The woods, late October

 The woods around here are beautiful and fascinating. Here’s a view from late October:

• Some wildflowers are still blooming. The most common are blue mistflower, Conoclinium coelestinum, and some asters in genus Symphyotrichum. The asters sometimes look white and sometimes have a blue tint. I’ve learned, through the years, that some people can distinguish colors far better than I can. I’ll have to have help with these little flowers.

• The goldenrods, genus Solidago, are also blooming. I’ve seen dense stands on land that have been disturbed by humans, but few plants in the forest.

• I found a nice stand of dogfennel, Eupatorium capillifolium, by a pond. Beautiful in the soft fall light.

• I’ve seen spectacular stands of kudzu, Pueraria montana, but the woods here are mostly full of common ivy, Hedera helix. In some stands, just about every tree trunk is wrapped in deep green to 30 feet. I don’t know whether the forests I’ve been tramping have some kind of immunity against this wildly invasive plant — do they provide too much shade for kudzu? — or whether they just haven’t been invaded yet.

These notes are about the natural history of Georgia’s Piedmont, but they are also about my mind. I can’t really get settled in a place without looking it over.

It takes a while to get familiar with something. But at some point, I want to be on familiar terms with a place.