The Galling Occurrence of a Fun Guy

Spring rains have brought on the "blooming" of the cedar-apple rust galls.  I know I've previously described this fascinating disease, but since it is... well... fascinating, it bears repeating.  This gelatinous ball of orange horns adorning cedar branches -- and they are ALL OVER right now, as though they have been decorated for Christmas by a strange alien -- is one part of the life cycle of a fungus that affects both the cedars and apple trees.  Its lifecycle requires two hosts living in proximity (and by proximity, I mean within the few-mile radius of each other that spored can blow in the wind).

These orange protrusions, called telia, emerge from tight brown galls on cedar trees during spring rains.  Over the course of April and May(ish), they can swell and dry up many times as wet weather comes through.  When they do, the horns emit spores into the air.  These blow in the wind until they find their other host -- an apple or crabapple tree at the vulnerable point in their own lifecycle when they're flowering and leaves are new.  (Also hawthorns and quinces can be infected).  Soon, splotches of discoloration appear on the leaves, yellow, turning orange/rusty, then black as well.  Crabapples are very common around here, and hawthorns as well.  I've been looking for symptoms on them, but, notably, haven't found any.  While the infection spreads within hours, it takes about a week, I think, for the spots to appear, so I'll keep looking.  At any rate... In late summer, these rusty splotches release spores, which, born upon the winds, find... you guessed it!  Cedar trees!

When spores land on cedar trees, it takes much longer for symptoms to develop than it does on the apple.  At first it's a hard, small, brown gall.  In fact, the fungus overwinters this way.  The telia don't actually swell to their gelatinous, alien-like arms until their second year of cedar infection!  (And after that, they're done.)  Most of the time, what you'll see on cedars is just brown, woody protuberances that pretty well blend in.  Upon inspection, they do have little pock-like marks that are where the individual telia will come out.  

The cedar-apple rust fungus can be pretty devastating for apple crops, so it's generally viewed as a negative, but... come on, those crazy things are pretty cool looking, right? 

Another notable spring development -- oak trees (bur oak shown here) have tiny, translucent leaves... perfect, 1-inch miniature versions of their future selves...

Wonderful Warmth

After Saturday disappointed both me -- who was looking forward to a good run outside in the light of day -- and multitudes of trick-or-treaters by being chilly and solidly rainy all day long, Sunday dawned beautiful.  I took today off work and so I have had 2 free days to enjoy the unseasonable warmth (over 70 today!) and I have been taking full advantage.  In the last 2 days, I've walked/run about 30 miles, visited 5 forest preserves, and gotten a lot of yard work completed (although actually Chris beat me to the punch on that and did a lot while I was out running!)  I've  seen 3 species of hawks, crows and geese, blue jays, robins, countless small birds including a lot of juncos, which have returned. I've seen deer and chipmunks and squirrels and more... 

Here are a few photos to show what the days are like... In this one, I tried to capture the oak leaves that were falling falling falling as I went through the woods.  It was just a constant shower of dancing leaves -- they were twisting and twirling, spinning, floating, flipping and flopping (sometimes right onto my head).  Despite the fairly constant shower, it took me several tries to get a photo with a leaf actually visible floating through the air.  That the picture has the moon behind the oak branches is so much the better!

This photo shows how rapidly the trees are losing their leaves... quite a difference from last weekend and even mid-week!

I like this photo because it shows the carpet of leaves through which we were wading -- and it shows the long shadows (including of me) characteristic of this time of year.  This photo was taken not long after mid-day... and, with the time change, not long before sunset either!  Not too many hours between them!

Finally, because I can't resist... here are just a few of the fungi I saw:

We look forward to another couple of warm days (though I'll be at work) before the seasonal weather returns at the end of the week!

Weekend Update

Tall Coreopsis

These are among the many lovely yellow composites in the prairie right now.  

Also notable -- it's acorn-falling time.  I've been noticing them on the ground for a while, but I figure it's not really truly acorn season until one falls through the air and hits me.  That happened while I was running this weekend (a bur oak, too... those aren't small).  

Sixteen Days After

There is definitely starting to be a green tinge to the prairie -- and everything else... You know, that spring feeling, when you look off into the distance, and everything just seems green?  We're definitely in that time now.  Of course, I've determined that the spot where I've chosen to stand and photograph the prairie is right in front of the blackest spot left... ah, well...

