Tag Archive | Nature Story
The Vine That Grabs You
My first encounter with this thorny vine was as a 10-year old boy traipsing through the woodlands on Long Island in New York. It formed impenetrable thickets in the wetlands near the house I grew up in. Its sharp thorns caught my clothing and it did not easily let go. I eventually broke free, full […]
Orange Bells in the Forest
The other day, I talked about walking through a pine barrens woodland where I saw blueberries in the understory of the oak forest. (See: “White Bells in the Pine Barrens”.) In addition to the white bells, I saw the reddish bells of another shrub with similar attributes growing amongst the blueberries – the black huckleberry. […]
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 […]
The Elusive Fern
It is almost impossible to see this fern unless you get on your hands and knees and look for it in peat bogs, sphagnum hummocks and wet interdunal swales. That is because this fern is tiny. It grows only to a height of three to four inches. Additionally, it does not look like your […]
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