Monthly Archives: October 2015

A native of Asia, Euonymus alatus was introduced as a garden plant around 1860 to the U.S. One of the main reasons for its popularity along with its name is the vivid red fall colors as seen here.  Because it is invasive and threatens native plant populations there is some effort […]

Things are drying out and skies are perfect for sunsets. I spend more time sky watching these days thankful for dry weather. On the east coast sunsets tend to be more colorful in fall and winter because the air is cleaner and drier. Though sunsets look dramatic to us I […]

This vine grows on top of other plants and can extend 20 feet though usually in my yard it stays below around six feet high. I imagine if I took out a ruler and traced its circuitous path woven through and over shrubs it might be 30 feet long or […]

Carpenter bees are the tiny handymen of the insect world. When the honeybees have a party and leave honey stuck all over everything, who do they call? If you look really closely you can see the bee sized hammer in the left front…. Just kidding. They are actually named because […]

It sounds like a word to describe Martians, but actually refers to trees that hold their leaves longer than other species. There seem to be as many theories about this as the number of leaves on an average beech tree. It may be they are just moving from evergreen to […]

We are having Indian summer with warm sunny days in early autumn. The leaves are still mostly green, so it feels in some ways as if the seasons haven’t turned.  Seeing this grasshopper I was reminded of the old Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper. The industrious ants […]

After all the recent rain I am more appreciative of sunshine, glad for something other than uniform damp gray. I am not taking sunny days for granted, spending more time admiring the sky. I was delighted at this sunset that seemed like a volcanic eruption of color. The mountain is […]

Years ago as a graduate student at Harvard I was part of a team documenting the first case of carnivory in bromeliads. We spent time in Venezuela studying Brocchinia reducta, a plant living in poor sandy and boggy soils that developed a way to eat insects as a means of […]

It is fantastic to finally have a full day of sunshine again! When my brother came to visit he was concerned about the drought from the dry summer here, since he planned to hike and camp along a local river. He casually wished for rain, wanting the river to be […]