Author: Brenda Clements Jones

Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.

Fall Shutdown

Autumn is doing its thing. Leaves turning brilliant colors. Spiders with black and orange stripes on their legs, spinning intricate webs. Black walnuts thumping to the ground with loud warning, as they cascade through leaves, high in the forest canopy.

And a favorite of mine, maidenhair fern, in the genus, Adiantum, shutting down. Turning straw color, and purple. Preparing for the cold winter. Anticipating a spring in which it will send out graceful fronds. Fronds that will thrill me, once again.

Sassafras

You know the question, If you were a tree, what tree would you be? My quick answer would be, a sassafras tree. I’ve had a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Virginia, since 1992. During that time I’ve hiked my mountain up and down, getting to know all the things that grow here. I love them all, but the sassafras speaks to me. Speaks to me more than any other tree.

I’ll introduce you to the sassafras trees that I know here on the mountain. I’ll start with this season. Autumn. I am a color person. Color is extremely important to me. The sassafras celebrates autumn with splendid colors. Its rich green leaves, fading into lime green, butter yellow, school bus yellow, as the chlorophyll in its leaves fades away.

But that is just the beginning. The sassafras becomes a multicolored fiesta in autumn. Rust red, burgundy and many a shade of orange appear.

These leaves, like the twigs, bark and roots, all have the fragrance of root beer. Perfect timing: as I write this, my husband brings me an icy mug of root beer. Mmm! It takes me back to my childhood.

As I reminisce, I recall that sassafras oil has been determined to contain a carcinogenic substance, safrole. Root beer no longer contains safrole. You would be wise not to dig the roots of sassafras, to use as a root beer flavoring, or to make tea, as I did as a child. That lovely aroma, sure brings the memories back. But let’s be safe.

As the leaves fall, the intricate texture of the bark becomes my focus. And the color of the bark, just below the surface. A rich, cinnamon red-brown. Looking, just the right color, to match that childhood memories aroma. The bark, a lovely lacework of ridges, undulating this way and that.

And, like the bark, the trunks of the sassafras trees appear to dance through the forest. Like the bark pattern, bending this way and that. Winter is a favorite season for me. It reveals the trees’ structure. The trees’ form. Sassafras trees bend and sway, even in standing still.

Time flies and the sassafras trees’ buds are waiting for the first of the slightly warm days. At the beginning of April, they begin swelling and by the third week of April, here on Snow Mountain, the woods are filled with flowers.

Not much for show, but still beautiful to me. There is a soft, butter yellow haze in the woods. The flowers arrive before the leaves.

Now I am going to tell you a secret. As fond of sassafras, as I am, I had never seen sassafras drupes (one seeded fruit), until this summer. On finding some, I was amazed at their unusual look. Patriotic red and blue.

And yet, I understood why I had not seen them before. The leaves provide a perfect hiding place for the drupes. So much so, that it was a challenge to get a photograph to show you.

The drupes are popular with many birds and once they are gone, their receptacles are still attractive. Crimson against the green leaves.

Lovely sassafras has a weakness, if you are going to plant a few in your garden. If you are in an area prone to problems with Japanese Beetles, beware. Japanese Beetles really enjoy Sassafras leaves. Fortunately for me, my woods are my gardens. They are filled with Sassafras. A Japanese Beetle chomped away on this leaf, but there are still many, many more untouched.

But with that attractiveness to Japanese Beetles, it certainly has its strengths as well. Another critter that eats the sassafras leaf, is the caterpillar of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. I consider that a big plus. Along with its beauty, it tolerates clay soils, and drought. Deer, and gypsy moth caterpillars will go for other things to eat, before they chomp on sassafras.

Once I became acquainted with the trees on the mountain, I realized that sassafras trees can grow to be quite large. Up to about 60 feet in height. They are most often seen as the understory shrub though.

Allelopathic is a term used to describe a characteristic of sassafras. That means the tree releases a chemical that hinders the health of some plants living around the sassafras. American elm is one of the trees that is affected by this chemical. This is a defense for the sassafras, eliminating some of its competition.

I am very fortunate being here in the woods. Sassafras trees come up as volunteers all over. I love it!

