First Day of Skunk Cabbage

Happy First Day of Skunk Cabbage! It was yesterday, actually, and was only made possible by a friend inviting me to lunch with her at our favourite Chinese restaurant. I suggested stopping by the bog on the way home, a little out of the way, but a short walk. The Skunk Cabbage was not as dense or as far along as I'd hoped, but it was present, the first I've observed this year. A change in the wind brought the scent to us as we stood on the trail, not daring to go down into the bog where we could see standing water beneath the deceptive mat of old reed-canary grass. The bog is filling in with the invasive grass, as well as blackberry vines, a long and slow process to be sure, and not likely to overtake the swampy ground in my lifetime. For now, the Skunks are there to welcome Spring.

Sarcoscypha Coccinea

Day 161: Sarcoscypha coccinea typically fruits in the cooler months of winter and early spring, and may be found in damp woodlands where there is an abundance of forest debris. Often, only the cup is visible through the leaf litter, but digging down will reveal its attachment to a piece of decaying wood. The lower surface of the cup is covered with fine hairs ("tomentum") and the stipe (stalk), when present, is also tomentose. Younger specimens may not exhibit a stipe. Also known as Scarlet Elf-cup, Sarcoscypha is purportedly edible but tough. Thanks, I'll just leave them there where they can serve as stoplights on elfin highways and byways. We wouldn't want traffic jams in Elfdom now, would we?

Usnea Longissima

Day 159: Another of my favourite lichens, Usnea longissima grows in long, unbranched strands and resembles a Christmas garland in structure. Authorities will tell you that the strands can reach ten feet in length. I have personally traced one back at least twelve feet from its broken tip, and more was hopelessly tangled in the branches of the tree where it was growing. This elegant lichen is sensitive to pollutants and can be found only in areas where the ambient air is free of them, a good sign if you're hiking for your health. As a sidebar, I must inform you that the species was placed in the rank Dolichousnea in 2004, separating it from Usnea due to subtle differences in its morphology. As much as I like to keep current with taxonomy, this one is too ingrained in memory to change. For those of you who may be curious about the etymology, "dolicho-" means "long," so the new name translates as "Long, long Usnea." At least it's accurately descriptive.

Schizophyllum Commune, Split-Gill Fungus

Day 157: If the peculiar "rotting lace" surface of Schizophyllum commune doesn't clue you in to its identity, you have only to turn over one of the fruiting bodies to examine the gills. Commonly called "Split-Gill Fungus," the lengthwise splits are easily visible with the naked eye, but here I have included a microscopic view (inset, right) so that you can see them more clearly. Schizophyllum commune is perhaps one of the most common fungi on the planet. In fact, it can be found on every continent with the exception of Antarctica. Although it is occasionally parasitic on living wood, it is primarily a decomposer, occurring on tree trunks and limbs already in the early stages of breaking down. This particular specimen gave me something to ponder. It was growing on a heavy Doug-fir limb, and the trees surrounding it for at least a hundred feet on all sides were Red Alder. How had that one limb come to be in their midst? No windstorm could have carried it there without damage being evident in the canopy. My sole theory is that it was brought in by a maintenance crew for bridge/trail repair, then left behind when it wasn't needed. In any event, Schizophyllum had found a happy home.

Favourite Lichens Twofer

Day 155: No hike on the South Swofford Trail is complete without stopping to admire the Menegazzia terebrata, a greenish-grey foliose lichen whose lobes are perforated, supplying its common name of "Tree Flute." It's one of my favourites, and as I think about it, I suspect that my preference for certain lichen species may be based in the sound of their names. What a mellifluous word is "Menegazzia!" I was rolling it around on my tongue as I circled each Red Alder alongside the trail, looking for the optimal specimen to photograph, rejecting those which were too dry or in too much sun, when around on the shady north face of one tree I spotted this small rosette. Then I noticed another favourite, Graphis scripta, aka Script Lichen, its short, black lirellae etched into the bark like graffiti. "It's a twofer!" I said. "It doesn't get any better than this!" Okay, I admit I'm easily amused, but the South Swofford Trail never ceased to supply me with objects of interest, no matter when I walk it, or how many times. More will be appearing in my posts over the coming days.

