Kaleidoscope Flux

Microclimates in action

2012-01-29T22:29:00.001-05:00

No matter how many times I come back to this trail, the Hendrie Valley Loop at the Royal Botanical Gardens always has something new to see. Birds of many different colours flutter by, catching insects and gobbling up birdseed left behind by people from every walk of life. Muskrats, squirrels, beavers, and mice are some of the many animals you can see on this trail... even deer! The amount of motion, colour and life here can easily distract you from the bigger concepts at work on this trail. But on the boardwalk, there is something fantastic to look at, something to see...

If only you zoom out, so to speak, and see the forest for the trees.

The following photos were taken on December 24th, 2011 within a minute of one another. Let's compare them. The first one was taken looking south-east from the bridge. As you can see, there is frost on the ground, ice on the creek banks, and the sun is well on its way to setting. Take a look at the forest composition. There's a high percentage of conifers, and the deciduous trees have very skinny growth patterns.

This picture, taken within a minute of the previous one, is of the northern, south-facing slope of Hendrie Valley. To take this photo, all I did was turn 180 degrees; I did not do any walking. As you can see, this side is still getting sun, has no frost on the grass, and has no ice on the creek beds. Moreover, there is only a single, seemingly out-of-place conifer to be seen here. Most of the trees are deciduous, and much more lofty than the ones in the previous photo.

It is a well-known fact that north-facing slopes get less sun than south-facing slopes in the Northern Hemisphere. Go south, and the pattern is reversed. These two patches of forests are characterized by a completely different species composition, which is in turn affected by their respective geography.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is microclimates in action.

The Frameshift Conundrum

2012-01-29T19:41:00.001-05:00

This was supposed to be a one-sentence response for a question asked in my Genetics course BIO260

For those of you with an interest in molecular biology, this might be of interest:

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During the translationprocess (currently happening in every cell in your body), proteinsare assembled using an RNA template that codes for amino acids threeletters (one codon) at a time. For example, the RNA letters AGAcode for Arginine, while the letters UGA tellthe ribosome to stop translating the string of RNA and cast aside thechain of amino acids for further processing.

This complex mechanismis not without its drawbacks. Certain mutations, namely the insertionor deletion of one or two letters, can cause what are known asframeshift mutations. In short, all of the letters downstream of aframeshift mutation are shifted in a way that makes them code fordifferent amino acids than what would normally be coded for,resulting in dud proteins, some of which may even be harmful.

Here's where it getsinteresting. If the coding of amino acids was due entirely to chance,we would expect a frameshift to result in stop codons in a way thatis proportional to the percentage of stop codons in the table ofamino acids. In other words, a frameshift mutation should result in astring of base pairs that codes for a stop codon only once every 21codons on average (64 possible codons / 3 stop codons). In reality,the occurence of a stop codon is much more frequent following aframeshift, usually within just a couple of codons downstream of themutation.

This means that aminoacids are coded strategically, so as to be able to respond toframeshift mutations with a quick termination of the translationprocess.

This may be due to theevolutionary pressure (i.e. natural selection) for stop codonsfollowing a frameshift. From a survival standpoint, this makesperfect sense. If stop codons are more common following a frameshiftmutation than what would be found at random, an organism will makemuch shorterdud proteins. This means that less building blocks(amino acids) are wasted in the making of these dud proteins. Iimagine dud proteins are also less likely to tangle into harmfulmesses if they are short rather than long.

This is a fantasticexample of evolution acting on even the most basic processes of life.

Sprouts

2012-01-15T21:11:00.002-05:00

Winter isa time for dormancy. Annual plants have given their lives for thenext generation, dispersing seeds into sheltered crevices. Perennialsare tucking deep into the soil, pulling themselves away from theoppressive weather. Even the trees, mightiest of giants, have shedtheir leaves; the ones that haven't find their growth reduced oraltogether stopped, holding out for warmer times.

Despitethe subzero temperatures and the reduced sunlight, however, mywindowsill is teeming with life. In quiet coalescence, a handful ofmung bean seeds, turn into a tangle of mung bean sprouts.

Theeasiest method, in my opinion, is the jar method. It works for mosttypes of sprouting seeds.

JarMethod

1) Take abig, clean jar and fill it with lukewarm (not warm!) water

2) Wash ahandful of sprouting seeds and put them in the jar of water

3) Use astrainer lid or a cheese cloth (held in place with a jar ring or arubber band) to "cap" the jar

You mustallow proper air flow and drainage through the lid

4) Letsoak for 6-8 hours, then drain. This is the only time you soak theseeds.

5) Drain,rinse, drain, and lay the jar on an angle so that any remaining waterdrains out

6) Rinseand drain twice daily (once in the day, once at night)

7) Repeatstep 5 until you get some sprouts

My currentequipment consists of an upcycled instant coffee jar with a hole cutout of the screw-top lid, "capped" with some cheese cloth.

Sproutingis one of the easiest ways to get nutrients and enzymes into yourdiet. It costs next to nothing (two to twenty cents per jar ofsprouts), requires no fancy equipment, and can be done in any part ofthe house.

Keep inmind, however, that not all seeds can be sprouted. Even moreimportantly, not all seeds that can be sprouted shouldbe sprouted! There are sprouts that are downright poisonous (e.g.anything in the tomato family) and seed sources that are likely to betreated with harsh chemicals (e.g. mercury-coated seeds). It is alsoimportant to be aware that clumps of wet seeds in the process ofsprouting are extremely susceptible to bacterial infections. E. coli,Salmonella, and other dangerous microorganisms may get to yoursprouts before you do.

Indeed,there are various things to learn before starting your sproutingadventure. This post is not meant to be a resource for all thenecessary knowledge, only a blurb to get you interested in theprocess.

Fora more detailed analysis of the world of sprouting, go tosprouting.com; the websitehas a vast array of educational and commercial resources at yourdisposal. Use it wisely, however. You might not necessarily need a $130 sprouter when a couple of jars will do the job. You may not wantto order their seeds, either, if you can buy them at your localhealth food store. As with anything, make sure you know what you'regetting yourself into.

Asfor me, I'm about to enjoy a peanut butter and mung bean sproutsandwich :D

That'sall for now,

--Ioni

Essay - False accusations: Reactions to Darwin’s On the Origin of Species

2011-12-04T17:45:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago,I fished reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.I'm taking an interesting class right now, JHE353: The History ofEvolution. In contrast to all of my other classes, this class is notconsidered a science course, though it undoubtedly deals withscientific theories. By the same token, it deals with very manyunscientific theories as well. The course examines popular notionsabout evolution from ancient times up until the 1950s. The evaluationis divided between two tests and a 2000-word essay, as well asnominal participation marks for showing up to the tutorials.

Having long wanted toread On the Origin of Speciesin its entirety, I took the essay portion of the course as anopportunity to read the fantastic and controversial work. It led toan essay that has brought me a much deeper understanding of Darwin,and of both the brilliance and erroneousness of different aspects ofhis theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Reading his book and writing myessay also allowed me to finally finish an artwork I had left on the back burner for too long of a time.

Withoutany further ado, I present to you my essay. Please ignore the hyperlinked endnotes.

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Ionatan Waisgluss

November 30, 2011

JHE353

False accusations:

Reactions to Darwin’s Onthe Origin of Species

Throughoutthe history of evolutionary thought, man’s perceived relationshipwith nature has undergone significant changes, each geared towardsthe mentality of its respective era. Intuitively, these relationshipscan be split into those which are descriptive and those which areprescriptive. The distinction is based on whether they employ thenaturalistic fallacy, viz whether they make the assumption thatnature provides a model for human affairs. Prescriptive relationshipswith nature can be found all throughout history, but experience anespecially strong resurgence after the publication of CharlesDarwin’s The Origin of Species and towards the turn of the20^th century. Around this time, eugenic references to thenatural ways, laws, or order can be found in countless publicationsof popular culture, such as magazines, letters, or pamphlets. Withouta doubt, the age after Darwin’s publication represents a turningpoint in man’s relationship with nature. There is ampledocumentation of Victorian and post-Victorian reactions to Darwin’swork, particularly in the form of sensationalist caricatures. Aconcerningly large number of these responses react to Darwin’s workas if it held a prescriptive model of nature (i.e. employed thenaturalistic fallacy). In this essay, I will prove that Darwin’swork was by no means prescriptive. The following paragraphs will showthat Darwin did not believe, state, or otherwise imply that manshould follow the example of nature, since he did not support theideas that might makes right, that man should take evolutioninto his own hands, that man is reducible to an animal, or that manand nature are entirely one and the same. For this purpose, publishedworks, including various collections of cartoons and articles, havebeen retrieved and included with the essay when appropriate. Proof ofthe descriptive nature of The Origin of Species have beenderived from Darwin’s work¹and journals²,as well as various secondary sources.

Acommon doctrine attributed to Darwin is that of might makes right,where morality is decided by power (for instance, strength andinfluence). A very immediate attribution of this doctrine to Darwincan be found shortly after the publication of his famous work. In1896, an extremist book by the name of Might is Right: TheSurvival of the Fittest was published under the pseudonym RagnarRedbeard. The book begins with a quote from The Origin of Species,that "inferior organisms succumb and perish or areenslaved. Superior organisms survive, propagate, and possess."³Might is Right goes on to employ the naturalistic fallacyfull-force, arguing that it is right for the sun to shine, since itis observed doing so, and that since Darwin’s laws are observable,they must be right as well.⁴The logical error comes from assuming that man should base hisactions on what happens in nature. Might is Right argues thatnature favours the fittest, and that man should become more fit, asnature (and Darwin) commands.⁵However, Darwin’s definition of the fitness of a given organism isnot based on power (i.e., might) but in “infinitely complexrelations to other organic beings and to external nature.”⁶Moreover, Darwin clearly states that he uses the concept of strugglefor existence in a metaphorical sense; survival of the fittestcan be a function of mutualistic interactions between organisms, oreven success despite a harsh climate.⁷It has more to do with success in leaving progeny behind than withany other observable trait on which one would intuitively (thougherroneously) base fitness. Stephen J. Gould has called Darwin’sprinciple of fitness a tautology, since survival of the fittestrefers to "the survival of those who survive."⁸ Indeed, Darwin’s definition of fitness has nothing to do with theaxe and hammer insignia associated with Might is Right, or tothe dog-eat-dog mentality associated with Darwinism. The idea thatmight makes right does not echo Darwin’s thoughts, but merelyapplies the naturalistic fallacy in anthropocentric ways which Darwindoes not.

Mightis Right is often labelled a Social Darwinist work, since itapplies the principles of Darwin to society. In contrast to Darwin’sdescriptive work, it advocates the idea that the human species shouldtake its evolutionary fate into its own hands. It is worth notingthat The Origin of Species does not make any mention ofimproving human fitness; this is not accidental, but a consequence ofDarwin’s beliefs about the limitations of man. Darwin states thatnatural selection is “immeasurably superior to man’s feebleefforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.”⁹A prescriptive interpretation of Darwin’s natural laws overlookshis obvious preference for the hand of nature over that of man, andthat as a consequence, a prescriptive application of his natural lawswould not only go against his sense of aesthetic (an minor point),but very importantly, against the improvement of the species. In TheOrigin of Species, Darwin challenges the reader to consider howhe would go about improving the fitness of a given animal in thewild, for the sole cause of “[convincing him] of our ignorance onthe mutual relations of all organic beings.”¹⁰Clearly, Darwin does not believe that the human species could beimproved by anthropocentric selection. Realizing this is key toseparating Darwinism from Social Darwinism, Nazism, and Eugenics.

Anotherreaction to The Origin of Species is well-documented in theform of sensationalist caricatures, articles and other socialartefacts. Cartoons about evolution had been around since beforeDarwin,¹¹but became even more prevalent after Darwin’s controversial book.It is also worth noting that no other Victorian evolutionist was asfrequently or intensely caricatured as Darwin.¹²Darwin’s proposal of man’s place in nature, wherein man sharesthe same types of selective pressures, and parts of an evolutionaryhistory with every other animal on earth, was misrepresented bysensationalist media as a proposal that men are reducible to animals.Three social artefacts have been drawn from Darwin Online¹³and included with this essay (Images 3, 20 and 26 from the database).These images show variations on people’s idea of man as animalas interpreted from Darwin. Image 20 is a very literalinterpretation, wherein Darwin’s theory is satired by showing itsauthor as an ape. Image 26, a poem about the implications ofDarwinism, is much more metaphorical, drawing on humancharacteristics given to different animals (e.g. the courage of alion, the lowliness of a snake), and attributing them to a believerof Darwinism. Image 3 shows yet another take on man as animal,wherein Darwin is portrayed as being an inhuman beast by way of whathe is alleged to do to his son in the name of science. Here, itbecomes important to take into account Darwin’s personality, as thelabels “ape-like” or “inhuman” seem ill-suited to a man whosees “beauty and infinite complexity [in] the coadaptations betweenall organic beings”¹⁴,or who manages to include a beautifully poetic Tree of Life analogyin a book of science. Even in talking about the struggle for life,characterized by its brutality, he sugar-coats it by claiming that wemay “console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of natureis not incessant, that no fear is felt, and that death is generallyprompt,”¹⁵all of which are assertions without a scientific basis, and on whichhe does not elaborate. He goes on to say that the organisms which getto multiply are those which are vigorous, healthy, and happy.¹⁶Such examples of anthropomorphism riddle this famous work; Darwin’scharming personifications are far from the work of a heartlessanimal. Natural selection gets a similar treatment, alleged to rejectthe bad and preserve the good in each species, tirelessly improvingit over time, for “the good of each being.”¹⁷Darwin even goes as far as to call slave-making in ants a wonderfulinstinct.¹⁸Here, any allegations of inhumanity by way of Darwin’s reaction toslave-making in ants should be quickly quelled by his labelling ofthe slave-making instinct (independently of ants) as odious.¹⁹This reaction is likely brought on by Darwin’s travels to SouthAmerica— particularly his visit to Brazil, which prompted him toexclaim in his journal Voyage of the Beaglethat he would never again visit a slave-country.²⁰Darwin is as much of a Humanist as anyone else; he writes and thinksbeautifully (at least in the opinion of the author of this essay.)

Theambivalent treatment of the slave-making instinct brings to mindanother point about Darwin’s placement of man in nature. The onlystrong reference to mankind’s place in nature in The Origin ofSpecies is late in the book, where he nonchalantly states thathis theory will throw light on the origin of man and his history.²¹There is much more to be inferred, however, from the way in whichDarwin defines what is natural and what is not. In various parts ofthe book, Darwin uses the word unnatural to contrast the wayin which things develop in nature. A good example of this is when hetalks about organic beings produced by unnatural conditionsand unnatural crossings,²²referring to experimental conditions produced by humans. The conceptof varieties of organisms as a result of domestication is a big themethroughout this book, particularly in Chapter I. In a laterchapter, the subject matter of Chapter I is referred to inpassing in an interesting term that continues to be used today:artificial selection.²³This term could easily be replaced with human-mediated selection,as one could call the evolution of certain fungi ant-mediated,but Darwin chooses not to do that. Darwin’s usage of unnaturaland artificial in reference to human intervention tells us agreat deal about the relationship between man and nature in the mindof this famous author; namely, that man is different enough from therest of nature to be able to intervene. If this is the case, then theclaims that Darwin’s work reduces humans to animals is not at alljustified, as he makes an implicit, yet pervasive distinction betweennature and man. Darwin implies that man is part of nature, butdifferent enough for his constructs to be unnatural, and hisbehaviour artificial. This implicit disjunction of nature andman leaves no room for the naturalistic fallacy; why should manbehave like nature when he is implicitly different?

Inclosing, it is important to realize that in order to truly understanda work that deals with man’s place in nature, one must be able toaccount for whether it is descriptive or prescriptive. It seems thatbecause Darwin’s theory is so consequential to our perceived placein nature, critics have overlooked the fact that Darwin’s work doesnot tell us what we should do, but only how nature changesover time. Failure on behalf of contemporaries and later interpretersof Darwin to categorize his definition of nature correctly is likely,due to the sensationalist nature of the media, and to the agendas ofthe groups which draw their unsound support from Darwin. Hopefully,it will be clear to the reader of this essay that The Origin ofSpecies does not employ the naturalistic fallacy, as Darwinclaims that the definition of fitness is beyond human understanding,and that nature is much better at evolving a given species than wouldbe man left to his own devices. Additionally, Darwin does not believethat man is reducible to an animal, since he has very Humanist andanthropocentric ideals. Most importantly, Darwin believes man to bedistinct enough from nature so as to not be able to take his moralityfrom it. All of this being the case, we should perhaps reconsidersuch terms as Social Darwinism and Post-Darwinism,especially in the contexts of eugenics and social engineering, whichdraw fallaciously from nature, and which have little to do with theviews of Charles Darwin.

1Darwin, On the origin of species, various

2Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, various.

3Redbeard, Might is Right, preface

4Redbeard, Might is Right, 94

5Redbeard, Might is Right, 95

6Darwin, On the origin of species, 61

7Darwin, On the origin of species, 62

8Gould, Darwin's Untimely Burial

9Darwin, On the origin of species, 61

10Darwin, On the origin of species, 78

11Clark, You are Here

12Browne, Darwin in caricature

13Wyhe, The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

14Darwin, On the origin of species, 109

15Darwin, On the origin of species, 78

16Darwin, On the origin of species, 78

17Darwin, On the origin of species, 84

18Darwin, On the origin of species, 219

19Darwin, On the origin of species, 220

20Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, [see works cited]

21Darwin, On the origin of species, 488

22Darwin, On the origin of species, 265

23Darwin, On the origin of species, 109

Works Cited

Browne,Janet, “Darwin in caricature: A study in the popularisation anddissemination of evolution,” Proceedingsof the American Philosophical Society 145(4):496-509, 2001, accessed November21, 2011,http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3372264/Browne_Darwin_Caricature.pdf?sequence=1

Darwin,Charles, On the origin of species. Afacsim. of the 1st ed., with an introd. by Ernst Mayr (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1964), various pages.

Darwin,Charles, Voyage of the Beagle: Journalof researches into the geology and natural history of the variouscountries visited by H.M.S. Beagle (Online:Project Gutenberg, 2008), accessed November20^th,2011, http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3704/pg3704.txt. [Ctrl+F: “On the 19th of August we finally left the shoresof Brazil”]

Clark,Constance A., “You Are Here: Missing Links, Chains of Being, andthe Language of Cartoons,” FOCUS—ISIS,100:3, 2009, accessed November22, 2011, from http://www.kean.edu/~bregal/docs/You%20Are%20Here.pdf

Gould,Stephen J., “Darwin's Untimely Burial,” Natural History 85:24-30, Oct. 1976, accessed November 8, 2011, fromhttp://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_tautology.html.

Redbeard,Ragnar, Might is Right(Online: Archive.org Community Texts, 2001), accessed November20^th, 2011,http://www.archive.org/details/MightIsRightByRagnarRedbeard,various pages.

Wyhe,Dr John van, TheComplete Work of Charles Darwin Online,2002, accessed November 8, 2011, from Darwin Online:http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=CUL-DAR140.4&viewtype=image&pageseq=1.[Images attached to bibliography]

Image 3

Image 20

Image 26

Hidden alleyway (Bathurst & Bloor)

2011-09-12T23:56:00.002-04:00

Since moving to Borden Street at the startof September, I’ve been continuously exploring the Bathurst & Bloor area,always on the lookout for interesting shops, venues, places to practice parkour, and, of course, street art!

