The Madrone Tree

This is a Madrone Tree, one of the prettiest trees around because of its reddish bark that peels to reveal a light green layer underneath. This photo was taken in the summer, so it was not flowering, but in spring the red and green bark make a beautiful background to white flowers and red berries. Madrone comes from the Spanish word for strawberry. You can imagine that a tree covered with what looks like strawberries would be beautiful.

Here is a close-up of the red and green bark, with an ant coming for a visit.

I took these photos during a kayak trip off San Juan Island in Washington State. We stopped for lunch in Deadman Bay near Lime Kiln State Park. We had started the trip in the morning from Smallpox Bay. Fortunately there was no bad karma on our trip from these two bays with sad histories.

Without getting too much into the gory details, Deadman Bay got its name because the bodies of illegal Chinese immigrants would wash up here after being thrown overboard by smugglers trying to escape US Customs agents. Smallpox Bay was named after the Native Americans who tried to treat their smallpox fevers by bathing in the cold waters of the bay. They contracted smallpox, which they had no immunity to, through contact with European settlers.

Although the Madrone Tree was of no help in treating smallpox, Native Americans did use its leaves and bark to treat a variety of other illnesses including stomach ailments, skin problems, sore throats and colds. They also ate its berries. A Native American legend explains that the reason Madrone Trees are often found on rocky coastlines like Deadmay Bay is that it is the Madrone's job to hold the earth together with its roots.

Today's less romantic explanation for why Madrones thrive on rocky coastlines is that they are broadleaf evergreens, in the same family as the Rhododendron. Their large leaves are active year-round, compensating for the poor soil conditions. Madrones are well suited for the relatively mild winters of San Juan Island. Evergreens in areas with colder winters generally have needles rather than broad leaves.

Here is a Madrone in bloom from Wikimedia:

Woolly Aphids

Here are some really revolting insects I recently found feasting on an elm tree. They are called Woolly Aphids. Their "wool" is actually a waxy secretion it is believed they use for protection.

Most of these aphids were bunched up together, like the ones on the bottom of this branch, rather than loners like the ones on the top of the branch or in the first photo. Their wool was billowing back and forth together in the breezes. If I were looking for an easy meal, I would not want to pick through all that wool. Who knows, there could be a sheep under there!

Most aphids, including Woolly Aphids, have a complex life cycle that includes two different host plants, winged and wingless generations, and generations that reproduce sexually and asexually. For Woolly Aphids, their two hosts are trees in the Elm Family and the Rose Family (often apple trees, but sometimes pear, quince, sugarplum, hawthorn or mountain ash).

The first generation of aphids that appear in the spring are all wingless females, which reproduce asexually. For Woolly Aphids, this cycle starts in elm trees. A few more generations of wingless females are born asexually (aphids multiply faster than rabbits!) until sometime in the summer, when a generation of winged females are born.

These females fly to nearby trees of the second host species, and asexually produce more generations of wingless females. Late in the summer, another generation of winged females is born and flies back to the first species of trees. More wingless females are born asexually until sometime in the fall, when (FINALLY!) some males are born and also some females that reproduce sexually.

It's party time in aphid town, until the eggs are laid, winter comes, and all the adults die. The eggs hang out over the winter, and start the cycle again in the spring.

The other strange thing that aphids are known for is producing "honeydew". Since it comes out of their anus, I can think of a better term for it, but apparently it contains a lot of sugar and other insects love to eat it. Some species of ants even have symbiotic relationships with certain species of aphids, where the ants protect and "milk" the aphids like a herd of cows. Some bees eat honeydew, and then produce a type of honey that is darker and stronger tasting than honey made from flower nectar.

Unfortunately, when you get thousands of aphids together secreting honeydew from their anuses, it can seem like it is raining. My hands and my camera were covered with drops of honeydew. I had to stop taking pictures because my lens was getting blurry. I hope that little detail will make you appreciate the above photos even more. Ah, the lengths I go to for my art!

Amico Island Park

It's not often that you see an insect that so beautifully compliments the plant it has alighted on. Sure, you could say this insect has evolved camouflage specific to this plant that is a critical part of its life cycle. But with these bold colors, I think this goes beyond camouflage.

This is a Locust Borer, which gets its name because its larvae bore into Black Locust trees. A large infestation of Locust Borer larvae can kill a tree. Adults feed on pollen, commonly from Goldenrod like in this photo. Hence the yellow color of the insect.

