Woodswamp in January

Hey Ma! Here's the plant I was telling you about. I found it growing submerged in a pool under a fallen tree. Thanks to Dr. Robert Capers of UConn, I'm able to tell you it's a Sium suave, quite different than its summer form which flowers 2-6' above the water.

This area is just crawling with goldthread, Coptis trifolia. Its leaves are sort of thick and glossy.

When I tried to pull out a strand of rhizome,

I found it tightly clinging to rotting wood beneath the thick padding of sphagnum moss.

Here's a picture of the flower taken near the end of May. The tiny buttery-yellow appendages are nectar-bearing petals, the white petal-like ones the sepals. Isn't that cool?

In the drier areas of this woodswamp,

I saw lots of bristly or swamp dewberry, Rubus hispidus. At a glance it resembles the Coptis leaf.

You can see why its called "hispidus."


Navigating the mounds of sphagnum, clumps of tussock sedge, fallen trees and half-frozen water can be tedious. I lost my balance and grabbed a nearby tree which snapped off in my hand. As I steadied myself, I almost grabbed the closest tree to my right but glanced up in time to see it was a poison sumac, Toxicodendron vernix, a pretty tall one too. Lucky I noticed the whitish berries up there.

This is its trunk:

I found this shot of berries from last year at a quaking bog in Natchaug State Forest.

There's pleny of yellow birch, Betula alleghaniensis, dead and alive.

You can start a fire with the bark from dead trees, it will catch even when damp.

The treetop is loaded with slowly disarticulating cones full of seeds and scales.

I love to see them scattered across the snow but this indoor picture will have to do for now. The scales look like bird's feet!

I know this is getting a little long but I want to show you a coupla fungi seen on the way out.

and where the woodswamp meets the wet meadow, lives this beauty, Ilex verticillata, winterberry.

Walking home on the old woods road, I have to wonder if the barred owl is watching me today. I got this blurry, faraway capture this past September. Do they stick around all winter?