Bathurst & Bloor is a fantastic intersection. Mostpeople know it for the iconic Honest Ed’s, which now incorporates SonicBoom, Hero Burgers,and The Wine Rack; it’s worthvisiting for its sheer size, if not for its fantastic deals. For additionalawesomeness near this intersection, check out Midoco’s incredibleselection of arts & crafts novelties, have a drink at a bar namedafter a disorder of your choice (Insomnia or Amnesia),or see what’s playing at the Bloor Cinema.

Walk west for tasty meals in Koreatown, easttowards UofT, north through the Annex, or south through MirvishVillage. Indeed, Bathurst & Bloor is a heck of a hub!

For those interested in street art, I found an absolutelyfantastic alleyway with extraordinary graffiti. The alleyway is inbetween Borden and Brunswick, and starts just south of Bloor. Thebest way to get here from Bathurst and Bloor is to walk east to Borden St.,walk south past Kilgour’s, make a quick left, and then a quickright. There are some painting styles in this alleyway that I haven’t seenelsewhere. The place is a graffiti museum, and I’m lucky enough to pass throughit every day on my way to and from home! The nearby establishments TheGreen Room, and Tranzac, are also elaborately decorated withstreet art, and are great for drinks and atmosphere after a day of wanderingaround alleyways.

Below are some of the art pieces you may see, though keep inmind... street art is ephemeral, which is part of what gives it its charm.

Happy exploring,

--Ionatan Waisgluss

Rush Lane

2011-09-06T15:33:00.000-04:00

If you happen to find yourself in the Queen and Spadina area, just south of the magic of Chinatown, you’reonly steps away from a guerilla art gallery of astounding proportions. Half a block south of Queen St., stretchingfrom Spadina Ave. west to Portland St,, there is a series of laneways knownas Rush Lane, or Graffiti Alley. Within this verywalkable area, you can find all shapes, sizes and styles of guerilla art onsurfaces ranging from the railings of fire escapes to oh-so vulnerable brickfaçades.

According to various sources, a group called Style in Progress is given a24-hour period by the city to legally paint Rush Lane each summer. Their websiteis currently down, but the group can be reached via their facebook site. Inreality, a significant portion of the art that is up on Rush Lane is not affiliatedwith Style in Progress at all, but is done illegally at other points in theyear. The result is a hodgepodge of contrasting styles that gives the alley anever-changing, very unique quality that is a must-see for all street art enthusiasts.

The space, intended for delivery trucks, is frequented by amix of pedestrians, street art enthusiasts, photographers, and (of course)graffiti artists. Rush Lane also happens to be the filming location for Rick’sRants, of The Rick Mercer Reportfame. Below are some photos I took while wandering west along the alley.

If looking at so much amazing art has left you hungry, youcan always have a some cheap, delicious food at Java House (Queen & Portland, where Rush Lane ends), or go fora reasonably-priced Venezuelan specialty at Arepa Cafe (490 Queen St. W.).

Happy exploring,

--Ionatan Waisgluss

Sulphur Spring, Ancaster

2011-08-17T21:02:00.009-04:00

To me, summer wouldn’t be summer without a solid bike-ride to the middle of nowhere. Last Monday (August 15^th) fellow botanist Tom Nagy and myself set out on precisely one of these endeavours with the hopes of finding Hamilton’s last-standing Hill’s Oak (Quercus ellipsoidalis). En route, we came across a fantastic mineral spring.

We had taken a very simple and scenic route from the heart of Burlington, Ontario to the westernmost reaches of Ancaster, a magnificent part of Hamilton. After crossing various bridges on Plains Rd., we made our way down a seemingly endless set of stairs, and proceeded to bike through part of Cootes Paradise, most of Westdale (a neighbourhood in Hamilton) and then down a stretch of Main St., passing various Hamiltonian landmarks on the way. We then connected with the Brantford Rail-Trail, which (worth noting for future reference) reaches all the way to Brantford! For the two aforementioned travellers, getting to Sulphur Springs Rd. on this trail would suffice.

Never-ending stairs.

Hamilton-Brantford Rail trail

Dundas Valley Conservation Area

Just south of where the rail trail intersects with Sulphur Springs Rd. (location), one can find the street’s namesake spring: Sulphur Spring.

In the late 1800s, this spring was the basis for an unusual hotel known as Sulphur Springs Hotel. The hotel’s main attraction was its limitless supply of spring water with fantastically high mineral content. The guests would pay for their stay and enjoy the benefits of sulphur-rich water, which is reputed to have health benefits related to muscles, joints, skin, and even mental health. Luck, on the other hand, was nowhere near as limitless; the hotel was forced to close in 1910 after two fires raged through its unfortunate wooden skeleton. Today, the spring is maintained by Ancaster Parks and Recreation.

As you can see based on the 1875 chemical analysis of this water, this spring has a very noteworthy chemical profile. Even as you approach the area, you can smell the characteristic rotting eggs smell of sulphur. The water itself, as it flows through your fingers, feels more like salt water than tap water. And if you’re brave enough to take a swig of this subterranean concoction, your taste buds will likely protest. Curiously enough, when we arrived on the scene, there was a friendly Asian gentleman filling up large translucent bottles with the water from this spring. I struck up a conversation with him, curious as to his motives for doing such a thing. As it turns out, the man takes these bottles home and uses the water on his skin, or as soak (e.g., added to bathwater). “It’s not good for drinking,” he said, “the taste is too strong; too many salts.” He informed us that he uses the water for rheumatism, for relaxing his muscles (because of the high magnesium content), and for treating eczema.

“And it’s free! It just flows out!” He said, making it sound as if only a lunatic could pass up such an opportunity. And indeed, only a lunatic would. Goodbye salty sweat, hello rotten eggs water.

Face goes here.

Movie Review: Encounters at the End of the World (Documentary)

2011-08-13T20:23:00.005-04:00

Herzog's famous and entertaining accent guides us through some strange situations in beautiful settings and introduces us to some oddball characters living or working in Antarctica. In true Herzog fashion, musings on nature, solitude, and human nature ensue.

For "not being a film about penguins", according to Herzong, there are some pretty incredible penguin scenes. Complete with both historical footage of Antarctica and state-of-the-art neutrino-detecting technology, this movie is somewhat timeless, much like Antarctica itself.

IMDB rating: 7.8/10Worth watching? Definitely.

Though "Grizzly Man" remains my favourite Herzog movie.

Airport musings

2011-07-25T05:03:00.008-04:00

As an endless aisle of clocks strikes early morning hours, I find myself at the Vancouver International Airport, realizing it’s more tiring to feign sleep on inhospitable benches than to simply admit defeat and revert to that sluggish state of existence that our consciousness reserves exclusively for ill-scheduled travel. I could certainly while away the night with numerous documentaries, or work on updating my plant database with all of the photos and information I’ve acquired over the summer; I certainly will do both of these things, but first I feel like I owe it to myself, my readers, and the insistent tug of an unattended blog to post my first post since April 29^th of this year.

As many of you know, I left Ontario a few days after that last post, and I’ve been in British Columbia since. Tonight is my last night in this beautiful province, and I bring back, upon my return, far more than my carry-on and checked luggage. A summer’s worth of experiences, adventures and hard work has changed me in immeasurable ways. I take a look at my body: bulkier from healthy eating and a great deal of manual labour, tanned from the freedom that the rural life affords, and covered in scratches that tell tales in carnal Braille. Emotionally, intellectually, and all-around psychologically, this summer has been constructive in ways I could not begin to describe. I’ve learned so much— about myself, about people, about nature—only to realize, of course, how much more there is to learn.

I’m thankful to everyone who has supported and inspired me this summer, whether I got to see them every day for the last three months, whether they graced my thoughts from time to time, or whether their way of being has had a tremendous influence on my everyday life.

For those of you expecting a big blog post outlining all the amazing things that happened this summer, I have no such thing to offer; I could spend the rest of my life writing up such a report, and there are more adventures and experiences out there, waiting to be seized. Be warned: things don’t necessarily go according to plan— this summer is a prime example— but theres is always something to be learned.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

As for myself right now, I couldn’t be happier that I get to settle down at home for this next little while, where I can see my family and many of my friends, before my next great adventure.

Above, a photo of one of my happiest days this summer. For the full album, click here.

That's all for now,

--Ioni

Hancock's Curse -> Hancock's Curry

2011-04-29T21:26:00.010-04:00

---read disclaimer---

Legend has it that deep in the heart of yesterday's England, a tragically ignorant gentleman named Hancock let a certain plant run wild in his yard. For those around him, whose property value was decimated, that plant came to be known as Hancock's Curse.

Mind you, very few people refer to Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) as Hancock's Curse, but I think it's catchy, in a way, and whether this legend holds true or not, it is still a good reminder of how unmanageable certain plants can get if they are allowed to run wild.

Japanese Knotweed is one of the worst offenders in terms of invasive potential and yearly damage in the places it's already managed to infiltrate. I've ranted about invasive species before, so I won't go into why it's important to keep certain plants in check, although I will emphasize that Japanese Knotweed should be controlled as much as possible!

What does Japanese Knotweed look like? Here are some photos of this bad-boy in the wild.

Note the spotted reddish stems, which zig-zag up to 2 metres tall! Also note the spade-shaped leaves, with their exaggeratedly truncate bases.

Here are its pretty white flowers, looking much like the flowers of Lady's Thumb (Persicaria maculosa), another member of the Knotweed family.

Towards the end of April, be on the lookout for dead stands of the bamboo-looking remnants of the last year's growth. at the base, you'll likely see the emerging shoots. When they're this tall (less than 20cm or so) they're worth harvesting. Harvest as much as you can, since you're also doing the area's biodiversity a favour!

And how should we control this prolific weed? How about on our dinner plates? You are strongly encouraged to make sure you can identify this plant before you stuff your face with it. I will not be held responsible for any foraging-related casualties. If this entry catches your interest, and you decide you'd like to try some Japanese knotweed, a good place to start is the wikipedia page, and then the links at the bottom of that page. It's fairly easy to identify, but you should always be 100% sure you're harvesting the right plant.

Yes, Japanese Knotweed is perfectly edible when it's very, very young. Older plants have high levels of calcium oxalate crystals, which can cause gastrointestinal problems. Even with the younger plants, it's a good idea to boil them in two changes of water. Upon boiling and reboiling, your pretty little shoots will look more like a pile of vomit. Fear not, brave cook! They can now be easily turned into the base for your new favourite curry... Hancock's Curry!

Hancock's Curry:

1) Sauté first a large minced onion, then some shavings of ginger, and lastly a couple of minced cloves of garlic in a big pan with oil. The order is important, as the ingredients are listed in order of decreasing sauté time.

2) Add your favourite curry spices. If you're not too comfortable with curries, you can start from a mix. I usually use turmeric, paprika, cumin, 5-spice, chili powder, black pepper, and whatever else I have on hand. Keep in mind that spices are medicine! Stir until the spices are evenly dispersed.

3) Add a big amount of your Japanese Knotweed. As mentioned before, make sure you've boiled it in two changes of water to remove the calcium oxalate.

4) Add some spinach, okra, or whatever other curry-appropriate vegetables you happen to have on-hand, and cook the whole thing in the pan until there's only a little liquid in the curry.

5) Add some texture, like sesame, walnuts, paneer, etc.

6) Enjoy! Serve with quinoa, red rice, kasha, or your favourite grain! Experiment! :D

Alright, that's all for now!

All the best,

-- Ionatan

Anseriform storm

2011-03-11T18:16:00.007-05:00

I've been spending some time by the waterfront these last couple of weeks. As the winter retreats and the days get longer, this pre-spring period is fantastic for seeing all sorts of birds you may not have had the chance to see before. Here are some pictures of some of the waterfowl I've seen over the last two years in Burlington and Toronto. Not all of these are migratory, or even lake-habitat birds. The only thing that unites them is that they are found in the Great Lakes region of Canada (whether native or not), are in the Anseriformes (an order of birds), and are fairly easy to come across. Each species is so unique and wonderful; their social behaviour is a pleasure to watch, and the communities they form with other species is very interesting!

Here's a photo of either Greater or Lesser Scaups (Aythya marila/affinis). For an amateur naturalist, it's extremely hard to tell the two species apart from afar.

Here are some ducks that everyone should be familiar with. These are male Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), the wild ancestor to domestic ducks. Being common does not make these ducks plain. Take a good look at their colour and patterning. They are truly beautiful creatures.

Female Mallards, though far less showy (a pattern which is typical of many bird species), still have an elegance to them.

As far as adornment goes, the Carolina Duck, also known as the Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) takes the cake. Although I had previously seen drawings of this duck, I had some trouble believing my eyes when I finally saw this magnificent bird in person. I was completely blown away.

Click for higher-quality

And speaking of surreal experiences, what do you make of this? This photo was taken at the LaSalle Park Marina, in Burlington, where families come down to feed the ducks, geese and swans. If you look at the photo in detail, you will see the aforementioned Mallards, as well as some Canada Geese (Branta canadensis), and two types of swans. In Canada, the swans with black beaks (Trumpeter Swans, Cygnus buccinator) are slowly being taken over by the much more aggressive European swans with orange beaks (Mute Swan, Cygnus olor). Trumpeter swan populations are under observation in order to ensure their numbers stay at secure levels. In Burlington, they are flourishing, thanks to a society that tags them, studies them, and selectively feeds them, leaving the mute swans at a disadvantage.

In this photo, although it may be hard to see, are some Redheads (Aythya americana), which are closely related to the Scaup species in the first photo. They're both in the Aythya genus. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of them.

These dark-looking ducks are Velvet Scoters (Melanitta fusca), seen around Spencer Smith Park, in Burlington.

Here are the male and female of a diving duck species, the Long-Tailed Duck (Clangula hyemalis). At first glance, I thought this might be a Bufflehead, but it is much larger, and the colour pattern is very different. See below for comparison.

Here's a bufflehead. This tiny little diving duck is one of my favourites. It's really fun to watch it dive and take guesses at where it's going to come back up.

Well, I believe that's it for now. To date, these are the only waterfowl I've photographed in the wild. With the coming spring, I'll be on the lookout for more species :D

Be back soon,

--Ionatan Waisgluss

Mediterranean marvels

2011-01-15T21:20:00.009-05:00

There is far too much that I would like to say about my travels to Spain. Being in Burlington on a Saturday night grants me the meditative isolation necessary to write a post of Odyssean proportions... if only my studies and my clock were just as generous.

That not being the case, allow me to jump right into this:

I would like to introduce you all to Casa de Campo, an incredible park in the city of Madrid. Apart from its wide array of recreational services and facilities, it contains some natural areas rich in healthy ecosystems and species diversity.

Here is a photo of the landscape. The tree in the middle is a Pinus pinea, also known as the Italian Stone Pine. This pine is remarkable in very many ways. In addition to producing edible and worthwhile pine nuts, it is incredible to look at, seeming out of place in the Mediterranean forests of Casa de Campo and more at home somewhere like an African savannah. Indeed, when the Sahara was a more humid climate, this tree grew in that area! Its range has spread due to its popularity with humans—including my sister, who took a special interest in this tree and was very surprised to find out that it was actually a pine.

What surprised me was the completely bizarre way in which this tree grows. When this tree is young, its leaves grow singly, in contrast to growing in bundles of two as they do in mature trees. What’s more, they’re much shorter, a much more glaucous colour, and much stiffer, looking almost like spruce needles. Not having studied this tree before seeing it, I would have been hesitant to accept that the young specimens and the mature specimens even belonged to the same species... had Casa de Campo not been flooded with beautiful specimens of various stages of this tree from infancy to maturity.

This next picture is meant to give you an idea of the type of ground on which I was walking in this incredible park. Completely unlike anything I’ve stepped on in Canada, this wonderful soil provided a spot for hundreds of plants to anchor themselves to (although, with the help of fungi, they seemed to have no trouble using all sorts of other substrates, including exposed rock and older trees). The 3-dimensionality of it kept me looking in all directions at all times, and the added dimensions of sounds, smells, and inexplicable pulls towards areas that always outdid themselves in attractiveness kept me far from grounded. More ephemeral still was the quest for a good photo of the bird you see in this photo, the European Magpie (Pica pica).

Alas, I would have to keep my focus; this was not a place I could let down my guard— not among what the locals call the “encinas”. Losing footing and landing in a bush of this spiky plant would not be something to take lightly. Like the lookalike after which this plant is named, the Holly Oak (Quercus ilex), has very sharp leaves. I remember seeing this plant years ago in the Mediterranean Gardens at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington and thinking to myself “Oh, a holly.” After checking the label, I turned to my fellow botanist Tom Nagy, and said “Tom... This is an oak.” We both stared at it, incredulous at how evolution can be so convergent and deceptive. This second time around, with a couple of years of botanical wisdom under my wing, I did not let myself be fooled.

Or did I? Were these relatively smooth-edged trees the same species as Q. ilex? They couldn’t be; they looked so different! Indeed, they were. Q. ilex is very variable in leaf shape, with older specimens showing far less of that spikiness characteristic to hollies. Incredible, Holly Oak. You got me again.

On to the next plant, another one to watch out for. In my excitement to get some photos of it, I was reminded of the sharp reality pertaining to the field of botany: You can never let your guard down around unfamiliar plants. With its glove-piercing leaves, Asparagus acutifolius, a close relative of the garden-variety asparagus (A. officinalis), clearly had no interest in becoming food for a herbivore or becoming data for a botanist.

I moved on to a much more forgiving plant, Retama sphaerocarpa (for which there is no English name). This is a very conspicuous leafless bush in the legume family Fabaceae. Its place in the taxonomic tree made more sense after seeing some fruit still persisting on the surreal, flexible branches. Yup, it’s a bean.

But perhaps the most startling botanical discovery of all was a bush from the mint family Lamiaceae (though superficially resembling various bushes in the Ericaceae). I came across this with my sister, and right away, I asked her “Is this what I think it is?” She gestured towards me, pretending to not be interested, as is the responsibility of any older sister. “I think this is rosemary!”

“—WHAT?” We crushed the scented leaves between our fingers and revelled in their unmistakable smell. What’s more, there wasn’t just a single stand of this plant, but rather large, dense groupings in all directions.

The nature I had the chance to see in Spain was unique and incredible. In certain respects, it mirrored the nature in Ontario, having species from the same families—and with strikingly similar counterparts. There were even some all-too-familiar species here, such as Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), which plays a much more neutral role in Europe due to natural herbivory, not causing the environmental devastation for which it’s notorious in North America.

Of course, this post says little about the cities and the architecture and culture that we saw, but you’ll have to forgive me. For that, there is an album on Facebook, and various minds full of magnificent memories.

Special thanks to my sister Andrea and Co. (yes you, Sahar) for showing me a great time, and to my family as a whole for their love and support <3

Algonquin anomalies pt.1

2010-10-07T19:08:00.012-04:00

I recently got the chance to got up to Algonquin Provincial Park. It was a great experience in terms of things to do, beauty to observe, and plants to study. It was during this excursion that I finally got to see some plants I had been longing to see, photograph, and write about for an unreasonable amount of time.

Without any further ado, I dedicate this entry to the passion of everybody's inner kid: Carnivorous plants.

To be painfully technical, carnivorous plants are not carnivores; they are not heterotrophic. In other words, they do not derive energy from eating other organisms. Like most plants, they are autotrophic, making their energy through the complex process of photosynthesis. The reason that we see most plants as green is because of their chlorophyll pigments, which absorb many different wavelengths of visible light (except, of course, green light) and turn it into energy in the form of sugar. Carnivorous plants are no exception.

