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 scaley as you look up the tree, sometimes turning pure white at the upper branches. They grow super fast and love riversides, streams. I think they're kind of hard to mistake for anything else. 

Add caption

Probably some sort of Goldenrod, Solidago spp. (Asteraceae) 

From the Tulip Poplar, Liriodendron tulipifera (Magnoliaceae family) 

From woods cabin trash pile.

Theo, and Ted looking at Racoon Tracks in the sand underwater.

Some sort of mushroom, I have no idea. Maybe a type of stinkhorn?

Wineberry, Rubus phoenicolasius (Rosaceae) "Invasive" but produces wonderful fruit in the summertime. This summer I mistook it for Red Raspberry (Rubus idaeus), which is generally okay because they're in the same family and have similar fruit. The berries are more tart than Red Raspberry and fall apart and get all over you more easily. They're still bright red and juicy. I also collected the leaves this summer for tea, thinking it was Red Raspberry, but I'm still using the leaves anyway because of the two plants being so closely related. I also collected Black Raspberry leaf (which easily gets mistaken for Blackberry, but they have different tasting berries and different stalks) which is also in the same family. These cousins all make great homes for birds, generally keeps big creatures out.

What a thing to find in the woods!