WriterByNature.com

February 23, 2010 8:14 am

In my quest to improve my skills as a naturalist and a writer, I have been blessed to develop friendships with many respected nature writers, including Jim Capossela.

Writers like Jim often send written, rather than spoken messages. In our first email exchange, I learned that we have both adopted “Happy Trails” to sign off our correspondence.

Do brilliant minds think alike?  (more…)

December 31, 2009 2:13 am

When my mom or grandmother would say, “Once in a blue moon,” I always understood it as a metaphor for a rare, but unpredictable event.

Today’s full moon is the second one this month. The moon was also full on December 2, 2009.

It’s another fun reason to stare up at the sky while musing on the end of a year, the end of a decade and the occurrence of something, according to NASA, that I will not see again until August of 2012.  (more…)

August 30, 2009 12:21 pm

Mycology is not only filled with endless botanical names, but there are also special words to describe the life cycle of many fungi. Marcescence, the quality of being able to rehydrate after drying on the stem is a feature of the genus Marasmius.

A very rainy, cool-weather spring and summer have made this genus the dominant find in several mushroom walks.

The annual Clark-Rogerson Foray is an event that brings many well-known mycologists together for a long weekend of finding, identifying, studying and eating wild mushrooms.

My original plan was to learn one group of mushrooms at a time, but sometimes you have to take the knowledge any way it comes.

August 11, 2009 7:13 am

Some mushrooms reproduce by “blowing their tops.” The covering flap or lid of ascomycetes in the genera Pezizales or cup fungi are typical operculate ascomycetes.

I’m just beginning to understand mushroom reproduction. Ascomycetes typically drop the spores from their sack-like ascus. A bit of online reasearch produced this coherent description of operculate fungi:

” . . .  the operculate cup-fungi eject their spores through an opening in the ascus apex formed by an irregular tear, an apical split, or an apical to sub-apical flap or lid-like structure, the operculum (from which the group obtains its name) . . .”

I used the keywords operculate fungi mushrooms which brought up a link to downloadable document entitled:

CUP FUNGI of the Pacific Northwest

by Ian Gibson, 2007

Copyright 2008, Pacific Northwest Key Council

Operculate is not the only fungi-related word I learned the last time I went into the field with Gary Lincoff. So I’m hitting the books before heading back out into the field.

April 1, 2009 7:51 am

A writer friend sent this to me several weeks ago. This brain-teaser is deceptively easy – but not necessarily at first glance.

The complexity of the English language is endlessly fascinating.  I enjoy word games and puzzles, especially when I learn new words, new ways to use words or new ways to play with words.

So, have fun, take your time and see if this little puzzle suddenly reveals itself.

The challenge: What do the following words have in common?

• Banana
• Dresser
• Grammar
• Potato
• Revive
• Uneven
• Assess

The bolded first letter is a clue.

(more…)

March 27, 2009 6:44 am

The robin’s whinny woke me up this morning and it occurred to me that I’ve been twittering and tweeting – or at least present while others twitter and tweet – for years.

I’m headed outdoors to spend the day with the robins, blue jays, cardinals and the rest of the original twitterers.

January 17, 2009 8:27 am

I love to play with words, which motivates my 20^th Century brain to attempt to follow the ever-changing 21^st Century rules.

When brain is composting, I often make lists of baffling English words. Years ago I came up with a list of paradoxical words that had opposite meanings. Among my favorites were:

• Clip –what you do to a coupon, or what you do with a paper clip
• Note –what’s written on paper, or a specific tone a musical instrument makes
• Sanction – which can mean either to permit or to penalize
• Seed – to plant them for food, or to remove them from food
• Seeded – added to the bread’s crust, or removed from fruit or vegetables
• Shade – a color’s hue, or refuge from the sun under a tree or large object
• Trunk – what grandma packed for a voyage, or a tree’s stem

Context is crucial to the meaning of these words. If you teach English as a second language, you have my deepest respect.

Apparently I’m not the only writer to ponder this baffling ambiguity. My clumsy keyword search did lead me to  this website:   http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cellis/antagonym.html.

The writer claims to have created the word ANTAGONYMS to describe this group of words. That works for me. The author was also kind enough to create a longer list than my few examples, including slang circa 1999.

November 21, 2008 8:01 am

This is one of a series of articles designed to equip any naturalist with words that enhance learning and make field observation easier. Whether you’re a forager or a gardener, it’s useful to have a common vocabulary when talking about how plants grow. Here is a list of the more commonly used words for:

Flower Parts (more…)

November 14, 2008 6:48 am

This is one of a series of articles designed to equip any naturalist with words that enhance learning and make field observation easier. Here are the botanical terms for:

Leaf Shapes and Patterns

Alternate: leaves growing separately  and at different heights from each side of the stem

Opposite: leaves growing across from each other on the stem

Petiole: the stem that supports the leaf

Lobe: a rounded protrusion of a leaf (more…)

November 7, 2008 5:57 am

This is one of a series of articles designed to equip any naturalist with words that enhance learning and make field observation easier. Here are the botanical terms for:

Plant Growth and Life Span

Annual: a plant that lives for one growing season.

Biennial: a plant with a two-year growth cycle, the first year as a rosette, the second as a flowering stalk.

Herbaceous: a plant with no woody tissues that survive above ground from one year to the next.

Vegetative reproduction: a plant that does not use seeds to reproduce. (more…)