So, why do carnivorous plants eat insects if they don't get any energy out of them? The answer lies not in the carnivorous plants themselves, but in their habitat. In general, plants that have adapted carnivory tend to grow in thin, nutrient-poor soils. As such, the plants have a difficult time extracting the necessary nutrients from these soils. The soils they grow on may be poor in nitrogen, phosphorus, iron, and potassium. Coincidentally, capturing small animals, insects, or other invertebrates allows the plants to acquire these nutrients. I will explain how each of the plants that I came across goes about this business.

Well, which carnivorous plants grow in Algonquin Park?

I was told of three different species of carnivorous plants that grow in this huge park. Out of these, I only observed two species. I was not able to see Bladderwort (Utricularia spp.), so I'll just touch on it briefly. It is a partially-submerged plant, whose flowers peek out of the water. It captures prey by opening low-pressure chambers underwater, which suck small invertebrates inside and then seal shut. There, the insect is digested.

The first carnivorous plant that I did see is the very well-known Purple pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea). Of the very large Sarracenia genus, this is the only member that inhabits a temperate zone; the rest of the Sarracenia species live in much warmer climates, but this plant is much hardier than the rest. Like other pitcher-plants, it has highly-modified leaves that form a pitcher-like structure (hence its name), in which insects may be captured. These leaves are arranged in a basal rosette. Unlike bladderworts, or Venus fly-traps, pitcher plants employ a passive trap, without using what botanists refer to as rapid plant movement. Insects visit this plant for nectar, landing on the brilliant-red waxy borders of the pitcher structure. Here, nectar-coated leaf veins lead the soon-to-be prey closer to the gaping hole. On the waxy border of this vegetal precipice, the slippery surface makes falling inevitable. Inside, the sharp, downward-pointing hairs lining the walls make escape impossible.

The plunge is quick and painless, but what follows is a slow, drawn-out death. The pitcher is filled with a combination of rain water, dew, digestive juices that are secreted from the specialized leaf structure, and the rotting bodies of other unlucky victims. Moreover, these pools of water are festering with bacteria, which (in this particular pitcher plant species) do more of the actual digestion than the plant's enzymes themselves!

These plants, while being lethal for some invertebrates, serve as habitat for others. Any organism clever (or lucky) enough to avoid the pitcher trap walks away with a mouthful of delicious nectar. Spiders, with their silken safety lines, may set up camp (i.e. spin a web) inside these lucrative pitchers. Interestingly, there is even a species of mosquito (Wyeomyia smithii) whose larva lives inside the pitcher water without being digested. This is the only place where the adult of this species of mosquito will lay its eggs.

Surprisingly, the solitary flower of this plant is very inconspicuous. It is held on a tall, leafless stem, nodding at the viewer in unimpressive colours. Its shape, however, is extraordinary; so much, in fact, that it was chosen as the provincial flower for Newfoundland and Labrador.

-----------------------------------------------------

Another plant I was able to see, after very much searching, was the Common sundew (Drosera rotundifolia). This plant grows very well on partially submerged logs, getting right down by the water, where insects are abundant. Like the pitcher plant, the leaves of the sundew are also arranged in a basal rosette. The leaf structure and function is very different in morphology than that of the pitcher plant, although similar in purpose. Each leaf looks like a green spoon, but covered in hundreds of red hairs. From each hair, the plant secretes a mucilage that serves many purposes. Glistening in the sun like little sugar-loaded jewels, these globs of mucilage are irresistible to insects. When the insects land to snatch these up, however, the result is quite ironic. The leaf itself, capable of rapid plant movement (thus employing an active trap) curls around the helpless insect, holding it in place with its sticky globules. The globules are also rich in digestive enzymes, which devour the insect slowly, extracting nutrients through its leaves.

There is much research going into sundews, since their leaves contain contain compounds said to be antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-spasmodic. They're also incredibly photogenic.

That's it for tonight. Some more on Algonquin anomalies, soon to come!

Happy to be posting again,

--ioni

Botany Specialist courses 2010

2010-09-09T19:35:00.006-04:00

Dear readers,

I thought you might be interested in knowing the courses I'm taking this year:

Fall:

EEB331H1

Introduction to the Fungi (formerly BOT301H1) [24L, 36P]

Topics include fungal systematics, morphology, physiology, and ecology. The roles of fungi in the environment and their importance to man. A field trip explores the natural occurrence of fungi. Labs introduce the techniques used for morphological and molecular identification, and for isolation in pure culture. Students use fungal cultures to conduct an independent experimental research project.

BIO251Y1

Biology of Plants and Micro-organisms (formerly BOT251Y1) [48L, 36P]

An introduction to the biology of plants, fungi, and algae. Lectures and labs emphasize the diversity of organisms with a focus on life cycles, morphology, anatomy, physiology, ecology, and evolution.

BIO240H1

Molecular Biology [36L, 15P]

An introduction to the structures and functions of DNA, RNA and proteins, exploring how the molecular information contained within an organism’s genome is converted into cellular function. Accompanying laboratories reinforce the concepts introduced in lecture and teach relevant techniques.

ENV234Y1

Environmental Biology [48L, 36P]

A broad-based science course drawing on elements from geology, systematics, soil science, and ecology to understand past and present environments and how humans are altering the environment. Emphasis is placed on examination of ecological phenomena in relation to population, community and ecosystem processes with particular reference to the biomes of Ontario. Descriptive and experimental laboratory studies including a weekend field trip (total cost about $15.00). (Offered by the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Geology, and the Faculty of Forestry).

Winter:

ENV234Y1 and BIO251Y1 continue, +

EEB330H1

Systematic Botany (formerly BOT300H1) [24L, 36P]

The theoretical foundations of taxonomy and the types of evidence used in constructing plant classifications. Labs emphasize taxonomic characters and their uses. Includes an independent taxonomic project.

BIO241H1

Cell and Developmental Biology [36L, 15P]

An introduction to the structure and function of cells focusing on the molecular basis of cell and developmental biology. Lecture topics include membrane transport, protein sorting and cell communication plus cellular architecture and the formation of tissues. Accompanying laboratories reinforce the concepts introduced in lecture and teach relevant techniques.

---------------------------------

In addition to taking these courses, I intend to renew my membership with:

UTOC - University of Toronto Outing Club

RBG - Royal Botanical Gardens

as well as to enroll in membership with the HNC - Hamilton Naturalists' Club,

and to participate in as many different nature-oriented things as I can.

Needless to say, it's going to be a busy year...

and I couldn't be happier :)

Smokey Hollow Falls

2010-08-25T16:09:00.010-04:00

Later on today, I will be giving a tour at Smokey Hollow Falls for the Hamilton Naturalists' Club. This is with much thanks to Dean and Fleur-Ange, for getting me in touch with the HNC, and to George and Elaine for promoting my tour and allowing me the honour of representing the club for the duration of the tour. I plan to give the tour, and then to put up a list of the plants we saw on the tour, so that if anyone has any questions about spelling, or wants to further investigate some of these plants, they can do so easily by consulting this list.

Update (5:00 p.m.): 1 hour to showtime. Weather is looking grim. The tour will go on, even in bad weather, with the exception of lightning or high-velocity winds.

Update (8:00 p.m.): Despite the torrential downpour, the weather ended up clearing up, resulting in muddy, but otherwise agreeable trail conditions. I was happy to see a good deal of people show up. The tour itself went really well! One of the people attending is going to be sending me a more complete list, but so for now, here are some of the plants I remember talking about:

Ambrosia artemisifolia (Common ragweed)

Chichorium intybus (Common chicory)

Daucus carota (Wild carrot)

Dipsacus fullonum (Fuller's teasel)

Tussilago farfara (Colt's foot)

Solidago canadensis (Canada goldenrod)

Acer platanoides (Manitoba maple)

Rhus typhina (Staghorn sumac)

Aesculus hippocastanum (Horsechestnut)

Plantago major (Plantain)

Alliaria petiolata (Garlic mustard)

Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia creeper)

Arctium minus (Lesser burdock)

Impatiens glandulifera (India balsam)

Impatiens capensis (Spotted Jewelweed)

Solanum dulcamara (Bittersweet nightshade)

Arisaema triphyllum (Jack-in-the-pulpit)

Prunella vulgaris (Heal-all)

Thuja occidentalis (Eastern whitecedar)

Tsuga canadensis (Eastern hemlock)

So, there you have it: A semi-complete list of some of the plants we saw today! Thanks again to everyone for coming. I know the weather was a bit of a scare for everyone, including myself, but we ended up having some brilliant sunshine. I really appreciate the support, and how attentively you all listened to me rant about my favourite subject! Special thanks to Marion for sending me a list of the plants I covered on the tour, which made it easier to provide a list for everyone's reference. I hope you all learned at least a bit, and I hope to see you all again at another time-- especially at my next tour!

Feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or anything of the sort. I appreciate the feedback! Also, feel free to explore the links on the bar above my blog posts, which lead to other pages I either have created, or contribute to regularly.

--ioni

Coffee culture (the phenomenon)

2010-07-07T22:44:00.006-04:00

In the last couple of days, I have put much thought into the phenomenon commonly known as coffee culture. I’m obviously not talking about the franchise, but rather about an aspect of our culture that’s accepted without much thought as to its implications. Coffee is part of our everyday lives, and for some people, a complete necessity. What we, as a society, have built up over the last couple of decades, is a complete and uncontested addiction.

Caffeine, the main alkaloid in Coffee (Coffea spp.), is a powerful, bioactive substance with central nervous system (CNS)-stimulating properties comparable to those of amphetamines. In nature, this secondary metabolite serves the sole purpose of paralyzing and killing predators unlucky enough to consume it. This is a bone-leaching, pancreas-exhausting, addictive disruptor of the body’s homeostatic systems, complete with side effects such as mood swings, blood sugar fluctuations, decreased dexterity, and even disrupted sleep cycles.

This drug is not without its casualties. In North America, the number of yearly deaths by caffeine is roughly equal to the number of deaths by use of all illicit drugs combined, and by some estimates, up two twice as large. Yet, having been desensitized to the popularity and widespread use of this particular substance in our culture since birth, we would surely be out of place to expect a purist siege over our favourite morning beverage.

Does nobody on the losing end of this continentally-proclaimed war on drugs care to lift a finger against this powerful pandemic? What makes this drug so well-liked and prominent in our culture? I believe that the only way a substance this powerful could sneak its way into our society is through the collective social realization that caffeine allows all of the mundane tasks—on which our society is unfortunately based—to be accomplished unreflectively, energetically and efficiently. This would be of particular importance for industry, hence the idea of “the coffee break”, in which the consumption of stimulant alkaloids while working on particular tasks is not only socially encouraged, but sometimes even regarded as the responsible thing to do.

Fear not, Canada, for all cultures have their entheogens, and ours is no exception. There is nothing that makes the daily consumption of coffee any less ritualistic and religious than the opium dens of the West or the ayahuasqueros of the Amazon. To claim any measure of moral superiority on such faulty premises would be a blatant display of ethnocentricity. It would be nothing more than to accept your drugs as moral and safe, and others’ as irresponsible and corrupt, despite factual inconsistencies.

Now, I’m not asking that we all stop drinking coffee, or prescribing any sort of anti-prohibitionist agenda. That is not this article’s intent. I am thankful that you have stuck with me thus far, and in closing, I have one request that I hope you will take seriously. Despite what your beliefs are, please put some thought into what’s involved when you say you can’t live without your coffee, and ask yourself (as a result of that thought) if in any of your views, there lies an unacknowledged hypocrisy.

That being said, next week I have my first shift at Second Cup, which should be an interesting, head-on dive into somewhat unfamiliar territory. Wish me luck.

Ambrosialchemy

2010-07-05T22:56:00.003-04:00

I'm very happy to announce the beginning of a new blog!

Rather than give a description of it here, I'll leave a link:

http://ambrosialchemy.blogspot.com/

The link is also available as a "pages" tab at the top of this page!

Check it out and follow it! :)

Don't worry everyone, this blog is still going to be updated! The Ambrosialchemy blog is for a very specific class of posts, whereas this is and will always be my general blog!

What I suggest for anyone interested in keeping up to date with my posts is to subscribe to the RSS feeds for both blogs, so you don't have to keep checking back for new posts, and you don't miss anything good!

Take care, all!

--ioni

XCRT (Cross-Country Road Trip)

2010-06-29T20:36:00.007-04:00

--As seen on the UTOC Newsletter, July edition--

If you’ll forgive the pun: Stream of consciousness can be quite refreshing. In fact, for a trip of this calibre, it may be the only sensible way to relate the events and convey the wondrous feelings that this amazing opportunity brought forth.

Stage lights on. Enter a Toyota Matrix— a tremendously undersized steed, bursting at the seams, carrying a group of four friends and all of the equipment they need to get from Hamilton, ON to Powell River, BC and back over the course of three weeks. We brought with us a good amount of food, to save some money and time along the trip. However much lighter we made the car by continuously eating (mostly as a pastime), the weight was compensated by the constant bug carnage on the front of the car.

That’s not to say that the drive out of Ontario wasn’t enjoyable. Being the longest time we spent driving within the same province (two days), it was one of my favourite patches of the trip. The combination of delightfully tacky tourist stops—like Pancake Bay with its “rocking” weather station, wigwams, smoked fish, and sinfully soft furs—and pristine natural settings— where (to use Don McKay’s words), the rock erotically enters water [Night Field, 1991]— was more than enough to make both environmentalists and cultural anthropologists both replace their title with a more general Enthusiast of Being Alive. The botanist in me wanted to take pictures of hundreds of plants I had never seen before (pink lady’s slipper orchid, to name a really manly one), whereas a completely unknown aspect of myself was more interested in seeing The World’s Biggest Nickel, Goose, excuse for an attraction .

The prairies make very few appearances in my photos—they are best understood as video, but strictly as a montage. Anyone that’s crossed them is sure to understand why. Don’t get me wrong, they’re beautiful! But you get very quickly desensitized to the vastness of it all, and within a couple of hours, you realize that you can see for miles and miles and miles (cue The Who), and it doesn’t look overly promising.

But when you get to Alberta, it’s a different story. At the border, you’re immediately greeted by dozens of prairie dogs, chirping and scuttling away from you. Already, you can see the silhouette of the mountains in the horizon. Driving along them presents the unexpected problem of wanting to stop the car and spend a day climbing each of these majestic beauties. Given time constraints, it’s better to keep going, and really only stop at places like Lake Louise or Jasper National Park; places where nature slaps you in the face with immeasurable beauty.

Then there’s BC, boasting the motto: “The Best Place on Earth.” It’s a bit of a claim, mind you, but I see where they’re coming from. I recommend Kamloops as a place to spend the night; going to Harold’s for breakfast is a must. The rest of the trip involved more time on the ferries (or waiting for them, rather) than actual driving, since our final destination is only accessible by ferry, even though it’s still on the mainland. Powell River is completely incredible. I won’t attempt to do it justice in this article, but I can honestly say that I have never felt more at home than in this community of interesting, creative and unusual individuals.

Overall, the trip was a complete mental, physical and spiritual feast. I learned a lot about myself, and about the world. I think that this sort of experience would be as just as fruitful for anyone that’s willing to put in the effort and open-mindedness necessary to live in a car and out of motels for an extended period of time. I’ll be going to Powell River again next summer, without a doubt. I have yet to decide if it’ll be another road trip or whether I’ll be flying. But for those of you that haven’t done a drive across Canada—

It’s only July.

The photo album is, of course, on Facebook.
Please stay tuned to learn about some of the plants that we ran into along the way :D

--ioni

Mint condition

2010-05-15T18:54:00.007-04:00

For those that were not convinced by my last post, and are wondering what sort of mysteries the world of botany has to offer, let me introduce you to a mint. We’ve all had mint, at some point or another, whether in cuisine, tisanes, chewing gum, or toothpaste. This mint, however, is not your garden-variety spearmint or peppermint. This is Hoary Mountain Mint. (Pycnanthemum incanum)

To give you an idea of what the plant looks like, here are some photos taken under light conditions that were not ideal, so I apologize for the poor quality.

It is fairly characteristic of the mint family—a perennial with small clusters of flowers (densely packed, terminal, and white, in this case). Its leaves are broad and their underside is downy. Like many mints, they have an aromatic, minty scent. The oils of this plant are being researched for their medical value. Some traditional, folk uses for it are to treat colds, fevers, and digestive disorders.

This plant does not do well against other plant competitors. The area where I saw one population growing was also host to fairly invasive plants such as lesser periwinkle and garlic mustard, which puts it in great jeopardy. Other dangers include trampling and picking. Thankfully, there is a good amount of poison ivy growing in the vicinity, which should discourage human abuse of this plant. Another major problem is that in the populations being observed, the plants do not appear to be producing seeds, and the only propagation of this plant is a vegetative one.

So, all of this in mind, just how rare is this plant in Canada?

In the approximately 9,984,670 square kilometres that this beautiful country covers, there are only two wild populations of Hoary Mountain Mint. I know of only one patch, barely the size of a work desk, where the population is barely staying alive. According to the Royal Ontario Museum’s Species at Risk website, in Canada, it is known from only two locations on a steep slope in Burlington, Ontario. Well, aren’t I lucky? Being of such rare status, the locations are kept secret, and monitored annually by botanists. As you’ll surely understand, I can tell you neither where the one population I’m aware of can be found, nor how I came to know of it, but I can tell you that if there is a second population in Burlington, then as sure as day turns to night, I will find it.

And they say treasure hunts are a thing of the past.

Extropianist? Just adaptive.

2010-05-15T18:40:00.003-04:00

In such a high-tech, interconnected society, it may be hard to convince you that there is anything left to discover. We live in a time where anyone with a computer can take Google Streetview’s walking tour of the world’s cities. With a combination of big white vans, satellites, and incredible computing, the world has been mapped and gridded; even your favourite spot to sit in the park can now be unambiguously communicated as a set of coordinates.

With all of this in mind, one is often tempted to feel as if the age of mystery and surprise is buried in the past, and that there is little left to do. Things are definitely different now than in the days of yore, but the “good ol’ days” attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy; in the words of Eugene Hütz, “There were never any good ol’ days, they are today, they are tomorrow.” With all of this new technology, finding natural places around you, and planning excursions there is easier than ever. With Streetview, you can even check what certain areas look like, to better prepare for your trip.

As an amateur botanist, I can tell you that there is still much to be discovered. There has never been a day when I have been amongst nature, and not learned, noticed, or photographed something new. In the infallible words of Aristotle, “In all things of nature there is something of the marvellous.” I urge anyone who is missing that childlike sense of curiosity and wonderment to simply take a walk in the woods, and pay attention to your surroundings. There is treasure buried in every cubic metre of the soil, in every square centimetre of a leaf, and in every meter along the height of each tree. Look with an appreciative eye, not one biased with boredom and repetition, but one which for a moment lets go of the categories we’ve spent our lives defining, and takes in the astounding beauty around us.

Ioni's Nature Tours of Ontario

2010-04-23T19:24:00.004-04:00

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since I've posted, because I've had more going on since school ended than when I was actually in school! I've got a lot of exciting events and activities lined up for this summer, so expect some exciting posts!

One recent development you'll be happy to find out about is the Facebook group I started by the name Ioni's Nature Tours of Ontario, where I'll be posting upcoming plant tours, and other events I'll be hosting.

Make sure to check it out, join, and invite anyone you think might be interested :D

Skunk Cabbage

2010-03-07T01:26:00.013-05:00

Skunk cabbage is an incredible plant.

There are so many unusual things about this plant. Its skunk-like odour, its bizarre rubbery flowers, its ability to maintain a 20C temperature in the late winter, its contractile roots...

It's a beautiful day out, and I want to get some exercise, so I'll share some photos and give a little explanation, but please please please visit this Ontario Wildflowers link.

