Beech leaves

The woods on our property consist of a diverse mix of deciduous tree species. I've never attempted to do any kind of survey, but would like to some day. Until then, I cannot say with certainty what the "dominant" species is/are, but we have many specimens of large trees such as oak, hickory, maple, beech, and buckeye as well as a variety of understory trees such as sassafras, redbud, dogwood and paw paw. Trees occurring in smaller numbers are aspen, tulip tree and sycamore. Heavy winds a few weeks back pretty much wiped the branches clean of their dapper autumn-colored leaves, but there are a few lingerers. But even those hangers-on will be bare within a few weeks, save for most of the beeches and some of the oaks.


The beech trees always grab my attention, and a lot of this has to do with the fact that they encircle our house and their leaves are right at eye level from almost any window that you look out of. As fall marches into cooler days and nights, and frost and cold rains start to come into the picture, I attempt to be vigilant in watching their leaves because every year they catch me by surprise. One day they're green and then - POOF! - they've changed. And then a few days later they've changed again. As fall progresses into winter, the leaves hang on the beech trees, but they change in character. They become more and more paper-like. They go from brown to beige. Winter winds whip them ragged, but still they will hang on until the last possible moment in spring. Other tree species will be sprouting new, green growth, while last year's beech leaves will still be there, almost transparent now, clinging to a season that was over months ago.


Today I went out with my camera and attempted to capture the differing stages of change among our beech leaves. This is something that grabs my interest - the leaves on some beech trees seem to turn faster or sooner than others. I've tried to make loose correlations to the age or size of the tree, but have come up with nothing conclusive. At this point, there are very few green leaves left. Most are a nice yellow or orange, or a mottled combination of the two. Some are brown, and a few have even gone into what I call the "paper" stage - they are dry and rolled at the edges, already well on their way to their winter "look."




There is a term, I have learned, for dead leaves that cling into winter. It is marcescence. Okay, so there is a name for it, but no one is quite sure why it happens. The most common theory that I came across had to do with protection from browsing animals such as deer or moose - having these papery and likely unpalatable leaves at the end of the branches could save the tender buds from being eaten. But if that were true, wouldn't all trees employ that same strategy? So many questions, so many things still unknown.

Coming to terms, part I

Hooray, OCVN classes are over!  Saturday was test and "graduation" day.  Everyone in our class passed (no surprises there - we were a pretty bright bunch, wink, wink!), so now all we have to do is get out there and volunteer and share our love and knowledge of nature with others.  And I look forward to getting back to sharing my love and knowledge of nature with YOU via this very neglected blog.  It may take a while to get back in the swing of things, so bear with me for a bit.

I've been agonizing over this particular post for days.  The main content has been steeping in my mind for about a week, but technicalities have slowed me down in getting it posted.  More about that in my next post.

I learned many new things during my 40+ hours of classroom and field time for OCVN, including lots of new terminology.  In addition to being a nature nerd, I'm also a word nerd.  I love words, and knowing what they mean (much like knowing the names of certain birds, flowers, butterflies, etc... but that's a topic for another post).  Today I'm going to share with you a set of terms that really piqued my interest because the words are so unique and new to me.

The first set is saprophyte and parasite (or saprophytic and parasitic).  I'm sure you already recognize the word parasite, but have you heard of a saprophyte?  That was a new one on me.  I learned about these words in relation to plants when we came across many examples of a particular plant during one of our hikes:


A discussion ensued as to whether this was a flower or perhaps some kind of fungi.  After all, flowers usually have some green in them, right?  Well, not all of them.  Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora) is indeed a flower, but it's not green because it has no chlorophyll.  Since it has no chlorophyll, it cannot photosynthesize, so it cannot produce its own energy (or "food").  As a result, it has to get its energy from somewhere else.  Enter the term "saprophyte," which refers to an organism that gets its nourishment from dead or decaying organic material. 

By contrast, a "parasite" is an organism that obtains its nourishment from living material, often to the detriment and harm of the host from which it is taking energy.   This is a flower I happened upon a number of years ago:


At the time I was sure it was some kind of fungi, and I recall searching for "pinecone mushroom" and coming up empty-handed.  I was delighted to finally stumble upon it in my Audubon wildflower field guide one day as I was flipping through the photo plates, and was thus able to identify it as Squawroot (Conopholis americana).  This is a parasitic flower that gets its nourishment from oak trees.  Several other plants in this parasitic family (the Broomrape family) include Beechdrops (host: Beech trees) and Naked Broomrape (host: various, including asters and clovers), neither of which I have encountered in person.  In case you are wondering about the rather violent-sounding family name, it is in reference to what could be considered the "violent" parasitic nature of some plants within the family on certain shrubs in the pea family known as "brooms."

Lest you think that these terms can only be applied to plants, I came across an interesting example of these types of organisms in the animal kingdom: vultures are saprophytes and tapeworms are parasites.

In my next post we'll look at a set of terms that deals with reproductive strategies.