Month: February 2016

So, the witch hazel has me a little confused. Is it gonna make those nutlets this Spring?

I thought for the plenty of flowers I saw this fall that the dwarf trees would have lots of nuts on them before Spring.

I was surprised seeing the remnants of flowers at this late date in January.

(Photos taken 31 Jan 2016.)

The nuts that I saw in the fall must have lasted a whole year on the plant. Does that tell us that no animals really want to eat them? They should have been easy enough to find as the witch hazel trees are right on a lane that acts like a corridor connecting the agricultural field at the top of the ridge and the pond near the valley.

Can anybody clarify when witch hazels develop their fruit? In the meantime I’ll check out what the trees are doing as the weather warms up.

The different flavors of The Discovery Channel or The History Channel are the TV channels most likely to be left on all day in my house. I was going about a few chores just this week when I overhead a familiar name and so I turned my attention to the big screen.

Somebody was talking about skunk cabbage as something bears like to eat and when I looked up at the TV I saw a plant that was not what I know to be skunk cabbage. The H2 channel was running some silly program — yeah I’m not convinced — about Bigfoot.

The people researching the big-hairy-man-ape legend were in Washington State about to set up some trail cameras in hope of capturing an image of Sasquatch passing though the forest. Deer, a cougar and a bear were actually photographed in the baited location. Sorry, no Bigfoot!

Anyway, the location was the Western United States and the mountain habitat was forested. Snow was on the ground and the skunk cabbage leaves were already growing so it had to be late winter or early spring.

Note the stream in the image below from a History Channel program as it’s near the habitat of skunk cabbage.

Skunk cabbage grows in lowlands for the moisture. It may be surprising to know it can grow right in the middle of creeks and in standing water.

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