Hopefully you remember me having mentioned Skunk Cabbage before, in this post. If not, just keep in mind that last time (the first time) I saw this plant, it looked like a hard, rubbery cone. As the winter retreats, the cone starts to open up and reveal the bizarre flower.

In places where ice still remains, the skunk cabbage flowers can be seen melting through the ice in a bizarre feat of epic proportions.

Inside the spathe, the spadix is flowering, giving off a rich, yellow pollen. If you stick your finger in it, it will come out covered in this stuff. Be careful, though, since all sorts of critters retreat into these alien-like flowers to get the pollen and for shelter.

In a lot of ways, this plant is like Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Unsurprisingly, they're both in the Arum family Araceae.

I'm so happy I got to see this plant! This spring is even more exciting than the last, because now there are so many things that I'm looking for that I hadn't even heard of before!

Cryosphere

2010-02-22T14:18:00.005-05:00

With winter coming to an end, an almost unanimous sense of relief is in the air. The ground's thaw releases long-withheld aromas of waterlogged soil and decomposing greenery. Within a couple of warm, sunny days, organisms of all sorts make their presence known.

Yes, spring is a beautiful time of the year. Many years, I've gotten fed up with winter in my anticipation for spring. This year, it's been completely different. Having come to the realization that the length of winter doesn't depend on how I feel about it, I've learned to love this season. There are still lots of things to see in the winter. For example, I've been learning more about deciduous trees in their winter form and different evergreens.

One amazing thing about winter that you're far less likely to see in other seasons is amazing formations of solidified water. Indeed, I'm talking about ice. It is said that the North American Inuit have 50 words for snow. What I've heard on an interesting podcast is that the 50 words are actually variations of "ice". While this still seems like an exaggeration, it's somewhat understandable.

In a culture where ice is an avenue for transportation, a source of building material, an even bigger source of danger, an indicator of a potential food source, and many other things, it's easy to see how an array of nomenclature would come in handy for describing the many types of ice.

On my last hike, I came across an amazing frozen waterfall. While I may not possess a rich-enough language with which to describe it, I can do my best to share it with you.

This is the whole waterfall. If I were to stand in the left gap, my head would not reach the icicles hanging there. Let me also direct your attention to the part on the bottom right.

Doesn't it look like a mouth? It's fairly frightening-looking; it reminds me of an anglerfish. The little icicles were actually forming diagonally, as opposed to straight down. This is because they were being formed by the spray from the water that was trickling down behind the waterfall. Imagine how bizarre these gravity-defying icicles looked.

The water droplets that didn't stick onto the icicles fell onto a mass of round crystals, expanding what looked like an elaborate ice sculpture, composed of spherical formations.

It's hard to not get sick of ice and snow by the end of winter, but I think that the Inuit have the right idea. There are so many types of this stuff. It's a shame that our language lumps it all together.

Street to Trail

2010-02-14T17:03:00.005-05:00

Yesterday morning, I was given a unique opportunity that ended up being an amazing experience. I read an article in the Toronto Star that talked about an organization called Street to Trail, run by the wonderfully eccentric Paul Mackle. Paul has a very down-to-earth philosophy about how to help the homeless. He believes that one of the main problems facing the homeless is that they get in a sort of negative routine in the city, turning to repeated, destructive mindsets and activities. A good way to help disrupt this loop is to provide alternative activities that promote health, environmental stewardship and community.

Paul takes groups of homeless people out on hikes and canoe trips. He's been doing this for many years, and he's found that it really does make a difference in the lives of those that come with him -- the voyagers, as he likes to call them. Many people have turned their lives around, stopped misusing substances, gotten healthier, and made strong friendships through Street to Trail. Here is working proof that a simple philosophy, coupled with perserverance and a good attitude, can have great results.

I met up with Paul and Diana (his wife) in Toronto around 8:30 a.m., at The Sanctuary on Charles Street. A small group of people were standing around a collapsible table full of muffins and coffee. Various homeless people came up to us, deciding whether or not to join for the hike, and receiving food, drink, hats, and gloves. By 9:00 a.m., we loaded into Paul's van, ready for action. Since there was a good number of us, another volunteer (Aldo) brought his car as well, and we headed for a beautiful property that Paul managed to make the city buy, outbidding a quarry, and preserving it for recreational use.

In addition to Paul, Diane, myself and the homeless people that came with us, we also had a couple of retired gentlemen that came as volunteers and two friendly students from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. A number of really interesting people came on the trip, all of which had a great deal of fun, and a great time. The hike was by no means easy, mind you. Even for an experienced hiker like myself, there were some tough parts, but we all helped each other out, passing information about gaps in the rock, and hidden rocks in the snow. Halfway through, we stopped for lunch, part of which was brought from home by the volunteers, and had some great conversations.

We told jokes, talked politics, shared insights and discussed books and movies. It's hard not to have the idea that it would be hard to relate to people that live on the street, but I can guarantee you that a trip with Paul and his voyagers will cure you of any such misconception.

As for myself, I'm definitely going to keep coming out, to get a better feel for this organization, to enjoy the outdoors, to help out when I can, to bring some goodies to share with the group, and to see some of my new friends.

Photo credit: Toronto Star, taken from the Street to Trail website: http://www.street-to-trail.com/

Concrete or jungle?

2010-01-10T11:06:00.011-05:00

Last year, I was living on UofT's St.George campus. I spent a lot of time downtown, and as a result, I felt trapped in the city's jaws, barred by concrete and metal against seeing nature and meeting more naturalists like myself.

This year, I'm still spending a lot of time downtown, although not as much. I'm commuting from Burlington, which I don't mind at all. A lot has changed from one year to the next, and I find myself involved in so many naturalist activities, and meeting such interesting people that I'm puzzled at how I could have felt as I did last year. I think, more than anything, it was just the transition from high school to university, which is difficult for most people. For me, it was just a matter of making this place my home.

I've come to realize that Toronto has some beautiful greenspaces. From High Park at the west to Rouge Park at the east. Yet even at the very heart of downtown, you can find all sorts of interesting things.

I was given the opportunity to work for four days promoting the GreenBin program at UofT. The job itself wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Some people were actually interested in what I had to say, and I got into some good conversations. The great thing about working with UeaT (UofT's food services) is that I got to work alongside some interesting people, and I found out things that I was very glad to hear about.

I found out that UofT has various apiaries, which I should definitely tour. The honey from them is used in the cafeterias, which is great!

I also heard that there is a greenhouse on top of the Earth Science building, which would be neat to see.

And I was told that there are elders at the First Nations house that would be happy to share their cultural knowledge about plants, which I'm sure I would find fascinating.

I have to say, I'm pretty happy with how things are going here. And it's not just UofT that I'm talking about. I think Toronto, in all of its city ugliness, definitely has a naturalist spark to it. I've looked into a lot of interesting events and organizations, but I'll post more about them as I get more involved with them, which I intend to do.

For now, I should get back to my pile of schoolwork. I didn't say UofT was perfect, did I? :P

Signing off,

Mr. Compost

Year's end

2009-12-31T17:58:00.006-05:00

For me, this year has been full of new and exciting things. I'm very happy with the choices I've made, as well as the opportunities that await me. I'm not going to waste anybody's time, least of all my own, writing a sappy recap of this year, although I can proudly say that it's been a year of positive change, learning, meeting many interesting people, exploring amazing places and, most importantly, getting a better understanding of who I am, and what I want out of life.

As the year ends, I feel very hopeful. I sense that more and more grassroots and environmentally-conscious groups and ideas are sprouting up all over the place. Of course, a lot of it is green-washing, a term used for corporate make-believe that we're saving the planet by purchasing fancy soaps, but not all of it. I'll have you know that the group I was supporting managed to save a park in Burlington from being developed (see my Save General Brock Park letter). I doubt that I had much impact on the whole thing, but it feels great to know that something that I supported was so successful, despite all of its opposition.

Another thing that gave my hope a big boost was something pretty funny to think about. It's hard to imagine how many christmas trees are thrown out every single year, but paying a visit to the Royal Botanical Gardens really makes you appreciate it. The RBG has been hosting a christmas tree drop-off every year since 2001. They're using old christmas trees to create a barrier against carp, and to re-naturalize a floodplain area. In other words, they're taking something that would normally go to waste and using it to beautify and diversify an area. It's this kind of thinking that gives me hope. However surreal a dam built of christmas trees may seem, it's a real solution in a world that needs fixing.

I hope everyone starts of their new year with lots of hope and happiness.

Cheers to a new year,

--ioni

Ps: check out the RBG project I mentioned and make sure to drop off your christmas tree there if you still have it hanging around!

Busy as a Beaver

2009-12-23T18:25:00.004-05:00

Today, I went on another nature outing with Tom, and we came across something pretty wild. While we were walking around Hidden Valley Park, a friendly elderly man told us that there was a beaver just around the bend of the river. We went forward a couple of metres, and indeed-- there it was. We took a lot of photographs of it from afar, and it seemed completely unaware of our presence.

We crossed the river to get to the side the beaver was on, and walked right up to it. It was a huge, beautiful animal, but it seemed not to notice us, even as we went right up to it for a closer look.

As grateful as I am for having gotten so close to a wild beaver, I couldn't help but feel disheartened by this encounter. Normally, a beaver will not allow people to get this close to it. And by this time of the year, the beaver should be well on its way to completing a dam, and storing food in it. All it seemed to be doing was fattening up on bark. I don't know much about the behaviour of beavers, but I know that they shouldn't be this accustomed to people. Hidden Valley park used to have a huge number of beavers some 20 years ago, I've heard, but in more recent times, the population has dwindled. It's exciting to see one there; I just hope that it survives the winter.

I think the beaver's thinking the exact same thing.

Winter, waterfowl & flora

2009-12-21T13:40:00.016-05:00

Last Thursday was a pretty awesome day. I biked to LaSalle park, in Burlington, and spent the day with tree expert Tom, enjoying the company of winter birds, and discovering all sorts of interesting plants. LaSalle park has a beautiful marina, which is visited by all sorts of waterfowl. Here is a photograph that teaches by contrast. First, let's acknowledge the dozens of mallards in the photo (Anas platyrhynchos). Now, compare the two varieties of swans. On the left edge of the photograph, there's a non-native orange-billed swan called a Mute swan (Cygnus olor), which was brought over from Europe. This species tends to uproot a lot of vegetation, and to be aggressive towards other waterfowl, including the native Trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccinator), of which a pair can be seen in the middle of the photo.

Another great find was a couple of beautiful Butternut trees (Juglans cinerea), which didn't seem to be planted. This is a great tree to find growing wild, because it's an endangered species! This species, and black walnut (Juglans nigra) are trees with a sense of humour. Their buds look undeniably like cartoon monkey faces. The way to tell them apart is that Butternut has a fuzzy monkey furrow, and Black walnut has a smooth monkey furrow. Botany is a serious science.

Here's a completely mind-blowing plant! I'm not going to talk about it all that much, because I want to do a post in the spring, when I have photos of it in bloom, but I'll talk a little bit about it. Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is one of the very few plants that exhibit thermogenesis. That means that it uses cellular respiration in order to make heat, so that it can have an advantage over other plants in various ways. One of the key ways in which is has an advantage is that it can stay alive all through the winter, and that it can grow right through ice. Another way in which it uses its heat is to vapourize its volatile fragrances, and disperse its odour... but we won't get into that yet. At least, not until it blooms.

Yes, there are a lot of things to be excited for in the spring, but this winter has been proving quite fruitful as well! We'll see how my next outing goes.

Oh! And happy winter solstice to everyone! That was today; I spent the day in downtown Toronto, at the Festival of Lights, which I enjoyed very much! And enjoy whatever else you're celebrating this season. Even if you don't celebrate any particular holiday, the fact that you get a little while to do whatever you'd like is worth all the gaiety you can muster.

Save General Brock Park

2009-12-11T16:42:00.007-05:00

My name is Ionatan Waisgluss,

I am a resident of ward 2 and a student at U Of T. I attended the open house meeting last week on the issue of General Brock Park. I would like to offer my thoughts on this issue with hopes that all of you will vote to preserve the parklands at General brock and expand the woodlands area on the property to better support nature in the city. Here is my letter:

A lot of people would stop living in Burlington if it was a city void of green space; they would choose to live elsewhere. The same is true for pollinators such as insects, birds and mammals; but for them, it is not a matter of choice—it’s a matter of survival. They would stop living in Burlington... because they would simply stop living.

Ecosystems are incredibly complex, and I by no means claim to be an expert, as I believe that an in-depth study of even one particular plant-animal relationship is enough to humble oneself when it comes to ecology. Nevertheless, the ecological importance of green spaces is so strong, and the arguments for green space conservation are so commonsensical that one by no means needs to be an expert to know that the green on a leaf is more valuable than the green in one’s pocket—to us, and to the pollinators on which we depend.

The health of forests can be understood (in part), as a function of the propagation success of its constituent plants. In other words, a forest can only be healthy and sustainable if the plants within it are being pollinated. This applies to a small park in Burlington just as it does to the Amazon. Important to this principle are the ideas of pollination requirements and wildlife corridors.

As tempting as it is for some people to group trees into one category with unvarying properties, different species of tree have completely different requirements. However, some generalizations can be made depending on the type of pollination that a tree must undergo in order to propagate. The two major pollination devices for trees are wind-mediated and pollinator-mediated.

Wind-pollinated trees must be close enough to other trees of the same species that the pollen from one tree can reach another on the basis of wind alone. It is very important that there is gene flow between wind-pollinated populations (i.e. that they are cross-pollinating with trees outside their particular group) so as to avoid inbreeding depression (a loss of genetic fitness). Nevertheless, it is important that other trees of the same species are close enough so that if no pollen from a further population reaches the tree in question, it can at least be pollinated by nearby trees. Ideally, wind-pollinated trees must have trees of the same species nearby and further away, but not so far that they would not be reached by wind-borne pollen.

Animal-pollinated trees also need a fair amount of the same species of trees around them, although the distance between trees of the same species is less of an issue because of animals’ tendency to move around in geographically-predictable ways. In urban areas, animals tend to move through what we call wildlife corridors, or greenways. Greenways act as naturalized paths through which the animals can move in relative comfort, compared to the rest of the area. While these paths may not be ideal for the animals, and may still be stressful (e.g. ditches along busy roads) they at least provide the mobility necessary for successful and non-inbred pollination.

In a lot of ways, a park like General Brock Park is more important than an area that is the same size but located somewhere that is already naturalized. When you run the information given above against a map of Burlington, it is fairly intuitive (and rightly so) that General Brock Park acts as a stepping stone in a wildlife corridor to the nearby parks, with Roseland Creek as the main artery. Disturbing this stepping stone would result in a lack of pollinators, and an insufficient concentration of trees for wind pollination. This would be detrimental to all nearby forests and ecosystems through a very undramatic and all-too-common domino effect.

The weakening of forests and ecosystem gives way to invasive species, which are becoming more and more of a problem in Burlington. With weakened ecosystems (because of a lack of pollination), the rate at which invasive species are taking over is sure to skyrocket. As you may or may not be aware, BurlingtonGreen has been doing a lot of work removing invasive species, which are a hassle, in order to preserve biodiversity. Disturbing this woodland, and weakening it as a stepping stone in the wildlife corridor is poorly though-out, since its effects are not only local, but will spread in any direction that gametes (pollen, in this case) are travelling to and from this ecosystem.

Aside from these more technical ecological points, it is worth mentioning the more simple ones, since it seems like they’re being overlooked, despite their obviousness. Wild green spaces (not parkettes) prevent soil erosion and absorb storm water runoff, thereby improving the overall drainage of an area. They provide fallen leaves, and microhabitats, giving pollinators a home. Trees, and plants in general, absorb pollutants of many different sorts, making the air cleaner for us residents, and for other resident organisms. They filter dust and absorb ozone, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other airborne impurities, such as nitrogen oxides and airborne ammonia. Needless to say, they release oxygen, which we take for granted, despite the dramatic world-wide reduction of forests.

They even have a lot of aesthetic benefits; they reduce noise pollution, and have provided great minds with inspiration for millennia.

The amount of green space in a given area is a good indicator of overall health of any given ecosystem. It is also a good measurement of the ecological sustainability of an area. Moreover, it is a good measurement of a community, and where its values lie. By seeing how many people oppose the disposing of this park, the values of this community are obvious.

The only question left unanswered is whether or not the values of our representatives, as they claim to be, are clouded with short-sighted goals. And as representatives, it is unclear why we’ve had to impede your decision for these last six years. This particular area, and Burlington in general, is not in dire need of town houses or parkettes. In fact, Burlington is not in dire need of anything, save a change in its administrative mentality, perhaps, and an appreciation for the small amount of natural areas we have left.

Sincerely,

Ionatan Waisgluss

A chorus of Acorus

2009-12-01T18:14:00.011-05:00

In the plant kingdom, few plants have the privilege of having outlived all of the other plants of their type. Botanical taxonomy (the grouping-together of plants by morphology and DNA) is an ongoing process that helps us understand the relationship between plants, as well as their evolutionary history. Because we are constantly discovering new information, or finding different ways to interpret it, plants tend to move around from one place to another in the taxonomical tree.

The four bottom key taxonomical groups (vague to specific) are order, family, genus and species. To give you an idea, Canada Goldenrod is a species in the Solidago genus, which contains nearly 100 different species. The goldenrod genus belongs to the Asteraceae family, which has some 23,000 species. This family is in turn, part of an order, the Asterales, which has almost 25,500 species. That means that 25,500 species all share some characteristics that group them together with Canada Goldenrod.

The Acorus genus is a botanical anomaly. In its family, there is only one genus, and in its order, there is only one family. That means that while a plant like Canada goldenrod has 25,500 related species, a species of the Acorus genus (Acorus Americanus, for example) has just about 2 other closely-related species. To find any more relatives, you'd have to go up a whole bunch of taxonomical ranks, until you got to the (unranked) monocots. In that case, the only thing connecting it to any other plants would be that (like one fifth of all seed plants in existence) its seed forms a single-headed sprout. Indeed, this is a unique genus; it the sole genus of a lengthy line of long-lost monocots.

But enough about botanical taxonomy! This is an absolutely amazing genus, and I'd like to talk about a particular species. Acorus Americanus is very similar to Acorus Calamus, so for the purpose of this blog, I will use "Sweetflag" as a cover term for both of these closely-related plants, as they can be used in the same way. Sweetflag has been used all over the world for millennia. Its unmistakable scent is enjoyed by many, but the taste of the raw root (rhizome, technically) is enjoyed by few. I myself delight in chewing the rhizome a little while before dinner, to get my stomach ready. One of its many properties is that it is an appetite stimulant. It is also allegedly psychedelic, although not reportedly so.

If you're lucky enough to see its unique spadix of seeds, you can't mistake it for anything else (unless you're reaaaaally bad at identifying plants :P), because it has no spathe (unlike plants in the araceae family). However, it'll often happen that in a whole colony of hundreds of these plants, not a single one will be flowering. Because of this, your second best bet is finding the leaves. They look a lot like cattail leaves, although they have a vein going through the middle of the leaf blade, and cattails don't. The leaves also resemble Iris very closely, but Iris leaves lack that sweetflag smell. Of course, if you don't know what sweetflag smells like, you're out of luck! The leaves of sweetflag have been used in potpourri, and have even been made into candy. The root system is also used.

