The first blooms of this year are a good week late compared to last year. It was a real horse race this year with 3 garden flowers in the running. Crocus, Vinca minor and Winter aconite ran bud to bud. It took a photo finish to declare a winner. Winter Aconite was the favorite, followed by Crocus with Vinca considered the dark horse in the race.

The first bud photographed was Crocus. It’s still pretty uptight and not quite ready to open up yet. It did manage to show but it was a couple of lengths behind the others. I knew the race was on when I spotted it. When I see these ready to bloom the Winter Aconite at my friend’s house are likely to have already flowered.

I don’t know how this pair of crocus managed to get into the back field but they’ve naturalized. After the 3 or 4 years I’ve seen them there I half expected to see more. They may be surviving but they’re not propagating. I think the quack-grass is giving them a hard time.

Winter aconite – Eranthis hyemalis

The favorite is just opening.
If the sun was out the Winter Aconite might have been a little faster out of the gate.

Two flowers opened just enough to get a peek inside but not enough to win this years race.

…for a look at the flower fully opened you can check out the post from last year
March 17, 2010 – Winter Aconite

…and the winner is

Periwinkle – Vinca minor

I can’t say it was a complete surprise. Every year a vinca bloom or two opens around this time. This year it was just a bit earlier while the winter aconite was holding back waiting for the sun.

…and now for something completely different.

It’s been (I hate to say) cold. Daytime temps have been hovering just below freezing and dipping into the single digits at night. Ice season isn’t over yet.

A puddle had an invisible (to the camera) thin layer of ice suspended above the water’s surface. The ‘bubbles’ are actually water droplets clinging to the underside of the ice.

Snow melt is feeding multiple little run-off streams while the cold nights attempt to hold back the flow. The result is minature frozen waterfalls. Pookey approved

I took the next 2 photos yesterday while the sun popped out for a minute. I need to go back and see if I can get a better Lichen Landscape photo but this one will do for now. This landscape will be easy to find again since it’s on a rock pile in the middle of a corn field.

Of course I can’t go out back with out seeing a deer in the corn field. What I didn’t catch with the camera were the other 4 deer behind the rise. I might have been able to out wait this deer in order to stalk it if it wasn’t for my wildlife repellant. Pookey never saw them but they sure did notice her.

…picking up where I left off

Remember? Dog and I were headed out back. The snow is still too deep for easy walking so we limited ourselves to the stonewalls. Besides the rocks are about the only things showing signs of life right now.

Pixie Cups are lichen podentia.
In simple terms, pixie cups are the exposed erect reproductive organs of a low life form.

Like moss, lichens can hardly wait for the snow to melt to do the hokey pokey.

Moss thing-a-ma-jigs are sprouting like mad as the snow recedes. I believe the red-brown spore pods are Fire Moss.

I’m not even going to guess what type of moss the green pods are. They look a bit immature.

I came across a moss I don’t remember seeing before. It reminds me of the scaly ‘leaves’ of white cedar.

The other stuff
The snow had melted under the red pine trees and I found an old puffball just waiting to be poked. I did get a nice spore cloud but wasn’t able to poke and shoot at the same time.

A sap booger waited to be picked on a red pine.

Yes, I picked it. It’s going into my fire starting kit. I plan on playing with fire again, soon.

Hemlock Varnish Shelf – Ganoderma tsugae

One of the freakest fungi around here (IMO) is the Hemlock Varnish Shelf mushroom. What makes it freaky is the unpredictable shapes it can grow into. One may look like a perfectly normal shelf mushroom while the next may look like a mutated appendage growing from a stump. On not so uncommon occasions alien sprouts can be seen emerging from the forest floor.

As the name implies – Hemlock Varnish Shelf mushrooms grow on Hemlock trees. They are annual but many will over winter in good shape. The normal shelf shapes are most likely to over winter well. This one is typical – in other words it’s a bit of an odd shaped shelf growing on a Hemlock.

A look at the underside reveals the pore surface.

To see other shapes this mushroom forms – go to a post from last June – Fungus Fun .
The photos on that post show the ‘varnish’ finish on the upper surface. It also depicts some measures you may have to undertake if alien sprouts show up in your area.

I did make it to the Middle Branch of the Grasse River. This is a view looking across the river to the Stillwater Hunting Club. Most of the land along the river here is ‘private’ but the state does provide access to the river in some places along the dirt road where they run alongside each other.

My son-in-law is a member so I got to cross the bridge as a guest. The club is about 30 miles south and 600 feet higher in elevation than home. Ya wouldn’t think such short distances would make much of a differece but I could feel winter’s grip was firmer, down here?, up here? There wasn’t much besides the river to photograph but I did manage to find the Wintergreen I went looking for.

Wintergreen – Gaultheria procumbens

This is a creeping evergreen shrub that spreads by underground stems capable of establishing fair sized colonies in the right conditions. In my observations it seems to prefer well drained sandy soil on the acidic side in the shade of mixed woods where Hemlocks are in the majority. As you can see the berries winter over in good shape.

Yep, this is the original Wintergreen once used to flavor candies and gum. Crushing the leaves releases that old familiar smell and is a good cure for my cabin fever.

Last but not least was a bit of Lichen reaching out. I’ve already mentioned in previous posts this is the Lichen reproductive season. These weird erections are a type of reproductive structure built by the symbiotic partners, algae and fungus.