I took this photo in Amico Island Park in Delran, NJ. Here is another from that day. This is a Common Buckeye. Using the opposite of camouflage, the Buckeye's colors make it stand out rather than blend in. The idea is to stand out so much that it scares away predators, who think those spots are the eyes of some much larger creature.


Amico Island Park is located where the Rancocas River empties into the Delaware River, across from Philadelphia. If you turn around, you see the city skyline and the Tacony-Palmyra bridge across the Delaware (but then you turn your back on this beautiful wildlife!).

At one point, this huge ship turned in from the Delaware and up the Rancocas. Its name is Karaweik, and it is bulk carrier owned by a Japanese shipping company. That little white triangle to the right is a sailboat, out for a leisurely Sunday jaunt when it came across this behemoth.

This ship really gets around - I found photos of it on the web in Japan, Washington State, Panama and Greece. Just 3 days ago it passed westbound through the Panama Canal and is now somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

Festival of the Trees #52

Welcome to Festival of the Trees #52! This is the first time I have hosted FOTT, so I was very surprised by the number and range of posts that were submitted. I have to say, no other blog carnival I have participated in has come close! I received over 30 posts from around the world, ranging from poems, to photos, to videos, to prose, to naturalist observations. My own blog tends toward observations and the scientific side of nature, so I was glad to “branch out” into the more artistic side.

Maybe the large turnout was due to my picking an “open” theme. Or maybe the milder weather lately has encouraged us all to amble about and appreciate our arboreal amigos. Whatever the reason, I’m happy about it! I have tried to mix up the different types of posts here to keep you on your toes. Enjoy!

I will start with a poem, but for the benefit of the poetically impaired like myself, I will start with one that is presented in an easy-to-digest manner. Poet and jazz broadcaster Jason Crane, at his self-named blog JasonCrane, first brings us on a photo tour of the Pine Hollow Arboretum in Slingerlands, NY. Then he shares a video of poet Walt Franklin reading an excerpt of his poem “Red Oak”. Hearing the intonation intended by the author, along with his expressive hand motions, adds to our enjoyment of his work.

Over at the blog Rebecca in the Woods, Rebecca gives us some superb photos and descriptions of an ancient Live Oak on Jekyll Island, Georgia and the ecosystem it supports.

Corey Finger at 10,000 Birds describes the loss of the tree in front of his apartment building in Forest Hills, Queens (NY) during a recent violent storm. The weather that created this storm also passed through New Jersey where I live, so this story hit close to home. My sister and brother-in-law used to live in Forest Hills, so I know how precious the trees are there.

I love the name of Johnny Nutcase's blog - “Count Your Chicken! We’re Taking Over!”. Johnny sends along some gorgeous photos from the White Mountains of California. I especially love the gnarled Bristlecone Pines.

Ashley Peace at the appropriately named Treeblog treats us to a walk around Worsbrough Reservoir in England. He comes across some interesting trees, and even more interesting things growing on those trees. My favorite is the fungus that looks like a woolly egg.

Poet Dorothee Lang from Germany blogs at Virtual Notes. She offers her poem “Cutback/Backcut”, which like its title has both a left and a right side. Be sure to appreciate both sides!

Over at Nature's Whispers, Jasmine brings us on a tour of Lligwy Cromlech, Din Lligwy and Hen Capel Lligwy. These are three ancient sites in the Lligwy region of Wales, dating from the Neolithic, Roman Occupation, and Medieval periods respectively. She explains the fascinating history of these sites, and also identifies what may be an ancient Hawthorn tree at Hen Capel Lligwy. She provides interesting information from The Woodland Trust on how to estimate the age of trees by hugging them. Even if the hug doesn’t give you a definitive answer, at least you will feel more at peace!

Speaking of The Woodlands Trust, Jasmine also tells us about the Trust’s “Woods on Your Doorstep” campaign to plant trees across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Jasmine has applied for a pack of trees to create a community woodland in her hometown of Anglesey, Wales. We wish her luck! Jasmine then shows us a beautiful but damaged apple tree and wonders if there is anything she can do to help heal it. If you know, please pass along your thoughts.

Arati at the Trees, Plants & More blog brings us on a photographic tour of Cubbon Park in Bangalore, India. Of course I enjoyed the many photos of the trees in the park, but I really loved seeing the unique style of Indian architecture.

