Archive for April, 2010

Another Thing to “Like” About the West Village

April 26, 2010 at 2:10 pm · Filed under 1, Wild Non-Flowering Plants ·Tagged , , ,

Another Thing to “Like” About the West Village . . .

Common Greenshield (Flavoparmelia caperata) blooms on a damp maple tree trunk near the corner of Jane St. and Greenwich Ave. (photo taken 04 26 2010)

Two days of April showers have brought on a very different type of flowering along the streets of the West Village. Take note of the tree trunks; many have become wrapped in a variegated pattern of living spring greens ranging from the palest lime to a creamy mint.

This unusual tree decoration is a species of foliose lichen called the common greenshield (Flavoparmelia caperata). When dry, this lichen slumbers in dusty patches that range toward the yellow end of the spectrum. These bloom into thick, flaky, leafy layers of mint green after a day or two of extended rain.

The lichen is not actually a plant, per se. What we see growing on the bark of the living tree is a complex relationship between two organisms: a fungus and green-celled algae. The lichen has no root system, stems, or flowers. The leafy flakes are the matrix of the fungus and the green is the algae residing inside the confines of this living architecture. The literature states that scientists are still not completely sure if this relationship should be technically referred to as Parasitism – where one of the two organisms plays the role of parasite while the other serves as host, or a case of Mutualism – where both species benefit in some manner. Symbiosis does seem to be in full effect, as the fungus provides a habitat and minerals for the algae, which in return through photosynthesis provides nutritious carbohydrates and sugars to both involved.

What is known for certain is that the lichen does not affect the tree in any negative way. The bark merely provides a framework for support. I therefore view this green filigree in a cosmetic way, as an extra layer of verdure to the damp spring cityscape. A close inspection reveals overlapping color fields of painterly green. One can follow this line of aesthetic thought into the realm of fine art and conjure up similarities between the lichen’s natural palette and that of Manhattan’s legacy of Modernist painters. Some lichen growth patterns resemble the abstract expressionist canvases of Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Helen Frankenthaler.

Lichens are a good sign, too, that one is breathing fine air. Lichens of all types are intolerant to air pollution. The presence of these organisms on the garden blocks of the West Village means the air of this neighborhood is some of the best in Manhattan, a claim backed up by the December 2009 report of The New York City Community Air Survey.

My own nose has noted a distinct freshness – a cool, damp quality – to the air as it blows in off the Hudson River. The waterway provides a natural filtering effect before the carrying winds enter the architectural canyons of Manhattan. Conversely, by the time one is strolling along the shops of the East Village, the street has acquired that “urban air” associated with auto exhaust and secondhand cigarette smoke.

There is much to like about the West Village and the lichen, by its very presence, knows this as well. While not a wildflower in the standard definition of the term, the common greenshield has earned a rightful place in the neighborhood’s little pantheon of colorful botanical curiosities.

Common Greenshield (Flavoparmelia caperata) grows on a ginko tree trunk on Leroy Street. (photo taken 04 27 2010)

– rPs 04 26 2010

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Earth Day 40 on the Fly

April 22, 2010 at 7:08 pm · Filed under 1, Wildflower Related, Wildflowers: White ·Tagged , ,

 

Earth Day 40 on the Fly . . .

Twenty years ago, while still an undergraduate journalism student at Penn State, I joined a lady friend on a spontaneous road trip to New York City to attend the 20th Earth Day concert held in Central Park. Twenty years later: same date, same place; but this time, as a permanent writer in residence, I took the subway and a day off from the West Village to spend Earth Day 40 fly fishing in Central Park.

I began my morning along The Lake between 71st and 72nd Streets. There I took some photos composed of the park in the foreground with midtown Manhattan rising in the distance. The contrast between spring green tree line and imposing skyscraper skyline made a fitting metaphor of balance for the holiday.

New York in ecological balance on Earth Day 40. (Photo taken April 22, 2010).

I caught and released a bluegill at The Lake; one fine fish for one fly fisher. Then passing crowds began to appear in earnest, so I packed up and hiked to Harlem Meer, an 11-acre pond located on the far northeastern corner of the park. During my walk through the hilly, forested section called The Ramble, I discovered one of the most revered American wildflowers – the white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) - was in full bloom . . .

A white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) blooms in a glade beside The Lake in Manhattan's Central Park. (photo taken April 22, 2010).

