rileypsmith_'s Journal

I took another roughly 40 minute walk around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, looking specifically for different types of land plants. During my walk it was in the mid 50s outside, and the sun was starting to set, which made it feel even colder out. I managed to find primarily angiosperms, as they seemed to be the most common type of plant surrounding the reservoir. I surprisingly had difficulty finding any polypodiopsida, but found many examples of bryophyta and gymnosperms along my walk, just in far less quantity than the flowering plants. Thinking about how each plant I saw might be categorized helped me better understand the differences between each of these plant groups.

I walked around for about 40 minutes along the Chestnut Hill Reservoir next to campus, walking on the main walkway and in the wooded areas surrounding it. The weather was cold (~55 degrees) and rainy, so it was muddy and wet around the path. Since I was searching for fungi, I made sure to look close to the ground in more shaded portions of the path. To my surprise, there were a lot more kinds of fungi in a small portion of the reservoir than I thought there would be. The amount of diversity of fungi species was surprising, as I thought they would be relatively homogenous. The fungi very clearly preferred to grow near other dead plants and in low to ground regions. I think the wetter weather definitely made the fungi more visible as well.

I walked for around 40 minutes in the Houghton Garden Conservation in Newton. The weather was quite cool, and it was overcast. It didn't really matter because there was mostly total tree coverage along the different paths. I could tell that the season is turning to fall as many of the leaves had just began to turn in shade to an orange color, however, there was still flowering plants around. The colder weather could also explain why I saw no animals around. Besides the trees, much of the growth was very low to the ground and leafy, likely as a product of the small creek running through the park. The park was nice in that the older tree cover meant there were openings of little growth on the ground, so sticking to the gravel paths wasn't necessary and I could wander around. The openness made the walk feel less directed and more like wandering.