Winter Plants, Bark: These Places Rest
A recent visit to places I've walked often to observe with new keen eyes a familiar barren winter landscape. Plants peeping their color while the acorns, roots, tubers, rhizomes rest their potential in slowing freezing ground. These are from Northern Virginia. Mostly Sycamore, Platanus Occidentalis (Platanaceae family) trees by the Potomac River. Cloudy but lovely day in December. Still finding Nettle at Ball's Bluff. Probably Rose multiflora (Rosaceae) tasty rose hips but super seedy-- I pop them in my mouth as i hike and absorb the Vitamin C tang, spitting the seeds out. There's something about the Rose family in the winter that has been calling me this year. This was at the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship, a place I featured in a Spring 2011 blog post. Sycamore, Platanus Occidentalis (Platanaceae family) bark hanging in what is probably Rose Multiflora. This tree starts off gray at the bottom of the trunk and becoming increasingly scale...
