Tag Archive | Long Island
Wild “Apples” of the Forest
If you see a small tree with with white blossoms that looks similar to a wild rose flowers, you may have found a species of chokeberry. Its five petaled bloom with pink stamens attract bees responsible for pollination. These small trees are four to eight feet tall and are members of the rose family. These […]
Looks Like a Blueberry, But It is Not a Blueberry
A shrub often mistaken for high-bush blueberry because it grows in the same habitat and also has white bell shaped-blossoms that bloom in the spring is swamp sweet bells. Sometimes called fetterbush, its blooms are clustered at the tip of its branches in one sided four-inch long racemes. Bees, butterflies and other pollinators visit the […]
The Blue Huckleberry
There are many species of blueberries and huckleberries. In the last two blogs, I focused on several species of blueberry – lowbush blueberry and highbush blueberry and one species of huckleberry – the black huckleberry. There is another species of huckleberry that grows in the pine barrens and unlike the black huckleberry that has black […]
White Bells in the Pine Barrens
In pine barren forests on Long Island in New York, May is the time of year for an explosion of growth in the spring woodlands. The leaves of red maples, scarlet oaks, black gums and various heaths have fully extended to absorb the sun’s energizing rays. As I walk down a path through freshwater wetlands, […]
The Vanishing Butterfly
It is May on Long Island and as I walk down a trail that winds through oak woodlands, my attention is drawn to flashes of blue about a foot or two above the ground. As I get closer, I see that the flashes are from a metallic blue colored butterfly fluttering across the trail. I […]
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