And for good measure, here's a bur oak branch.  I noticed yesterday that even they have a green halo effect as the flowers emerge and leaves start their budburst.  I think of oaks as some of the last simple-leaf leaf-outs, so that's an important observation!  (Still waiting on some of the complex-leaved trees to do anything... my ash -- which we've been treating for years, so it's actually still alive and not succumbed to the borer -- has no leaves yet, nor the locusts outside the window.)

I realize I have been remiss about writing lately, in a time of year when the world seems to change every day. I can make excuses... I have been plagues by minor injuries and illnesses, as has my car. I have been on school trips. I have been extremely busy, what with this being such an important time of year for gardening, plus all of the above.

But the truth? I just haven't felt that much like writing, or taking pictures. When it becomes a chore...

And the world really is changing. I look out my window and see the first lilacs blooming. Just about everything is leafed out... even the oaks and the ashes have leaves at this point. Crabapples and redbuds are blooming. And it is still really cold. (Last week, we had a few days of pre-summer. In fact, it hit 90 in Chicago and the upper 80s where I was in Wisconsin. But that was just a tease, and then we had a weekend that didn't top 50 for even a single minute, and was wet to boot.) At least it's sunny today.

Georgia on my Mind

Earlier this week, we flew south, like confused birds, to get an early taste of spring on the Georgia coast. I had actually hoped for more of an early taste of summer... last week, I followed the weather and it was in the upper 70's and lower 80's in Savannah. What a treat that would be after a late March in Illinois that just wouldn't seem to get out of the 30's, at least not for long. Well, we arrived in Savannah at about the same time as a cold front, headed up by torrential downpours. Driving unfamiliar roads in an unfamiliar car isn't fun, but it gets even worse when your visibility is about 5 feet and roads are closed due to flooding, but detours aren't marked. But even so... it was green and it smelled fresh and new.

When we got to the b and b where we were staying, guests on their way out told us of the perfect weather they'd had, assured us that we'd have the same. We didn't. That night, it stormed spectacularly, causing a power outage on the entire island... but it stopped by morning and we had rain-free days. But not warm ones. It stayed in the 50's -- the low 50's a lot of the time -- and we didn't see even a glimpse of the sun the entire time we were there.

Still... the weather couldn't stop us from enjoying the southland in the springtime.

The live oaks spread their branches over streets and walkways, creating tunnels. Epiphytic Spanish moss hangs down, creating a fairy tale atmosphere.

Everywhere trees are flowering, leaves emerged but still lime green and new, thin and almost translucent.
The last to leaf out, even this oak has tiny leaves...

While we weren't able to lounge on the beach, we did explore the beach and, at low tide, made several discoveries:
Lettered olives, alive and shiny... we also found a few empty shells.

Sea stars...

Jellyfish, most dead and washed up, but this comb jelly still alive and trapped, momentarily, in a pool. (The jellyfish is the blurry blob to the left and just below the broken sand dollar.)

A crab exoskeleton, perfect and unbroken, next to some of the plentiful clam shells.

A huge piece of horseshoe crab...

And plenty of other shells and treasures.

We also saw a lot of shore birds, laughing gulls and several small varieties of waders and pelicans.

I carried my nature journal but it really wasn't warm enough for sitting outside and drawing to be pleasant. Until... you guessed it... the morning we had to leave! So I did get in a quick drawing, of the tree whose leaves were hanging right over our balcony, since I didn't have the time to go anywhere or look for something exciting and Georgia-y, or we'd miss our plane (which ended up leaving 2 hours late, so I guess that wasn't a real issue, but whatever).

I thought is was a hackberry, but apparently I was too far south and it was probably a sugarberry, which is a lot like a hackberry.

Leaves

I suppose I have been neglectful in not mentioning that leaves are coloring and falling left and right. Maples are red and orange and, in some cases, naked. Ashes are purple and yellow. Oaks are slowly turning brown...

Autumn Draws Near

The Good, The Beautiful and the Ugly (and Bad)

Oak trees wearing their dangling flowers (although they are still closed up quite tightly and not really blooming yet).

The pure white flowers of the trillium grace pristine woodland areas and gardens like mine, while...

Garlic mustard flowers add their white hue to areas more disturbed or unhealthy. As you'd expect with an invasive species that opens early, stays green all winter, and emits fungicide into the soil, it grows in great clumps, monocultures of weeds beneath the shade, waiting for someone to come and pull them before they go to seed.

Y! E! S!