At The End Of The Trail

Day 166: Yesterday was a beautiful day for a hike, albeit rather chilly in the shaded woods on the north side of a ridge. For the first half mile or so, I was wishing I'd grabbed my mittens, but switching my trekking pole from one hand to the other occasionally while keeping the free hand in a pocket solved the problem. I hadn't really intended to walk the entire South Swofford Trail, but as usual, once I start, I find it hard to quit. The stillness and solitude of this little "nature walk" is unlike any other I've found locally, owing in part to the regulation which prohibits combustion motors on the reservoir pond. Small farms and homes dot the north shore sparsely, and only the occasional dog's bark or voice carries across the water. It is a good place to listen to waterfowl gabbling, to woodpeckers drilling, to Pacific Wren singing his complex, lilting aria or even to hear the splash of a trout's rise for an insect on the surface of the lake. The end of the trail is reached in 1.25 miles when it debouches into a grassland which remains deceptively boggy until the driest part of the year. A step or two beyond this point in the current season would overtop a boot with water, preventing access to a patch of Skunk Cabbage at the west edge. I found no early wildflowers blooming in the woods; no Cardamine or Oxalis buds, only small leaves, but I had come for Skunk Cabbage and quietness, and found both in plenty.

First Day Of Skunk Cabbage, Officially

Day 165: I do hereby officially declare today as the First Day of Skunk Cabbage. I say "officially" because I spotted a single spathe during my hike a week ago, but couldn't get close enough to take a photo. This image comes from my favourite bog on the South Swofford Trail, and I am happy to say that it was much boggier than it's been in several years, so much so that even if I had had my muck boots with me, I would not have ventured any closer for fear of being permanently mired. That said, the official First Day of Skunk Cabbage is a bit late this year, not only for me, but for Lysichiton americanus as well. The flowers are still young and small, and the leaves are barely beginning to show. After visiting the bog, I continued on the trail to its western end, a delightful if somewhat chilly walk in complete solitude with very few sounds penetrating the stillness. That in itself is worth celebrating.

Should Be A No-Brainer

Day 165: Believe it or not, the majority of people I meet on the trail cannot tell these two plants apart. It should be a no-brainer. One has four petals, the other five. One has shamrock-shaped leaves, the other a small compound leaf with three parts. Yes, they both are whitish (in some cases verging on pink or lavender), the petals of both exhibit darker purple lines, and they emerge at roughly the same time in the spring and enjoy the same types of habitat. The three ladies I met on the South Swofford Trail a few days ago asked me,"What are the little pink flowers?" When I replied, "Which ones?" they could only say, "The ones we've seen growing beside the trail today." Since we were standing in an area where Cardamine substantially outnumbered specimens of Oxalis, it took a little backtracking before I could point out the differences. While some people have a natural gift for observation, it can be learned by almost anyone and honed like any other skill. It just takes practice. Counting petals is a good place to start.

Allogona Townsendiana

Day 163: You really have to be careful where you step when you're walking the South Swofford Trail. It is home to a large population of Allogona townsendiana, aka the Oregon Forest Snail. Measuring roughly an inch across, these helpful little critters are serious players in the decomposition cycle of the Pacific Northwest's moist woodlands, gobbling up leaf litter and other forest debris, breaking it down in their digestive systems and releasing it again in a form which adds essential nutrients to the soil. It may not be Nature's most prestigious job opportunity, but somebody's got to do it. Thanks, Allogona!

