By Ken Moore

Winter in the woods is the best time to appreciate land contours, the striking differences of tree bark, the stature of individual specimens and the leaves of evergreen wildflowers.

It’s also the best opportunity to locate two obscure native orchids. Of the two, cranefly orchid, Tipularia discolor, is the more common. Most often you’ll spy a single leaf or two here and there, sometimes an informal line of them and infrequently a loose mat of them. The one-and-a-half-to-three-plus-inch-long ovate, or egg-shaped, leaves are evident now. The leaf is green on the upper surface and burgundy below, sometimes almost purple on both surfaces.
More »

A redbud floral garden carpet. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

The cool weather extension of the flowering of native trees and shrubs is resulting in a visual overload. The colorful images range from redbud flowers carpeting the ground, to the spectacle of whole roadside forest edges dripping with pale-violet hanging flower clusters of the deadly, non-native Chinese Wisteria, Wisteria sinensis.

More »

Pendulous male catkins of American Hazelnut. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

Be on the lookout for a multi-stemmed shrub that appears to be decorated with pendulous, 4-to-6-inch strips of yellow yarn. If you examine these streamers closely, gently tap several of them. You’ll be surprised by the clouds of pollen. The streamers are staminate catkins, which are pendulous clusters of petalless male flowers providing pollen for the much-less-obvious petalless female flowers.

The challenge of this botany lesson is to find the female flowers. You’ll have to look closely to find tiny swollen buds with clusters of rosy red threads protruding from the bud tips. These short red threads are the stigmas of the hidden female flowers. The exposed stigmas catch the passing pollen that is required for those flowers to produce hazelnuts.

More »