I see I haven’t posted any photos — except some lady slippers this spring — from the Clark Pond Trails in New London, New Hampshire since June 2017, though I’ve visited it seven times since, in July, Sept., and November (2 times) 2017, and in February, mid-May, and July 2018, so far.
It’s a small trail system of three interconnecting trails (Norman, Dancy, and Allen), all together only 1.38 miles. (Online sources claim 1.63 miles but I have tracked it numerous times on my Fitbit, mapping it, and it’s consistently 1.35 to 1.4 miles, unless I rewalk a loop or two, which I often do.) The trail rolls a bit but there is not much steepness — only two places really with any bit of a climb at all — so it’s an ideal trail to bring friends who are not hikers but who want to be in the woods.
The only downside is that it’s very close to Interstate 89 (in fact, that’s how and why it was built, because the location served as a staging area for the creation of the highway there) and you can always hear vehicle noise. But you can also hear birds, see snakes, occasionally glimpse a duck in the pond, and discover a great deal of interesting plant life. This is the one place in NH where I’ve found stinkhorn fungi (Phallaceae), which are amazing to come across because of their smell (either bleachy or corpsey) and their often geometric shapes and their colours (red, orange, white, black). As I walk the trails, I’m always sniffing!
maybe Phallus hadriani stinkhorn (Nov. 2015)
And now, without any further ado, images from the trails from 2017 and 2018 in Spring (May), Summer (the two Julys), Autumn (September and November), and Winter (February).
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“Life must be lived amidst that which was made before. Every landscape is an accumulation. The past endures.” — Donald Meinig, from “The Beholding Eye”
reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina)orange fungal colonydark curved fern frondnew fern or bracken growth with white spores
Other plants:
oxalis and mossstriped maple leaf and trunkpartridge-berry (Mitchella repens) leaves and berry
Animals and Views:
maybe a hermit thrushblue-headed vireo blurbirdmayfly insectbrookleafy trailbent birch
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SUMMER (Julys)
Plants:
false Solomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosum) leaves and fruitsdowny rattlesnake-plantain (Goodyera pubescens)common wood sorrel (Oxalis), plus some goldthread and mossgreen fruits on Indian cucumber root (Medeola virginiana)bunchberries (Chamaepericlymenum canadense, prev. Cornus canadense)starflower (Trientalis borealis, syn. Lysimachia borealis) with fruitsfalse violet (Dalibarda repens) bloomingwhite partridge-berry (Mitchella repens) flowersShinleaf flower (Pyrola elliptica)pickerel weed in the pondIndian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora). It’s a mycotroph, a parasitic plant that gets all its nutrients from a tree via fungi.blue Clintonia (Clintonia borealis, aka yellow blue-bead lily) beads against a fern background
Bridge Out signthe bridge that’s out this time (even with the recent rain, it was easy to step from stone to stone through the small brook)a bridge built in May to replace a broken onemucky trail and bridgebirches, ferns, rocksmossy root stump that looks like an avocadoa little log worldan opilione or harvestman arachnid (not a spider) on spirea by the pond
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FALL (September and November)
Plants:
Canada-mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) berries in sunlight (Sept)downy rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera pubescens) with a flower stalk (Sept)Clintonia borealis (yellow blue-bead lily) (Sept)Indian cucumber root (Medeola virginiana) (Sept)Indian cucumber root (Medeola virginiana) with purple leaves and dark berries (Sept)whorled aster (Oclemena acuminata), I think, and haircap moss (Sept)aspen leaf (Sept)oak leaf (Nov)oak leaf (Nov)hobblebush (Sept)hobblebush leaf (Nov)bunchberry leaves (Nov)Japanese barberry plant (Berberis thunbergii), invasive (Nov)
Fungi, lichen, ferns, club mosses (which aren’t real mosses):
polypody fern (Nov)Diphasiastrum digitatum (syn. Lycopodium digitatum aka ground cedar) in parallel lines (Nov)tree club moss (most likely Dendrolycopodium obscurum, flat-branches tree-club moss) with strobili (Nov)running club moss (Lycopodium clavatum) (Sept)reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina) (Nov)turkey tail fungi and ferns (Nov)pink earth lichen (Dibaeis baeomyces) (Nov)Hair cap moss (Polytrichum) and its fruiting bodies (Nov)
Views and Animals:
bridge and ferns (Sept)bridge with moss (Nov)little hobbit house mossy world (Nov)Clark Pond (Sept)mist on the pond (Nov)ice formation like a candy cane in the brook (Nov)ringed neck duck (Sept)poor photo of three turkeys from a flock (Nov)red leaves suspended against green like a mobile (Nov)
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WINTER (February)
bridgegreen fungus or mold in tree cavityferns and leaves in ice under boulderice formation in the brookbirches and beechesbirch leaf in snowbearded moss hangingsomeone with two dogs on Clark Pond (iced over)snowy trail
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In most of these photos, if you go back and look, you’ll see the accumulation of leaves and needles on the forest floor. Brown leaves, needles and branches, fallen flowers and berries, disintegrating insects, bird feathers, desiccated animal bodies — they hold the tableau in place, comprise the backdrop and foundation for the green, the flower, the berry, the bird, the walking human of today.
The past witnesses. The past nurtures. The past endures. The past is held within the present, remembered in the flesh of the living, remembered like a place you know only in dreams, and so intimately.
What a beautiful trip to Clark Pond. I need to go there.
Oh goodness, what a beautiful place you live in: so many fascinating plants and fungi. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it with you.
How odd to see snow while so many are contending with unseasonable warmth. I find snow to be fascinating anytime, just because we get none here.