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.
As I hike my mountain road this summer, I am nearly always accompanied by my buddies, the butterflies. Often they are passing by, over my shoulder as if a fellow hiker with someplace important to get to. They seem to use the dirt road as their road. These butterflies that float past me are often Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, or Spicebush Swallowtails calmly going about their business, calmly floating along.
Hackberry Emperor, Asterocampa celtis
The Nervous Ones
My butterfly buddies that I’m talking about today though, are the ones that seem nervous. They don’t float on air as I pass by, but flit here and there, at ground level, nearly constantly in frenetic motion.
Tawny Emperor, Asterocampa clyton
My Models This Morning
This morning I’ve photographed a Hackberry Emperor, a Red Admiral, a Tawny Emperor and an Eastern Comma. The Eastern Commas seem to have been plentiful during the whole summer, no matter what. I noticed just recently that the Hackberry Emperors and the Tawny Emperors have become more plentiful than they had been and the Red Admiral is one that I only see from time to time. I’ll be gathering up more butterflies in pixels, so long as they cooperate!
I love to photograph the Chicory plant, Cichorium intybus, when it is in bloom. Its periwinkle blue coloring is such a cheery sight! Today, as I hiked up the mountain, I didn’t intend to capture this particular flower in pixels but I took a peek and there was a spider looking back at me! So I couldn’t resist getting a photo! This guy is a White-banded Crab Spider, Misumenoides formosipes. He’s got a magic trick up his sleeve too. Given a couple days, he’s capable of changing color to better blend in with his surroundings. Wonder if I’ll find him on the same flower tomorrow. I’ll have to check in on him!
Recently some friends and I have been marveling over the beauty of the color periwinkle. Yesterday, as I hiked my mushroom covered mountain, I came upon a mushroom of that very color. What a thrill! Who would have thought there would be a periwinkle mushroom? Okay, okay, this color is perhaps leaning just a *tiny* bit toward the purple side but I’m still calling it periwinkle!
Indigo Lactarius — Gill View
Another blue mushroom
In my mushroom picture taking past, I had run into another blue mushroom and I thought perhaps it might be the same species. My first task was to find those photos. I have a wonderful system of filing photographs by whatever keyword I might choose. Unfortunately I have to assign a keyword for the system to *work*, and I had not assigned any keywords for that blue mushroom. So, to my more than 40,000 picts (the ones that are digitized) I went, searching for old blue. It was years ago, but I had no idea exactly when. In the 2006 grouping I came up with it. An Indigo Lactarius, Lactarius indigo (Schwein.) Fr., and not the same species as my newfound periwinkle mushroom.
Indigo Lactarius — Top View
Research
My brain requires that I find the name of everything that I run into, on my hikes. Since my periwinkle mushroom was not an Indigo Lactarius, this meant that I *had* to dig out my books, look up mushroom websites and figure it out. At first I was discouraged and didn’t think I’d figure it out but I came upon a wonderful site with loads of good photographs and that helped provide my answer. My periwinkle mushroom that I discovered yesterday is a Viscid Violet Cortinarius, Corinarius iodes Berk. & M.A. Curtis.
Viscid Violet Cortinarius — Top View
Mystery solved!
Hooray, my research paid off! I love a mystery, but I need to have the mystery solved too. In the case of my colorful blue mushroooms, my mystery has been solved!
As I hike, I let my imagination run wild. Actually it is running wild whether I’m hiking or folding clothes fresh from the line, or sitting at my desk trying to do my Spanish homework! But on my hikes, the various tree roots that I encounter are often the subject of my fantasies. Here’s one: a Lichen Covered Root Monster. I don’t have a scientific name for him yet, but I do know that he, at some point in his former life, *did* breathe fire.
So many plants called Lettuce. Tall and most often with little yellow flowers. I was very surprised a couple days ago to find something similar looking but without the usual lobed leaves and BLUE flowers! Yesterday I pulled down one of these tall plants, so that I could actually see the flower and was struck by how similar it is to the Chicory (Cichorium intybus) flower. This 7 footer though, is a Blue Lettuce (Lactuca floridana var. villosa). ISO 400, f/5, 1/200, 50mm, Canon 60D.
