There’s something odd about these photos. I’ll let you wonder what is ‘wrong’ while I list some of the plants characteristics.

Arrowheads are aquatic plants usually found emerging from shallow water in ponds and streams. Occasionally I find them ‘high and dry’ on sandbars in creeks but their roots are always in saturated soil.

Sagittaria latifolia

The leaves are arrow shaped with 2 lobes but can vary greatly in width even on the same plant. Flowers have 3 rounded petals and are arranged on the stalk in whorls of 3.

Arrowhead flowers are pretty but it can be tough getting a good look at them in the wild. They may emerge from shallow water but that doesn’t mean the muck they generally grow in is easy to wade through. Here’s a close up look at the flowers without having to get all mucked up.

Arrowhead leaf

Muck, muck, duck.
Broad Leaved Arrowheads are also called Duck Potatoes. The tubers formed on the plant’s rhizomes are foraged by ducks and muskrats. The tuberw will float if you loosen them from the mud with a rake or hoe. If ya get desperate during the winter there’s always the possibility of finding a stash by raiding a muskrat house.

I’ll have to return to the swamp to see if I can harvest some duck potatoes. I need to get some photos of the tubers and may even harvest enough for a meal. ‘They’ say they’re good cooked.

OH YEAH. almost forgot.
The arrowheads in the photos are fine. What’s odd is the substrate they’re growing in. The only time I ever see arrowheads grow in gravel is when I transplant them into it. These were transplanted into the last stream I made. After a month they appear to have made themselves right at home. While the plant seems to be ‘dry’ the roots are completely submerged.

I hate to toot my own horn but I’m still too excited to keep quiet. It was a good week for my photos. I was asked twice for permission to print. No money involved but I do get my name in print, probably tiny and unnoticed but what the hey. I’m just tickled purple/red someone though the photos were good enough to use in a print publication.

The first request was from a biologist and researcher at the University of Oslo, Norway. He wants to use a photo of the red belt fungus – Fomitopsis pinicola in a book about the biodiversity of decaying wood. The proposed title is The Biological Diversity in Decaying Wood and should be available this autumn from Cambridge University Press. It will be going on my bookshelf.

Red belt fungus – Fomitopsis pinicola

image linked to a larger size – 1024 x 768
from the post on Nov 25, 2008 – Red Belt Fungus

The second request was from the American Nurseryman magazine, a trade publication for growers of ornamental plants, landscape professionals and independent garden centers. They are going to use my photo of Purple Flowering Raspberry – Rubus odoratus. I believe the photo will be in the next issue, doh, I forgot to ask. They are going to send me a copy though.

Purple Flowering Raspberry – Rubus odoratus

image linked to a larger size 1024 x 768
from the post on Aug 18, 2008 – Purple Flowering Raspberry

Both images are linked to a larger size (1024 x 768). They will open in a new window and you’re welcome to use them as desktop wallpaper even if they’re a bit dated by being so ‘small’.

I’ve stopped making wallpapers for a couple reasons. I don’t use them anymore since I got the prototype Google notebook (which is always in ‘Chrome’ the browser) and I’ve run out of space on my paid hosting account. (I’m using Picasa now to store images and the free gig of storage there is being eaten up faster than I imagined)

I am happy to get requests. If you see something you like I’d be more than willing to create a background image in the size you need.

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.