Goo Day

Happy Goo Day!



I was mistaken in thinking that I'd already missed Orange Goo Day this year... That is, the day the Cedar-Apple Rust and Cedar-Qunice Rust make their outlandish annual appearances.



Hooray! I hate to miss it. This year the appendages seem more noodly than ever, don't they? I wonder if that's because it's rained so much in the past year.

Well, if you aren't hip to the whole orange goo phenomenon, don't fret. I wasn't either, until we moved out to the country. You can read my past posts (with slightly more scientific explanations) here.

So, was it Goo Day with you too? Did you have fun shouting sporulation and heteroecious and gelatinous telial spore horns?

Tour of trees

At one of the homes we toured last weekend, my friend S. and I enjoyed the sight of the huge trees as much as the home and all the decorations.

How I could have neglected to note exactly what type of trees these were, I'm not sure... I guess I was afraid that the shuttle would leave us. Looks kind of like an oak though, I think. You can click to see it better. (I blurred my friend's face so she wouldn't kill me.)



Another nice one on the other side of the house. Wish I had trees this nice and spreading. (If you're local, you might recognize this as Mitchell Farm.)



On the walk back to the car, we passed a couple of trees with last-gasp color. (That smaller farm manager's house is really more my speed.)



The trees near the Ruby Radish were bare of leaves. The better to see the good bone structure, though.



This is the view from Mitchell Farm - it gives you an idea of the winter forest look in my limestone valley. Almost everything green is a cedar; there are few pines.

Early snow

Nothing like a little snow, to bring one out of a blog slump.



Every channel forecast snow, but I didn't pay much attention to their percentage predictions. My belief that it would actually snow, in Alabama, in early December, was exactly 0%.



But it did snow, a little.



Jasmine romped. She adores cold weather.



The chickens were wary. It might have been some evil plot, after all.



I don't remember the trees ever looking so nice, after such a light snow.



I hope the rosemary didn't get too frizzen.

Goo to you

Big spring rains = orange goo.



This year we had an overabundance of the Cedar-quince rust (gooey bits seen here) and not so much Cedar-apple rust (noodly orange meatballs).



Sporulation, my new favorite word.

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These photos are really from about 3 weeks ago - I forgot to post them earlier. I have been forgetting a lot of things lately.

Conflict of interests

By coincidence, the state meetings of both the Alabama Master Gardeners and the Alabama Wildflower Society were held in Huntsville this past weekend.

I had a conflict of interests!



Actually it wasn't too bad, except for half a day on Saturday, when the AMG was winding down and the AWS was beginning.



We did not get as much time at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens as we would have liked.

This is their 115+ year old dogwood.



A trillium that doesn't know how to count. (It's supposed to have only three petals.)

A quadrillium...?



At a garden we toured, my favorite feature was this granite wall that the owner had built out of free scraps.

I didn't take my "good" camera due to forecasts for lousy weather, and of course ended up wishing I'd had it.




Especially when we hiked the Monte Sano sinks trail. I saw Squawroot for the first time...



...I didn't realize it was so big!



One night the banquet hall was late opening up, so I wandered the neighborhood and photographed enchanted medieval castles. (Or possibly it was just a backlit church with swirling clouds.)

I had a wonderful time, but boy are my feet tired.

Natural Graffiti

Fungi graffiti. (Spalting in tree trunk.)



Snail graffiti.



Insect scrollwork?

Early bloomer

Cherry Japanese Apricot blossoms...



... at the in-laws' this past weekend.

I haven't seen cherry trees blooming around here, and the inlaws are north of here, so I guess this one's just an early bloomer.

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Updated:
My sister-in-law emailed to tell me that the reason this is blooming before other cherry trees, is that it isn't a cherry tree! It's a Japanese Apricot. (The bark looks just like that of a cherry.)

Stumpery

Squirrels have their own ideas about what makes a good stumpery. "Feeding platforms, a must-have!"



This is what remains of our old falling tree problem.



Turkey-tailish fungi march up one side and down the next.



Flamboyant fungus.

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I only learned about stumperies earlier this week, when a friend sent me an article about the one on Vashon Island. (Pat Riehl, the owner of that one, will be speaking at the B'ham Fern Society lecture in May.)

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Trying to google images of stumperies brought me to an interesting blog, the Folly Fancier, who had featured this stumpish superstructure.

I saw that FF had also written about the Lupercale grotto, another coincidence, since of course Lupercalia starts tomorrow.

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And a dog nicknamed Stump just won the Westminster dog show.

Spongy black fungus

What the heck is that thing?



I don't know, but it sure looks weird.



Back home at the computer, it's Tom Volk to the rescue again.

This is a specialized type of Sooty mold, Scorias spongiosa, that appears only on Beech trees.

Here's another page about it.

I first learned about sooty mold when I took the Master Gardener course. Certain plant-sucking insects excrete honeydew, a delightful name for what really amounts to sugary poop. The sooty mold lives off of it, and that's the black stuff you see on leaves (and other things).

I hadn't realized they came in such specialized varieties, though.

Monkey cigars

Several Catalpas grow here. They're a native tree, but these were planted by previous owners, to attract the catalpa worms that are such good fish bait.



One of its country names is Monkey Cigar Tree. Ever since I learned that, the long pods always bring to mind those old smoking monkey toys.



Inside the pods are several seeds, all fringed on the ends.



Looks like twins. (They all do.)

I posted about Catalpas, aka Catabas or Catawbas, and their worms before. They grow naturally by streams, so they don't mind getting their feet wet - the trees in the flood photo last week (on the right) were catalpas.

I thought I'd read that repeated defoliation by the worms didn't harm the trees. Usually, not every tree is defoliated every year. But one that seemed the worms' favorite is now dead. Could just be coincidence though; I don't know how to perform tree autopsies.



The spring we first moved here, I found a hornworm on the porch, and mistook it for a catalpa worm. Oh, so gently did I carry him over to a branch, thinking I was helping him find his true home. I want to slap my head now, remembering that piece of idiocy! It's ok though — confusion to our enemies, and all that.

I wondered if people actually ever lit up the pods, which don't seem very smokable to me. No firm evidence, but I thought it was hilarious that the search turned up an article by my blog friend Ron as the top item. Small world!

What the storm hath wrought

We could have used all this rain last spring or summer, but it's still welcome.



Even if last week's storms are going to cause a little extra work. I wish I'd put something in there for scale - this tree was huge. I had to hop up on it to get over.



This ex-Sycamore was definitely dead already.



I think the fish and ducks and flittery little birds would like this a lot, but hubby thinks it needs removing.



Collateral damage... I wish it hadn't taken two live trees with it.



It's amazing how fiercely the Sycamore balls still cling, this time of year.



Except for this one.



Flocks of Cedar Waxwings celebrated the rain. (Click to enlarge.)