No hike today, but still I was able to play with some critters! I found this guy on one of my many Redbuds. This is the caterpillar of an Io Moth (Automeris io). See those spines? They contain a poison that makes their sting as painful as running into Stinging Nettle, but it last longer. Not recommended! ISO 400, f/4, 1/160, 50mm, Canon EOS 60D.
Dealing with summer weather, it is best to get out early to hike. I couldn’t do that this morning, so I was hoping for the afternoon, but of course the afternoon rain storm kept me from my playing. After all the rain, I spotted the sun shining through the leaves of Virginia Sweet Spire (Itea virginica). My favorite way to capture leaves, with light shining through them. ISO 400, f/5.6, 50mm.
I’ve been seeing a few of these, just a few. They tend to hang out in the same place day after day, so I know where to find them but they are not happy to sit long to have a portrait done. I appreciate that this Eyed Brown (Satyrodes eurydice) stayed in one place for me to capture it in pixels. ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/125, 300mm, Canon EOS Rebel XT.
Chinese chestnut is a being used as a source of resistance for the American chestnut tree. This picture: monarch butterfly on Chinese chestnut flowers.
Stories From Long Ago
You might be fortunate enough to have family accounts from the older generation of gathering chestnuts, or of your granddad building a fence from chestnut trees on his farm. I don’t have those stories in my family traditions, but still I fell in love with the American chestnut tree when I heard of its history.
American chestnut burs typically have up to 3 seeds. If you’re going to handle them, it’s suggested you use leather gloves!
So Many Trees
Before 1900, the American chestnut tree (Castanea dentate) made up approximately one quarter of the trees in its range, an area of two hundred million acres. Its native range extended from Maine and Ontario, south to Florida and Alabama, and northwest through Indiana and Illinois. The tree had lived in this area for thousands of years.
The American chestnut tree was large in the forest. Historically it grew to 100 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter. This American chestnut snag was found in Madison County, Virginia.
So Quickly Gone
Late in the 1890s, as Americans began to import chestnut trees from Asia and Europe, the chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica) was accidentally brought with them. The Asian and European trees had lived and evolved with this fungus for generations, but it was new and deadly to the American chestnut. The blight was an airborne fungus introduced to the trees through any number of otherwise small injuries. It spread rapidly and within 50 years of the blight’s introduction it wiped out up to three billion American chestnut trees.
The delicious American chestnut is an excellent source of vitamins, minerals and is low in fat.
Important To The Economy of Appalachia
The American chestnut was an important crop in the Appalachian Mountains. It had a superior taste compared to the Asian and European chestnut and there was great demand for it. The nuts provided a great source of income for the people of these mountains, who also fattened their cattle and hogs on the nuts under the chestnut trees. It was an important tree for wildlife, the nuts providing a reliable food for deer, black bear, and wild turkey. The tree was a valuable hardwood timber tree. It was easy to work with and highly resistant to decay. The tannins in the bark of the tree were also used to tan leather.
I was thrilled to find some small American chestnut trees growing on the mountain where I live, in central Virginia.
There Are Still A Few Around
Today in the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and all over the native range of the American chestnut, every now and then you will find a small cluster of little American chestnuts trying to survive. You might think of these trees as American chestnut “bushes”. They will not grow tall and proud as the trees once did. The blight does not kill the roots, so the trees keep sending up new growth. A new sprout will shoot up, grow for a few years and die thanks to the chestnut blight that has attacked so many of these trees.
Volunteers planting American chestnut seeds at the Virginia Department of Forestry.
Hard At Work to Bring Back This Treasure
Scientists and volunteers working with The American Chestnut Foundation have been crossing American and Chinese chestnut trees then backcrossing the offspring with other American chestnuts in an attempt to develop a tree with the traits of an American and the blight resistance of a Chinese chestnut tree. There is great hope that this goal has been reached but much more research needs to be done. Only time will tell. Check back in 100 years or more.
An American chestnut seedling which is planted with great hope for the future of our forests.