Sweetflag is a hemicryptophyte, which means that the root system is very shallow, and the overwinter buds practically poke out of the ground. The rhizome contains a good mix of aromatic compounds. The unique mixture gives them a historical place in medicine and cuisine. One of the most interesting compounds is Asarone, which is actually a precursor to the the controlled substance Trimethoxyamphetamine (TMA-2). TMA-2 is molecularly similar to mescaline. Because this fairly harmless compound is a precursor to a controlled substance, lots of care has been taken by the FDA to evaluate the toxicity of sweetflag. By "lots of care", I mean that they gave lab rats gargantuan doses of Beta-Asarone, and then declared sweetflag unsafe when the lab rats developed cancer. Go figure. I try not to be sarcastic much, but I'm powerless in the face of such close-mindedness.

Unfortunately, sweetflag has now been banned by the FDA for use in food and medicine. If, like me, you enjoy the addictive flavour of the raw rhizome, and like the feeling it gives your stomach, then maybe you could take the time to write to the FDA to do more tests, and do them sensibly. But chances are that you'll spit it out in disgust. Either way, it's an amazing plant, with lots of edible and medicinal uses, and it's one more in a huge set of underappreciated wonders.

Evergreen tea party

2009-11-29T13:29:00.009-05:00

With winter well on its way, it's becoming somewhat more challenging to find wild edibles. I trust that, like me, you're not ready to give up! This season is the perfect time to learn more about the different types of evergreens, especially conifers.

My challenge to you: learn to identify some fairly common trees, and learn about their uses. Let's start with two that I harvested on my last hike. Also worth mentioning: on my last hike, I harvested some Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium album), which turned out to be one of the most delicious plants I've ever eaten, steamed and with a tiny bit of pepper. But realistically, Lamb's Quarters won't make it through the winter. So let's talk about some more hardy plants.

The first is the Northern Whitecedar (Thuja occidentalis). It makes a refreshing tea with with high vitamin C content. In fact, it is believed to be the "Annedda" that saved Jaques Cartier from scurvy (a disease brought on by vitamin C defficiency). Keep in mind, however, that Northern Whitecedar has substantial concenctrations of Thujone, a neurotoxin which is also found in tansy, junipers, common sage, and a bunch of other plants we consume. Like pretty much anything, this tea should not be consumed in excess. I use it mostly for flavour; The leaves are perfect to chew on after a big meal. Supposedly, the pith (innermost part of the twig) can also be used to thicken and flavour soups. I've never tried that, but it's worth a shot. Here, you can see it on top of my schoolwork (from which I'm taking a well-deserved break). When you harvest it, make sure you dry it afterwards by leaving it on a rack for a couple of days, in an open room with an average amount of light.

Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is another evergreen, with very similar uses to the above-mentioned plant. The inner bark can be eaten raw or cooked, and the leaves are used to make spruce oil, which is used commercially as a flavouring agent. Of course, I used it to make a delicious tea, which is perfect for dark winter days.

I hope you get the chance to try these two winter edibles, but if you're planning on foraging them yourself, keep in mind that there are poisonous evergreens, so make sure you know what you're using before you make a tea out of it! The trees to really watch out for are the Yew (Taxus) genus, since those have powerful toxins, and various reported poisonings.

Well, enjoy your winter, and when you're feeling down because of the weather, just remember that however cold it gets, there's still life all over the forest, and some of it even makes a tasty, nutritious tea.

Ward off the city

2009-11-10T22:10:00.007-05:00

Today, I went to Ward island with a friend of mine, as part of a series of hikes that we hope to get in before it gets too cold to enjoy autumn's diverse display of herbaceous plants. I had gone downtown for a full day of classes originally, but when I got there, I was told that there would be no tutorials today, which meant that I had travelled an hour and a half for an hour-long class. Not wanting to go home, I did what I do best -- I went for a hike.

Ward island is one of the larger of the Toronto islands, most of which are accessible by a $6 return-trip ferry ride from the ferry docks at Queen's Quay & Bay St. We took the ferry across, and spent the day exploring this surprisingly large and diverse island, yet we only covered about half of it in four hours.

Being an island, it had some unique features. The most notable features were the many large colonies of a single plant (e.g. horsetail or coltsfoot) with little to no buffer zone, as well as the complete lack of several common invaders (e.g. burdock). Another really cool thing about the island was that, by definition, it is surrounded by water, and I love beaches and their ecosystems, so we had a great time going from one shore to the next. We saw tonnes of interesting things, but I'll only talk about a couple of things that stood out to me the most.

Here's a photo of a European ornamental which has become naturalized in North America. I particularly like this plant because of its bizarre seed pods. I've been looking for Honesty (Lunaria annua) for a while, and it's nice to finally find it, away from the city. (Harharhar :P)

Another interesting thing Brige and I saw (and had actually talked about on the ferry trip to the island) is the problem with invasive mussel species in the Great Lakes. In this photo, it's pretty self-explanatory how these species can be a problem if they multiply at a higher rate than the Great Lakes equilibrium. The problem is not that they were originally brought way back in the 1800s, because foreign mussel species don't tend to do particulatly well. The problem is that they are being continuously brought into the Great Lakes, even today, as part of liquid ship ballast (a counter-weight so the ship doesn't tip or move too much), which is then dumped according to regulations which are convenient to ignore. With so many introductions, it's inevitable that a couple of mutations could (as they evidently have) lead to a serious overexploitation of the Great Lakes ecosystems, as well as millions of dollars of damage yearly. I've read some articles about this in my bio150 class recently, although I was aware of it before that class, but it's a completely different experience to see an example of this in person.

Anyways, that'll be all for the night. I've gotten my wisdom teeth out recently, and sleep is a must! We'll see how the next hikes go once we figure out where we're going. Thanks for tuning in,

--ioni

Welcoming the winter

2009-10-24T18:25:00.007-04:00

My biggest fear for this fall was that I wouldn't get to have a hike before all of the leaves fell. I've been busy with school, and it's really hard not to fall behind, but I've come to understand that falling behind is alright as long as you catch up before a quiz, test or lab. It's a lot of work being in the sciences, but it's worth it, because I'm working on getting a combination of degrees that will give me the opportunity to work for a conservation agency.

More important than my academic education, however, is my real life. To me, that means going out and enjoying nature, no matter how far behind I get on certain things. Without that, I can't function, which is why winter is usually such a downer for me, because it gets harder to be out in nature.

I figured October would be brutal, but I've managed to make time to participate in a garbage cleanup at Kerncliff park, lead a tour on edible and medicinal plants at High Park, host an event at the Burlington Youth Eco Festival, and (today) go to the RBG for an invasive shrub removal, and a hike with Cory and Tom. The truth is, it's been a great season, and today I saw some amazing plants that I hadn't seen before, and got some photos of certain birds that I've been trying to get for a while.

As for the winter, however long it will be, I've got some tricks up my sleeve. I'm planning on hiking the Dundas Valley Conservation area, which I haven't been to yet. I'm also hoping to get some skis and try cross-country skiing, which I've never done, and maybe even snowshoeing. I joined UTOC (University of Toronto Outing Club), met a great number of awesome people, and now I have access to a cabin up north that I'll be sure to go to a couple of times in the winter. Unlike all other winters, I feel ready as ever.

I started my blog this past spring, when everything was starting to sprout up, and I've nurtured it all throughout the growing season. It's been growing and changing in ways I couldn't have predicted at the beginning of the spring. In many ways, it's a reflection of myself.

With the coming of winter comes the death of many plants, animals and ideas.

But -- if you can excuse one more plant analogy -- my blog and I...

We're evergeen.

Overdue post: Mayapples

2009-10-06T12:14:00.007-04:00

Given that I don’t want to wait a year to post this, and I’ve been too busy to publish all that much, I think it’s time for some talk about my favourite fruit... the mayapple.

Most people’s favourite fruit isn’t poisonous, but (in a typical ioni fashion) , I have to choose a fruit that is likely to poison you, and make you really sick, if you eat it before it matures. The poisonous substance is called podophyllotoxin (which gets its name from the plant's genus), and actually has various medical applications, including being a precursor to an anti-cancer drug.

At the side of a hill, by a slow-flowing river, I came across this strange bud, which appeared to be poking out of the ground. A week after I first saw it, it had opened a bit more, and had gained some significant height. As it turns out, this is what mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) looks like when it sprouts up in the spring.
Mayapples are in no way related to the apples we usually eat (Malus). However, the plant will produce an apple-like fruit. Counter-intuitively, the fruit does not usually appear in May. The flowers, on the other hand, open up, simple and elegant. Not all of the plants that sprout up in the spring have flowers. Mayapples are biennials, which means they have two-year lifecycles. During the first year, the plant comes up with only one stem and an umbrella top. During this time, they photosynthesize and gather energy, which they store in their roots. When winter strikes, the mayapples wither.

The following year, they come up as a stem that forks into two umbrella tops, with a small, stemmed, sexual node between the limbs. The node develops into a full-fledged sexual organ: the flower.

Here is the elegant blooming flower.

Once the flower is pollinated, it closes up, the petals fall off, and a small, yellow-green, hard fruit begins to develop.

It’s not until the end of summer that this fruit becomes edible. By that time, eager animals will snatch it as soon as they feel the time is right.

The fruit tastes a bit like starfruit, but is far more pleasant. If you're lucky enough to ever find a ripe one, be sure to try it, because it's the tastiest thing I've ever eaten. Like anything else, it should not be over-harvested, and you should make sure to squeeze the seeds out and let them fall to the ground.

I hope you've enjoyed learning about this strange plant, and that you know what it looks like, for when spring comes around! :)

Bio150 Lab 1

2009-10-06T12:04:00.004-04:00

I had my first lab for Bio150 (Organisms and their Environment) last week. The lab was about insect diversity. We went around different stations, looking at various different insects, from different orders, and talked about how their specific adaptations may be of benefit to them.

We looked at many dead specimens, including stag & buffalo beetles, monarch butterflies, and a whole bunch of other really interesting insects.

We also handled some live insects, including Madagascar hissing cockroaches. Yes, that is my brave hand. By the time I got around to handling these cockroaches, they had been aggrevated for too long, and the gas storage they use in order to make a hissing noise was pretty much depleted.

This is an Australian leaf bug. They're bizarre insects, and very slow-moving and spiky. It was great to watch these in action, as they ate the leaves they so much resembled.

Overall, the lab was really enjoyable, and it looks like it's gonna be a great lab section! The people are nice, and the TA is great. The future labs look pretty promising, as well!

All cleaned up

2009-09-24T10:37:00.003-04:00

I had gone by a little trail sign saying "Indian Creek" on Fairview lots of times, but I had never bothered to check it out because the trail looked like it led pretty much to a dead end. I decided to go and explore it one day, just because it's so close to my house, and it'd be nice to have a naturalized place close to home. I was pretty disappointed. Not because the trail was small, and beside the highway, though. A place like that could still provide shelter for wild animals, and be an important piece of a wildlife corridor. What disappointed me was the unbelievable amount of garbage that was thrown about everywhere. My guess is that this place had been put together either by homeless people or neighbourhood teens. There was a pretty sturdy table, constructed out of signs, and a decent-looking rocking chair. There were also a couple of frying pans, and a fire bucket. That's all fine and understandable. The problem was that the ground was absolutely covered in plastic bottles, shopping bags, heavy-duty batteries, and all sorts of nasty pieces of garbage.

Luckily, Burlington Green was (and always is) looking for places like this to clean up. Kale, the youth rep for BG, responded to my e-mail about Indian Creek, organized a clean-up, and before I knew it, there were before and after pictures of this area on BG's Facebook page. I was delighted at how well they cleaned it up, and I went to see it when I got the chance. It looked completely different, and I'm really glad I pointed it out to Burlington Green, and that they were so awesome about cleaning it up so quickly!

2nd Photo cred: BG Facebook page (not sure who took it)

Beware the tree that bites

2009-09-23T02:46:00.004-04:00

In ancient cultural scripts, as well as in journals written by colonists who were seeing a place for the first time, there have been reports of trees with strange behaviour. All sorts of tree myths exist, and a lot of them are very interesting. Trees have been mentioned that could, for example, reach down one of their branches and pick up a small mammal, never to be seen again. Nowadays, we explain these myths and strange reports in another light. We better understand the concept of symbiosis. We now know that there exist various snakes that dangle from trees in order to pick up rodents. Someone seeing that could think that the tree itself was dipping its branches down.

There are also trees in the rainforest around which nothing is able to grow within a certain radius. Historically, this has been called a "circle of death", but it is actually not as mysterious or spooky as it seems. The reason that nothing grows around that tree is because the tree is a host for a species of ants. The tree provides shelter and food for the ants, and the ants eliminate any competition around it by clear-cutting other trees' saplings and killing any invaders.

I'm writing this post because a couple of days ago, when I was pulling some weeds in by backyard, I began to feel things crawling on me, and little bites all over. When I figured out what it was, it reminded me of the circle of death. Apparently, I was getting too close the tree I was under, and the ants that were living on it felt threatened. On closer inspection, I saw that the ants were actually tending to eggs. I got a picture of this because I figured it would make an interesting post, and I found it strange that these ants were nesting on a tree.

On a side note, I've started using smaller pictures for my blog, so I don't run out of room on my Blogger acount. I think they're still big enough, but if anyone disagrees, give me a shout!

I hope you enjoyed my post,

--ioni

Monkey business.

2009-09-13T17:16:00.004-04:00

My BIO150 class starts tomorrow, and I'm very excited for it. Given that we'll be talking a lot about evolution, I'd like to share two very contrasting quotations right from my lecture notes.

The first one is by some Atlanta judge, but knowing its author is not crucial to appreciating the misguidedness of this all-or-nothing mentality. Enjoy, and giggle:

“This monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity, pills, prophylactics, perversions, abortions, pornography, pollution, poisoning, and proliferation of crimes of all types.” --Judge Braswell Dean

It's pretty easy to see how people can take Darwin's proposal of Natural Selection so personally. To a lot of people, accepting it is tantamount to resigning their faith and insulting God.

But before I go on, enjoy this quotation from the granpappy of evolution himself:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -- Charles Darwin

I think that the belief in god does not necessarily have to be thrown out by anyone accepting evolution. If anything, understanding evolution provides a better appreciation of the astounding forces at work on the universe. I agree with Darwin in saying that life, in all its forms, is beautiful and incredibly complex. And I think that Natural Selection is not something that rids us of the beauty and wonder associated with life by attempting to explain it scientifically. On the contrary; it is a tool, (like the microscope, when Leeuwenhoek brought it to the attention of biologists), that allows us to see and imagine beauty in its many forms, as it changes and evolves over time.

Invasive Species Pull

2009-08-26T15:02:00.008-04:00

When it comes to naturalizing areas, one has to keep in mind that allowing nature to "run wild" does not necessarily mean "naturalize". Allowing a plot of land to go unmaintained is not the same as letting nature take is course. If we were to go back a couple hundred years, and the Canadian ecosystems were in the same, natural dynamic that they had been for the last couple of millenia, then it would be safe to assume that a laissez-faire strategy would be the most natural one. If we were to let nature take its path at this point in time, however, we would be overcome with aggressive invasive species.

Most invasive species are here because of us. A good percentage of them come from Europe, and were intentionally brought over for various reasons. A good example, and quite possibly the most aggressive invasive species afflicting Ontario, is Garlic mustard (alliara petiolata). It was brought over from Europe as a potherb, since settlers realized that it could survive colder climates, and would provide greens year-round, even under the snow. What made this plant miraculous also made it a curse. Its heartiness, combined with its rapid reproduction rate, has allowed it to take over whole ecosystems. This is referred to as a monoculture, and has very threatening consequences for biodiversity. Garlic mustard is one of many problematic species we have introduced to Canada. The point is: we've got some serious damage to repair! To let things run wild is the easiest course of action, but doing so would result in us losing hundreds of species to these aggressive invaders.

Burlington Green has been organizing group removals of invasive species all over Burlington, and in doing so has gotten the chance to collaborate with really important organizations, such as Canada's Centre for Inland Waters and Field and Stream Rescue Team. A little while ago, volunteers wiped out a huge patch of Garlic mustard, a feat considered impossible by many! Of course, they'll have to come back now and then to make sure that the seeds in the soil don't get a chance to develop, but it's very helpful in preventing the property from becoming a monoculture.

Yesterday, I attended my first invasive species removal, right beside the CCIW property. I also got to the chance to see some friends from other events, and to make some new friends! We were given all sorts of plant-removing tools, and taught a bit about the plants we were going to be removing. Each person removed the plant appropriate for their tool, although we did do a lot of switching. The bottom line is that we did some serious species control, and the property is already looking a lot more sustainable and life-sustaining.

Between ten of us, we uprooted a huge pile of invasive plants, which will be disposed of properly, and we had a great time doing it! I recommend this activity to anyone that's interested in learning more about invasive plants, and doesn't have a problem giving a helping hand in controlling these plants the only responsible way there is: lots and lots of pulling.

Photo credit: Dianne, using Fern's camera

Tom's Tree Tour

2009-08-23T00:11:00.009-04:00

I've met some pretty awesome, interesting people through Burlington Green. When I went to my first meeting and I introduced myself, and talked a little bit about my interests and projects, everyone there kept saying that I should meet Tom. They told me he's a tree fanatic, and that he and I would get along famously. Now that I've gotten the chance to go on his tree tour, I understand why his reputation precedes him so. This guy is a tree nut. (His pun, not mine :P). He's the most knowledgeable person I've ever met when it comes to trees, and he's just coming out of high school! By 25, his brain will be so full of tree knowledge, that he will be able to photosynthesize.

On Thursday, he held a tree tour at Hidden Valley Park-- a great nature trail, and a prime example of the rare Carolinian forest ecosystem that can be found in southern Ontario. He explained the importance of this ecosystem, and why it's so unique. Moreover, he showed us how tragic it is that the magnificent trees of this habitat are being replaced due to human activity, and human-introduced species and diseases.

I was amazed at the way Tom quite literally sees the forest for the trees, and can tell you quite a story for each tree we came across on the tour. I was expecting to learn about each species in general, and we certainly did, but what was great is that Tom could actually tell us a fair bit about the life of each tree, including a tree that had been struck by lightning at least twice.

This is shagbark hickory (Carya ovata), one of the many trees we learned about.

Other trees included: Box elder, Pagoda dogwood, Green ash, Northern red oak, Bur oak, Bitternut hickory, Scots pine, Black walnut and Slippery elm.

Now, you might get some weird looks when you tell your friends that you're going on a tree tour, but in my opinion, you'd have to be pretty close-minded to pass up an opportunity like this. It was really eye-opening... not only in teaching me about carolinian forest, but also in making me realize that I'm going to need to really prepare for the plant tour I'll be giving in October.

He'll be hosting more of these in the fall, and I recommend this event to anyone with the slightest interest in nature!

Full RGB at the RBG.

2009-08-14T18:07:00.005-04:00

For the first time ever, I set foot in the Royal Botanical Gardens. I went with Andrea, and we had an amazing walk from Hendrie Park to Laking Garden. A wooden boardwalk runs along the Hendrie Valley Sanctuary, which connects the two parks. It is also a hotspot for hundreds of beautiful birds! Here's a picture I took of a red-winged blackbird.

I believe this bird is a female northern cardinal, but correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not the best at bird IDs.

The coolest thing about the boardwalk was the black-capped chickadee. These featherweight little guys had no problem landing on your hand to snatch up birdseed. Of course, we didn't bring any birdseed, as it's never good to feed wildlife.

Families left all sorts of foods for the birds, however, which were also snacked on by squirrels and chipmunks, and probably other things throughout the day. This significantly alters the behaviour of the animals, and can actually upset an ecosystem. I discourage anyone from bringing food for wildlife when they go out, and I'm gonna write to RBG, to tell them to put up more signs discouraging animal feeding.

