A field walk

Last week, on the 17th, I joined the Naturalists' Training Course for the afternoon. We spent a couple of hours in the classroom, learning about asexual or vegetative reproduction in plants, but the day was sunny-- a rare occurrence these past months-- and we were all anxious to get outside. We walked in the woods on the east side of Dufferin, on the lookout for whatever we might see. Because the spring has been so slow we weren't expecting flowers, but green had started to appear in the duff. 

The woods are full of light still, with the trees empty of leaves and the forest floor pale with a carpet of last year's dried leaves. Here's the group just starting along the trail. 

It didn't take long for people to fan out in all directions, and with so many pairs of eyes looking discoveries were made: fungi of various sorts, including one that looked to me like a face, 

an Equisetum, dwarf scouring rush, looking, as Robin noted, like grass having a bad hair day, 

a couple of club mosses (Lycopodium), 

and even a flower: the hepatica were poking their way through the leaf duff in the old sugar bush.

While the naturalists were on the hunt for whatever they might discover, Rufus the dog was having a wonderful time racing about.

That walk was such a pleasure I went out again on my own after supper. Walking to the pond beside the driveway, I discovered the spring peepers were beginning to call. After listening to them for awhile I went on past the grey barn, heading towards the other ponds to see if there were peepers there too. The twilight was deepening and I wasn't paying much attention when I realized the shape on the grass behind the grey barn was a deer. I stopped to reach for my camera and it took off into the woods, its white tail up and shining.  

A little later when I made my way back to the house the moon was shining too. 

Equisetum

Tuesday, 26 March 2013.   I went for a walk today hunting for equisetum, or horsetail. In the Naturalists’ Training Course meeting tomorrow I’m to present on a species of it, Equisetum pratense, or Meadow horsetail, one of the seven species found here at KSR—that’s half the number of species known worldwide! I didn’t know, till I read in our text, there was more than a single extant species of horsetail, though it’s long been a plant I like. But the species I know is, I think, Equisetum hyemnale, Rough horsetail or Scouring rush—the one with stiff green stems, some with cone-like tips, that you spy alongside wooded paths or at the edges of ponds.

Here’s a photograph I took last August of a horsetail I saw here.

I’ve liked the plant, without knowing much about it, except that it’s been around for a long time. I used to take my daughters to the Royal Ontario Museum 30 years or so ago, to the old dinosaur gallery. Several dinosaurs were shown roaming through landscapes that included horsetails, some as large as trees, and I was startled and awed to discover that a form of those huge plants still existed.

The horsetails are vascular plants (that means they have a circulation system, similar to veins, that delivers nutrients between leaves and roots) allied to ferns, and like ferns they reproduce by spores. The stems we see are only a small part of the plant, for they grow up from perennial rhizomes. The rhizomes allow them to spread underground and, as I understand it, some large stands of equisetum are (like stands of trembling aspen) really a single plant. These stems are the primary organ for photosynthesis, since the plant has only relic leaves. I know that from the text – to look at a horsetail you’d think it has no leaves at all. The stems are interesting in another way, too – they can be either sterile or fertile. The production of spores is complex and I don’t grasp it yet, but I’m working on it.  

Meadow horsetail, the one I’m to present on, is described as “a delicate and airy plumed horsetail of the cool north” (and how lovely is that?) at:

http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/nature/ferns/equisetumpra.html

Its other common names are Shade horsetail and Shady horsetail. Its Latin name, Equisetum pratense is derived from the Latin equus, for ‘horse,’ seta, meaning ‘bristle’ or ‘animal hair’; and partum, meaning ‘meadow’. It can be found in moist woods, thickets and meadows, and flourishes in partial shade to full sun. It produces fertile stems first, without chlorophyll; once the spores are shed (between April and early July) it turns green and grows branches. Its stems are deciduous, dying back in the winter.

Given that last fact, the horsetails I found on my walk today are definitely not meadow horsetail. I went back to the path where I’d photographed that horsetail with its spider web, sliding a bit over the snow—it’s gotten slippery as it’s melting--here are the photos I took:

It spread out quite a way up the slope, and its stems have definitely not died back though some of them are broken or bent from the weight of the snow.

I’ve learned meadow horsetail grows with whorled branches that are often horizontal or drooping, and usually with single stalks rising from the rhizome. It doesn’t produce a large number of fertile stems, but reproduces primarily through its rhizomes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it—or if I have I didn’t recognize it as a horsetail. Come spring I’ll have to see if I can fine it here at KSR.

There are some good images of it at: http://www.florafinder.com/Species/Equisetum_pratense.php

But spring is actually making itself felt here at Jokers Hill, though the snow is still in the woods. Walking today I heard and saw water running everywhere. Red-winged blackbirds are calling—yesterday I heard a robin and mourning doves. And most of the fields are bare of snow.  

Just look at those blues!