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Anticipation

Anticipation makes my world go round. I find something, perhaps a plant, just beginning to emerge in the spring. I return to the infant plant often. Watching and waiting. Looking forward to its grand finale.

This is the story of anticipation from beginning to disappointing end, of a Jack-in-the-pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum. The photograph above, taken in mid May, is the discovery, of an infant Jack-in-the-pulpit. A Jack-in-the-pulpit full of promise, on its way to producing a flower.

What is thought of, as the flower of the Jack-in-the-pulpit, is actually a stalk (called a spadix) inside a tube-like structure with a top flap (called a spathe). If you would like to see the flowers of the Jack-in-the-pulpit, you will need a hand lens. They can be found at the base of the spadix, appearing as very small yellowish dots.

The hard for humans to see, flowers of the Jack-in-the-pulpit, are mushroom scented. Yum. Sounds delightful! The scent does the trick. The scent and warmth produced by the plant, attracts fungus gnats. The fungus gnats go through a complicated system which accomplishes the pollination, which in turn produces berries.

The object of my anticipation. The berries of the Jack-in-the-pulpit were beginning to mature in mid July. In the photograph above, the berries are bursting forth, through the walls of the spathe. Peeking out, into the world.

I get the first hint of trouble in mid August, as the berries free themselves of the last of the remaining walls of the spathe. My hint? The uppermost leaves, of this patch of Jack-in-the-pulpit, growing taller than they usually do, have been chomped off.

And then, the crushing blow. The clusters of berries are gone. The grand finale is gone. Along with the berries, something has eaten the stems, and has even left holes where the corms had been. Color me frustrated. No beautiful crimson berries this year, by the back porch.

The culprit(s)? My first thought is rabbits. They are always plentiful in the summer. Many hanging out, eating grass and weeds. Usually well behaved rabbits, but on rare occasion they will turn brazen. But no, the plants were too tall for a bunny to chomp. The plants had gotten to be more than knee high at the back of my cabin in perfect growing conditions: moist and shady.

My second thought, is deer, but a deer sighting here at my cabin is rare. And I see, on lists of plants that deer will avoid, Jack-in-the-pulpit (unless they are starving). I doubt they are starving. The woods here are lush with growth. In searching for an answer to my mystery, on the Internet, I find my answer.

Bears love Jack-in-the-pulpit. Bears! Yes! I often see bears up here. Now to figure out how to discourage their eating the Jack-in-the-pulpits, all the way down to the corms.

Wood Poppy

Brilliant color. A sure hit in my garden. Add the fact that the brilliant color is a native to moist woods, of eastern North America, and it becomes a must have for me. A must have for my garden.

This screaming yellow bloom is of Wood Poppy, or Celadine Poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum.

The Wood Poppy shows hints of bloom as a fuzzy bud. It begins blooming in my garden (which is at an elevation of 1,800 feet in the Blue Ridge Mountains, of Virginia) in mid April. The plants continue blooming for a couple months.

The leaf of Wood Poppy reminds me of a White Oak leaf. Deep sinuses. As mid summer arrives, the leaves begin to change color. Just a slight change of color. A hint of autumn to come.

The seeds have a way of putting plants in odd places. If you have a neat, tidy garden with regimenation, unlike mine, you’ll want to give the new plants guidance in placement. The plant is most happy in a moist location, in shade or part shade.

Even now, as August weather is hinting at fall, I am enjoying the Wood Poppies in my garden. I particularly enjoy them at this time of year, when there is rain. The rain drops on their leaves are beautiful.

Cardinal Flower

Hummingbirds love it. So do I. If it was a Corvette Stingray, the color would be called Victory Red. It is a blazing, brilliant, red, not often seen in a native plant. In the picture above, you see a sweat bee, using a leaf as a resting spot on the Cardinal Flower’s, Lobelia cardinalis, landing strip of a leaf.

The blossoms are arranged in spikes, which are generally 2 to 4 feet. They open from the bottom up. The flower’s deep, tubular makeup creates a perfect flower for hummingbirds to pollinate.

The Cardinal Flower likes a moist place to call home. Whether a ditch along the roadside, or a streambank, its brilliant color calls to hummingbirds as well as butterflies to come pollinate it. In my garden, they are in a northwest facing garden, against the cabin, right at the base of a downspout. The plants love for the rain to spill down from the roof.

