This Time of Year Again

Daffodils and Oemleria blooming - classic and sure signs of spring in Portland, OR

 

How Spring Happens Here, Part Two: Canopy closure

If we were to rename the local months in the style of Native Americans, April might be Moon of Bigleaf Expansion. Now the year's crop of giant leaves of Bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) is small but rapidly expanding; now the leafy curtain partitioning interior urban forest from exterior is unfolding.

How Spring Happens Here, Part One: Old leaves, new leaves

In our mild Pacific Northwest winters, some plants keep a portion of their leaves all through that rainy season. It's as if, in the fall, environmental signals aren't quite harsh enough to push plants into total dormancy. In spring, bursting buds push out fresh growth to contrast with the leaves still left from last year.

(Questions: how much energy is gained from wintered-over leaves? seems introduced plants from harsher climates are most likely to display this pattern, true? is there a pattern (location?) as to which leaves are kept? and, when are these kept leaves finally lost?)

precocious growth

Soft new leaves of the next growing season: waterleaf, Hydrophyllum
Spotted in Marquam 12/27/2014.

Equinox

The season is turning. A few weeks ago, a fresh layer of dropped leaves on the urban forest floor caught me by surprise -- most of them were still green.
 

It had been rather windy... but did the bigleaf maples care about the greenness they had yet to take back?

 

Some of that green is wanted by someone; they munched out the tasty softer bits between the veins of this red alder leaf.

 

Just a few days later, actual canopy color change seemed to hit the maples all at once.

While many things expanded to huge this summer season, not everything reached its full potential. As I began preparing a long neglected summer garden for its next season, this tiny cucumber was discovered beneath larger leaves.

season rolls on

In the forest, Oemleria is letting go of her leaves. Fast to get started on spring, quick to begin fall...

While thimbleberry still has scars from a spring hailstorm.

 

In the garden, pumpkins have long outgrown their hole-punched leaves, zucchinis hide and grow to surprising size + first ripe tomato!

Petal Sepal Confusion

How do plants keep petals and sepals separate? I found a trillium (Trillium ovatum) that doesn't.

This is a trillium, its three originally white petals fading pink in late spring. The petals rest on three pointed green sepals. Below the flower are three large photosynthetic organs, which I just learned are technically not leaves, but bracts!

And this is a trillium that looks to have merged its petals and sepals into one structure. Huh.

Nettles 2014

Last day of February, new moon, mostly sunny and rather warm. Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) letting out tiny leaves, Indian plum (Oemleria cerasiformis) raising amazing candelabras of flame-green leaves. 

And nettles -- still slightly small, but their unique flavor strong and welcome: stings into spring!

(Things are a little slower than 2010 so it seems)

Spring Indian plum candelabra

Nettling grounds

Stinging nettles (Urtica dioica)

Marquam in the Snow

 

The eve of Snowpocalypse 2014 was cold and clear. Before scurrying on to some place warm, I stopped by Eagle Point, a mysterious spot and unsigned park.

Notice the rhododendron leaves above my bike - they're tucked down and curled under - yes, it was very cold.

Next afternoon the snow started to fall. And actually stick. And build. Here we see cars flooding down the hill from OHSU, getting out before steep hill roads grow more difficult.

 Immediately adjacent to machine madness, Marquam was calmly taking on the light dusting.

Usually bright, smiling, and green in cool, wet winter weather, licorice fern curled up in the cold. Was it simply drying out, or utilizing dry weather for spore dispersal, or both? Anyway, check out those sori!

 

 The next day, we had accumulation.

 Mini-mountains of snow mounded on spiky holly leaves.

This is a snow-topped, ivy-covered snag of some sort. Strange beast.

On Monday, things began to melt. Sheets of ice were slipping from the Marquam shelter roof.

And by Tuesday, the snow had its sentencing - warmer temperatures were in. Many urban streams were running chocolate-mud brown.

A record of strong foot traffic was kept by the snow... despite, or because of, the snow.

This 'sneckdown' shows there could be room for a bike lane or sidewalk (or raised bike path-sidewalk combination) along the short section of SW Sam Jackson Park Rd leading to the park's main entrance. More space allocated for bikes and pedestrians here would make accessing the park by non-car a lot less sketch.

After windy woods

Went for a walk a few days ago after a windy night in the urban forest.

Lots of material had been shook loose from the canopy. Including this nest:

Ivy is showing its winter colors.

While licorice fern stays a light green.

 

The sun shines briefly but brightly through the cold, open canopy.

So, this is my first attempt to layer a short exposure over a long exposure to create an image with more depth. It's just slightly unaligned.

gardens still growing

My small plot at the PSU community garden is a micro-patch of vegetable plants turned jungle these days. Kale, parsley, chard, and carrot hold flowers and seeds on stems much taller than I, pea vines finding their way through the mess, california poppy and st. johns wort flowers lighting up the understory. The dish of water I normally maintain at center has become swamp, but fresh water is still to be found - as in this dock leaf cupping rain water into a tiny lake:

 So overgrown it has become, fairies actually moved in. Can you believe that?

 This is the view from their skylight

And these carrot flowers float about in great balls like spaceships made of snow, releasing drifts of powdery pollen

 

 Back at the other garden plot, giant-vegetable-dreams are realized in this fabulous lettuce (key included for scale).

 Delicious beet success, short of soccerball-size, not short on sweet

Beets and Kale, a variety of leaf texture

 Lentils! Handful of dry lentils thrown in the dirt... add water, time, warmth and sun - the seeds show some of their programmed secrets. Fine leaves and tiny pods, nice to meet you long-eaten staple.

Blueberry Leaves

Why do leaves turn colors before dropping off in the fall? These are blueberry leaves (genus Vaccinium) . They're red where they received sun, but yellow where they were covered by another leaf.

Maybe the red is a pigment that helps with photosynthesis, but also works as a sunscreen. Perhaps the green pigments are able to be reabsorbed by the plant, but the reds aren't. But if during the summer both pigments are in the leaf, how does the green cover up the red? Perhaps the green changes to red in the fall.

I wonder what they looked like during the summer.