Stormwater

With lady and maidenhair ferns, inside-out flower, and red huckleberry adding their chords to the growing symphony, the wood is really greening, but the canopy is still open.

Just before sunset of this very rainy day, the golden hour lit the woods vivid; the air was calm and sweet, but through the leprechaun scene a thick muddy snake rushed to the Willamette.

Gathering water from the streets and roofs farther up the hill, the small creeks swelled with runoff, gathered momentum, and thundered through the park. 

Chewing the bank at every turn, the rushing stream sculpted its channel. I could actually hear small rocks caught in the water slamming the insides of a metal culvert.  

 

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)

February Fungus in the Urban Forest

Various fungus found in the urban forest this month. Some are perennial but others have just come up. Does the urban heat island expand the mushroom season of the urban forest, by bringing warmer temperatures deeper into the rainy season?

Frilly orange polypores, exploding out of an (alder?) log

Fresh, beautiful, black mushroom

 

Massively varnished, impressively layered conk

Itsy bitsy bright orange fungus

An old puffball, with moss growing out of it! Still expired spores when I poked it.