This wildflower is beautiful, its bloom as graceful as it is grand, yet should never be picked. The three petals of the flower are supported by a symmetrical triad of leafy bracts, and these are the plant’s primary source of food generation via photosynthesis. Pick the flower, and the plant will rarely recover to bloom again. Humans should stick to photography if they want to keep a memory of this flower because it has another fan, one that can only be described as ravenous – the white-tailed deer, which favors the white trillium as a food item.

– rPs 04 22 2010

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The Fly Fisher’s Flower

April 15, 2010 at 1:39 pm · Filed under 1, Wildflowers: Yellow ·Tagged , , , ,

The Fly Fisher’s Flower . . .

Marsh marigolds (Caltha pulustris) grow and bloom beside the cul-de-sac that connects Horatio and Jane Streets. (photo taken April 14, 2010)

My interest in wildflowers grew like a branch off my main outdoor recreation of fly fishing. This outdoor sport projects a person into the spaces where wild things are and, over time, even the most focused angler becomes aware of more than the fish and act of fishing. There is the bird life that sings and sometimes indicates where the fish might be holding, the insects that the fly fisher imitates with hook-bound feather, fur, and thread, the trees that give voice to passing breezes, and then there are the patches of color that punctuate the bucolic scene: the wildflowers.

Trout season in most American states begins traditionally at the start of April just as the first plants are beginning to bloom. An evolving series of new and different flowering species will add their own color along streams and around ponds throughout the forward course of the fishing season. These provide the fly fisher with more than beauty.  Taking a cue from Phenology, the branch of science that connects climate with periodic biological life cycle phenomena, the predominant flower of the moment provides the hatch matcher important clues about which insects are active – or “hatching” – and they therefore choose to tie and fish their fly patterns accordingly.

Of all the plants fly fishers encounter out in the field, the marsh marigold (Caltha pulustris) is the most iconic. This is the angler’s first flower, the one encountered at the start of trout season. Known also as “cowslip” and “buttercup” in the vernacular, this species is a native plant with its own identity. The marsh marigold pushes through the leaf litter as early as March, grows in thick bunches of vigorous, heart-shaped leaves. The bright yellow blooms, which are actually the plant’s sepals, appear quickly thereafter and have the ability to carpet brookside glades with a mellow gold that glows even on cloudy days.

One can easily differentiate the marsh marigold from the true cowslip (Primula veris), which is found in Europe, and the buttercup, which may be any one of a number of immigrant varieties of the genus Ranunculus. The European cowslip grows from a rosette base of radial leaves that supports a stem that holds clusters of small, yellow, bell-shaped flowers. The Ranunculus, especially the common creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens), bears a similar bloom to the marsh marigold, but possess a very different leaf pattern, one that is deeply lobed and veined.

I was not sure I would get to see my favorite fishing season flower this year. There are no trout streams flowing through Manhattan, nor are there any parks in the West Village that contain wild, untended woodlot wetlands. My wife and I travelled to her family’s southeastern Pennsylvania home for the holidays, so we squeezed in the Monday after Easter weekend and spent that morning wading and fly casting along a little freestone stream that flows within walking distance of her parents’ home. There we watched a pair of kingfishers, always a good omen for the angler, circle around in a call and response mating dance. I was delighted also to find the creek’s surrounding woods carpeted with thousands of Caltha pulustris blooming like little suns. Bathed in morning light, covered in dew, poised at the peak of their collective display, these marsh marigolds allowed me to see with my own eyes how the phrase “dripping with color” came to be coined.

Back in Manhattan, I continued my morning walks around the West Village. The final stretch usually finds me, coffee-to-go in hand, strolling north along the promenade of Hudson River Park, or else on the opposite side, walking along the West Side Highway. Both vantage points provide a fine, wide-angle view of the Jersey City skyline that leads south toward the distant silhouettes of the Statue of Liberty and the twin suspension peaks of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

When I reach the front of Jane Street I stick to the right in the shadow of the buildings. The one situated on the northeast corner is of particular note. Red brick and limestone in construction, the facade boasts a prominent limestone cornerstone just above head level. The left edge facing the Hudson River reads “A.D.” and the right edge that faces south reads “1907” – This is the Jane Street Hotel, designed by William A. Boring, the architect of Ellis Island’s immigrant station. The hotel’s interior was designed with a nautical theme and, in 1912, accommodated survivors rescued from the doomed luxury liner, The Titanic. I imagine those folks – though happy to be alive and comfortably on land – may not have appreciated the décor quite so much, given their experience.

