Speaking of trees...

At the end of this month I'll go on a guided nature walk at KSR, to learn about identifying trees in the winter. I'm really looking forward to it -- and perhaps then I'll learn if my red oak is one tree or more. 

Here's a link to the notice about the walk, with a lovely photograph: https://ksr.utoronto.ca/Winter_2013

Participation is limited and there are no spaces left, but if you're interested in events at KSR there is a listserv you can join-- I tried to do it through the online link on their website, but couldn't navigate the University's forms so simply emailed and asked to be added to it. 

The Red Oak

My favourite tree at KSR is an oak that my friend Norma identified as a red oak (Quercus rubra) for its pointed leaves. It stands beside the road that leads to the ponds and the gazebo, just behind a split-rail fence. It has three trunks … or is it in fact three trees? I don’t know if it was planted or simply took root there.

I first noticed the tree late last fall, and recognized it as an oak because it still had small clumps of brown leaves clinging to it. Other trees were completely bare. Its shape was lovely, so I photographed it, from both sides.

Those remaining leaves made a good rustling sound as the wind passed over them and I liked the way its branches seemed to reach out, some of them joining the split rail fence to frame the field and pond and gazebo. 

I’ve done a little web trolling for information about the red oak. It grows from Lake Superior eastward across northern and central Ontario—and on through Quebec to Nova Scotia, as well as in the northeastern US. But its numbers have been diminishing and I haven’t found an explanation for that decrease, although the lack of fire may be a factor in its not regenerating naturally.

I’ve learned that red oak and pine have co-existed with varying dominance over very long periods of time, but found nothing about the relationship between them or the reasons for their growing in association. And I wonder if this co-existence is some form of collaboration. I also found out that red oaks bear large acorns that take two years to develop—and that they produce bumper crops of acorns about every four years with only small numbers in between. These acorns are an important food for deer, squirrels, foxes, mice, bears, ruffed grouse, wood ducks, and others.

I’ve come to watch for the KSR red oak, waiting for it to appear as I go round a curve and up a slight rise in the road. Because it stands as a solitary tree (unless it is three trees) its complete shape is visible. The oak’s branches seem to hold both the light and the sky behind it. I’m taking photos of it in different lights and weather—and I think I’ll hunt up some books on the red oak to see what more is known about it.

Addendum

On the hoarding at the Mars Building, University Avenue and College, Toronto: 

Connect 

       Collaborate

             Compete 

... 

A note on collaboration

I’ve been thinking about collaboration. Writing, the actual putting of words on the page, is for the most part a solitary activity—and one reason I’ve welcomed the chance to be involved with KSR is the opportunity it offers me for solitude. I like the space being by myself creates, I like wandering and looking and thinking without having to talk as I go. My reading and writing can proceed at their own pace when I have time and space to feel my way along an idea or a sentence.

But behind this solitary thinking and writing are other people. My writing draws on what I’ve read, questions I’ve asked that someone has responded to, ideas I’ve heard expressed, and once I have a finished version of something I look around for people to read it. I want, first, readers whom I trust to consider the writing rather than my ego: is it actually finished? what are its weaknesses? where does it not make itself clear? At this stage the work of writing becomes, ideally, collaborative and through the collaboration the work is clarified and strengthened. In my experience the best editing is a collaborative process during which the poem or essay grows closer and closer to saying fully what it wants to say.

I’ve been learning something about how science is practiced and how scientists are educated. Earlier this year I had lunch with zoologist Steve Tobe and some of the students from his lab.* One of them was a young woman from a very small town in mainland China. When someone asked her if she felt isolated or lonely being in a large western city and having to live in another language, she replied no, because she had her companions, the other students in the lab. They constitute a community who not only work together but also play together and help each other out. She added that she thought it was often difficult for the Chinese students who came here to study history or politics, because they didn’t make close connections with their fellow students in the same way, through collaborating on an on-going project.  

My own training was in the humanities at a time when the first person was never used in a university essay, but that had more to do with ideas of objectivity and final truths than any humility. When I look back it seems the ego was central and competition the rule. You were supposed to get your ideas expressed well and claim ownership of them before someone else beat you to it. I don’t know if education in science then proceeded with the same sense of collaboration it seems to have now—or for that matter if my sense that collaboration is intrinsic to the practice of science is accurate. I look forward to discussing this with people involved at KSR and I’ll be exploring ideas and forms of collaboration from time to time in this blog. 

*If you're curious about Prof. Tobe (his research subjects are cockroaches and he looks like Einstein) here are some links: 

http://labs.csb.utoronto.ca/tobe/

http://labs.csb.utoronto.ca/tobe/diploptera.shtml

http://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=FP5ciL4AAAAJ&hl=en

Solstice Walk

Some things don't need to be described or explained -- just seen... 

The Research Barn 

Dog-strangling vine, or, Cynanchum rossicum (Kleopow) Borhidi

In my post on October 26, about the third walk I took at KSR on August 23, I included this photo of a vine I didn’t recognize, and couldn’t remember seeing before:

and asked if anyone knew what it was. My thanks to Janet Inksetter and Helen Mills both, who told me it is dog-strangling vine, a perennial, non-indigenous plant of the milkweed family, first described (botanically) in the Kiev area of Russia, and thought to be endemic to the Caucasus and Black Sea region. It is now not only found but deemed invasive throughout southern Ontario, as well as in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Wisconsin.

