{"id":224,"date":"2013-03-20T00:44:53","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T04:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/?p=224"},"modified":"2014-04-07T00:59:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T04:59:29","slug":"urban-nature-walk-arboretum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/urban-nature-walk-arboretum\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban Nature Walk: Arnold Arboretum"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, I joined an Urban Nature Walk<\/a> in the Arnold Arboretum led by Jef. Last year at this time, a few magnolias, cherries, and red maples were blooming. This year, winter still held sway with temperatures in the 30s F, a cold wind, and patches of snow hiding in shadow.<\/p>\n

Despite the cold, we found a few plants in flower. Skunk cabbages (Symplocarpus foetidus)<\/i> were popping up near the marsh.<\/p>\n

\"Skunk
Skunk cabbage in bloom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rosegold pussy willow (Salix gracilistyla)<\/i>, native to East Asia, was also starting to bloom.<\/p>\n

\"Rosegold
Yellow in an oval of red on a bed of cotton.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\nWitch-hazels lined Meadow Road with their yellow-tail flowers.<\/p>\n
\"Red
The attached end of Japanese red witch-hazel (Hamamelis japonica f. flavopurpurascens)<\/i> flower petals tend toward red.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Chinese
Bright yellow of the Chinese witch-hazel (Hamamelis mollis)<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"'Arnold
The hybrid witch-hazel Hamamelis x intermedia 'Arnold Promise'<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We found many scattered snowdrops but only a few crocuses.<\/p>\n

\"Snowdrops
Snowdrops abounded.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Crocuses\"
Some of the few crocus plants we did see.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most trees, however, carried their branches bare. And the beech trees still held onto their ghostly white leaves.<\/p>\n

\"Retained
Beeches with retained leaves.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jef brushed aside leaf litter on Bussey Hill and discovered a couple of millipedes.<\/p>\n

\"Two
Two species of millipedes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And I found this fungus gnat (thanks to John Carr on Bug Guide<\/a> for the ID).<\/p>\n

\"Fungus
Fungus gnat with a very red head.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jef is especially interested in mushrooms at the moment and pointed out a piece of wood colored green by the green elf-cup fungus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Wood
Wood with green-stain fungus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thanks to Jef for the educational experience! I highly recommend Jef’s blog The Urban Pantheist<\/a>, especially his series on 365 urban species<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, I joined an Urban Nature Walk in the Arnold Arboretum led by Jef. Last year at this time, a few magnolias, cherries, and red maples were blooming. This year, winter still held sway with temperatures in the 30s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,80,190,79,83,81,86,493,77,43,85,6,84,78,5,82,75],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1382,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/1382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}