Some books and websites tell me that the plant is moderately, deer and rabbit resistant, but the rabbits that live in my woods haven’t read those books. They will occasionally take a chomp from a tempting sprout.

When neighbors at the bottom of the mountain maintain their yards to the hilt, cutting all growth in the ditch along the road, except for the alien lawn grasses, they remove the chance for these beautiful flowers to bloom. To attract hummingbirds. I’m pleased that some neighbors are not so fussy about their yards and leave the Cardinal Flower to grow. This year, there is more growing in this ditch than I have ever seen before.

This is the Cardinal Flower, before the buds have formed. This is what the plant looks like, just before the 4th of July. I take a deep breath, and try to remain calm as VDOT comes through, with their all consuming tractors, every year around the 4th of July. Cutting back all sorts of native plants that would bloom with glee if left alone. All in the name of safety. Cutting back the native plants.

The Cardinal Flower is a relatively common flower. Think twice about picking it though. It has become scarce in some areas due to people picking the flowers and bringing them home to their moms.

Though there are stories of Native Americans using parts of the Cardinal Flower plant for medicinal purposes, all parts of the plant are poisonous. Take pictures and leave the flowers for the hummingbirds and butterflies.

Smooth Sumac

Just a couple weeks ago, some of the bushes along my woodland edges were abuzz with pollinator activity. The flowers of Smooth Sumac, Rhus glabra, were the magnet.

Butterflies, including this Red-banded Hairstreak, Calycopis cecrops, were part of the crowd.

Honey Bees, gathering nectar, to help some bee keeper with his honey supply were also attracted. And so many other insects. Sweat bees, wasps. Too many to identify or list here! Believe me, Abuzz!

Smooth Sumac is a dioecious plant, meaning that male and female flowers appear on separate bushes.

There are many references to a lemonade being made from the berries. Call me chicken, but I’m not going to experiment, particularly because I am allergic to nuts and the thought that this shrub is in the cashew family (Anacardiaceae) is warning enough for me.

Autumn brings scarlet to the sawtooth edged leaves.

The bushes form dense colonies, by means of root suckers, and are easily spotted along the roadsides in many areas, in the fall, thanks to the brilliant red foliage.

The berries are an emergency food for many, many song birds through the winter.

This Yellow-shafted Flicker, or Northern Flicker, Colaptes auratus, is glad to have the emergency supply. I took this photograph during a heavy snow, back in February, 2010.

And as the seasons roll along, winter turns to spring. The compound leaves sprout, looking like ferns as they unfold. And the whole cycle repeats itself.

Blackberry Lily

I like rich, strong, take no prisoners color. In my garden there is one flower that really fills the bill. It is Blackberry Lily, or Leopard Lily, Iris domestica.

Here, a candelabra of spent flowers, having a twisted appearance, and buds ready to burst, on the naked stem of the Blackberry Lily.

Once open, the petals turn into a spinning ballerina out on the dance floor.

Though I try to favor native plants in my garden, this one is originally from central Asia, India, China and Japan. But it does seem, that this gorgeous, very easy to grow flower, has been on this continent forever. At least for a long time. Thomas Jefferson planted Blackberry Lily in his Monticello gardens. So I am in good company.

Once the flowering is completed, the seed pods develop into blackberry look-alikes. Sprinkle the seeds where you would like more to sprout, or let Mother Nature have her hand at placement. I like to have a say at where they end up, but I like the surprises that always happen.

Sweetspire

A gift from my son, some years ago, has turned into quite the pollinator magnet. Virginia Sweetspire, or another common name, Tassel-white. Itea virginica. Three small bushes have grown into a lovely mound of cream colored, cascading blooms.These cascading blooms have become tantalizing lures for pollinators in the vicinity of my central Virginia mountain cabin. Whether it is a brilliant orange Fritillary or a Silver-spotted Skipper the word is out.

They have arrived, along with all manner of bee, to take advantage of the buffet. These bushes satisfy a need in the natural world, and fill my heart, and my world of Nature, with great satisfaction. Plants native to the state.

