Sunday, September 30, 2007

Lichens

This morning I went for a run. I thought my friend would put miles behind him a whole lot faster than I would put them behind me, but we ended up being pretty even. I grabbed some lichen samples along the trails of the Rattlesnake Recreation Area, just North of my house so I could identify them when I got home.

Lichens are a symbiosis between an algae and a fungus. You could even say the algae and the fungus took a likin' to each other! The algae photosynthesizes and provides food that way for the both of them while the fungus provides the support and gathers nutrients in other ways.

Plants of the Rocky Mountains
by Kershaw, MacKinnon and Pojar, says "Think of lichens as fungi that have discovered agriculture. Instead of invading or scavenging for a living, like moulds, mildews, mushrooms or other fungi, lichen fungi cultivate algae within themselves."

Along the trail I picked up a stick with two kinds of lichen growing on it, the leafy gray lichen appears to be Ragbag or Platismatia glauca. The other is Common witch's hair Alectoria sarmentosa. I didn't bring a sample home, but I did see that the bright green wolf lichen (Letharia vulpina) was there as well, perched on the twigs, not hanging down like the witch's hair. The wolf lichen is an interesting one, with a couple of different histories depending on who you ask. Plants of the Rocky Mountains says,

"Interior native peoples used wolf lichen to make a yellowish-green dye to colour fur, moccasins, feathers, wood and other articles. It was also used to make face and body paint. Letharia species contain the toxin vulpinic acid. In northern Europe, wolf lichen was formerly used to poison wolves. It was either mixed with ground glass and sprinkled over wolf bait, or it was mixed with animal fat and nails and left for the wolves to eat-apparently with fatal results."

Used pretty differently on the two continents. This isn't to say anything is right or wrong of course.

Bryoria fuscescens was present as well, but more prevalent up in the swan valley where the air is cleaner, the elevation higher and the circle of the seasons more lopsided towards winter than it is here. I don't know what makes this lichen grow there moreso than here. It appears to especially like inhabiting the dead, but still suspended limbs of spruces as well as the narrow Larch boughs. the yellow green larch needles are a beautiful contrast against Bryoria's dark sea green that hangs like a shadow, right there underneath the branches, the darkness of it too viscous to drip all the way to the ground. This lichen can get involved at times with yet another organism, Phacopsis huuskenenii which is another fungus that causes the Bryoria to have "black elbows." This second fungus is taking advantage of the algal photosynthate just like Bryoria is. Its kind of a weird love triangle I guess, or maybe it's more like two farmers sharing a field together.

I wonder if the addition of the second fungus harms the first or if they live together in a three way mutualism.

HOOOOO BOY!



Now it's at the solstice when the onions turn around.
Leaves taller than your kids is best by solstice.
Then the days get shorter and the onion remembers
"HOO BOY! One o' these days winter's coming!"
And the leaves slow down, but the roots suck up dirt
packing it into that cold spicy gem underground.

Where I went today.


That's always an interesting topic... where I went today. Well, to be honest I went there yesterday...then I stayed there. But I did get back from the place today.

If storm clouds hadn't rolled in last night around nightfall, I would have seen the sun set over the Mission mountains to the West. If I'd woken up early enough, and those same storm clouds hadn't been there this morning, I would have seen the sun rise over the Swan range to the East.


I guess you've probably figured out I spent last night in the Swan Valley. It sure is gorgeous up there. It's always great to get out of Missoula where I'm always afraid of getting run over on my bike and killed. Out in the Swan all you need to worry about is weather and bears and I guess moose, though they'll usually smell you coming and get on outta there.

I was tagging along with Sarah, the TA from my Forest Ecology class as she did some research for her Masters project. She was studying the difference between old growth stands and clearcut stands in terms of carbon storage, an issue becoming more and more pertinent as climate change progresses.

I learned how to use a clinometer to judge tree height, and the slope of the ground. I'm sure it has other uses too that I could come up with. I got to practice my plant ID which is always a good thing. I learned Onion Grass, and refreshed myself on the difference between service berry and spirea which is always good.

Sarah took us to a Larch tree that was 934 years old. It had been left there though it was worth some money because it was on a relatively steep slope and near a stream, not a place that's very easy to log.

Larch trees lose their needles every year in the fall, and this one had made a collar for itself out of its own needles, a ring around its base made of sticks, needles, moss, the makings of soil! There were some ledges on the bark that also collected needles and moss and lichen thus giving the tree the look of being slowly swallowed.

It's trunk was tall and straight with large plates of bark like armor, but with one weakness where a lightning scar curled around it on one side. The weak, thin limbs sticking out from the bole were so fragile that they seemed to be the very epitome of Larch strategy: every part can go, but I sure won't fall. Just like a lizard that doesn't mind losing its tail. It doesn't keep it's leaves, probably doesn't keep its branches very long. We speculated about how viable its seeds are today given that its genetics allowed it to germinate in the climatic conditions that existed 1000 years ago. Long before white people even laid eyes on the far Eastern edge of the continent where it was gently lifting out of the soil.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

I live with a wolf named Kane

Well that wolf is howling and barking again! His name is Kane and he lives in my house here in Missoula. Maybe I'll go see what he's up to. ..
I'm back! He just wanted to be let in I guess. I feel bad about that, leaving him outside all the time. Well I guess if he was in the wild there wouldn't be any barking he could do to be let into some place.

I bet Kane was cold out there, at least his thick fur felt cold when I let him in. Though according to Barry Lopez's Of Wolves and Men a wolf can sleep with its back to the wind in forty degrees below zero. It sure isn't that cold these days in Missoula and it sure won't be. Not with the way the buttercups have been creeping up the mountainsides over the years due to global warming.

I don't know where Kane came from originally. He's not all wolf, three quarters his owner says. The last quarter is malamute, which are supposedly part wolf anyway. He's a large animal and it took some getting used to, sharing a house with him, but now we get along and I don't think he plans on biting my face off even though he easily could.

Wolves don't wag their tales that much at least Kane doesn't. He is old though. He's seen a lot of things. As I understand it, He spent a lot of his days up in Kalispell Montana just sitting on the porch of a house. I wonder what the neighbors thought! I wonder what Kane thought...

I'll sit here, I'll do
I'll wait and sniff
and you'll follow my
windborn hairs
like a trail of my urine,
But I have no
territory not I.

I'll sit here, I'll wait.
I'll look into
human eyes
and they
will look into mine
both of us wondering
why we are
together.

I'll sit here, on the porch
with a good breeze
to carry my
parents breath to me
to carry my
howls like postcards
back in time
and deep through dreams.

I'll sit her, but I
will not miss the
blood and trouble
each moment lived
on moss or snow
too wet for my
carpet polished paws
that no longer feel
the ridges of the tracks of prey
nor dig for mice,
and though I wait and sit
I send my thoughts back
while my body stays.