It's amazing what you find in your own backyard. Miracles beyond what can be conjured. I'm working on being demystified by the variety of life on our property, literally in our backyard, but it's really difficult to attain clarity. Number one, I don't have much context in the variety of life, and I find it slow coming. Number two, I am in a context somewhat different than what I am accustomed to. The South, albeit strikingly similar to the Northeast, is distinct in a great number of species, proving to myself again that I am living in a world different than what I knew. Nonetheless, or perhaps because of this, I find these neighborhood organisms intriguing. My guess is that, because of their ubiquitousness they have some fascinating biology. The plants below, I'm sure, are all remarkable upon investigation, even if they seem uninteresting upon first inspection. I hope to discover and tell their stories in the upcoming weeks and months. Here are a few to begin.
From the Old Forest research page of the Overton Park Conservancy website I discovered the work of Tom Heineke, and his cataloging of plant species, which now exists in iNatrualist. I used this key to identify the species below. It is very possible that some are misidentified, but I trust that they are all common species to the area, and that sooner or later some kind soul will correct any mistakes.
I'll start with the species that is driving me absolutely bonkers. I've misidentified it already as catalpa. It is not. When I went on the CoYo tree walk I saw what southern catalpa looks like. It seems that this could be Vitas aestivalis (summer grape; pigeon grape) but something tells me that I'm still on the hunt for a correct classification. Whereas I think that I thought IDing species was going to be easy, I now have much more of a reverence for the process. It takes quite some research to feel confident that the species you are looking at is indeed what all the world is looking at, too. It doesn't help that, according to Wikipedia and iNaturalist, the leaves are highly variable, sometimes existing unlobed, sometimes three, and sometimes five lobes. I've not really seen grapes, as I see in the resource images. But today I did see a bundle of grapes near to the fence. Unpictured. Yet again, I must examine some more before I can be sure.
I saw this little beauty today for the first time growing from the concrete base of our house. You can't see it in this picture, but I think that I saw some browning fronds, which makes me think that this may be a resurrection fern (Pleopeltis polypodioides), but it could also be a fragile fern (Cystopteris fragilis). Maybe neither. I'm choosing these mostly because they both seem to grow as epiphytes, but still need to investigate the sori of the fern to see if that can help confirm or negate the current thinly supported hypothesis.
Next up is what I formerly thought was a nettle, but the flowers of the nettle seem to be much more desirable. I'm now thinking this is more a weed plant, like crabweed (Fatoua villosa), but that may not fit either. The plant in my backyard seems to have flowers that grow atop the plant at a certain stage of development. I've not yet seen the light green flowers described online.
I was excited to see the climber below because I thought, surely this is easily identifiable. I had seen it on iNaturalist and linked it up to my fence scaler. I believe it to be Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), but I note that I may have to look to how its color changes as we move into cooler weather. I reddish colored leaf in late fall would seem to confirm my thinking.
Below are what I believe to be ivy, English ivy (Hedera helix) perhaps. Although the one on the left may be a different species. Not sure.
Another climber.
Finally, what I think could be an elm?
It's a shame I'm not quite sure what species live in my backyard. But I feel like I'm underway. I think that you have to start a little overconfident thinking that the venture of attempting the task of taking on the variety of life is going to be easy, even if only in your backyard would be easy. Hopefully over the course of the next several weeks I will become more aware of what I'll call the "parent species". I'm interested to know those organisms from which the others derived. This should help to give me a Southern contexts for living the things that we inherit (and must take care of) while we are around.
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