Carolyn Guinzio sent along a series of what I would call “phenological” photos of a group of trees. Phenology is the study of periodic life cycles in nature, such as the changing of leaves with the seasons. Carolyn reports that due to the dry, hot weather this year in Fayetteville, Arkansas, these trees have not yet shown their autumn colors. Carolyn does not have a blog, but why should that prevent us from enjoying her beautiful photos? I have copied them throughout this festival to give you some visual breaks, starting with winter. Hopefully Carolyn will start up a blog in time for us to see the fall foliage in Fayetteville!


Next we visit the blog Very Like a Whale, where Nic Sebastian presents her poem “The Forestry Student”. Our world-traveling student recalls the trees of home while learning about new ones in the high country of Colorado.

Over at the Marianv Blog, Marian Veverka relates a sad story of the effects of a dry year and an onslaught of McMansions on her local forest in Ohio.

One of the coordinators of Festival of the Trees, Dave Bonta, blogs at Via Negativa. First, Dave brings us on a hike along the Black Gum Trail in his home town of Plummer’s Hollow, PA. The photos are fantastic, and I definitely did not know that the leaves of Black Gum trees start turning a month or more before other trees. Then, find out in this funny story why Dave has put a fence around a dead tree in his yard.

At the e-zine Elimae, Eric Burke's poem “Redundant” has been published. See what you think is redundant about the forest scene Eric describes. (I had to check the dictionary for some different nuances of meaning for this word.) You may need more than a dictionary to appreciate the title of Eric’s other poem published in Elimae, “Zeno’s Paradox”. If you sold your philosophy textbook back to the bookstore, you can get a general idea of the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea by checking Wikipedia. That is what is wonderful about poetry - there is so much meaning packed into so few words.

Nancy Devine writes at her eponymous blog (you can look that one up while you have the dictionary out), where she gives us two photos and a beautiful description of the ornamental crab trees in her backyard in North Dakota.

How could we pass up a blog called Saving Our Trees? Here, Jacqueline Yetzotis brings us on a tour of St. Peters Cooks River Church in Sydney, Australia, with a focus on its trees. I found it fascinating that the pillars that support the vaulted ceiling of the church are made from several intact trunks of Ironbark trees. Jacqueline needs assistance identifying a tree on the grounds that is from South Africa, so drop her a line if you know.

Speaking of great names for blogs, how about Living ?s - A Dedicated Space for Curiosity. Since I blog at Kind of Curious, I can really appreciate that. At Living ?s, Karyn Eisler gives us a short video of the forest, bursting with bird song, outside her room in the Hungarian spa town of Hévíz.

Did I mention that I blog at Kind of Curious? Here you can see my series of photos of “nurse logs” in the Hoh Rain Forest of Olympic National Park in Washington state, showing the various stages of their “life after death“. While you are there (here?) why don't you check out some photos of Monterey Cypress trees at Pebble Beach, California, along with some interesting facts about their odd shapes and the famous Lone Cypress. And here I discuss how the exquisite sound of Stradivarius violins may be due to the climatic conditions present when the trees they were made from were growing.

Well, Spring has sprung in Fayetteville, so let's check out our trees:


Roberta Gibson at the Growing With Science Blog gives us a brief lesson on apples. Her blog is subtitled “Putting the Fun Back into Scientific Exploration”, and she does not disappoint. She even follows in David Letterman’s footsteps and tries the “Will it Float?“ game on some apples. If you have ever bobbed for apples you can probably guess that one correctly, but how about pumpkins? Click here to find out!

Next we visit poet Daniela Elza at her blog Strange Places. Daniela offers us her thoughts on trees, including her elegant poem “Inhabitions”.

Heidi Greco is Out on the Big Limb (that's the name of her blog), where she laments a tree downed by a storm in her neighborhood in British Columbia. Hmm ..... trees downed by storms in both New York and British Columbia? What’s going on here? I think Heidi is onto the theme, because then she describes trees downed by chain saws, just like those we read about in Ohio. This is getting scary. Heidi also sends along an interesting photo of a bird’s nest that fell from a tree, showing the range of “found” materials that birds utilize.

The provocatively named Sand_Shadow points us to PBase to enjoy his photo of a tree and a full moon, with an industrial element thrown in to keep us off balance. You’ll have to see it to understand what I mean.

