Adventure on the Baptism River

On Friday Leah, Nolan, and I spent a few hours exploring on and around the Baptism River. We parked at the main lot at Tettegauche and made our way up the cascades trail. Shortly in to the hike, we went down to the shore, jumped on some rocks, crossed the frozen river (most of the ice in that spot was pretty thick so it was only a little alarming), and then continued up the shore by jumping on the rocks up that side. It was really cool looking at how variable the ice thickness and textures were at different points along the river. We spent a lot of time just adventuring and scurrying on the rocks/cliffs, and probably an equal amount of time just sitting, watching, and listening to the water. Of course we also did some botanizing and lichenizing. Lots of looking and adventuring, very few pictures for today. At one point Nolan and I climbed about 15 feet up a large white pine and hung around for a while. We both got full of sap, but I saw a new lichen species for me, so it was worth it. 

Nolan going through "the portal"

At first I thought it was yellow soot lichen (Calicium tigillare) because it had the same bright yellow color, but it didn't look quite right. Looking at it magnified under my camera, it still looked like yellow soot lichen, but still just not quite right. Of course, after I did some research, I found out it was yellow soot lichen (Calicium lucidum). Two extremely similar (but also very different) lichens with the exact same common names, how are you supposed to tell them apart! Another example of dumb and confusing common names is the bottlebrush frost lichen (Physconia detersa) and the bottle-brush frost lichen (Physconia leucoleiptes). Another lichen example are the genera Calicium and Chaenotheca, both called stubble lichens; or the genera Stenocybe and Mycocalicium, both stickpin lichens. It seems especially common in lichens, but there are so many examples in plants, animals, and every other taxa where common names are repeated. That's one of the reasons I'm so adamant about using scientific names as well as common names. Common names are great, they usually make learning new species far easier, but they also have their flaws. Often one species will have many common names, sometimes most people know most of those common names, but not always, and usually they vary drastically by region. Also many species share common names. So using only common names can get very confusing, very fast. I prefer to use both common and scientific names, especially when writing. 

Yellow soot lichen (Calicium lucidum) I saw on both old white pines and white spruces 

Yellow soot lichen (Calicium tigillare) seen at Crystal Cove a while ago




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lichenicolous Fungi at Goldeneye Lake

Image
Ever since I first ran into Abrothallus peyritschii a few moths ago, I have been obsessively searching for more lichenicolous fungi. They are quite an interesting group of organisms; being so understudied, along with being rather small and indistinct always makes them fun to stumble across. I had been researching some species to go and try to find in the field. One of the species that I read about was Abrothallus halei; the holotype for which was collected by Cliff Wetmore just east of Hare Lake back in 1999, but wasn't described until 2010. Apparently there have only been collections from MN, WV,  ME, and Norway, so I figured it would be worth the effort to go and look for. Little did I know the adventures that that would bring about! The first trip out to Goldeneye Lake was on Jan. 4. I had been there a couple of months before on a natural history hike with Charlie. From that I knew that there were quite a few older maple trees absolutely covered with tree lungwort, I figured it&
Read more

Lichens and Lichenicolous Fungi of Grand Marais

Image
 I spent most of the day out looking for lichen in and around Grand Marais. There were a few things that I observed earlier in the year that I was curious how distributed they are in the area, today seemed like a good day for an adventure up north.  The first and most interesting stop was of course at Artists' Point. It is a tied island connected to the mainland by a tombolo. This is quite a unique feature along the shoreline, the only other example that I've noticed is at Sugarloaf Cove. Both places are small islands by most standards, but they are quite large when compared to other islands along Superior's North Shore. Both places house some extremely rare plants and lichens. They also provide an absolutely breathtaking view of Superior. Sadly, these locations (especially Artists' Point) are favorites of tourists and these rare communities get quite trampled. Historically, there was a population of the endangered Scottish asphodel (Tofieldia pusilla) at this location.
Read more

Sap is Flowing

Image
Today David, Brie, Logan and I drove to the end of the driveway and snowshoed around for a while, collecting birch bark for winter survival class. From a distance I noticed one of the large maple trees had a streak of darker bark running up and down it. As I walked closer, I saw it was because that part of the trunk was wet. I gave it a little taste and it was nice and sweet. Yep, the sap of at least a few of the sugar maples is flowing, in January! Quite a surprise, usually in this area the maple tapping season begins in early April and lasts for a couple of weeks. But, with such warm weather today and the past week or so, I guess it isn't so surprising.  Sap flowing down a sugar maple (Acer saccharum) trunk This is quite the phenological event. So far it's been an exceptionally warm winter with little snow, lots of things seem to be happening "out of season" this year. Snowshoe hares had white coats with no snow to camouflage them for quite a while, (each day there
Read more