Though Lysimachia borealis is a diminutive plant in the understory, found in colonies that help roll out the spring carpet along with Canada mayflower and wild sarsaparilla, its beauty is […]
WALK IN THE PARK
Pitch Pines on the Path to Eastham’s Forest Primeval
New clearings and pioneer species were probably always part of our old oak forests
The idea behind Eastham’s rather grandly named 1651 Arboretum was to cultivate the sort of mature forest that the first European settlers might have encountered and, theoretically, enjoyed before subsequent […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Fringe Festival
The trail that leads down to Wellfleet’s cedar swamp, where majestic Atlantic white cedars grow from a bed of standing water, begins up on the heathland. There, the path winds […]
NATURAL SELECTION
70 Million Years Young
The fuzz-covered newborns that can be seen unrolling from their fetal positions near the cedar swamp in Wellfleet this week are the fresh fronds of cinnamon fern, Osmundastrum cinnamomeum, an […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Carex Calls for Aid
Rising (relatively) high on triangular stalks, the male flowers of Carex pensylvanica, a grass-like sedge that can be found softening the Outer Cape’s oak-pine forest floors, are jutting out their pale-yellow stamens […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Pilewort for the Peloton
Cyclists may especially appreciate the medicinal role the yellow-blooming plant growing alongside the Rail Trail in Eastham once played. Though this buttercup isn’t known these days for being anything but […]
NATURAL SELECTION
The Stink of Spring
It’s officially spring at the Eddy Sisters Community Garden in Brewster when wafts of the scent of rotting flesh begin to carry over from the property’s adjoining bog, where the […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Wishing on Neon Stars
There are two species of the New World genus Hudsonia, or false heather, on the Cape: a woolier one with fuzzy leaves and flowers that don’t have much of a […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Good for a Pain in the Apse
The smooth red-brown buds opening like hatches across from the Methodist Church in Provincetown may belong to Salix discolor, the native pussy willow, or they could belong to an introduced […]
NATURAL SELECTION
A Catkin of Another Kind
In the summer, the speckled alder, Alnus incana, hides in plain sight along the Beech Forest trail in Provincetown; its leaves look almost identical to those of Fagus grandifolia. This […]
NATURAL SELECTION
The Grandeur of the Beech, for Now
Within Fagus grandifolia, the American beech tree, as the millennia-old processes of spring try to get under way, an unwelcome guest is disrupting things. The nematode that causes the new […]
NATURAL SELECTION
A Huckleberry’s Close (But Not Kissing) Cousin
The native shrub Lyonia ligustrina is a close relative of blueberries and huckleberries in the Ericaceae family that makes a name for itself by producing hard capsules around its seeds […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Invasion of the Pretzel Sticks
The brown pretzel sticks seen trailside at the Twine Field in Truro are the thick twigs of Ailanthus altissima, the so-called tree-of-heaven, an infamous invasive that has established a grove […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Beware the Burr
There’s a lone specimen of rough cocklebur on the edge of the low marsh at the Audubon Sanctuary in Wellfleet that’s just waiting to be bumped into. The burrs of […]
GROWING WILD
Starting Native Seeds From Scratch
It’s not too late to coax purple poppy mallows and pussytoes through hibernation
The bounty of our native flora, with all its beauty and ecological benefit, is available to home gardeners at quite an inexpensive price — if we can just figure out […]
