This is a mystery to me: I can walk past something a million times without noticing it. Then, when I am looking for something else, I see it, as if for the first time.
We were out looking at the autumn leaves. The only reds in the canopy were the native sourwoods, Oxydendrum arboreum. While looking, I noticed some odd colors in a stand of alders in the wetlands along Stephenson Creek.
I’m not good with colors and couldn’t tell if I was seeing dark purple or black. I had to stop to look closely.
What I was seeing was leaf spot disease, typically caused by fungi. I’ve seen countless cases of it. My grandfather used to spray his fruit trees, and I’ve seen many blighted trees of many species in the forest.
I knew that alders, Alnus serrulate, grow in thickets and prefer wet soil. I knew, generally, that many fungi like wet environments.
What I hadn’t known was that fungi in genus Septoria could spread through a stand of alders like flu through a human population. I hadn’t known that the disease could spread so widely that it could be mistaken by an admittedly half-awake observer for a change of the seasons.
No comments:
Post a Comment