Amanita Muscaria (Fly Agaric Mushroom)

2009-08-14T11:36:00.006-04:00

Ever since Jonathan and I started talking about the interesting mushrooms of Ontario at the beginning of spring, we've been looking our hardest for one of the most beautiful ones, the Fly Agaric Mushroom (Taxonomical name: Amanita muscaria). But it wasn't until I went to Muskoka that I saw these mushrooms growing in the most common of places: the bark mulch of a tree bed right beside where I was staying.

Amanita muscaria is fairly easy to identify. Look for the unique white warts on the toadstool, as well as a ring on the upper stem, and a shaggy, swollen stem base. The colour can range from deep red to bright yellow. This yellow variety of Amanita muscaria is called formosa. To express this, the full taxonomical name of this mushroom is Amanatia muscaria var. formosa. A royal-sounding name for a royal-looking mushroom...

... And a magical mushroom, at that. Magical in various senses. On even ground, these mushrooms tend to fruit as fairy rings, a phenomenon in which the mycelium of a fungi span an even, circular area, and mushrooms sprout at the end. This results in a perfect, or near-perfect ring of Amanita muscaria, which has been interpreted in the past as a fairy portal, and has been attributed mythical properties.

These mushrooms are also magical mushrooms because they're, well... magic mushrooms! The most common hallucinogenic mushrooms out there are Psilocybin Cubensis (shrooms). Cubensis, as well as other Psilocybin mushrooms, are considered a controlled substance in many countries. Amanita muscaria, however, is not as popular of a recreational drug, and is thus not of much concern to most authorities. In Canada, Amanita muscaria is completely unregulated. If you're wondering why this is, let me explain a little about Amanita muscaria as a drug. While some people have reported repeated pleasant experiences with it, a lot of the "trips" consist of nothing other than getting sick and puking all over the place. That, combined with the very real possibility of lethal poisoning that comes with muscaria's wide fluctuation in concentration of active chemicals, makes the Fly Agaric mushroom not very desirable as an entheogen.

Still, in its journey from a small, egg-like growth in the ground to an immense mushroom of mythical, cultural and psychotropic interest, this mushroom is truly majestic.

I missed you, Muskoka

2009-08-13T23:04:00.010-04:00

Ingrid and James invited me to their cottage up in Muskoka. It had been a while since I had gone up, so I figured it would be great! We stayed with James' parents at their cottage in Taboo resort. While a place like this might not have the traditional muskoka rustic flare, it's a beautiful cottage! And with a resort come amenities like free bike and kayak rentals, as well as easy access to unbelievable trails, and a long-stretching shallow beach. Apart from indulging in a whole bunch of outdoor adventures on my own, I also spent some time with the family, which included watching HD tennis (an activity I never thought would be so hypnotic or enjoyable), taking care of my adorable little nephew, and hanging out by the beach. Here's a photo in which Ingrid is making sure that little trouble-maker Alex doesn't stuff his face full of sand.

Muskoka has an unbelievable charm to it. I guess that's why it's one of the most touristy parts of Ontario... but of course, all is forgiven. I can't hold a grudge against such beautiful lazy rivers, or its forests, where nature keeps the tourists at bay by flashing a few bears every now and then. But what really gets me about Muskoka and keeps me coming back is the rock. Canadian shield at its most beautiful exposure. Mineral-rich rock, with millenia of manipulation by lichen; an enormous effort, essential to making the rock fertile.

Billions of little fingers; ghostly arteries stretch out from the ground for water and minerals. A world of interaction between plants and fungi, creating a symbiosis so powerful that it can exist on something as bare as a rock. Years and years of this symbiosis builds up a significant amount of debris; over time, this will amount to soil, which will ultimately provide nutrients for all other life. These lifeforms are often the first to settle otherwise-inhabitable places, making use of the minimal hospitality that a rock face can offer. They are the pioneers.

Lichen imagery aside, Muskoka has a lot of hidden treasures, if you look closely enough. An unbelievable little pond by the resort, known as Otter Pond, hosts a wooden boardwalk with a scenic lookout point. Apparently, I wasn't the only one on the lookout for wildlife. These timid turtles ruined my photo opportunity the first time I came to this pond. By the time I noticed them, they had already noticed me, and jumped in the water as I got up to take a look at them. The second time around, I left my bike at the end of the boardwalk, and creeped ever-so-slowly up to the log where I had seen them a day prior. On the hope that they were still there, I made my way towards them, silent. I went forward as much as I could. It was as if the turtles and I had an agreement: I could photograph them as long as I didn't cross a certain line. I took the photo from that line, to play it safe, but I pushed my luck by taking a step closer for another photo. They jumped in.

Somewhat unsatisfied with the turtle ordeal, and the distance from which they let me take the photo, I hit the trails in search of some more goodies. I rode by bike, and I hiked, and I even ran for a bit. I loaded up my camera with hundreds of pictures of plants and fungi, many of which I had read about, but had never seen. I used my botanical knowledge to harvest some light snacks, and as always, all of my senses to explore. I found a lot of Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens), an edible, yet fairly bland fruit. It saves itself because of its interesting fruiting feature. The fruit is made of two flower ovaries that fuse together when they become fertilized. That's why it has two "bottoms", as you can see in the picture.

It was a great three-day trip, and I'll take any opportunity to take this sort of trip again. I'd especially love to come back in the fall, when the leaves have changed colour, and different plants and animals are about. Even the winter would be great for some cross-country skiing! I'm very glad to have gone, and I'm very thankful that they decided to invite me. Thanks for an awesome time, -- ioni.

Cattails and Rad Tales

2009-08-08T21:42:00.011-04:00

I got up nice and early this morning and took the 7:27 bus from Mapleview Mall past the Royal Botanical Gardens. From there, I walked my way over to Cootes Paradise, admiring parts of Hamilton which I had never seen on foot. When I got there, I did a little exploring and took a couple of photos here and there. Of the ones I took, this one of a little cricket on a blade of grass would have to be my favourite. I would have taken a lot more, but really, it was nice to relax on a bench, eat my sandwich, and watch birds fluttering about.

It's easy to see where the "paradise" portion of the name comes from. It's a beautiful wetland, with impressively diverse wildlife. That being said, there are various problems facing it, and it is hard to keep this conservation area from becoming a paradise lost. There is a significant amount of recreational activity in and around the wetland, and a threatening level of residential and industrial development very close-by. The reason I was there today was because the BARC (Bay Area Restoration Council) sent out a call for volunteers to help with marsh planting. Even without knowing any details, I knew it was the kind of thing I would enjoy. When I found out that it involved gardening, mud and riding on a boat, I signed up Jonathan and myself. Unfortunately, Jonathan couldn't make it due to early-morning time constraints. :( On with the story.

At the dock, we armed ourselves. An impromtu team of guerilla gardeners, equipped with waders, gloves, hats and lifejackets. Most importantly, we had state-of-the-art planting equipment: wooden sticks. Our batallion leader Nigel debriefed us at 10:00 hrs. Our mission was simple: We would take the boat across the water to Rat Island. There, a shipment of cattails would await us. Within a 3-hour time limit, we would plant as many cattails as we could. The mud was deep and treacherous, and the cattails were plenty. Would we plant them all? Perhaps. Would we survive? It was hard to tell.

Please forgive my military-style account of today's events, but that's sort of how it felt! Well, only as far as the sense of adventure that I got out of it. The atmosphere was totally different. The group was fairly relaxed and enjoying the scenic boat ride while Nigel told us about Cootes Paradise. It wasn't really until we started planting that we all got talking. Of course, when your foot is stuck in the ground, you're covered in bog mud, and the bag of cattails is ever-so-slightly out of reach, you appreciate the fact that you're not alone. Together, we planted a whole colony of cattails.

Cattails are pretty easy to plant. You just make a hole and stick them in. At first, I used a stick to make the hole, but after losing it and breaking its replacement, I found it was easier to just stick my hand deep into the mud and put the cattail in right after. Hopefully, the cattails we planted will take root and spread. I have a feeling that they will... they know how hard we worked :P

The staff (Nigel and Tom) were really thankful to have us volunteer, and we were all happy to have gotten the chance. I'm gonna send out the link to this post to today's volunteers, and hopefully they'll be happy to have this as a reminder of this cool event we all shared. Feel free to comment, everyone :)

-- ioni

Kayaking at Kelso

2009-08-03T19:35:00.006-04:00

Today I went to Kelso Conservation Area with my uncle Claudio and my cousin Alex, who are visiting from Argentina. A good family friend, Walter, took us all to Kelso for a hike, a kayak ride, and a dip at the beach. We started with a very tiring hike to the top, where we did a bit of mild spelunking. I noticed a cave I hadn't seen before, that I'm thinking might go through the escarpment and out the bottom. I think this might be the case because I went down and down and down, without seeing any dead ends. It would definitely be something to check out sometime soon, taking some precautions.

The kayak ride was great! I never really kayak or canoe that much, but I'm thinking it would be extremely fun to do it more often. I think I'll look into kayaks. The only problem is I'd also need to get my car license so I can drive the kayak from place to place... unless I get an inflatable kayak. We'll see. Either way, it was a nice little trip around the lake, and we got to cool down at the beach afterwards. Here's a picture of my cousin Alex and I kayaking :D

We're the ones in the canoe. Har har har. That's all for now!

Tree-planting this Saturday :D

The Riverwood Conservancy

2009-08-02T14:46:00.013-04:00

We can't stop here. This is bat country. --Hunter S. Thompson

Having finished summerschool, I kind of feel like my summer is just starting... although there's really not that much left. Either way, I decided to go over to Jonathan's last Friday night so we could hang out, and go for a bat walk. While we sort of missed sunset because we were busy loafting, we still managed to get out of the house before it became night. Right away, we saw dozens of bats flying above us. We stayed out for a while, and saw really interesting things, including a large, nighttime predatory bird and nocturnal insects. Unfortunately, my camera is useless when it comes to night photography. Luckily, there would be lots of opportunities on the next day's hike.

Saturday's hike started around 7:00, so we got up at 5:30 in order to get there. I thought I had never been to the Riverwood Conservancy, but I realized that I had gone with Sasha one rainy March (see post: March on). Still, I saw some amazing parts of it that I hadn't seen before. It has some pretty delightful field ecosystems, which were absolutely full of dragonflies. Here, Jonathan is standing beside a Mullein (verbascum) plant which is as tall as him.

What was really great about this trip is that a lot of times, in various places, we stopped and poked around. We lifted rocks, sifted through sand, and looked in hidden places. That is the best way to find things, and it definitely worked for us. This grouping of eggs was safely stashed away under a stone. I took this picture and put the stone back, careful not to disturb them. I wonder what will hatch...

In my opinion, the act of stopping and looking around doesn't take any of the spontaneousness out of finding things. Even if you go looking, you never know what you're going to find. We didn't expect to find so many beetles, for example. And as we dug, we still looked around us. As a result, I managed to take a photo of this moth feeding. Those of you who have seen me fail at taking pictures of moths and butteflies understand why this makes me so happy :)

We spent a lot of time by the river, where we saw three crayfish, leeches, fish, many insects in their larval forms, and various spiders. Below is a dragonfly nymph. There were lots of these around, so it's no wonder the fields nearby had so many dragonflies.

What's good about Riverwood is that it's a fairly large green space with relatively little development. The structures in and around it are interesting bridges and tunnels. Needless to say, we took the chance to do a little urban exploration!

Overall, it was a good hike, and we had some really good conversations. And next Saturday we have a tree-planting event in Hamilton. In a marsh! :D It's good we both love marshes!

Also, site update: I've decided to finally get a hit counter for my site

Burlington's Youth Eco-conference

2009-08-02T11:59:00.004-04:00

Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there. ~Thomas Fuller

As you've probably already read (or heard me complaining about :P), I've been taking grade 12 Calculus & Vectors in summer school. Now, while the class had some fairly interesting and useful stuff, I definitely didn't need the vectors part for next year, but the school board lumps the two classes together for some reason. In any event, it wasn't all that bad, and I feel much more prepared for next year, both in terms of knowledge and motivation. The school at which I was doing summer school is none other than Robert Bateman H.S., which is an Ontario Eco-School, and very involved in all things green. They take care of a nice garden and they have a really nice creek and a floodplains ecosystem right beside them. During lunch, I usually ate for the first ten minutes, and then spent the other twenty looking at the naturalized areas. They're really quite nice, and extremely important for both the wildlife and ourselves.

In this photo, it's clear that the creek provides the ducks with a passageway, and myself with a photo opportunity. ;)

A couple of days before I finished the course, I ran into one of the people involved in maintaining the garden, who told me that the combination of recent rainfall and the noxious weeds someone had very foolishly put in the compost had pretty much totalled the year's crops. I helped her pull some weeds, and we got talking about environmental stewardship. I told her about my experience with plants, and she then invited me to the next day's Imprints meeting. Imprints is a group that is organizing the Burlington's Youth Eco-conference in October, which is a really cool environmental event for Burlington middleschool and highschool students. I'm very happy to have gotten involved in this because I love being able to contribute to a cause like this one. Aside from that, I get to meet a lot of really interesting people, and I can see that leading to lots of environmental events. The coolest thing about all of this, however, is that on the day of the conference, I'm gonna get to lead a tour of the ecosystem beside the school! :)

Hiking in the rain

2009-07-26T22:35:00.014-04:00

A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods. ~Rachel Carson

To some, rain might be a reason to stay home. For me, it's a bigger incentive to go hiking. Rain brings out different flora and fauna, so staying home would mean I'd be passing up the chance to go see some new, exciting things. It's good that Jonathan, Cory and Dayna have a mindset much like mine in that respect... one in which a storm is not necessarily a bad thing. I'm very glad we went, it had been a while since we went on a real hike, and things along the part of the trail we keep coming back to had really changed.

I like this picture because it captures two things that rain brings out: mosquitoes and mushrooms. Mosquitoes are not exactly something to be happy about, but they're a really important part of the ecosystem, so you have to learn to just kind of ignore them, and know how to identify Jewelweed (Impatiens), so you can break some off and rub it onto your bites to make them stop itching. Mushrooms, on the other hand, are AWESOME. They come in so many shapes, sizes and colours, and they're even more important to the ecosystem than mosquitoes. They're nature's irrigation system. If you want to know more about them, check out my other posts on mushrooms. :D

And speaking of cool, parasitic things, we finally saw some Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora). Much like Squawroot (Conopholis americana), which I've blogged about before, Indian Pipe is a parasitic plant that does not have the ability to photosynthesize. It receives its nutrients from a symbiotic interaction between itself and a parasitic fungi. Because of its pale colour and depressed-looking shape, this plant is also known as Corpse Plant and Ghostflower.

On a more vibrant part of the spectrum, and among the leaf litter on the ground, you can find the very common Easten Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens). Dayna found this as we were eating lunch on a wet log. Newts have three life stages, and this is its middle one. They go from being aquatic and resembling tadpoles to the terrestrial phase you see here, and then back into the water as their final incarnation.

As well as being extremely fruitful, in terms of cool finds, our day was hilarious. I can't decide if it's funnier that Dayna fell at least 5 times in the same spot, in the process of getting up, or that Jonathan accidentally spilled half of a bottle of orange juice directly into his backpack. Hahahaha. Either way, it was a great hike, and unfortunately the last hike with Cory for a while, since she's going to Italy! Have fun, babe! :) As for myself, I'm almost done summer school, so hopefully I'll get to hike more, and go to more places in August.

Take care, all!

Friends with the fire

2009-07-11T22:19:00.008-04:00

Man is the animal that has made friends with the fire.
- Henry Van Dyke

For millenia, mankind has been using this incredible tool for an expansive range of different things. It's been used for everything from keeping warm in cold weather, to fertilizing soil; without it, our species would not be what is it today. Then, of course, there's fire as a leisurely activity. What would camping be without the bonfire, and what would we do with marshmallows, aside from playing chubby bunny?

On Friday night, after I finished my summer school class, Jonathan, Cory and I biked to a place we had stumbled upon on one of our hikes. It's a little cove, the perfect hang-out place, and is not only built for having a safe responsible fire, but also constantly supplied with tinder and wood. Still, people come into it, break things apart, and leave their garbage there. It's so rude that it's upsetting, really. When we went, we were extremely responsible, as you must always be with fire. As for being courteous, not only did we take all of our garbage and scraps, we even took a couple of pieces of other people's litter!

Of course, a campfire is not enough to satiate our hikelust, and the hiking trail that leads to this place is actually quite short. To compensate, we biked to this place, uphill all the way, with backpacks full of food and a huge amount of water (you have to be responsible, as I said!). We roasted asian chicken/pumpkin buns, hotdogs, marshmallows, nuts, a banana... pretty much anything we could get our hands on. We made s'mores, and warmed up by the fire, right until the sun set. It was really good that we brought a light for the way back, since it got incredibly dark along the path.

Of course, in the night, you can see lots of different things than those you would see during the day. We came across a glowworm and fireflies, both eerily luminescent. At one point, we were even surrounded by what we're pretty sure were coyotes, howling loudly.

The bike ride back was really more of a walk, since riding our bikes down a dark, winding mountain road at 10:00 is not the best of ideas. When we finally made it to Cory's, we all passed out, and didn't wake up again until late next morning. We had planned to get up before sunrise, and go to the lake. Obviously, this didn't happen. Hehe. Well-rested, however, we spent a little part of the afternoon by the waterfront, walking Cory's dog, and had a nice day anyways. We always do!

Whether we're climbing through caves, roasting marshmallows, or taking a stroll through the neighbourhood, it's all about the people you're with, and knowing how to appreciate everyday things. There's lots to see and think about, anywhere, at any time of the day. Speaking of which... I'd love to go on a night hike sometime soon. We've already seen some cool stuff at night, even though we haven't had a huge chance to hike very late. It's a totally different experience. It requires a lot of instinct and paying attention. I think if we paid close attention, we could see all sorts of amazing things.

Let's hope we get the chance to soon! :P

Free as a ladybug

2009-07-05T20:00:00.004-04:00

So, I decided to start bringing my camera everywhere I go. When I have my camera on me, I find everything so much more interesting. I think that's because when I don't, I make a subconscious effort to not pay attention to things, simply to avoid coming across the perfect photo opportunity, only to realize my camera is sitting on my desk at home. Already, this decision has been extremely fruitful! I've been spending a lot of time outdoors with Cory lately, just in the garden, or walking from place to place, and we keep finding all these cool things!

Yesterday, we came across a ladybug larva, but I didn't have my camera on me. Today, however, was a different story. Not only did I get a picture of the larva, but if you look closely, you'll see that the larva is in its final instar, and is actually attached to the leaf, tail-first, getting ready to pupate. As we approached it, it wiggled furiously, trying to scare us away. This had the opposite effect, seeing as I had to stand there longer to get a photo that wasn't blurry!

And then, half a block down the street, I came across a different individual, further in the metamorphic process. You can see the ladybug in its adult stage (as we know it) slowly separating itself from the pupal shell.

Lastly, we have the well-known, many-named, easily-recognizable ladybug. Entomologists prefer the name "lady beetle", because it's not a member of the true bugs, and is in fact a beetle. If we were to do everything entomologists wanted, however, the world would be a very strange place. :P

I hope you enjoyed my double post today! On another note, I'm starting summer school for Gr. 12 Vectors, after vowing never to go back to high school, and then realizing that my second-year courses require a high school pre-requisite. Still, I'm actually pretty excited for the course, which starts tomorrow. We'll see how that affects my posting rate! Wish me luck!