This is something that I’ve grown to appreciate, over the years. Something that I wasn’t aware of, when I began making my home here in the mountains. Concentrating on growing native plants. Something that I wish more nurseries would help more of us appreciate. For instance there is a non-native, invasive plant called, Burning Bush which is widely sold, although some eastern U.S. states are banning the importation of the plant. It breaks my heart to see Burning Bush, Euonymus alata native to Asia growing, spreading, invading. Growing where plants that are native to this area would be of more benefit.

Sweetspire would be a lovely choice, rather than an alien invasive even if your neighborhood nursery has Burning Bush on sale. With perhaps just a tiny bit of effort, you could find Virginia Sweetspire.These yummy, richly red leaves are the autumnal reward of growing Virginia Sweetspire. And winter brings more reward with exposure of the twigs and branches twigs and branches of lovely burgundy. A nice contrast to the starkness of ice and snow.

I live in the woods. I live in the mountains. I strive to keep my world as much as possible like it would have been a hundred, or more years ago, with plants that are native to this state. Sweetspire is one of the plants that is helping me stay happy up here!

Rose Or Berry?

Late May, and the clusters of white blossoms are everywhere. Brambles covered with cascades of white. Blackberry or Multiflora Rose. For me, a friend and a foe. The two plants are nearly twins to the untrained eye. I think I’ve got it figured out though. In the picture, above, Blackberry, Rubus fruticosus. Notice the center of the bloom — a soft, pale green.

The spill of blossoms of the Blackberry, are a bit more thin and scattered than the Multiflora Rose.

Native Blackberry provides much benefit to wildlife here on the mountain. Not only does my family enjoy picking the berries, but many insects, birds and mammals benefit from its presence.

The Multiflora Rose, Rosa multiflora, above, has the same size flower as the Blackberry. The center of the bloom though, is quite a different color — soft yellow with school bus yellow stamens.

Stepping back, looking at the Multiflora Rose as a bush, the blooms are more tightly packed in their clusters than the Blackberry.

The Multiflora Rose is native to eastern Asia, in China, Japan and Korea. It is considered an alien invasive in eastern North America. Multiflora Rose should not be confused with polyantha roses which are garden cultivars derived from hybrids of R. multiflora.

Here on my mountain, and further up, in Shenandoah National Park, Multiflora Rose presents a challenge. It takes over large swaths of ground preventing native plants from establishing themselves and providing benefit to insects, birds and mammals.

Friend or foe? Blackberry is my friend, Multiflora Rose is definitely not.

A Bush To Love

I’m in love with a bush that’s growing in my yard. Actually I have 14 of these bushes growing along the edge of my front porch, bordering the vegetable garden, and creating a shrub island by the wood shop. I can’t recommend them highly enough. Here in the mountains of central Virginia, they are a perfect shrub, lovely and trouble free.

After being planted, it was just a matter of sitting back and waiting. I do admit to being concerned when they were baby shrubs, and new to this mountain. I diligently watered them. I stopped doing that years ago, and they are not complaining in the least.

Native to Eastern North America, I can easily find blueberry bushes as I hike up the mountain. It always gives me a thrill to find this crop plant growing wild.

In the spring they show off with their creamy white, to blush pink blooms, enticing bees to come pollinate them. The blueberry bush, with its yummy berry, provides benefits to an incredible number of insects and animals, including at least 30 species of birds, along with many mammals. Browsers love to chomp on the leaves, but are not a problem. I’m thankful though, to have very few deer.

As the berries think of ripening, they create inspiration for me. Inspiration to take photographs of the still green fruit. I find them beautiful whether green or blue.

As they mature into frosty looking, deep blue orbs, there is more inspiration. Inspiration to bake. Bake pies, bake muffins, make pancakes. Although there are plenty of berries, I have to pace myself and not use them all up. Many, many quarts of berries are frozen, for treats throughout the year.

As summer turns to autumn, so do the leaves of the blueberry bush, creating another treat. The brilliance of the season is reflected in the foliage of the blueberry bush. Another season to inspire — more photographs!

And then comes, what is perhaps my favorite season, winter. The twigs of the blueberry bush in winter provide more spark for me, particularly when the ice storms hit — bright red branches, covered in ice. As others stress over the weather, I think, “Soon it will be spring again. Don’t stress over that ice. Just go get photos!”