The raptor over Barbashela Creek was too far away to identify. I watched it circle for several minutes. It was the size of an eagle, and perhaps it was. But I never got a good enough look to be sure. If you’re an amateur in natural history, you’re an expert in uncertainty.
Seeing that huge bird reminded me that I should catch up some notes from the woods.
• You can see mayapple, Podophyllum peltatum, on the forest floor at Stone Mountain. The plant spreads from a rhizome. Each flowering stem coming up above ground has just two leaves, but they’re big — like twin umbrellas. The leaves remain folded until the stem reaches a certain height and then they unfold. That unfolding is what I’ve noticed in the past two weeks. The forest floor looks like a beach that has sprouted umbrellas for spring break. The single flower, when it comes, will be at the axil, the angle between the two leaves.
• I saw a red buckeye, Aeslulus pavia, blooming just south of the mountain. I’ve heard it called firecracker bush in Texas, which is the western limit of its range. The specimen I saw was a shrub, rather than a tree. Belt high.
• A black cherry, Prunus serotina, has been blooming by the pond at Wade Walker Park southwest of the mountain. The Missouri Botanical Garden says it has “fragrant white flowers in slender pendulous clusters,” — a lovely description of what the textbooks call racemes.
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