Sempervivum arachnoidea. It has the "spider webbing" which shows up clearly at this time of year. They are tightly curled almost into a ball.

But my favorite at this time of year is the Sempervivum globiferum. I had nicknamed them 'Roly Poly' for years until I found their actual name. To make babies they send out little balls which roll away and then take root. But here is a large (for this species) established rosette. Can you say Fibonacci?

This isn't a repeating pattern like the above, but it was very cool to find. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture without a clear background, and then the whole thing took on that color because it's nearly transparent. Actual size less than 3/4 inch across. This is a clammy ground cherry seed pod that has become skeletonized. That means all the tissue has decomposed except the veins, which are harder. Skeletonized leaves are also very cool to find. It has to be somewhat mathematical because veins, tree branches, etc. all follow fractals.

This is a water pattern from the other day. All of these are examples of wave patterns as the light is reflected off the surface of the water when waves (ripples- waves and wave interference, etc) are formed.

Finally, this is simply a pattern of completion. I figured I should show the violet seed pods before they open. There are two little pods hiding among the stems and leaves. Remember the seed pods opened into three parts? I just realized that's a little odd. Violets are dicots (two baby leaves). Most monocots (one baby leaf) have three-part pods. Not so much with dicots. I'll have to think about this some more.

Mostly, I worked on the last weeding of the rock garden for the year, and played with my database.

See Clammy Ground Cherry See Common Blue Violet Seeds

A New Pose

 With all the chipmunk pictures I've taken over the years, this is a completely new pose. It was running away from me and just stopped with its hips spread wide, ready to leap at a moment's notice. Which it did!

I guess the pose isn't new for me, but the background for the shadow is. There is so much algae piled up along the shore of Lincoln Lake it's solid green. It made a nice picture.

By contrast, the lake was bright blue. The weather has cooled a bit. It felt great. Just right for a walk before bell choir practice.

This is a nice park with a paved trail circling through it. I don't walk here as often as I might because it gets a lot of use, and I prefer more solitude and natural trails. There is a non-paved mountain bike route through it which I often walk, but it's really for cyclists, and I hate it when I get "caught" on their trail. Walkers disrupt their riding.

This is a part of the trail beside the lake, but the important thing to notice here is the white tree tubes. There has recently been a big project to remove alien Oriental Bittersweet and Tree-of-Heaven (Ailanthus). There are native trees being planted in their place (currently protected in the tubes), but I don't know what.

Another nice feature along the water is this large gazebo. There are native plantings around it too, but I wasn't able to get any decent pictures. The flowers are really well past prime here.

A lot of the paved trail isn't very picturesque, but this curve always looks inviting.

It smelled like fall in the park- that unmistakable scent of autumn aspen.

I spent most of the day on my "project," which although I'm pretty obsessed, isn't really a priority. Sigh. I need to divert my attention to more important things. This walk only managed to get me 2.3 miles before bell choir.

Miles walked in 2024: 470.9

See Six Miles with Cathy