Juneberry bandits

2009-07-05T19:28:00.004-04:00

So, I'm sitting in my sister's house in Dundas, checking my e-mail and whatnot, when a very faint smell comes in through the window. Although I don't have a super-human sense of smell, I consider mine somewhat refined, and it has been the case various times that without my heightened sense of smell, certain things would have gone unnoticed (see Trillium erectum). So, upon getting this whiff, I look out the window. The juneberry tree in my sister's backyard is being raided by adorable little bandits. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) are all over it, using their sensitive hands to snatch up berries and stuff them into their mouths. They do all of this quite expertly, simultaneously balancing and making sure they don't step on any thin branches. The word "Raccoon" comes from the Algonquin word for "one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands". This is very appropriate, seeing as two thirds of the part of the raccoon's brain that deals with sensory perception are devoted to tactile impulses!

Their impressive tactile sense, as well as their extraordinary intelligence, has made them very adaptable to city life, where they have become a serious problem. Toronto had a huge raccoon problem when it started the Green Bin program, because no matter the design of the green bins, it was only a matter of time before raccoons figured out how to open them and shared the knowledge with others. For them, our food wastes are the perfect meal. Raccoons are omnivorous; they will eat bugs, plants, and even small vertebrates. As a result, they have very interesting dentition. I took this picture of a raccoon skull, but I wasn't sure what animal it was. It didn't occur to me that I should post it on a Nature Forum to get an ID until the night I saw the raccoons. It turns out, it was indeed a raccoon skull, in which red velvet spiders were making their home.

June Wildflowers

2009-06-30T01:23:00.006-04:00

Every second and fourth Sunday of the month, High Park has a series of free guided walks through the park. While some have more to do with history and legends, a lot of them are naturalist walks, led by experts. Jonathan, Cory and I went to our first guided walk last Sunday (the 28th). Unfortunately, the expert on the topic didn't show up. Still, there were a couple of people on the tour that knew quite a bit, so we had a short self-guided tour, which included not only the original topic for the tour, but also a bit of background history about High Park, and it turns out that this park has a pretty interesting story behind it!

In any event, we went to this tour to get some nice photos of June wildflowers, and we definitely had the chance! We also found some cool-looking mushrooms, and got some pictures of a couple of birds, and a bullfrog. I'll only be talking about three flowers, because I don't want to make this a really long post.

Here's a picture of bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara), in its transition period between flower and fruit. This is an extremely poisonous plant, and very aesthetic at that! For such a distinctive, pretty plant, it's a shame it has no edible / medicinal uses. Unless one's idea of curing an illness is to end one's life.

These cool-looking flowers belong to a milkweed plant. Milkweed is extremely important because it is the only food of the monarch butterfly caterpillar. It's a very hearty plant with a lot of different uses. I've posted about these before. This plant will eventually develop a great number of seeds attached to fluffy filaments, all hidden inside a strangely-shaped pod. When the plant gets older, it will split open and release these seeds into the wind. The fluffy seeds actually make surprisingly good insulation, and the cooked shoots are edible when they're very young. The sap can also be hardened to make a latex gum, although it comes short of industrial applications. It does the job for monarch butterflies, though :P

The last flower I will post about today is Blanket Flower (Gaillardia aristata). The colour is unbelievable, looking almost like fire. I haven't found any uses for this plant, but it's a plant I'd welcome in my garden just because of its colour.

I have a feeling that more posts in the future will be about High Park Sunday morning walks. I really recommend them! Here's a link to the schedule: http://highpark.org/walking.htm

Mucking around at Mulock

2009-06-25T23:14:00.009-04:00

For Jonathan and I, June 20th started at 5:00 in the morning. The plan was to be at Mulock Nature Reserve at 10:00, and we got there in perfect time, without a minute to spare. The trip was as follows:

From my house, I walked to Burlington GO.

From there, I took a GO bus to Union.

From Union, I took the TTC subway up to Finch (where I met Jonathan).

From Finch, we took the VIVA Blue bus to Newmarket Station.

From Newmarket station, we walked an hour and a half to Mulock Nature Reserve.

The experience was worth every minute of that trip.

I found a volunteering opportunity with Ontario Nature. A property just north of Newmarket was recently been donated to Ontario Nature. A very special group of conservation experts have been putting in a lot of work to reverse the changes this large property had undergone while under residential ownership. The family who had lived there had dammed up a marsh in order to turn it into a pond so they could swim and use their boat. The conservation authorities have since taken down the dam, and are now monitoring the progress of the flora and fauna in order to see if this artificial pond ecosystem has returned to being a marsh ecosystem. In order to get some help catching crawlies, they put out a call for volunteers to help them muck around. Since Saturday was extremely rainy, however, it was only myself, Jonathan, and two other people that showed up as volunteers. The rest of the people there were experts in their field, who came to help collect crawlies, help out with the identification, and teach us neat things. There were two marine entomoligsts and a herpetologist. Of course, before we could identify anything, we would have to go and catch some things.

Armed with nets, pans and sifters, we wallowed around the marsh, sinking deep into the deceivingly deep mud. I brought waders for Jonathan and boots for myself, but even equipped with this specialized treading gear, we were no match for the treacherous marsh. Further upstream from the light waterflow in the marsh, there was a more river-like ecosystem. Here, we'd definitely find crayfish. Despite its looks, the pile in the picture below isn't animal feces. It's actually a crayfish burrow. Certain crayfish dig up burrows with escape routes into the river, and use these to hide from predators. What we see here is a chimney leading into the tunnel, constructed from individual mudballs. Where could the crayfish be?

I hate to brag (no, that's not true :P), but I caught the only crayfish we saw on expedition! You've gotta know where to look. You'll have the most luck under big, flat rocks submerged in water with one or two inches of space under them. Crayfish blend in pretty well with the mud, so make sure you have a good net that'll let mud through, and you're bound to catch one of these if you're looking in the right places.

The herpetologist examined the underside and concluded that this crayfish is a female, and was clasping something to her underside.

The next thing I caught with the help of Jonathan was a small catfish. Now, I've caught these a lot of times while fishing, but it's a different experience to catch one in a net like this. These guys are bottom-feeders, and very funny-looking.

Various rocks submerged in water were coated with these gelatinous masses. They're definitely eggs or egg sacs of some sort. A couple of the experts had a look at them, but nobody could determine what they were. Still, they were very interesting.

What we caught the most of was a whole bunch of different little creatures, all smaller than a dollar in size. What you see here is a bloodworm. Its red colour is due to excess hemoglobin, which allows it to live in oxygen-deprived waters. Because the marsh is very well oxygenated, however, (as determined by tests done by the Ontario Nature employees), it is very likely that this particular bloodworm washed down from further upstream.

We took all of the small creatures back to the makeshift lab. One of the marine entomologists had brought her dissection microscope. It was my first time ever using one. For those who haven't used it, it's basically a way to see really small things up close in 3D. The definition is unbelievable. I'm actually debating putting $4000 into one of these things. The only problem is I'd never do anything again. I'd just look at everything that would fit in the observation tray for the rest of my life. This makes me want to use my microscope! I think I will sometime soon, and maybe take some footage of what I see, and post the video on here. :) I have to say, I really enjoyed the volunteer activity. It was definitely one of those volunteer events that's not so much for getting things done as it is for building a more wide-spread appreciation of certain things, and I have to say... I've never been so amazed with (and appreciative of) marsh ecosystems. They truly are spectacular!

After the activities, we went for a somewhat short hike around the property. As if our day couldn't get any more awesome, we came across some morel mushrooms! Yes, these are morel mushrooms like the ones you eat! There are poisonous look-alikes, however, but they're fairly easy to tell apart. True morel mushrooms are hollow inside, like these were.

Even though we got completely soaked through, covered in mud, and eaten alive by mosquitoes, Mucking around at Mulock was one of the coolest experiences I've had in a long time. I'm definitely gonna try to find more events like this for the future!

Time for a snack

2009-06-23T09:56:00.016-04:00

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. ~Voltaire

When we sit down for a meal, what we eat often comes from afar. It is likely that the individual ingredients will have traveled from completely different places—in some cases, even different continents. The same can be said about many insects. Many species are capable of astounding migrations. Certain North-American dragonfly populations (groups within a species) can migrate south for the winter. Still, other populations of the same species might just lay their eggs underwater before the winter and die off in the winter. The larval stage (called the nymph) of the dragonfly can last up to five years, wheras the adult stage (what we know as dragonflies) usually lasts a year or a couple of months. In both stages, these insects are predators. The nymphs spend the whole of their existence underwater, and propel themselves rapidly by shooting water out of their anus. Yes. You read that right. What's even weirder is that they have extendable lower jaws, which can shoot out, much like a frog's tongue, to catch prey. In their adult stage (now with wings), they fly around, using their little legs only to perch themselves and manipulate food. Their immense compound eyes can detect the slightest movement, since 80% of their brain is devoted to visual analysis. In both stages of their lives, these bugs are machines, built to find, kill, and eat.

What woodpeckers are most known for is their peculiar (and often loud) eating habits. They'll land on dead trees, where insects live beneath the bark, and anchor themselves to the tree by way of specialized legs and a stiff wedge-like tail. They'll travel from tree to tree, knocking with their strong beak, until the knock signals that the tree is hollow. Then, without hesitation, the woodpecker begins to repeatedly hammer the dead bark, and strip it from the tree. It uses its long tongue to reach down insect tunnels and lick up a meal. The bark you see missing from this tree is all because of this one woodpecker: a Pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus). Cory and I heard it much before we saw it on our hike around the Bruce Trail (section: King Rd. to Kerncliff). We then followed it around for a while, getting a lot of pictures and video of its strange behaviour. It takes a lot of determination and a lot of pecking to get a meal the way this guy does... I just hope the bugs it eats have some sort of anti-headache property.

On a totally different note, here's a slug eating a mushroom. This is pretty self-explanatory. A slow-moving gastropod eating an organism that makes its energy composting detritus. These mushrooms have already spored, however, and their purpose is served. In reality, the slug is doing the mushroom a favour by digesting the fruiting body and depositing some more detritus :P

Other animals wait for their prey to come to them. It is precisely this for which spiders, and their webs, are well-known. While the most widely-known use for the web is the passive entrapment of insects, it is not the original one. The most ancient living order of spiders still alive today gives us a hint into the history of webs. Instead of using the web to trap insects, this ancient order of spiders uses webs as an extended sensory organ, and it sits in the middle of this highly-sensitive network of threads. The slightest movement on the web will trigger the spider to strike in the direction from which the movement came. It's easy to see how this sensory extension could develop into a web for entrapment. Other spiders use their webs in much more active ways. Certain spiders are capable of making specialized nets, which aren't fixed to anything. They hold these up between four legs, and use them to snatch up unsuspecting insects. The one in this picture is a more traditional web-building spider. You can tell from the length of its front legs, that it specializes in wrapping its prey. I'd have loved to get a video of it wrapping up some prey. Next time I get the chance, I'll see if I can make such an encounter happen :P

After all that talk about spider webs, it's important to note that a lot of spiders actually don't build webs. An example of this would be the crab spider, which simply waits at a spot which is bound to be visited by insects. They wait patiently, sometimes for days at a time, in order to ambush unsuspecting prey. They save themselves the time, energy and material that it takes to build a web. They then proceed to sink their fangs into the insects and paralyze them with venom. Because of the potency of their venom, they can paralyze and eat things several times their size. These spiders are clearly what nightmares are made of.

So, as we saw, animals have many different ways to get a meal. They may use active or passive methods of catching their prey. They may be foragers, or grazers, or hunters. Regardless of their size, or whether they're aquatic, terrestrial or airborne, they all have something in common. Lacking that wonderful ability that plants have to make something out of nothing, they all have to eat. And, while we like to think we're on the top of the food chain, it's a different story out in the wild.

Cygnets and Goslings

2009-06-21T19:44:00.006-04:00

I went to Rattray Marsh with Jonathan recently. It's a good place for us to hike because we can both get to it with a fair amount of ease. The conservation area is well-maintained, especially considering how close it is to various industrial parks, and large residential and commercial areas. It's one of Mississauga's hidden gems. There is a lot of work being done at Rattray in order to control invasive species; both flora and fauna. There have also been various new additions and improvements to the trails, including new boardwalks, in order to encourage people to stay on the guided path. Although we usually do a lot of off-trail venturing, Jonathan and I both really enjoyed this trip, because Rattray is such a nice little place that we were happy just walking around the various trails, and spending a lot of time skipping stones on the beach. Of course, you have to make sure there's nothing floating out in the lake before you throw stones! It's the end of Spring; if you wait around on the shore, you're bound to see some swans and geese with their young.

Swans are a common sight on Lake Ontario. They're very large birds, and very elegant. My favourite thing about them is that when they touch beak to beak, they make a heart shape. A family swam by us, with a couple of little cygnets. They're probably accustomed to people feeding them, and were likely attracted by us skipping stones.

In similar formation, a family of Canada geese (Branta canadensis) also swam by. This family came on shore close to us, however, up to where a family was throwing bread. While this was a great photo opportunity, it's never a good idea to accustom animals to humans in this manner, or to alter their natural diet.

Still, I'm thankful for the opportunity to get a photo like this one, which is one of my favourite photos I have taken in a while. The little goslings are so cute!

This is, of course, a change of pace from my earlier encounters with geese. It's funny how much more aggressive they are when it comes to protecting their eggs than their goslings.

A little chunk of the electromagnetic spectrum

2009-06-18T01:31:00.006-04:00

If you're walking through the forest, it's not very likely that you'll notice these raspberries (Rubus). Not at this stage, at least. Had you come a little while back, the delicate white flowers would have surely caught your eye. White stands out very well against a green background, and it is because of this that the raspberry is pollinated year after year. Once it's pollinated, however, it wishes to remain unnoticed, so it that it may develop its seeds in peace. Thus, it sheds its petals and dons an inconspicuous colour. A couple of weeks later, the plant will need you again, since, as Terence McKenna put it, Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. And few methods are as effective at spreading seeds to all sorts of places as getting all sorts of animals to spread them everywhere they excrete. How does the plant let the animal kingdom know that it's ready to be spread? Very simple, although incredibly complex: Colour.

Colour is indeed one of the key types of visual communication. What we see as colour is nothing else than the part of a little chunk of the electromagnetic spectrum that didn't manage to get absorbed by whatever we're looking at. The chunk in question is such a limited sample of the electromagnetic spectrum (which includes things like infrared, X-rays, etc.) that it makes you wonder why we are unable to see electromagnetic energy at other frequencies. Why are we unable to see radio waves, for example? While I don't have an answer, I do have something to keep in mind: water filters out all but two small windows of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is very plausible that the eye evolved underwater, and there was no evolutionary pressure for animals to broaden their visual spectrum once they came on land.

You might enjoy looking at some bird's foot trefoil (Lotus). The strangely-shaped bright yellow flowers grow in a circle. This works much like a helicopter landing pad... the helicopters being dragonflies and damselflies, of course.

Another work of art: a mutation, or hybridization between species, of clover (Trifollium). Small changes in the pigment content of each petal result in strikingly different hues and shades. To animals with less of a colour sense, this flower might as well be all one colour.

The purple venation of coltsfoot (Tussilago Farfara) is also peculiar. To learn more about coltsfoot, go wayyyy back, almost to the beginning of my blog!

Different animals have different ways of seeing things. There are two basic types of eyes: simple eyes (like our own) and compound eyes (like those of arthropods). I wonder to myself at night what life would be like through compound eyes. Because of the limitation of compound eyes, however, to have the same visual acuity, we humans would need two eyes as big as our current heads. I think I'll stick to my simple eyes for now.

Animals use colour in a lot of different ways. They may use it to attract mates or prey, to advertise the fact that they're poisonous (aposematism), or even to blend into their surroundings (camouflage). More often than not, however, colour ends up simply reflecting the animal's diet.

Some organisms (not this one, but definitely some mushrooms) even create their own light, so they don't have to depend on the electromagnetic energy from the sun to communicate their visual messages.

Certain colours get our attention much more than others, but we must always keep in mind that the way we see things are not the way that they are found in nature. As we've established way at the beginning of this blog, the universe is presented to us in a kaleidoscope flux. The colour each thing possesses must be interpreted by some type of eye, and there many different animals with many different eyes. To some other creature, this strange-looking fungus might be the equivalent of what a rose is to us.

It's often very hard to keep in mind, however, that the colour of a beautiful Wrinkled Rose (Rosa rugosa) is only salient as far as we are concerned.

To another animal, this explosion of colour may mean absolutely nothing.

There is more to life than increasing its speed

2009-06-16T23:45:00.004-04:00

It was a long day of hiking for Cory and I. Much like the first hike Cory had joined me on, we hiked from the Aldershot GO area to Clappison's Corners. This time, however, we didn't get lost! Instead, we went east towards the historic Waterdown village and south, through the Bruce Trail, to a place where we had locked up our bikes. Having told my parents we'd be home for dinner at a certain time, we were hiking this last stretch of our trip at a speedy pace. That's when I noticed it, at the end of a little stream. It was too geometric of a shape, and too green in colour to be a rock, and rocks definitely don't have tails. I looked over at Cory, who was a bit behind, since I had rushed ahead to get a closer look at this astonishing find. "See that?", I told her. "That's no rock."

My concern with photographing this turtle was that it would move away before I could get any good shots. Turtles aren't necessarily slow! They can be, but they can also move much faster than you think. And some of them bite! This would have been a concern, had I not realized that getting bitten by a turtle would be an awesome story to to tell around a campfire someday. Anyways, I couldn't imagine this particular turtle claiming any of my limbs, so I handed the camera to Cory, and I put my foot beside it, to give an idea of its size. From head to tail, I'd say it was the length of two of my feet.

Cory then took a whole bunch of pictures of it from her angle. In this picture, you can actually see two other animals if you look very closely. Under its right leg, there's a spider with a big egg sack. On its shell, there's a slug. It was Cory that pointed out the spider. I didn't even think it was a spider until we poked it and it ran under the turtle to hide. For little creatures, this turtle might as well be part of the landscape.

Note the turtle's long claws. And its long dinosaur-like tail. Turtles have been around for an estimated 215 million years. That's longer than any lizard or snake. They haven't changed all that much simply because they haven't needed to. The turtle is, as Cory put it, an evolutionary success.

I hope we come across more turtles on our next hikes. This one was definitely a pleasant surprise, right at the end of our hike!

One-hour power

2009-06-15T14:29:00.007-04:00

A standard hike for myself, and those who join me, tends to last 10 to 12 hours. I know that some people might find that a bit excessive, but with the amount of things we see each time, we definitely don't get bored. Besides, we make sure to bring enough food, and anything else we could need (mosquito repellent, etc.) to sustain us for however long our hike happens to be.

I went to Dundas recently, to visit my sister, my brother-in-law, and my oh-so-adorable nephew. For those of you who are going "Dundas and what?", please set aside your notion of Dundas as a street, and replace it with a wedge-shaped little town between Burlington and Hamilton. As you'd expect from its location, the Bruce Trail does indeed run through here. In fact, some of the most beautiful parts of the Bruce Trail are in Dundas. It's got a lot of waterfalls, and a lot of really varied trails. I've been wanting to hike these trails ever since that time we got lost coming back from Clappison's Corners, and the cab driver that picked us up told us "Next time, hike around Dundas!"

So, when Cory came over to visit, and my sister was putting my nephew to bed, we saw our chance to go explore these trails, even if just for an hour, and it turned out to be an extremely fruitful hour!