End Of The Trail

Day 162: At last I can say that I have been to the very end of the South Swofford Trail, to the point where Cowlitz Wildlife management ends and private property begins. As many times as I've hiked this little-known path, I hadn't been willing to sacrifice skin to salmonberries and other brush in order to gain the last tenth of a mile or so. As with most trails which see limited maintenance, spring is the best time to attempt thicket penetration, and as it turned out, it was more open than I'd expected. I passed through without even realizing I'd done so, and when the trail debouched into open grassland, it took me entirely by surprise. I did attempt to go a bit further on a couple of game trails, but since I did not want to trespass on private land, I turned around after a hundred feet or so. The "meadow" was quite soggy despite its angle, so I did not go all the way out to the lake, but I did visit a second lovely Skunk Cabbage bog at great risk of filling my boots with water. Combustion boat motors are not allowed on Swofford Pond, so the quietness of this location was restorative. I heard to flocks of ducks lifting from the water, the occasional distant bark of a dog or fisherman's voice carrying from the far shore, and was not troubled by human contact until halfway back to the car when I met a group of three women hikers. Once they determined the purpose of my presence, they held me captive for ten minutes, asking me to identify this plant and that, and then graciously thanked me for sharing my knowledge before they went on. Although I'd have preferred to have the trail to myself, I came away feeling that this one brief encounter was a fair price to pay for the time I'd had in much-needed solitude.

Menegazzia On Alnus

Day 161: The Menegazzia species are some of my favourite lichens, partly because they are relatively rare, but largely just because they're cute. Variously known as "tree-flute" or "porthole lichens," they are characterized by round perforations in the lobes as shown in this photograph. There are two species which occur here in the Pacific Northwest, M. terebrata and M. subsimilis. The medulla of subsimilis (above) shows a pink/orange/red reaction when dabbed with Clorox, and indeed the specimen I took from this rosette did react accordingly. Now I did say Menegazzias were "relatively rare." Not so on the South Swofford Trail where, in certain spots, they appear on almost every Alnus trunk in sight. They are particularly attractive (and more noticeable) at this time of year when the centers of its rosettes glow yellowish-green and are bounded by fresher blue-green growth. The lobes are quite small for a foliose lichen, usually under 2 mm in width. Those of M. terebrata are somewhat wider, and of course M. terebrata does not show a C+ reaction.

First Day Of Skunk Cabbage Hike

Day 160: I was very concerned that the First Day of Skunk Cabbage was going to slip by without formal observation, but I managed to get out on the South Swofford Trail today to visit my favourite bog. It was wetter than it's been in the last several years, so I kept to dry ground rather than changing into muck boots, and then I continued on to the very end of the trail where I found another Skunk Cabbage bog almost equally as nice. However, once again, the ground was very soupy and I didn't quite reach the bog before deciding I'd better quit while I was ahead. I managed to stay upright for the entire hike which, if memory serves, is something of a record for my early-spring forays into the bogs. Happy First Day of Skunk Cabbage!

Crow At Sulphur Creek Falls

Day 151: I first visited Sulphur Creek Falls in 2005. I learned of its existence through geocaching. It took me two tries to get there, the first failing when I tried to follow the instructions provided on the cache page and wound up in a tangle of devil's-club, but the second successful after a friend counselled me to "use your woods sense" to pick my own route. You see, there is...or was...no trail to this magical place at the end of a box canyon. Elk and deer trails criss-crossed a steep hillside, but as animal trails have a wont to do, they often disappeared without warning. Natural hazards abound here: mud, thickets of devil's-club and salmonberry, fallen trees and so on. But once I had attained my goal and found the cache, I kept going back every year. Very few other people even made an attempt to reach the cache. The cache owner disappeared from the GC website and finally, after several years of maintaining the cache myself, I petitioned to adopt it. It was a long process, but eventually GC turned it over to me.

That said, every subsequent year brought new obstacles. There were landslips, more fallen trees. And there was evidence of human activity which I did not like: litter, and ropes put in place to make the descent to the base of the falls easier. Every time I went in, I cleared it out. If a little old lady didn't need a rope to get there, the young bucks (human) who were partying at the site and leaving their beer bottles behind could certainly make it without assistance. Then a flood came and changed the landscape even more. I had to relocate the cache about 150' from its original location. However, even that site was not secure. Last year, a large cedar tree slid down the hillside, its massive root ball coming to rest when it hit the two trees my revised cache was between. The cache was still accessible, but barely.

