The Greens of Winter

A January thaw is pretty typical here... it seems we have one almost every winter.  I like to take advantage of a break in the cold weather.  It's nice to spend a few hours outside without feeling frozen.  The temperature was 45 degrees when I headed out to tromp around the swamp and woods today - a real heat wave!

However, though the warmth was lovely, the other meteorological conditions were not so great, unless you like it foggy and dark.  (At least it wasn't raining!) 

I had the afternoon free, so I thought, why not visit some of my favorite spots? 

When I started out, I didn't think it was very likely I would find much to photograph on this drab day.  But then only a little distance farther along the edge of the swamp I noticed this:

Wow, was the moss happy on a day like today! 

There's not a lot of green in the winter woods, but that makes what there is stand out even more against the browns and greys.

 Mosses, certainly, looked green as could be, but so did the ferns.  

Christmas ferns, with their little stocking-shaped leaflets, stay green all winter.  In the upper right-hand corner of the next photo, if you look closely, you can also see the spores covering the back of a fertile frond.

Marginal Woodferns are also evergreen, though they tend to be a little more worn-looking than Christmas ferns by January.  They are still pretty though!

Ferns, of course, don't have flowers.  They reproduce from spores or by underground rhizomes.  

The next plants I saw are "allies" of ferns, according to my Fern field guide.  They don't have flowers either.

This plant is known by the common names Club Moss or Ground Pine.  They are neither a moss or a pine.... which is just one example of why common names can be confusing!  So, every living thing has been given one scientific name.  And one of the very first scientific names I learned (years ago!) was Lycopodium.  How do I remember it if I learned it all those years ago, you ask?  Well, the person who taught me said, "people in clubs like to talk, hence they 'like a podium'.  (Lycopodium) Get it? Now you won't forget it, either!

This one is Lycopodium obscurum or Tree Club Moss.  They do look like a grove of tiny trees, I think.  Like ferns, they spread from underground rhizomes, and they also produce spores on top of their stem on a part called a strobilus.  That's the end of our botany lesson for today.

There are some flower-producing plants that are evergreen in the winter woods, too.

Partridgeberry, that I've written about before.  Click here to read more about them.

Also, Hepatica--

In just a few more months, they will be one of our first wildflowers to bloom.  (You can click here to read a post featuring their lovely flowers).  But, meanwhile, seeing their pretty leaves here and there in the woods brightened my walk. 

There were some other green leaves in the woods, but not too many.  Next is some Bedstraw peeking out from under the brown leaves.

As you can see, the 45 degree weather had melted most, but not all of the snow.  As it often seems to be in the fog, the woods was very quiet today except for 'drip, drip... drip'.

A few Chickadees followed me around and scolded me.  A White-breasted Nuthatch was the only other bird I heard.  That's January for you.  

As I headed back for the house, the weather hadn't changed.  It was still foggy and dark.

But my spirits had been lifted by the patches of green I had seen.  Then, as I wrote this and the darkness of night was descending, a Great-horned Owl was calling... loudly and close-by enough that I could hear it from inside our house.  It seems the woods may not have been as unoccupied as it appeared this afternoon!