September 12, 2021: Laverack's Berries

I’ve walked the Laverack Nature at Hawkins Brook many times now - most recently with Linda, my mom and my sister - and each time I've noticed something new and different.  This time of year there are quite a few shrubs or low trees that are covered with berries of various colors:  red, orange, green, and blue.  Most of them I didn’t recognize, the only one I did was winterberry, so I took some pictures and spent some time back home working on identifying them.  The one with bright red berries I decided is cranberry viburnum, also called highbush cranberry. 

Cranberry viburnum  (Viburnum tribolum)

Because the foliage looks like maple leaves (trilobum -> three lobes!) I thought it might be maple-leaf viburnum, but they have dark blue berries; I eventually came upon cranberry.  Plus, the habitat of cranberry virburnum is wetlands which is where they are in Hawkins Brook, whereas maple-leaf viburnum is found in forests.  The cranberry-like appearance gives the plant its name, but they are not cranberries.  The fruit however is edible, juicy and sour and with large seeds (that are not edible).

They are used in jellies and jams as well as cooked into a sauce for hardy meat dishes such as venison.  I didn’t try them, but if they’re still there on my next visit perhaps I’ll sample a couple, though after my prior experiment with beechnuts, I don’t hold much optimism. 

So, beechnuts.  After I collected a few nuts from under a beech tree a couple of weeks ago (see August 29), I let them dry as recommended and then opened up the small, triangular inner seeds.  I was quite disappointed.  Out of the 16 seeds I had, only three contained any kind of nut meat in them and only one of these was of appreciable size. 

My harvest of beechnuts after drying.

The contents of those nuts.

The entire harvest.

Four of them contained little tufts of fuzz that looked like feathers.

Perhaps these are seeds that didn’t get pollinated.  The rest of the seeds were empty.  So this brings me back to my theory that the squirrels ate all the good ones, and left only the rejects on the ground for me.  But I did try the sorry little nuts I had since I had gone through the effort, and I can say they did maybe taste like nuts, perhaps between a pecan and a filbert.  But there was so little to chew on I really don’t feel I have much to offer.  In the end, that excursion into foraging didn’t work out so well; maybe cranberry viburnum will be better. 

In my travels this week I found several other berries, some at Hawkins Brook as I mentioned, and others I found while monitoring the Marion conservation easement .  This latter area had mountain ash and another new plant I had to look up.

Virginian creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

Though I didn’t recognize this shrub, the distinct leaves in groups of five made identification easy once I came upon it in the field guide.  The guide mentions Virginia creeper often grows along stone walls, and that’s exactly where I found it; the plant is a vine which can attach to stone or masonry to climb.   It’s a member of the grape family though the fruit is not edible, at least to humans – it is a valuable food source to many birds.

If you’ve been around the lakes early in the day you’ve noticed that morning fog is a common occurrence now, with cold air and warm water conspiring to create a ghostly scene. 

But it burns off quickly as the late summer rays beam down and heat the atmosphere to a temperature above the condensation point.   By mid-morning that clear blue September sky is revealed.

Scrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia) along Lake Ossipee in the Ossipee Pine Barrens

I've been told acorns are edible too, but I'm not ready to try them yet!

August 29, 2021: Beech Nuts

This may be a good year for animals that consume beech nuts, such as black bears, red squirrels, deer, chipmunks and many others.  I started seeing beech nuts and their husks on the forest floor over a week ago and now they are appearing in large numbers.  One quiet morning as I approached a huge old beech tree it sounded like it was raining; I stopped to take in the scene and parts of beech nuts were falling all around me, even bounding off my head:  The squirrels were up in the tree feasting on these nutritious nuts.  I picked up a handful and brought them home, having heard recently they actually taste pretty good.

Beech nuts are smaller than an acorn and their outer husks are strong and covered with sharp spikes that make opening them a challenge for human hands.

The outer husk of a beech nut.

Left on a tree the fruit will split in half, revealing two or three triangular-shaped inner nuts.

The nuts inside the husks, many of which had been eaten. 

The nut meat, which is quite small, is further hidden inside that inner seed and that's what the animals are ultimately after.

A seed from which the meat has been consumed.

I felt only a touch guilty taking some of the squirrel's harvest but when I inspected my collection I realized the animals are smarter than I am.  Most of the husks were empty, and most of them that did have nuts still in them also had worms in them - not presently, but earlier in the season - and thus the nuts were not desirable.  Here's an example of one with a worm hole in it that the squirrels passed up.

And another where it appears a squirrel had chewed into it.

And ate the nut meat by extracting it from the open point.

The same nut pried open.

The squirrels must be eating the best nuts up in the tree and leaving the others to fall to the ground along with the shreds of what they had opened or partially eaten.  So I ended up with just a few nuts that appear to be edible.  

They need to dry for a week or two, and then I'll let you know if I find them palatable.  

Beech are patient trees, growing slowly over a long period of time in the lower story of the forest, waiting for their day in the sun.  When they finally get their chance - due to a neighboring tree falling down, a forest fire, or logging for example - the exposure to sun results in a burst of growth.  But even without any direct sunlight beech trees can inch their way up slowly to become giants of the forest.  When the colonists first arrived in North America beech were some of largest trees in the old growth forests along with hemlock and white pine.

Today they are disliked by foresters because beech has little market value.  But if logging is done poorly without careful attention to the species in the logged area, after other trees are are removed and the sun let in, beech can easily take over large areas of forest.  But being such an important food source for so many of New Hampshire's forest animals, especially after the demise of the American Chestnut due to the asian chestnut blight, it's important to keep them in the forest inventory.  And it's always good to see squirrels and deer enjoying their produce; I just hope I don't come across a bear some morning when I'm walking among the beech trees.

I was away most of this past week so I don't have much status on the loons, but I did get one good look at them early in the week, and they continue their rapid progress toward becoming adults.

Coco and Jimmy, age 60 days.

A white chest and flight feathers are signs of a maturing loon.

But neither they or their parents better let their guard down because there are still hungry eagles visiting Lake Wicwas on a regular basis.

Photo by Debby Crowley.

Debby Crowley saw this bald eagle on Wednesday;  the bit of something hanging from its beak is curious.  

Let's hope Coco and Jimmy's parents continue their careful safeguarding of their chicks.

Photo by Debby Crowley.