The young leaves glisten like gold in the sunshine
Egg cavities on Viburnum dentatum that have been covered with lids made of the beetle's excrement. Photos 3 and 4 show one of the lids open exposing remains of old eggs.
https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/orn/beetles/viburnum_leaf_beetle.htm
The last four photos show red-seeded dandelion seeds next to common dandelion seeds. The color difference is apparent.
Found among Eastern skunk cabbage. Not far from the NJ State Botanical Garden.
Watch out for this one
Deciduous woods, hovering just above leaf litter and settling in sunny spots for a few seconds at a time
Several of these bees were going in and out from underneath a decayed log.
In a vernal pool.
Mosquito pupa believe.
These bees don't stay still for more than a few seconds, so photographing them is tricky
The belly of this small tadpole was a metallic bronze color and shimmered in the sun light. In a fresh water pond. Spring peepers and Wood frogs are both present in this pond. So are Bull frogs and Fowler's toads.
In a swampy patch. Alley Pond Park
On Eastern Poison Ivy . This fly was perched on the poison ivy and was beating her wings at an extremely high rate. Then she stopped beating the wings, and I was able to get clear photos.
Beautiful little flies with tapering, metallic bodies and iridescent wings. Shown on White Wood Asters
Swimming in a fresh water pond . A damselfly larva?
Three babies. One on a branch and two in a tree cavity. Both adults nearby.
In a fresh water pond . Eyes were a beautiful burgundy color.
Along edge of MDNR snowmobile / ATV trail at bridge crossing of Laughing Whitefish River
Submerged in a freshwater pond
In a fresh water pond
Swimming in a freshwater pond
Buds finally starting to show.
Mystery tree.
Maybe Japanese tree lilac ?
A small snail with a flattened / planispiral, iridescent shell, found in a vernal pool
In a vernal pool. This particular individual had a beautiful marbled blue coloration on the upper half of the body and two orange down the lower half of the body. A cool little crustacean !
A larva can be seen in a gelatinous mass attached to a hickory (Carya sp) petiole
A tiny sapling that seems afflicted with some rust fungus. The young stem is pubescent. I scratched the twigs and they didn’t yet have the sweet wintergreen smell, so perhaps that’s not always detectable in saplings?
About 3.5 mm in diameter. On an Eastern cottonwood flower. A slug made a cameo in the last photo.
Feathery young stems
The owl was calling for a while and then went inside the cavity in a large Chestnut oak
On Senecio vulgaris
Red leaves. Maybe Water purslane (Ludwigia palustris)?
Maybe a hybrid ?
On Salix nigra. https://www.gallformers.com/gall/3678 reports the host as Populus deltoides only, however, Salix nigra, which is also in Salicaceae doesn't seem too far fetched.
Twigs yellow. Buds tiny. Twigs snap off very easily.
lack pigmented granules between perithecia; no KOH-extractible pigments
Silvery gray lesions on Erythronium americanum. Spherical double walled black spores.
Male tree on the left (red flowers). Female tree on the right (greenish yellow flowers).
Naturalized near a highway
Growing amidst Multiflora rose, near a highway.
Globular clusters of rusty brown perithecia on an old Celastrus orbiculatus vine. On a bridge over a highway. The clusters were about 3nm in diameter. I'll attempt to do some microscopy and will check for KOH extractable pigments later.
red anthers
4/24/2024 Cunningham Park, Queens, NY
Light gray/tan bark, somewhat warty due to the numerous lenticels. Opposite branching. Growing near a vernal pool. I am eager to see the leaves on this small tree. The only thing that comes to mind is Fraxinus ornus?? I believe F. ornus has angular twigs as seen here, but I'm not sure.
This fungus infects Box elder (Acer negundo) and turns the twigs white, killing them. Sometimes the fungus looks like broken up black circles (see photo 1), a bit like cheetah spots, and sometimes it looks like complete circles. I have seen similar Box elder twigs with this fungus, where part of the pale twig was an orangish pink hue.
After letting the twig sit in a moisture chamber, pinkish goo started to ooze out of the black circles. I believe this is an anamorph of some Ascomycete. A photo of the conidia at 1000x is shown. The spores are elliptical / pill shaped and have numerous round guttules in them.
Previous observations:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/200536858
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/196420044
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/194669917
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/157445322
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/151691625
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/151691465
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148312162
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144672964
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/110823238
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/110170481
The scrapings are probably created by a snail scraping its radula. Interesting texture on this black pyrenomycete. The close-ups are from a dead Sycamore maple. One of the larger Sycamore maples, shown in the last photo, appeared to be covered with sooty mold, so perhaps it's also infected by the fungus.
White hairs on lower leaf surface. Growing in an area where Allium tricoccum grows, as well. This could be A. tricoccum, since it also has that kind of a pink sheath at the base of the stem, but I've never seen hairs on their leaves - perhaps they only appear on very young plants ?
Female flowers
With unknown cankers, possibly caused by a fungus.
For the possible cause of the cankers, see:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/204950069
Pits in Lindera benzoin trunk. This is a very common condition in New York City. Concentric scarring is visible within the pits. Perhaps these are caused by Neonectria ditissima, which is known to cause "target cankers" (Apple canker) on a large number of hosts. In Alley Pond Park, I see large cankers caused by N. ditissima on Betula lenta.
For the plant, see:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/204950708
Near a saltwater creek, in sand. Lots of grasses, mugwort, wild bergamot around, evening primrose and young black locusts.
Globose spores that appear warted / ornamented
Marine Park, Brooklyn 3/30/2024
Twigs very "fragilis" - break off almost at the slightest touch.
Submerged under water, on an oak leaf, in a fresh water kettle pond. Much of this pond dries out in the summer, but it's not completely ephemeral. The spiral winds clockwise if you look at the apex of the snail. The opening / aperture is on the right when looking at it, while the snail is held vertically. I think that rules out Physella acuta, which has the aperture on the left.
A very unusual puffball-like mushroom, except unlike puffballs, this mushroom had a stalk. Growing in dry sand, by the shore of a salt water creek. The last two photos show the habitat.
Found under a rock
Near a saltwater creek. In dry sand, with lots of grasses, mugwort around.
Marine Park, Brooklyn 3/30/2024
See observations from last year.
on a hardwood log at the edge of a vernal pool. distant lanceolate leaves with fine tips
Leaf cells elongate; on shrub bases in swamp.
Found under a log. I believe this was a mother guarding her eggs.
This moss was covering a branch that was submerged under water in a vernal pool. Strands of tiny orange eggs were attached to the moss.
https://www.britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk/learning/species-finder/leptodictyum-riparium/
For the eggs see
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/204272265