Gleaning Facebook: April at Arrowhead

Northern Watersnake (Nerodia sipedon) This has been snake week at Arrowhead. Milton found a nest of Eastern Worm Snakes (Carphophis amoenus amoenus) while cleaning out a mud hole with some heavy equipment. Thursday’s second-graders noticed the beautiful Rat Snake on the tree right next to me. I climbed down to the little creek to collect some Sycamore balls to show today’s second-graders and here was this guy sunning on the debris along the creek.

Vaccinium sp?

Blackberry? Dewberry? Rubus sp?

Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans)

Sweet Betsy (Trillium cuneatum)

Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia )

Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) is one of those abundant native plants that is edible. The flowers, young fruit (beans), and leaves can be eaten.

Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)

Eastern Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus)

Rat Snake (Elaphe [Pantherophis] obsoleta)

Rat Snake (Elaphe [Pantherophis] obsoleta) with several Homo sapiens -- These second-graders were wonderful in their response to this interesting animal. They watched it with wonder and respect till it slowly crawled into a hole in the tree.

Rat Snake (Elaphe [Pantherophis] obsoleta)
All kinked up.

Azure Bluets or Quaker Ladies (Houstonia caerulea)

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now  
Is hung with bloom along the bough,  
And stands about the woodland ride  
Wearing white for Eastertide.  

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,  
And take from seventy springs a score,  
It only leaves me fifty more.  

And since to look at things in bloom  
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go  
To see the cherry hung with snow.

-A.E. Housman

Maple samaras, like red spring blossoms punctuating
a patchwork of spring greens and winter browns.

Species? Vaccinium sp?

New leaves on a tiny oak tree. Species?

Star Chickweed (Stellaria pubera)

Foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia)

Fiddleheads probably of Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides )

Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)
Look for the forked plants to find the little fruit 

Fiddleheads and fern. I don't know this one.