Bryan's Posts About Botany
The Year in Flight
2015 is so almost over. It’s nearly history. So rather than offering you the predictable year-in-review, here’s 2016 in Preview — some of the life in flight that I expect to see in the new year. You might see it as well if you join me outside for a field trip or a seminar.
Forest Gleanings: Fall Foliage in the Desert
Fall foliage and other stuff I picked up and photographed here in southwestern New Mexico. Might I get a little crowd-sourcing on this? I’m basically clueless on western botany, in large part owing to the time I devote to chasing birds and insects out here (or because of all the time I spend staring into space).
Life in Flight at Maine’s Eagle Hill Institute
From a classic field station and center for learning Down East in Maine, here’s a report on butterflies, moths, dragonflies, damselflies, orchids, lichens and some of the people who love them.
In the Rainforest: Pleasure and Peril Among the Unknown
Spend a lifetime in the rainforest and you will learn but a fraction of its secrets. In Costa Rica, the drama of life on Earth plays out on a thousand stages in every direction. So here’s a report on the beauty of the tropics, its poisons and pleasures, and the pitfalls of knowledge. Oh, there’s also a slide show.
Flower Power
A plant is far more than its flowers. But today I photographed, almost exclusively, the sexy parts of a few early-spring wildflowers here in Vermont.
We Hope To See You (Fully Clothed) Friday in Montpelier
Ruth and I look forward to seeing folks in Montpelier this Friday night for our contribution to the North Branch Nature Center’s Naturalist Journeys lecture series.
Boobies and Berries
THE BIG, BREAKING BIRDING NEWS in Vermont and New York is a Brown Booby at the Lake Champlain Bridge at Crown Point, NY. Noted for a gangly apperance, big feet and spectacular plunge-dives, Brown Boobies occasional stray north – mostly along the…
The Year in Flight
They dwell on northern bogs and at ponds, and do what damselflies do: fly around, kill things and have sex. To casual observers, this pair of Subarctic Bluets (Coenagrion interrogatum) may appear no different than many other little blue damselflies…
Zombie Aspen Leaves
Yellow and brown and down to earth, they might appear dead. But they are not quite dead. They are the undead: zombie aspen leaves.
Hobblebush Burning
A full season of fall foliage erupts from the leaf of a single plant. Find your fireworks on Hobblebush.
The Forecast Calls for Snowberries
NOW AWAITING A FROLIC through your senses is one of nature’s most delightful candies, a treasure so discreet that you probably pass it by during walks on the long, green path. When you are next on some mountain trail, in…
Pipsissewa
Here’s a rare sight — at least for me. For whatever reason (and I can provide none credible), I had never seen Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata) in bloom. So here’s a “life inflorescence” from the woods near a bog in north-central Saskatchewan…