The vine is also known as European swallow-wort and pale swallow-wort, but dog-strangling vine is more vivid and memorable a name. It connects to the binomial term “cynanchum,” which is derived from Greek words meaning “dog” and “strangle” or “poison”. From what I’ve been able to discover there’s no record of the vine snaking out and snaring a dog, or any other animal, but it is possible it was used as an animal poison in the past, since it has toxic qualities.

In spite of the possible poison connection I think the name has a misplaced hyphen. The plant is a twining vine (twining left to right!) that winds itself around whatever it climbs, and eventually grows so densely that it strangles other plants, producing a monoculture. So “strangling-vine” is more accurate to its behavior. Where “dog” fits, in my scenario, is in the plant’s following at the heel of settler/immigrant culture: its origin in Ontario is likely as an escape from gardens. 

As the photograph above shows, the leaf is attractive, and since the vine grows thickly it would be attractive to gardeners. I read one account that suggested it was brought in for the fluffy seeds that were used for filler in life jackets during the war, but I haven’t been able to verify that. Although it grows less quickly in shaded areas—its native turf appears to be grasslands—it can grow almost everywhere and is commonly discovered in backyards, pastures, woodlands, and alongside streams.

Within the Toronto region dog-strangling vine grows throughout the Don and Rouge watersheds, along the Humber, and in most natural areas of the Oak Ridges Moraine, including KSR. There’s a good write-up tracing the species presence in southern Ontario and what was known (by 2007) of its spread and behaviour at

 http://www.rougepark.com/unique/reports/RP_DSV_Report_Dec07.pdf 

I went looking for that patch of the vine again a couple of weeks ago and found it. Here’s what it looks like now—

and in this form I do remember seeing it in both Sunnybrook Park and along the Rouge.

Like most non-native invasive plants, dog-strangling vine has no known natural controls. It spreads largely, and very successfully, by seed (germination plus or minus 50% in optimal conditions), but it also can move via rhizomes, and, as the Rouge Park report makes clear, its behaviour may have changed over time. 

If you do an internet search for Cynanchum rossicum you’ll find many pages warning of its ability to take hold and take over with what are expected to be dire consequences for species diversity. It does in fact constitute a threat to insects—Monarch butterflies being a particular concern because they lay their eggs on the plant, but the caterpillars can’t survive on it—as well as other plants.

An excellent species account is available at: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rburnham/SpeciesAccountspdfs/CynarossAPOCFINAL.pdf

I asked Art Weis, the Director at KSR, about the vine and about the general practice here regarding invasive plants. Here’s what he said:

We are starting a co-operative project with Seneca College on dog strangling vine. It is getting to the point where some control measures will be needed to keep it out of the old growth forest. The first step with Seneca is to map its occurrence on the west side of Dufferin Street. However, we do not try and eradicate invasives because they offer potential research projects.

The mapping project will begin next June, in the area where I took these photographs. 

Quiet Pleasures

December 5, 2012. It was still dark when I woke this morning—what one expects in December. But a window sill in the bedroom seemed to be illuminated. I peered out and saw the moon high overhead, half-full, framed by the conifers that grow alongside the house. It had a faded rainbow ring around it, so I went outside to try and photograph it. I didn’t capture the ring, but did get a trace of the framing branches. Look closely and you'll see them.

Now (9:30 a.m.) snow is falling softly though the temperature is still above freezing. It began to fall, just an occasional flake, a few minutes ago while I was outside, photographing the old trees in back of this house, the ones that keep me company. Even as I’m typing it’s falling more thickly, lingering on the car but melting as it hits the ground. One of the pleasures of falling snow, more noticeable perhaps in the city, is the silence it creates.

Remembering that silence leads me to the quiet pleasures I’m finding in this house, domestic pleasures for the most part. Learning its sounds—I wondered before coming here what the house would sound like. Would its noises make me feel comfortable or nervous? It’s quiet, with few creaks and groans except the usual clicks as heat comes and goes. The furnace, when it comes on, makes a sturdy pair of hums, sounds that are warming in themselves. My city fridge is noisy, uttering a variety of whirrs and mutters and sometimes clunks. The fridge here whispers to itself.

The satisfactions of sweeping floors and putting things away so the kitchen counter is spacious when I come down in the morning is a pleasure. The dining room with its pine table and unrugged hardwood floor is another. I like to sit at that table facing the woods to write, as well as to eat. It’s solid and smooth.

My gleaming red kettle is, if not exactly quiet itself, a source of quiet pleasure—the ritual of making tea or coffee, hot cup then warming my hands as I savour the taste and the pause. I sometimes take my first cup of the day out onto the back porch so I can look at those old trees for awhile—another pleasure—without the window glass between us.

I’m not very knowledgeable about trees—a mix of pines and spruce, perhaps, is what gathers around the house, with three cedars across the front. I’ll have to get a tree book—or better yet find someone here who can tell me what I’m looking at. The trees immediately in back are old and not clumped close together; the space between them has allowed their boughs to stretch to amazing lengths. Most of their lower branches are bare and their tops are thin.

But one long pine bough I can see is covered with green and I like to watch it move and shift with the wind. The way conifers move makes me think of ruffled skirts shifting and twirling in a dance. A square dance perhaps, each waiting its turn.

The quiet pleasure of reading … the somewhat less quiet pleasure of writing … and best of all: staring out one window or another at the trees and weather, thinking vague thoughts from time to time—I spend hours doing that.