A few days ago, I made a decision to archive the cache due to two factors: increasing erosion (both natural and human-caused), and my age. You don't see very many tiny women at the three-quarter century mark prowling around in trailless and somewhat dangerous terrain. But I had one last mission which took me to Sulphur Creek Falls again yesterday: remove the cache container. After a year of voluntary lockdown, I hoped I still had the steam for the trip. "Slow and easy," I told myself time again as I struggled up the slopes using roots and branches and the occasional clump of ferns to leverage myself up one more step, mindful that the muddy ground was likely to give way and send me 50-100' down to creek level if all three of my anchor points failed. "Bush-belays" are not my favourite climbing tools, but I'll use them if nothing else is available. I went nose-to-mud twice before I reached the base of our local version of the Devil's Tower, but the challenge didn't end there. Once up to safe ground, I had the descent to cache level ahead of me, perhaps the most dangerous part of the trek. In fact, I had to find an alternate route from my usual, owing to yet another landslide. I retrieved the cache container and then made my way from this point (photo) to the base of the falls, up and around that pile of lumber behind me, and then back down again. One more "up" took me back to the base of Devil's Tower, from which I descended without incident (not counting a muddy bum) to the nice, flat South Swofford Trail, continuing there on a leisurely walk for a mile and half almost to its end, glad that my multiple missions were all complete. It is unlikely that I will return to Sulphur Creek Falls again.

First Day Of Skunk Cabbage

Day 150: I thought I knew what day today might be, but in order to confirm my hypothesis, I needed to make a serious Trip Out to visit Ma Nature. Only her phenological calendar could show it for sure. Still, I have been having a run of bad luck/unpleasant events lately, and because I also had in mind a more adventuresome outing than a visit to the bog (American usage, please!), I was a little apprehensive. Would I wind up hurting myself to cap off the series? Or could I possibly break the run by doing something fun and exciting? I was deliberating as I stepped out on the front porch to feel the temperature, and Pacific Wren's long, burbling song came to my ears from the brush pile. That clinched it. Pacific Wren is a trusted advisor, and he had just indicated to me that I needed to spend some time in his woods. I came in and immediately started packing my pack.

I saw no Skunk Cabbage as I drove over the Divide, nothing in any of the usual swampy areas. Maybe I was on a wild skunk chase after all? But as I approached my "best bog" on the South Swofford Trail, I saw a spot of yellow and, minding my footing in the mud as I got closer, a shaft of sunlight fell on a pristine example of my mother's favourite flower. It was indeed the First Day of Skunk Cabbage, a day almost as important to me as September Morn.

Then I started up the hill toward Sulphur Creek Falls. I had archived my last geocache and needed to pull the container. Over the last several years, both natural and human-caused erosion have made this trek even more perilous than before, the "trail" (such as it is, made by deer and elk) crossed by numerous fallen trees and, in the steeper sections, landslides. In fact, I found the cache almost buried by the huge root mass of a tree which had slid down the embankment. I was able to retrieve the container, but only barely.

I made my way back down without incident and then continued on out the South Swofford Trail nearly to its end, where I sat on the corner of a bridge in the company of one small Skunk Cabbage blossom and a horde of Blue Duns (well, that's what we call them in fly-fishing). Then it was back to the car and home, where yet another catastrophe appeared to loom into view, but thanks to Kevin's internet skills, I was able to restore my computer's health by blowing the dust out of the transformer plug. Have I gotten around Murphy's plans for my future? I hope so.

Nature's Ear, Auricularia Auricula-Judae

Day 144: It would seem that word of my endeavours to stimulate interest in the natural sciences has reached the ear of Nature herself. It's nice to know Ma's listening. This delightful discovery from the South Swofford Trail was the most ear-like example among dozens of a spring cup-fungus known as Auricularia auricula. It is purportedly edible, but you won't see me going there since most cups are rather leathery even in their tenderest moments. In our area, it occurs on both elder and maple, more commonly on decaying wood than on living. The interior of the cup is pinkish-brown to brown in age, and the exterior darkens as the fungus matures. It has a lengthy and tedious taxonomic history, and indeed its proper classification is still under debate. In some mycological references, it may be listed as "Auricularia auricula-judae," i.e., Judas' Ear, one of many other common names, some of which are less than racially sensitive. Other sources may refer to the North American species as "Auricularia americana." It is currently listed in the Burke Herbarium as Auricularia auricula, so I'm sticking with that.

