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Tree of the Week for July 31st-August 7th, 2011: Picea engelmannii
I have recently returned to Maine from a long trip across the nation, visiting my family in Illinois and escorting my best friend to school in Colorado. I'll be spending the next few Tree of the Week entries discussing some characteristic Midwestern and Rocky Mountain trees. I begin this week with one from the West, a tree whose montane habitat is ( Read more... ) -
Tree of the Week for June 19th-26th, 2011: Robinia pseudoacacia
As you may have noticed, I didn't post a second plant two weeks ago. Or one last week. But instead of continually backdating my posts until the week I finally get the wherewithal to post twice, I'm going to just forge ahead and post a new plant this week. I wrote most of one last week, and I'm going to finish it up and post it this week, even ( Read more... ) -
Plant of the Week for May 29th-June 5th, 2011: Sanguinaria canadensis
Note: You will note that this plant is "of" last week. I had the entry half-written by last Friday, but didn't complete it. Since I would still like to write up a particular plant for this week, I'm just preserving it as a late posting of last week's plant. To continue...
The beginning of summer always comes as something of a shock to me. Spring is ( Read more... ) -
Tree of the week for January 16th-23rd, 2011: Betula populifolia
"The traveler who enters New England for the first time sees from his train or car window, in every abandoned field, on every dry and gravelly slope around the margins of swamps, and springing up beside the rambling stone walls, a little tree over 30 feet tall and commonly only 15 to 20 feet, with a spindling stem and Aspen-like, fluttering foliage ( Read more... ) -
Part I
for AbramIt is a fact known to even schoolchildren that three-quarters of this globe's surface is underwater. But far fewer are the people who truly appreciate the implications of this fact. For the oceans have something which the solid ground, let it be however flat or however craggy, does not: volume. The sea is not merely larger than the land in ( Read more... ) -
Friday, October 8th, 2010
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre ( Read more... ) -
Tree of the week for September 12th-19th, 2010: Juglans cinerea
I've been meaning to post this entry for, well, several months now, but have been stymied first by lack of photos, then by lack of camera cables, and then by simple laziness. But here it is, kiddies, so feel satisfied.
The tree I'm writing about is one of the U.S.'s rarer trees. This tree was never as celebrated as the American Chestnut, Castanea ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
There's a lot of ideas floating out there in popular culture about what the future will look like. From Cyberpunk dystopias to gleaming colonies in outer space to grim zombie apocalypses to transhumanist philosophers' paradises to global pandemics to hipster ecotopias. Me, I am dismissive of all of these. The only one that I think is even based on ( Read more... ) -
Plant of the week for May 16th-23rd, 2010: Houstonia caerulea
After a bit of an end-of-the-year moratorium, here's another entry. And even though late spring is one of the most glorious times of year, with the wild apples blessing the air with their sweet fragrance, and the violets and dandelions blooming in the meadows, I'm going to be focusing on a more subtle beauty, one which only made itself known to me ( Read more... ) -
Tree of the week for April 25th-May 2nd 2010: Amelanchier lævis
I may not be posting anything here next week, as I've got finals. But then again, I just might. One way or the other, though, here's this week's entry, about another Spring-flowering beauty, Amelanchier lævis. What a lovely name, that - Amelanchier, AM-ull-ON-keer. I like to roll it around on my tongue. AM-ull-ON-keer LAY-vis. It's a romantic name ( Read more... )