The essential nature of winter

When late November finally arrives, my wife, Elizabeth, and I go into another mode. Her busy season in the gallery-studio she operates here on the town square in Bryson City pretty much comes to an end. The Elderhostel programs, workshops and lectures that keep me on the road from mid-March into November come to an abrupt halt. From now until early spring we get to spend more time together at our home place in a little cove four miles west of town. Winter is our time of the year.

Quiz time

Naturalists are always being quizzed about this or that. Turn about is fair play. So, are you ready for a natural history quiz? Here are 20 questions related to the natural history of the southern mountains. My answers are given at the end. Don’t peek.

Winter preparation

If you’ve been getting out in the woods at all lately, you’re aware that it’s been an especially good season for chipmunks; indeed, perhaps because of the late frosts and dry weather, it’s been a chipmunk kind of fall. They seem to be everywhere, and with their incessant chattering series of chips, chucks, and squeals they’re all but impossible to ignore.

When litter is good

Due to the virtual absence of wind and rain, the fall color season is lingering with us. But winter weather and the descent of the leaves will come soon enough. Right now is a good time to keep on paying attention to them. Their autumnal color changes and graceful flight to the forest floor are but one phase in a year-round cycle that is among the most ignored, important, and intriguing occurrences in the natural world: the creation of leaf litter.

Overnight hibernation

As I write this on Monday morning, we’ve just had our initial hard frost of the year here in Swain County. For the first time in seven or so months, I had to dig around and find my windshield scraper. While scraping away at the windshield with nearly frozen hands, I heard the birds in our backyard calling to one another as they trundled back and forth from the shrubbery to the feeders. They seemed excited that cold weather was finally arriving.

The gall

The various relationships that exist between plants and animals are fascinating. My view of wildflower ecology is dominated by the specific pollination requirements of a given plant. Insect pollination is usually a two-way exchange in which the insect benefits as much as the plant. One achieves fertilization while the other obtains precious energy stores.

Uncovering winter’s delight

Some trees that might be difficult to locate during the spring through fall foliage season become more apparent in winter. This is the instance with sweetgum, which holds its leaves into early winter after most other deciduous trees have shed theirs. Into mid-December, the lovely reds, pinks, and clear yellows that signal the species stand out alongside roadways and on adjacent slopes. A drive on Western North Carolina’s highways at this time will turn up more sweetgum locations than one could ever detect during the rest of the year.

Beauty of the cardinal flower

The fall wildflower season has arrived. Along roadsides and woodland edges some of our more robust native plants are now coming into full bloom. By “robust” I mean high growing and stout. These would include wild lettuce, common mullein, Joe Pye weed, green-headed coneflower, bull thistle, various species of woodland sunflowers, crown beard, boneset, white snakeroot, New York ironweed, cardinal flower, and others.

Shrills in the night

When I was growing up in the tobacco-farming portion of the southern Virginia piedmont, there were many haunted outbuildings throughout the region. My friends and I knew they were haunted because we would nightly, from early spring into early fall, hear ungodly shrieks and hisses emanating from them. My Uncle Will smoked his pipe and told us stories about the “monkey demons in the rafters.”

Sweet bubby bush

I recently received an email from a reader who asked, “Could you write about the sweet bubby bush? That’s the only name I know it by. Old plant, my mom loves it. I’d like to plant one. Haven’t seen it in a long time.”

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