Menegazzia Terebrata

Day 140: You know how it goes. You spot something you've never seen before...a Greater Spotted Purple Jayfinch or a Volkswagen painted to look like a coconut jellybean...and you think, "Wow! Look what I found!" Then in the next week or two, you see ten or twenty more of them (whatever "they" are). At the very least, it makes you wonder if there is a sudden proliferation of "them," or perhaps it inclines you to reevaluate your powers of observation. I don't know how many times I've walked past this particular Red Alder on the South Swofford Trail thinking, "Yeah, yeah, that's another Hypogymnia" as I swept by, but while on the trail earlier this week, its "rosettishness" inspired me to take a closer look. Hypogymnias don't typically form rosettes, but several superficially similar species do. Even from a distance of six feet, I could tell this was no Hypogymnia. No, it was in fact a Menegazzia, a genus I only recently observed for the first time in Olympia. How had I missed it every single other bloody time I'd walked past the Swofford tree? The perforations in the lobes were obvious, as were the powdery soredia. I nicked a small sample, dropped it in one of the test tubes I always carry and brought it home for analysis, where I confirmed it as Menegazzia terebrata, aka Tree Flute. Now I s'pose I'll be finding them everywhere. You won't hear me complain.

First Day Of Skunk Cabbage

Day 137: Happy First Day of Skunk Cabbage! I thought I might be a bit ahead of the calendar since this event usually occurs in mid-March, but the swamp behind Swofford Pond served up about two dozen fully open spathes. Lots more were just poking through and I had to be very careful where I put my feet as I made my way across from firm spot to firm spot. Having achieved my primary goal for the day, I then went on to hike two of Cowlitz Wildlife's nature trails in the area for a total of roughly four miles, searching for lichens and fungi. It was a productive day, although now I'm faced with the task of identifying species, several of which did not leap out of the field guides on the first pass. That said, life would be rather boring if I had no botanical puzzles to attempt to solve.

Toothless

Day 166: We have quite a few species of snail in the Pacific Northwest and among the most common is Allogona townsendiana, the Oregon Forest Snail. The shell is brown and marked with thin, light lines when these snails are young, but the colour is only a papery layer which peels off in age, revealing a blue-white base. That said, Allogona can be confused with other species in age, and the most definitive feature for field identification is the absence of a tooth-like structure in the aperture. The Oregon Forest Snail is quite toothless!

Height Matters

Day 165: It's hard for me to make any progress along the trail when it's flanked by alder trees because that's where I'm likely to find one of my favourite lichens, the tiny (1/4" long) dashes of Graphis scripta. That said, I have made an observation which has so far held true: height matters. I always have to bend down to locate it. I have not yet seen it more than 3.5" from the ground regardless of exposure. None of my field guides mention this phenomenon and indeed it may not be universal. There are still a lot of alders out there which I haven't checked. I may never get where I'm going!

Unexpected Lesson

Day 164: Yesterday as I was reading "Las Flores" (a juvenile book in Heinemann's "Lee y aprende" series), I was surprised by a photo of Skunk Cabbage in the section on scents. "But are there flowers that stink like skunks? In the United States, they call these 'Skunk Cabbage.'" Of course this has to be a literal translation of the plant's common name since they undoubtedly don't grow in the hotter climates where Spanish is spoken, and it certainly wasn't a term covered by any of my dictionaries, so I was delighted to find a way to refer to it. It was one of the things which ran through my mind while I was exploring my favourite bog.

DuoLingo (an on-line language tutor) focuses primarily on grammar, but unfortunately centers around a vocabulary rather alien to my way of life: relationships and social activities. My personal Spanish vocabulary is much larger because I have read books like "Las Flores." I can talk about stamens and pollen and seeds, none of which are within DuoLingo's database. Likewise from my Mega Enciclopedias, I know the names of animals and birds and could discuss their habitats and the threats they face with the same ease that I can translate Duo's social scenarios. Unfortunately, the "science" section in Duo is very near the end of the Spanish lessons, and to get to it, I have to pass through "feelings," "sport," "business," "spiritual,"  and "politics," none of which hold the least bit of interest for me. I am currently at 49% proficiency (the highest score Duo awards is 50-60%), so I am not sure where I will go from here.