So the other day, we were walking at the gardens and the air was warm and flowers were blooming (some, anyhow) and it was a beautiful day. And I said, "The only thing wrong is, I wish there were dragonflies [and/or damselflies]. I love them and I miss them." Well... that means that today is perfect. Soaring over the water, electric blue and huge, there they were. Darting around like they never had left. Some sort of darner, although I don't have my book and they didn't want to sit for photos. This particular variety is not perchers, and the only way I got even a blurry photo of them was because this mating pair did land on a reed for a few brief seconds.

I also saw two cabbage white (or similar) butterflies.

I got distracted by insects while I was noting how some leaves were progressing, btw:
bur oak, water lily, hazel.

So... today is a DAY (that is, a red letter day! Ha! I'm a hilarious punner, no? Sorry, couldn't resist.) And those of you who know me will confirm... I am not upset even though I dropped my camera case in the pond while taking pictures of dragonflies (better than the camera, I guess) and then this weevil crashed into me.

Even without biting, it hurt. Thing just rammed full speed into my forehead. It hurt me, but it really stunned the bug. Knocked itself right out, which is how I got the picture. Or maybe it even died, but I doubt it. I didn't stick around to find out.

And those things might normally upset me. But I'm just happy about my dragonflies.

Burn Baby Burn

It was a crisp, sunny day, one of the last good days for burning this spring, if for no other reason that soon the new plants will be too tall! So we (that is, over 8- 5-6th grade students, their teachers and a few trained professionals) set the prairie ablaze and watched the orange consume the brown grasses, changing the prairie to black. When we return on Monday, it will be probably already be green! A lot of change in the prairie right now...

And... I know it's spring because the bur oak buds have turned green and expanded. When oaks leaf out and flower, there's no turning back! (You hear me, winter? No turning back!)

All Out of Gall Puns

(Maybe I could start spelling it Gaul and making France puns? But it's not that important.) Anyhow...

I really didn't think I'd be able to find the insect inside these woolly oak galls that grow on the underside of the leaves. They are, after all, quite small, and consist mostly of fuzz. Beneath the fuzz is a hard kernel about the size of a sesame seed... and I managed to cut into it and find the larva inside (it's small and whitish, see it?). I should have been a surgeon.

These galls turn into wasps, I believe.

And speaking of oak trees, why are they so awesome? Among other things, check out these branches. They're twisty, gnarled, craggy, crooked, knotted, like the bony, arthritic fingers of a crippled old woman. I mean, look at those shapes!

Naked Thursday!

Some trees are getting nekkid. Mostly ashes, lindens, crab apples, some oaks (but others still have green leaves...) The bare trees must be feeling cold and wet. It's been raining for about 8 hours and doesn't seem like it's going to stop any time soon.

My driveway and front yard are covered in ash leaves...

Leaf Studies

it is the time of year to study the shapes in leaves, to see how their crunchy, crumbly fall incarnations play with shadows and light, patterns and randomness...

Oak leaf, brown, thick, crunchy.

Maple leaf, yellow, thin, not dried out yet.

Hazel leaf, turning orange, vein study.

Walking the Trail of History

Today started out as a beautiful day -- crisp, cool, sunny. We had a very busy and productive day. Among other things, we accomplished one of my least favorite gardening tasks... hose clean-up. It's always done in the cold, and you always get wet and muddy, plus it means you won't have anything to water for a long while. Then we went to the Trail of History, which is an annual event held in Glacial Park by the McHenry County Conservation District.

Here's a funny story from our walk back. Although it started out beautiful, the weather took a turn for the rotten while we were at the event. By this point it is very cold, cloudy, and intermittently raining. I stop occasionally to take photos of plant phenophases, and I admit that most people wouldn't use these things as photograph subjects, especially given the aforementioned weather. As I'm taking this picture of Indian grass with its seeds dry and ready to fall,

a kid... and I should point out that by kid, I mean a middle school aged kid, not like a 4-year old who could not possibly be expected to understand social mores such as if you're going to insult a stranger in public, you should probably do it, you know, in a whisper or something... so anyhow, a kid says to her mom, "Look at them. They're taking a picture of nothing. And just back there they took a picture of those leaves. [White oak, tips turning reddish brown, not included in post]. What's wrong with them?" Answer: I'm not sure, but I'm not DEAF, so we can check that off the list. We glared and mom, embarrassed, shushed kid and hurried the family along the trail. They got no lecture on noticing plant phenophases, or anything, but I did compose one in my head as we continued walking...

