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A walk in the forest and stuff

K so today I saw the snow bells blooming in my yard, and decided to go to the forest to see the ones there; whether or not they're wild, I dunno. Most likely not, since houses border the forest, so they prolly migrated there.

Although, few were actually completely open.

Sorta overview
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Some bunches
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(Yeah, those pellets are deer crap; it was EVERYWHERE)
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Anyone know what he is doing? (Heh, I just remembered, it's 'National Save a Spider Day'.)
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Random fungi thing
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And now just a comparison to the 'garden variety' snow bells with the 'wood variety' in my yard.

Obviously, the 'garden variety' is much more ornamental.
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Ornamental on left, normal on right. (Ornamental seems to open earlier.)
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What's funny is that just yesterday or the day before, these plants were under like 4 inches of snow--flowering. They always seem to do that.

-Ben
 
Very cool. Yeah i belive they are wild becausei have tons of them in my yard.
 
Yeah it seems everyone in New York has 'em. :banana2:

What I forgot to mention is that they only grow on these two or three hill-ish things, around 100 feet from the road. Some grow at the base and a couple feet away, but only in very small bunches. You can see this in the first pic; this is a view from the top of the hill looking back, and they only also seem to grow on the backside of these hills. There are also two or so other hill-ish things right next to the ones that the plants grow on, although there are no plants on those.

But, another interesting thing is that there is little deer crap on the plant-less hills, and a lot on the hills with plants. There is also a lot more snow on the plant-less hills too, but that shouldn't be any important factor. I was thinking that maybe the crap could maybe provide some nutrients for the plants, which is why they thrive there, but why the deer crap there only, I dunno. A 'deer trail' might pass through there, so that's why there is all that poo there. I also find it surprising that the deer don't eat the flowers, as well.

-Ben
 
Harbingers of spring! Daffodils are starting to bloom here. And the flowering trees are just beginning. I'll bet by next week they'll be in full bloom. And forsythia is starting too...although I'm surprised that's not out in full swing.

Beautiful photos. They are lovely plants. Far nicer than the Hell-in-Dirt I have in my yard...Star of Bethlehem. If anyone can recommend a good way to kill that, I'd be grateful. Its hateful stuff.
 
common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) (NOT a snowbell) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galanthus_nivalis - native to Eurasia. I must say i like the wild-type better than most of the cultivars. Good at naturalizing into drifts. I find that though they can travel, the populations stay pretty close to where they are planted, unlike, say, Siberian squill

The snowbells are woody shrubs and trees (Styrax). Similar floweres, but unrelated. Very nice shrubs - (see American snowbell factsheet on how to ID these underappreciated plants http://www.cnr.vt.edu/DENDRO/DENDROLOGY/Syllabus2/factsheet.cfm?ID=577)

359px-Illustration_Galanthus_nivalis0.jpg

Snowdrop
 
Pretty plants. It would be so nice to have that to walk around in now. Is it still pretty cold upstate, though?

xvart.
 
I believe that is some kind of Lichen.

No, it definitely isn't.


Pretty plants. It would be so nice to have that to walk around in now. Is it still pretty cold upstate, though?

xvart.

It was like 50 yesterday, but it's pretty cold now.

I realize, Finch, that they aren't actually called 'snow bells', but that's the common name...

-Ben
 
Great pics Drosera36! I love Spring :)
 
  • #10
I realize, Finch, that they aren't actually called 'snow bells', but that's the common name...

No its not.

Thats may be what they call them where your from, but snowdrop is the accepted common name. Its not a scientific name. Google snowbell- very few references for Galanthus nivalis are up there

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYG,GWYG:2006-33,GWYG:en&q=snowbell

google image serch reveals the same thing
http://images.google.com/images?sou...,GWYG:en&q=snowbell&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

compare that to snowdrop, and youl understand what i mean
 
  • #11
Whoo boy! I remember how our bio teacher preached to us never to use common names for this very reason. That's partly why I get soo peeved when I see "HELP! My pitcherplant is turning red!"


Now we know that a snowbell is auctually a cat, and one cultivar being a horse. 2 varieties seem to be a rabbit and a dog, aswell.
 
  • #12
Yeah it seems everyone in New York has 'em

Everyone in NY except for me. I have a bunch of wild crocuses, though, just pointing their sprouts up. Naturally, we're getting a snow dumping today.
 
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