Scott McCrae at Christian Naturalist offers a series of posts about Box Elder Maples, including some great close-ups that help with identifying these trees. If you know what causes the red staining of wood infected with heart rot, let us know by leaving a comment on Scott‘s blog.

Over at Musings From Aotearoa, Robb Kloss was inspired by an ancient tree next to a river in the Ruahine Range, in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The result is his elegant poem "Observation on the River".

Rebecca at A Year With the Trees has a great idea, of visiting a tree each day throughout 2010, once per season, to be inspired and write about it. On September 17th she visited the Chestnut Oak outside her window in North Carolina, along with the Wheel Bugs hunting on one of its twigs. Let’s hope Rebecca continues into A Second Year With the Trees!

Black Walnut trees are the focus at Anybody Seen My Focus?. JSK starts us thinking about the different ways that animals get through the hard outer shells of the walnuts. The last photo of a squirrel caught in the act is hilarious.

Meanwhile, back in Fayetteville, the heat has set in. The leaves are a noticeably darker shade of green, and the grass has dried up:


Well it's almost time to wrap up another Festival of the Trees. Before we go, please remember to send in your writing and photos for next month's festival. Our host will be Arati at Trees, Plants and More. Please email your links to Arati - ringsofsilver09 (at) gmail (dot) com. The theme is Open, and submissions are due October 29th (by midnight in your local time zone).

Thank you to everyone who participated in this Festival of the Trees, and a special thank you to those who read and viewed our work. I will end with this beautiful piece sent in by Jessica Swafford. Jessica does not have a blog, so I have copied the piece below:

Trees

I've always had a preoccupation with trees. I cannot name them, cannot distinguish one kind from another. I even dream of trees. I've never known why or how the fascination began.

Liking the trees so much always struck me as extremely funny because my maternal grandfather owned a sawmill for many years. I never knew my grandfather nor have I been close to anyone on my mother's side of the family.

What few stories I can get from my mother all have an element of the sawmill in them. Her favorite memory is her father coloring Easter eggs with the red and blue wax pencils normally used to mark lengths of board. A painful story I've never heard in its entirety is how one of her brothers was driving the log truck on a winding road where there was something ahead of him blocking the way. He slowed down but the car behind him did not. Four individuals were wounded and would die of their injuries. Her brother held a man in his arms until the man died.

My mother was very little then and remembers the utter shock of seeing her brother's white t-shirt and dress pants completely red with blood. She remembers the fear that she wouldn't see him again because he could have been sent away for 'killing' those people even though it was just a tragic accident.

I realized recently that I breathe like a tree. Taking in a deep, sound breath is the trunk and the roots. Breathing out is the leaves rustling in spring. Then it hit me. I AM the tree. I have always been the tree.

When my grandfather had the sawmill, everything was about the destruction of the tree. It was cut down, marked up. It's layers were ripped apart according to their potential function - bark to burn, hard center for flooring - to be stomped on, walked all over. When he lost the sawmill later in a bad investment deal, it was nothing, didn't even exist.

If I have been the tree the whole time, then all those things were done to me. I have been cut to my core, burned, divided, stomped. I have been non-existent at times.

My most important relationship is with my father. He never worked wood, was never employed at the mill, never knew my grandfather, never even whittled on the porch. His job has always been with tires, but the rubber does come from trees, doesn't it?

My father wants to get a tattoo now suddenly after only having a doodle from 40 years ago. He wants a cottonwood tree with a tire swing and one fairly large and significant branch broken and off to the side. The tree and its branches are suppose to be life itself and the important people. The tire is my dad. The broken branch is my dead brother.

I guess I'd have to be the rope. I'm holding on, grasping tightly. I'm not exactly a part of the whole, but I can climb my way up. I can find out how solid some of the limbs are and rip away some of the twigs that serve no purpose.

I will make my way back to being the tree.

I, however, will not be the one destined to be hard wood flooring or ash. I will be the willow that seems to mark time into eternity and memory. I will not be the Giving Tree that gives until there is nothing left. I will not become driftwood, either.

I will be the Redwood that refuses to come down, the one in souvenir pictures where a literal roadway has been cut through the tree. You can peek within, but you cannot destroy.

I am the tree house that brings childhood fantasy back to life. I am the cherry dresser admired and passed down generations. I am the wooden cross that marks the grave of your favorite dog. I am the pencil that links the heart's memory to the page. I am the page that holds the story. I am the pulp of all being.