Here are some other pictures I took, despite the mocking of the general public.

Oaks across the wetland.

Milkweed seeds exploding.

Bog through the branches of bur oak. Leatherleaf is turning quite red in the bog.

Oak branches form an archway over the trail.

Why I Live in Illinois

It's funny... a few days ago I posted about Oregon, and under the beautiful picture of the coast I lamented, "why do I live in Illinois?"... that post generated no comments. Then yesterday I post about 2 local trees that I don't even have to work to see... (well, actually I do have to work. Both those trees are at my place of employment. But the point is, they are right outside the door at my place of employment.) In less than 24 hours, I had 2 comments reminding me about how beautiful and special those trees are.

Aspen trees are native to large portions of the US, and people certainly don't think of IL when they think of aspens. I don't. I think of mountains first, and the north woods second, and IL not at all, really. But we have got a few here, their leaves quaking in the wind. Their greenish-whitish bark contains acetylsalicylic acid, which is also found in aspirin. (The trees are a favorite of beavers... maybe that's why beavers never get a headache even though they chew wood all the time?) Buh dum ching. (Ah, it's been a long day...)

Bur oaks are truly trees of the prairie. It sounds like an oxymoron, but these trees, with their thick bark, are adapted to survive life with fire. In crowded areas, they will grow tall to compete for sunlight... but in the prairie... in the prairie, they grow out. With gnarled, twisting branches they spread in all directions and sometimes dip down so low that they almost touch the ground. Thus they make good climbing trees -- you can hop right on to the branches and go toward the trunk, rather than the other way around.

And the acorn is, perhaps, the most amazing part of the oak. If it doesn't have a worm (Aside... a lot of acorns, if you keep them, turn out not to have oak seeds, but rather, insects. The bugs actually go to the oak flowers and the acorn forms around them, so to look at the acorn, you can't tell wither there's a worm eating the meat. Eventually, they eat all the insides and drill a hole to get out. I have seen this lead to hilarity... as when a student uses an acorn in an art project, which is hung from the classroom ceiling, and then one day little grubs are falling onto kids' desks... you can test an acorn for worms by putting it in water. A worm-free acorn will float, but the worms create air bubbles and make them float! So anyhow. If you have a worm-free acorn...) then this little thing, an inch long... it looks like nothing but it has the potential to become a whole oak tree. It is power and meekness combined in one. It is such a small thing that could become something fifty feet tall or wide and outlive us all... but which can be taken down by a bug. A tree of contradictions.

(Another fun use of the scanner!)

And while setting up my class this morning, I noticed that the maples, at their peak color, are just stunning. I'm lucky to live in an edge world, too... the historical edge of the prairie and the eastern woodlands. So here, we get to experience remnants or restored bits of each.

I suppose I have been nudged into gratefulness.

Actually, I have long seen the beauty in the prairie. Even in its winter brown state, it has a subtle loveliness. Amazing plant biodiversity and crazy insect life. Sometimes you have to look for the specialness -- it doesn't hit you in the face like an ocean or a mountain. But that almost makes it better, like we have a secret. However. I think the problems with my area of Illinois with which I have been grappling are more related to the human-influenced sense of place. I live in a world where most of the stores are in strip malls and are just like every other place. I guess that's becoming true everywhere, but here it seems worse. Maybe I just notice it more. I don't know. I could explain it more, but I've already written a lot about far less depressing things.

One quick phenology note: as of Monday, there were still meadowhawks in my yard. It's cold, but the dragonflies are hanging on!

The Birds and the Trees

Acorns are littering the ground underneath the bur oak trees...
Aspen trees are yellowing and leaves are blowing off during windier moments.

This morning was a bird-heavy morning. I saw grebes in the lake, disappearing and reappearing in new spots; mallards dabbling, geese flying south, and a heron stalking some prey. RWBBs were also very active, dipping and diving as my students disturbed them. Also saw goldfinches and some other LBBs, plus a chickadee. Oh, and gulls. In less than an hour, and I wasn't looking for birds. So it's a bird-heavy day.

Other notes:

• milkweed pods are splitting open and spilling their seeds.
• Very few purple asters are left -- just a few New England's remain. A lot of white ones are still flowering, though.
• Goldenrod are also going to seed.
• Grasshoppers are sluggish but coming out this morning...