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* Grand Prize goes to the first person to correctly identify the tall spikey cone-topped creatures in this photograph from the banks of Goose Creek. Correct answer and the prize winner will be announced on Monday.
(* Prize will be awarded later in the season when the garden produce is coming in. The winner will receive a bushel of fresh vegetables, sent as an email attachment in the new *.sqs compression format called Squash.)
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» BoZos run amok from Hoarded Ordinaries
I had to walk a long way down the Ashuelot River to find a solitary stand of trout lilies, also known as fawn lilies or dogtooth violets (Erythronium americanum). This time of year in Ohio, the woods would be... [Read More]
Comments
Hey! We have those growing here in NH; they stumped me last week because they were growing in a gravel waste area far from any water. I've since seen them in a grassy waste area far from any water, and then finally along the Ashuelot River here in Keene. If they are what I think they are, they're more at home on the banks of Goose Creek or the Ashuelot River than they are in dry abandoned lots.
They're horsetails/Equisetum, no? I don't know the precise species. Your photog is much better than mine...you can see the green stalks of the emerging vegetative stems next to the brownish-pink reproductive ones. I'm vaguely remembering from Plant Sex 101 (not that I ever took such a class, of course, but I would have loved to have...) that horsetails like mosses have separate stems for reproductive purposes, right?
(That's digging back a *LOOONG* time ago to high school biology class!)
Posted by: Lorianne | April 24, 2004 9:38 AM
Alright Lorianne, I just spent 30 minutes looking in my field guides and the internet for these plants. I finally came up with horsetails but I didn't just know it off the top of my head. Of course, when I hit the comment button the screen said zero comments but when the comments came up Lorainne had beaten me by 15 minutes. Bugger, I really wanted to win some virtual vegatables. Good job Lorianne.
Lets do it again Fred!
Posted by: Seth | April 24, 2004 10:08 AM
I couldn't have won the prize and nothing rattled my cage on first glance, but I remember equisetum from my days hanging with the biologist in Alaska. That and sedge and British Soldier's lichen. Funny how memory works. Names come back in clumps.
Posted by: trish | April 24, 2004 6:00 PM