Across from the hotel is a narrow green space that separates the busy highway from the quiet cul-de-sac that links the front of Jane and Horatio Streets. The day after I returned from the Pennsylvania holiday, I broke from my usual route for no other reason but a spontaneous change of pace and place. Instead of walking by the cornerstone of the Jane Street Hotel, I hung a left toward the green space. My decision, made practically on autopilot, rewarded me when I began to walk on the brickwork between the plantings. There, among the rose bushes, nestled within the leaf litter, was a scattered colony of marsh marigolds; my favorite spring wildflower, the fly fisher’s flower, growing and glowing in the shadow of the adjacent hotel.

I had indeed discovered gold . . .

The setting sun creates an impressionist glow of marsh marigold beside Manhattan's West Side Highway. (photo taken April 12, 2010)

– rPs 04 15 2010

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Ode to Onion Grass

April 9, 2010 at 1:17 pm · Filed under 1, Wildflowers: Green ·Tagged , ,

 

Ode to Onion Grass . . .

Onion grass (genus Allium) grows along the stone wall of Reggie Fitzgerald Triangle near the corner of Horatio Street and Eighth Avenue. (photo taken March 27, 2010)

 

　

Tufts of a deeper green

Claim the slumbering brown

Where new grass has not yet grown.

Spreading, sporadic and nomadic,

Over several seasons;

Flowers not, yet blooming,

The body itself a blossom

Beside trees, before walls,

Despite groundskeepers’ calls to arms

Against this perennial opponent.

　

Traditionally, family lily:

Bulbs, pale and rooted;

Shoots, almost evergreen;

Sprout into sight at the start

Of Spring’s annual work of Art;

Create great pieces of turf,

As Albrecht Durer saw it;

Draw a still life upon every lawn.

　

Kneeling down, taste takes over.

Savor the favor of their flavor

In hand, in soup, in stew.

Grazing as children, we knew

Those tangy and spicy moments,

Sinuses filled, now with memory

Of wild garlic, of chives,

Of onion grass.

Onion grass growing in Hudson River Park during the spring of 2010 resembles Albrecht Durer's watercolor "The Great Piece of Turf" painted in 1503. (photo taken April 1, 2010)

 

One of the first hints of spring’s return, onion grass is a perennial harbinger of the new growing season. The plant’s thin, fleshy, almost everygreen leaves punctuate lawns and rejuvenate waste places before grass and other garden greenery grows into full gear.

Onion grass is an immigrant from Europe; a member of the genus Allium, more commonly known as the onions. This group of root vegetables was first cultivated by the Bronze Age Egyptians and became a staple of the Greek and Roman diet, especially amongst the gladiators and other althletes of Antiquity. Later, the Roman became the Italian, but the onion remained on the regional menu. One Italian of note, Christopher Columbus, was the first to introduce the vegetable to North America. Other varieties followed. Some were cultivated, some were domesticated and went feral, a few simply invaded and somehow took root.

Onion grass is a general folk name, culled from the appearance and olfactory qualities, which has been applied like a quilt over a loose group of wild plants. There is an actual invasive species called onion grass (Romulea rosia), which is ironically the one member not found within the genus Allium. The others, such as chives (Allium schoenoprasum) and crow garlic (Allium vineale), are true onions; a mix of natives and immigrants. The connection linking all of these plants can be traced higher up the scientific classification ladder at the rung of Order, Asparagales.

The West Village, not known for its wide lawns and devoid of vacant green lots, still hosts a few scattered colonies of onion grass. Specimens have been spotted growing along the walls of Reggie Fitzgerald Triangle, the gardens of the Church of St. Luke in the Fields, and Hudson River Park. In each case the plants have blended into the landscape as well as any other ornamental.

All of the onion grass species appear similar at a casual glance — clumps of sturdy, dark green blades not unlike crab grass. The senses of touch and smell provide more nuance. The rubbery texture and pungent aroma is quickly perceived when such a plant is rubbed or picked. Differentiating the various members by sight alone early in the season takes time and practice. The easiest method is to wait until the plants flower. Unfortunately, most private and public park lawns are mowed far too often for this natural fruition to occur.

– rPs 04 09 2010

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