radbackedsalamander's Favorites

Almost all restricted to puddles, little active movement observed on this night. This puddle had 30+, 50-60 seen on the walk. Few other herps out; one American toad and one pickerel frog, nothing seen crossing the road as I drove through areas that have been productive historically.

Weather humid ~50F, windy. Light rain for about an hour which stopped a couple hours before sunset and remained overcast, but the wind dried things out a little. Some of the roads were partially dry and trails weren't dry but also not super wet, which may or may not have decreased movement.

2023 has been an interesting year with hardly a winter at all and several 50 degree days in February (and even a 60 degree day on the second of January!) in which I wasn't actively looking at precipitation with herps on the brain. First wood frogs were heard this year around the 10th of February. This was one of the first if not the first day in March that had potentially promising big night conditions.

Lots of peepers calling but no wood frogs which seemed kind of odd as they are usually present at the vernal pools here.

I was surprised to find this racer out getting some sunshine on a relatively warm winter day, just as I was doing on a quick walk. It has an injured end of its tail that appears to maybe have been bitten. Snake acting well and natural.

Just for interest, added cycad seeds being sorted . Nobody seems to know who brought them in or where they came from, but many of the seeds have similar holes, similarly empty. None of our cycads have cones now, so thinking this beastie came in with the seeds.

Cap viscid, stem subviscid. Cap to 2.5 inches. Taste spicy. Under Abies grandis.

Spores from a spore print, including ornamentation measure (8.3) 8.8 - 10.5 (11.1) × (6.7) 7.7 - 8.9 (9.6) µm
Q = (1) 1.1 - 1.3 (1.4) ; N = 30
Me = 9.6 × 8.2 µm ; Qe = 1.2

Pinus parviflora x strobus, a spontaneous hybrid that appeared at this location in the 1940s. Not an intentional cross, and the single offspring tree was not planted but was allowed to keep growing because of the attractive foliage. Apparently this is the actual tree that is the basis of this paper:

Johnson, A.G. 1952. Spontaneous white pine hybrids. Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 33: 179-187.

Pretty sure. I wasn't sure if this plant existed in this spot, but it's what I set out to find today. It was the only innaccessible plant worth zooming in on, and I didn't realize that it is likely what I wanted to see until I was cropping today's pics!

The sori are in the correct place, habitat checks out, the thin, upright fronds, and persistent dead fronds lead me to believe it is indeed D. fragrans.