Houghton Garden Observations September 29, 2021

I went on a walk today on the Houghton Garden located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. When I arrived at the garden at around 12:30pm, the weather was quite nice; the sky was not cloudy and the sun was visible allowing sunlight to radiate through the leaves and branches of the multiple really tall trees. Some trees at the start of the trial were slim with not much rooting and extending out of the trunk's circumference. As I kept walking more into the trial, I noticed some trees that had wider trunks and bigger tree roots. In most of the trees in the garden, the moss was emerging along the bottom of the roots and some species of plants and fungi could be observed growing at close proximity of them. One type of fungi I encountered next to a trunk of a tree that had moss in it was small and it had a color gradient change that could be observed from a superior view that clearly changed from a pink almost white color along the edges of its circle like shape to red and got darker along the middle through the whole where its stem stands. Along the trail, there were many fallen leaves and pieces of bark and small logs in the dirt. In the garden itself, I found nature to be very calming. I encountered a small river during my walk and did not see any species in the water. As I proceeded, I saw approximately four squirrels in total. It was quite difficult to spot them because their brown fur color allowed them to adapt well to their surrounding environment, especially from possible predators or threats, and they were able to blend in with the colors observed in the tree trunks and dirt. I was able to spot some of them because I saw some movement on the ground farther down the trail or because I heard some of the noises that they were making. When trying to gain a closer look at them, I noticed how the were really fast and I often times found myself trying to relocate them after they moved. I did, in fact, see two squirrels following and chasing each other as if they were fighting, which I thought was a quite interesting observation. I was surprised by the amount of fungi that I found when circulating the area of the garden. I did find something that was quite interesting to me as I had never seen anything like it in real life before. I was astonished to encounter a tree trunk that had a fungi species growing in its surface in different directions (diagonally, horizontally, vertically, and even upside down). I had never seen anything like this before as I had usually seen fungi growing on dirt. I began to hear a bird chirping as I continued to walk deeper into the walking trail of the garden. The sound began to get closer and up in the branches of one of the trees I saw a red bird that flew fast and moved from branch to branch on some of the different trees in the area. It was joyous hearing the birds in the area and the water that flowed from the river and the little cascade that surged as I proceeded my midday walk. After about 30 minutes of walking through the trial and heading my way back out, I encountered a plant species, which is classified by iNaturalist a a potential Knotweed, smartweed, and waterpepper, that were beginning to grow randomly in the dirt and did not have any other of its kind surrounding it, unlike other plants that surrounded the area. The leaves of this plant were light green and the plant was beginning to form a purple flower on top that was not yet fully developed. The stem itself was quite small in size too. This growth of the plant in isolation of others called my attention, especially as it was surrounded by small pieces of logs and tree bark. I think it was beautiful to observe how the growth of such a beautiful species in the middle of a dirt path brings a sense of life to the garden that I was fortunate enough to have observed.

Posted on September 30, 2021 02:34 AM by floresak