Ruffled

I'm not a fan of ruffles, unless it's these kinds. The first one is a liverwort. Liverworts are a biological oddity, in more ways than one! First of all, they are only one cell thick. Yes, each of those flabby "leaves" is like a bundle of twigs, with tall cells side by side. The "leaf" is called a thallus. It's more like a sperm or egg, because it only has half the genetic material of a liverwort. At some point little stalks will appear with a capsule on the top which has the full number of chromosomes.



Next, we have orange ruffles. I don't know exactly what fungus this is- probably a polypore. I'll just stop rather than spouting misinformation.



Finally, I do know what this one is. It's violet-toothed polypore, most recently named Trichaptum biforme. It's really a polypore, but looks like a tooth fungus- hence the "biforme." It starts out bright purple, but quickly fades to this deeper purple and then brown to white.



Can't see the teeth? Let me help you.

	See Treasures at Nordhouse for a different orange polypore See Violet-toothed Polypore for a bright young specimen
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Ellen and Joan- Another Great Hike

Remember the Scouts that I was checking out locations for? Ellen and I met with them this morning, for just a few minutes. They were breaking camp and getting ready to hike to where I suggested they stay tonight. They had a really wet night last night and were happy to hear that the day was supposed to be only windy, not wet.



Then Ellen and I headed in the other direction. We didn't really want to "crash" their party. It was chilly, but just a great day for a hike. You can see that the leaves are really starting to come down now- the forest floor is carpeted with orange and brown. This hemlock grove was really pretty.



At one place, the trail comes really close to the South Branch of the Pere Marquette River. This is the same river that I show you quite often, but it's not the main stream. However, this joins the full river before it goes through the Scottville Park or near my house- the places I show you most often.



From just a few days ago, when the interesting things to see were just overwhelming the senses, we now have to look with different eyes and look for variations in texture or shape, or spots of remaining color. Every once in a while one will find a leaf that's all out of proportion to others. This is a black oak leaf. Look at it compared to all the ones behind it!



Tomorrow- a few more of those interesting details.

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Oddities on the Corner

Maggie and I did a road walk today because the fields are so wet. Here are the odd finds from near the corner of Gordon Road.

First we have yarrow. The odd parts are the color, and that it's blooming. Wild yarrow is white. I think this must be a garden escape, but even so, it should have bloomed two months ago!



Next we have another field of pumpkins. To be honest, this isn't odd here at all, but it may look odd to you. No, the color is not wrong. This is a variety that a lot of farmers are growing that doesn't have the bright pumpkin color, but looks all faded. Maybe they taste better, keep better? who knows? Maybe I'll run into someone who knows.



This one made me laugh! It looks like fireworks. It's an ailanthus tree with the leaflets stripped off the stems of the compound leaves by the wind.



I was going to blog about something not outside... shucks, I forgot all about it after I took a walk and found pretty things!

	See Karner Blue Habitat for regular white yarrow
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It's the Oak's Turn

Oaks won't get in on the flashy color show. They are much more subtle and rich. They wait until the rest of the trees are pretty much done showing off, and then they bring on some rich tones.

Today, the sky was gray, the air was cooler and it eventually started to rain. It seems like the leaves have browned overnight and the rain will start to bring them down. Now it's the oak's turn. The first one is a white oak, with blunt lobes.



The other three are red oak, with pointed lobes







I'm working hard on paperwork for my job. Gotta scoot!

	See Copper Oaks
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Indian Summer 2011

Today was just about as perfect a day as you could wish for this side of heaven. It was everything Indian Summer should be. I was out driving around doing work and stopping all too often to take pictures. I'll have to take some time off my work log!

I just started taking videos, and wanted to make one that was really special to show off the day. Most of the images in this were taken today. All were taken this fall.

As things turned out, it took about an hour per minute of video to put it together. It's not nearly as good as I would like, but it's not bad. The music is really repetitive, but I had to find something that was free. I like the new options on Windows Video Maker that came with Windows 7 Pro. It took me a while to figure out how to get some of the things that I knew how to do in the XP version, but I'm getting there. I'd REALLY like a serious video making program.

I really hope you'll watch it. For those of you who've said that you'd like to experience autumn here, this is a pretty good sampling.

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