Month of Macro Part 2: Wildflowers

January 20, 2023 Elise

Continuing my macro explorations from my previous posts (if you missed them, check them out here and here) I switched my focus to wildflowers. Admittedly, January isn’t the most obvious time to go looking for flowers, but many of our local species have persistent seed heads that can be found through the winter. And some of these, as you’ll see, are quite intricate when observed up close. And in at least one case, some flowers already have their spring buds ready…

Preparations

November 19, 2022 Elise

Everywhere you look, preparations are underway. Sometimes those actions are easily observable. For example, people are preparing for holiday gatherings and festivities, and gray squirrels are lining their nests for additional warmth and stashing away acorns in preparation for winter. Even within our own house, my husband and I have been doing our own preparations – getting ready for the birth of our first child (who’s due any day now!). But sometimes those preparations are more subtle, and require a…

Wildflower Wednesday: Trailing arbutus

April 25, 2018 Elise

If you look along the edges of wooded trails, where the land rises up slightly from the level of the path itself, you may notice low mats of rough, sand-papery, hairy, evergreen leaves. Although younger leaves are a brighter green, they become rust-spotted with age, eventually browning and dying on the stem, leaving patches of rather worn looking vegetation by early spring. This low, creeping shrub is trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens), also known as mayflower. One of Cape Cod’s earliest…

Seashore to Forest Floor

A naturalist's journey across Cape Cod and beyond

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Tag: Epigaea repens