Month: September 2011
Enjoying the Fall Forest
September 8, 2011
FacebookTwitteremailShare…What do I think of when fall comes? I imagine the abundance of the forest coming alive. I think of acorns falling from the trees and kids laughing as they race to pick them up. I make plans to continue my annual search for the elusive nut of the California Nutmeg, hoping even a single […]
Seasonal Plants to Enjoy this Fall
September 7, 2011
FacebookTwitteremailShare…Alumroot | Saxifrage Family Small-flowered Heuchera Heuchera micrantha Pink Heuchera Heuchera rubescens Other Names Heuchera, Coral Bells Habitat & Elevation Heuchera micrantha: moist, shady, rocky slopes below 8,200′; Heuchera rubescens: 4,900′ – 13,000′ Collection Root: fall; Leaf: spring, summer Bay, California | Laurel Family Umbellularia californica Other Names Oregon Myrtle, Pepperwood, California Bay Laurel Habitat […]
Fertile Valley
September 4, 2011
FacebookTwitteremailShare…Down the road beyond the bridge a fig tree, a fig giver of delicious fruit– free fruit grows right there, right past where we drive every day, but forgot to look. Forgot to know, when figs are ripe, blackberries deep black, and sweet, gooseberries, dandelions, acorns, nutty and pure, walnuts, mushrooms, textured, meaty. Even the […]
Wild Roses
September 2, 2011
FacebookTwitteremailShare…Driving an old levee road I’d not visited for some time, I chanced upon a bramble that looked different from the blackberries and wild grapes so common on the Delta. I caught a glimpse of a bright red berry, so surprising in November that I slowed my car and noticed it was a small, bulb-looking […]
The Fungus Will Soon Be Among Us
September 1, 2011
FacebookTwitteremailShare…Moving toward the cooler temperature of September brings a taste of fall. A cooler breeze earlier in the day, some dew in the meadow again, and before even a drop of rain…mushrooms. Most fungi do require lots of moisture, almost always precipitation or fog. But the exceptions are remarkable and massive. Perhaps in late august […]