This was the first time that I had ever noticed Wild Ginger (Asarum Canadense). It's unbelievable how much this plant smells like the totally unrelated ginger plant we're used to. The part used in cooking is the rhizome (the above-ground root). However, the compounds in this plant are somewhat poisonous, so if it is to be used for culinary purposes, care should definitely be taken!

And speaking of culinary purposes, it seems like lots of animals have been feasting on the almost barren end of False Solomon Seal (Maianthemum racemosum). The berries are edible for humans as well, but I've never tried them myself.

Bladder Campion (Silene vulgaris) is a strange-looking flower. The shoots are edible, but very bitter. I haven't tried these, either. I didn't know what this plant was when I ran into it, but it was pretty easy to ID.

We also came across some interesting-looking spiders. As is usually the case, I have no ID for this spider, and no idea either! Still, you can admire it without knowing what it is! :D

At the end of our hike, we hung out on a kids' playground, and found this threatening-looking spider. (IDs are appreciated for the two spiders on this post!)

There's other things we saw, but we didn't take a picture of everything! Mostly, we just walked to (and back from) a really nice waterfall, which I managed to get behind! It's definitely somewhere I'd like to go again, and only a short walk from my sister's house! :)

Urushiol-induced contact dermatitis

2009-06-14T20:17:00.012-04:00

Caution: There may be woodlots in poison ivy

This is what the signs should say in some parts of the Bruce Trail, instead of having it the other way around, like they do. Poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron) is something so abundant in woodlots, and such an inconspicuous-looking plant, that it may seem like we might make too much of a fuss about it. However, even the botanical name for this species (toxic tree) shows that it is not a plant to take lightly. It's definitely a plant worth being familiar with, just so you may better avoid it. Notice the three leaves, and how they are arranged (note the extended stem for the middle leaf). You'll usually hear "leaves of three, let them be", but that is both an overgeneralization, and an undergeneralization at the same time, and I'll address these claims in their respective order: There are many very innocent plants (see Fragaria virginiana) that have three leaves; if we were to avoid all three-leaved plants, we'd miss out on many wonderful, harmless plants. Also, poison ivy does not always have its leaves. Unfortunate gardeners have cut down harmless-looking woody vines on their property, only to find out that the sap in which they got covered was extremely high in urushiol.

Urushiol is an organic oil, which adheres to everything it touches with extreme ease. It can stay active on clothes and hair for decades. Coming into contact with it, directly or not, often leads to urushiol-induced contact dermatitis... or, as the layman calls it: poison ivy sting.

Poison ivy stings are serious. A millisecond's contact with poison ivy (as I reached for a clover flowerhead by which this toxic vine was growing) left me with a blister on the webbing between two fingers (and a couple of other, realy small ones) for two weeks! What bothers me the most about UICD is the way that it works. When you come into contact with urushiol, it binds to the integral proteins of your skin cells. This changes the cells' shape, and makes the affected cells appear different than their surrounding cells. Confused, your immune system bombards these "foreign" cells with antibodies, and your skin basically digests itself. Toxicodendron, you're one sly little vine... you poison us, but you make us do all of the work!

Once the oil is on you, the best thing to do is to wash the affected area with cold water as soon as possible. Hot water will open your pores, excite the oil and spread it. Immediately after, you should start putting anti-reaction creams (or for the naturalist, jewelweed), and after about two hours of applying, you should use anti-itch cream. Now, I didn't follow that procedure, but my sting was extremely small. If someone were to fall into a patch of poison ivy, however, they may have to be rushed to the hospital. It's a dangerous plant, I'm telling you! Also, repeated exposure will not build up an immunity, simply because of how this poison differs from other poisons. If anything, repeated exposure tends to produce more violent reactions!

And forget about trying to remove this plant. Cutting it down will lead to urushiol getting everywhere. Burning it will vaporize the urushiol and send it wherever the smoke travels. If this smoke gets in your lungs, you may very well die. It's also extremely resistant to herbicides. What's worse: the more CO2 can be found in the atmosphere, the more this plant flourishes. In other words, the more CO2 pollution we create by driving, the more dangerous it will be to take a stroll through the undergrowth. And then we really will need those signs I suggested at the beginning of the post.

Archaic/tectural wonders

2009-06-11T19:20:00.003-04:00

There's something beautifully apocalyptic about Canadian ruins. These concrete structures of times past may lack the cultural charm of the tourist-infested ruins of Mexico and other Continental-American countries, but they make up for it with what I can only describe as cold nutritiveness. After a certain time, the structure's intended purpose simply stops being relevant, and all that matters is the structure's shape and the materials from which it was constructed. Life, in all of its relentlessness, pours into them full-force. All sorts of beings, from every direction, curiously explore these structures. Their hopes are that they will be the ones that get to exploit these new, drastically different habitats, and make them their home.

Of course, our concern with these structures is completely different. For us, they provide a place to satisfy our lust for adventure. They provide us with photo opportunities, and with obstacles we would rarely face elsewhere. I'm not sure what this was in the past. It must have been a storage silo, or something similar. What it was for me, however, was a great opportunity to practice my balance and climbing.

From above, Jonathan noticed much before me that on almost every log in this accidental pond, there sat a frog, perfectly still and perfectly camouflaged. My mind was on other things, such as not falling into the disgusting water. Of course, the fact that this water was so disgusting is what made it such a perfect place for these many frogs. While Cory and Danielle sat off to the side, laughing hard enough at whatever they were talking about to warrant some doubt about their sanity, Jonathan and I went down into the pit to get closer to the frogs, and get some better photos.

Although this may not look it, this microecosystem is actually very unique. It consists of logs that have been thrown in, and years of falling leaves and rain. Although the bottom appears to be in sight, a simple poke-stick-into-ground experiment proves otherwise. The water is actually about as deep as we are tall, and full of gas pockets from decomposing material. The logs provide a place for the frogs to breathe, and the underwater detritus provides them with a great hideaway from photographers like ourselves.

Nevertheless, we got some pretty good photos. Jonathan tried to catch this frog with his hands, but it slipped through his fingers. It then swam deep into the water, only to resurface some twenty seconds later from under a leaf. I had to point it out to Jonathan a couple of times before he actually saw it. It's amazing how well these frogs camouflage in this obsolete structure.

The concrete bricks, with the spaces between them and their porousness, also provided a home for all sorts of insects. It's not very hard to see why these frogs would choose this place to live. It seems that this particular structure was particularly kind to these amphibious suitors. For us nomads, we had no choice but to move on. This pond was their home, not ours.

Fungi and fauna of Erindale Park

2009-06-07T23:22:00.006-04:00

As always, on our hikes, we were on the lookout for members of three kingdoms: Animals, plants and fungi. And without even realizing it until later, each of us took on one of these kingdom, as nomadic kings, reigning with nothing but a sense of adventure.

We came across this unidentified mushroom; a beautiful sight for an amateur mycologist like Jonathan! The plan wasn't to get him in the picture, but this picture turned out great! It's so undeniably bad-ass.

When we lost Jonathan, however (yes, I'm bringing it up again!), Kyle and I came across some amazing-looking mushrooms. This one had the amber-like quality of hardened sap, but fungus-like contours. It's probably one of the cooler mushrooms we've seen, so suckstobejonathan.

This other one, close to it, was stiff towards the base, but the outer white part was moldy like an old orange. We accidentally broke this particular mushroom, and the inside looked very much like bread. I wonder what this mushroom is! If anyone knows, an ID would be appreciated!

This was the first free-standing mushroom we came across on our hike. It was very small and unimpressive, but Jonathan took an amazing picture of it. It took him wayyy too long, but that's because my dinky little camera fails terribly under poor lighting! Still, this picture turned out really artistic and makes really good use of the little light that the forest canopy afforded this little guy.

After coming across that last mushroom, we started talking about our recesses in elementary school. The conversation led us to wonder what those "smoke leaves" were, which we used to play with. Lo and behold, we came across these within the next five minutes! They're sac-like mushrooms, full of spores. Any disturbance or strong wind, and these spores come out so small, in numbers so big, that they look like smoke. Oh, what fun we had with these as kids...

But the wilderness is by no means a place for kids. *cue sinister music* Blood-thirsty monsters prowl on many legs, waiting to get their fangs into unsuspecting victims. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but look at the size of this spider! We took a couple of pictures of it, because we were amazed at how big it was, and we even got some great video footage, in which you can hear me say to Jonathan: "Don't point that shit at me!"

It was Kyle, however, that found the most crawlies. Every time we'd look over, he'd be busy observing a different gastropod slither up and down his arm. First, it was garden snails. Then it was these strange-looking snails (ID appreciated) and then eventually, a slug. Kyle is quite obviously a man of patience.

Well, that concludes the posts about the May 31st hike. I hope you all enjoyed reading this, and I'll post about today's hike when I can! :D

Marsh ado about nothing

2009-06-02T11:46:00.008-04:00

It's been a while since Jonathan, Kyle and I have hung out together! We're all living in different places now, doing different things. In the past, we hung out all the time. We've been friends since grade 4, although Jonathan and Kyle were friends from before that. On the last day of May, however, we three friends were brought together by our shared lust for adventure. We met up near Erindale Park, although we spent more time exploring around the park than actually in it, and we found some pretty cool things. We also lost some things... like Jonathan for an hour. -_-. This is why you should always have your cellphone on you, people. Let's start by talking about some of the plants we came across!

Everywhere we went, we came across some Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis). It's a very nice plant, although it spreads fairly agressively. The young leaves are edible, and the seeds are extremely high in useful oil content. Its colour can range from pale blue-white to hot pink. It varies by both nature and nurture.

Erindale has some pretty amazing marsh ecosystems as well. This is very great to come across, since we haven't really explored any marshes before. One of the first things I noticed, other than the marshy smell, was a Blue Iris (Iris spuria). It's a magnificent plant, although it is very poisonous. I wouldn't want to eat such a beauty anyways, I'd rather leave it for all to see and enjoy.

Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) is a five-leaved creeper which readily climbs walls and anything it fancies. It's planted because of its wonderful red foliage in the fall, and because it is impressive how well it can climb! Various parts of this plant are edible. The small fruit can be eaten raw, the shoots can be boiled (and the inside part eaten) and the root can be cooked. Word of warning: other sources claim that this whole plant is poisonous due to its oxalic acid content. :/

Red clover (Trifolium pratense) is another of those overlooked plants. The flowers just started blooming a week ago. They, as well as the distinctive leaves, can be made into tea. And this is a plant that is readily available, since it is grown as ground cover.

Lastly (and I'm running out of time here), you may take a look at our small (and responsible) harvest. It includes some ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), some horsetail (Equisetum), some Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) and some periwinkle (Vinca minor). These are all for medicinal tea, and should be pretty good! I've had the ground ivy so far, and it was great!

Alright, I must catch my train! There's more posts coming, so see you soon :D

Meermunk for president

2009-05-29T16:37:00.009-04:00

After posting about the hike itself, I felt like I needed to post about the plants and animals we saw as well, especially since we came across some very unique plants, and a very weird chipmunk. Alas, let's start.

I've shown you a photo of white trillium in a previous post. On this hike, however, I came across a red trillium (Trillium erectum). I actually smelled it before I saw it. This flower, like various others, emits a smell that isn't particularly pleasant to us, but is very attractive to its pollinator: flies. Before I saw these flowers, I was hit with a wall of rotting meat smell. Flies and other insects that lay eggs on (or eat) dead animals are drawn to these flowers' deceptive scent, and the flower is thus pollinated.

The shape of this plant looks very familiar. You'd expect to find a shape like this growing on the end of certain pine species, but not out of the ground like this. We were very confused when we came across this, but after some help from the GardenWeb forums, and some research of my own, we found out some pretty amazing things about this plant. Contrary to your high school science teacher's belief, it is not true that all plants photosynthesize. Such plants are called achlorophyllous plants. Squawroot (Conopholis americana) is one of these. Scientists have sequenced its genome, and it is apparently missing the genetic instructions to build certain proteins (like chlorophyll) that have to do with photosynthesis. Instead, this yellow-brown plant, which reaches about 10 centimetres in height, leeches the nutrients from woody plants like oak or beech. It is parasitic, since it can't make its own food. Other genera (plural for genus) in the same family are able to photosynthesize, but squawroot is simply too awesome to make its own food.

Another species in the violet genus. The Canada violet(Viola canadensis) is one of the prettiest flowers I have seen in a while. It is very delicate and a beautiful white. I don't have very much to say about it, but I'm glad we came across this flower.

Wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) is very easy to identify. Its five long petals and sepals merge together to form five tubular pouches, perfect for small pollinators, or ones with long feeding organs. This plant does especially well in rocky soil, and the biggest, prettiest batches were (of course) in the most hard-to-reach places of the mountain. We had to do some serious climbing to get photos of some of these plants!

And lastly:

This photo is pretty self-explanatory. This weird chipmunk was standing like a meerkat on top of a rock, and stayed that way even as we approached it. There was a huge number of chimpunks on Mount Nemo. I guess they do very well there for some reason. They're cute little guys, too! Especially this one, which we nicknamed Meermunk.

We've got another hike coming up (this time in Mississauga) so hopefully we'll come across a lot of different plants and animals! :D

Climbing Nemo

2009-05-26T16:58:00.011-04:00

NB; I didn't take any of these photos! Here are the names of the people who did, for each respective photo: Cory, Beau, Beau, Beau, Beau, Jonathan, Beau, Cory, Cory, Cory, Cory.

Mount Nemo is not very far from my house. The problem is that public transit won't take you that far north. However, my dad was kind enough to drive Cory and I to the GO station, pick up Jonathan and Beau, and drive us us all to Mount Nemo. We made a huge effort to arrive there as early as we could, but it turned out that the park doesn't open until 8:30, so we had to wait around for half an hour. That wasn't a hassle, since we went to Lowville park for a bit, and looked around. I thought that walking in would be free, and all you have to pay for is parking, but that was definitely not the case. How it works is as follows: Each visitor must pay $5.50, but a car pays a maximum fee of $10. In other words, it ends up being cheaper (less than half the price) for four friends to visit this environmental conservation area by car than it does by bike. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed with their ironic fee system. In any event, Beau had us covered (thanks, Beau :D) so we walked up the main trail, to the Brock Harris lookout, and admired the view. Our hike was off to a very scenic start.

Mount Nemo is part of the Niagara escarpment. We spent most of our hike just going up and down different parts of the cliff edge, through caves or steep crevices. We were hoping to see different plants and animals, since Mount Nemo is at a higher elevation than our last hike, and is a completely different ecosystem altogether. The park's pamphlet claims that Mount Nemo has four different habitats: cliff top forest, cliff edge, cliff face, and escarpment base forest. However, it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. In my opinion, the escarpment is not regular enough to be divisible like that. It's better to take it in as a whole, I'd say!

And that, we did. Like the animals and the plants, we did a very good job of blurring the boundaries between the habitats. We knew no fear, no reservations. In this photo, Jonathan leads Cory and I through a crevice, and Beau follows from a distance, taking photos of us as we all explore in our own way.

We got into some pretty amazing caves. Some were deep enough for ice to form, even at the end of May! Here, Jonathan goes towards the light, which is at once a saviour and a disappointment, because while we welcome a way out, we'd love to find a cave that goes for miles underground.

Most of the cave-like features weren't actually caves, but were rather tremendous cracks in the cliff edge. The deeper these cracks ran, the more full of rich soil they would be, and the slimier and colder. Still, light came in through the top, and we didn't need our flashlights.

Here, Cory and Beau come down a steep crevice. The stone beside them is wedged between the two sides of the crack. There's no danger of it moving, however. The only time these rocks move significantly is in the winter, when water gets into cracks and expands as ice.

For this cave, however, we did need a flashlight. The entrance is actually a couple of metres from where I came out, so it didn't seem like it'd be a much of a cave. However, it ran surprisingly deep. When we first went in, we figured it was a dead end, but after some deep spelunking, we realized that squeezing under a jutting boulder (a bit scary, I know) and climbing up a steep chute, we could actually do some underground travelling! :D

Here, Cory took a picture of me from way up top. It only took me a couple of seconds to get down there, since I had been in this crevice before, and I knew the way. It was really neat being able to go up and down so much and so quickly. The feeling stuck with me all day, and I felt like I was still climbing even in my sleep! The next day, I was exhausted, however. Climbing is one of the most tiring things you can do!

At one point, these two other guys we ran into passed by us, and pointed out a frog. We picked it up, and Jonathan put it on my shoulder without me realizing. The frog just kind of stayed there, even as I climbed! After asking "is it off!?" a lot of times, I gave up and just kept climbing.

This photo was taken right after my favourite quote of the day. As I started to climb the side of a crevice, Beau looks over to me, and I hear him tell the others "I was just entertaining in my head what a bad idea it would be for someone to climb that." For me, they're words of motivation.

After the hike, we had a bit under an hour to kill before my dad came to pick us up. We hung out on a makeshift bench (a barrier) and played word games. It was a very good hike, with some very good company! I can't wait for another one! :)

There's some more posts coming with photos of my own! :D

Saddle up

2009-05-23T01:09:00.007-04:00

It was said once upon a time that tree nymphs would sit on these mushrooms and ride them into magical worlds. It is because of this old myth that Polyporus squamosus received its common name: Dryad's saddle. These are majestic mushrooms, and can get rather big.

The mushrooms are usually attached to the rotting logs on which they feed by way of a strong stem. I apologize for the blurriness of this photo, but it's one of my favourite from the trip. Cory ended up in it by complete accident, which is what I think makes this photo so great.

The underside of this mushroom is very spongey and porous. The microscopic spores fall from here, and get carried by the wind. It's also a total accident that I'm in this photo.

It's pretty obvious why these mushrooms are also called "pheasant's back mushooms". Their pattern is astounding.

This was probably the biggest one that we saw on our hike. These mushrooms get massive.

Polyporus squamosus is an edible mushroom. They grow at the same time, and in the same zones as morel mushrooms, so it's not uncommon for disappointed morel hunters to come back with this meat & potatoes mushroom instead. The good thing about these mushrooms it that there are no poisonous look-alikes, so they're safe to gather. Also, their smell makes them unmistakable. They smell really pleasantly like cucumbers! The young mushrooms can be eaten raw or in stir-fry. But whenever you're dealing with mushrooms, make sure you've made a correct identification, because your life is on the line.

Life in the Undergrowth

2009-05-21T16:01:00.004-04:00

As I said, we came across a couple of crawlies worth mentioning. The first is this millipede, which looks a lot like the cover of a NIN album. These big and somewhat grotesque-looking bugs are actually harmless. The most they could do, if really aggrivated, is release a substance that might sting if it gets into open cuts. Even then, you're in no danger of anything. These bugs are actually fairly peaceful and slow-moving, and will curl into spirals at the first sign of danger. Some people even keep giant ones as pets! *hint*... my birthday is coming up!... well, in February, but still! :P

Slugs, on the other hand, are extremely vicious. Hehehe. Nah, slugs are about the most peaceful things you'll find. They just eat plants and fungi all day. They're just like snails, except they don't have shells. They are not, however, shell-less snails... they are different crawlies altogether. If anyone can identify this slug, it would be appreciated!

Also, if anyone can tell me what the heck this weird thing is, that would also be appreciated.

Snails are the other member of the gastropoda family, along with the above-mentioned slugs. Like slugs, they secrete a mucus to protect their foot organ as they make their way from place to place. Obviously, they have to stay moist! The morning of our hike, it rained like crazy, so we saw a lot of slugs and snails! If the snails get too dry, they are able to retreat into their shell and make a mucus barrier, to keep their moisture in.

There's another post coming, so I hope you enjoyed this one :D

Little Salamander, where did you go?

2009-05-21T14:41:00.006-04:00

And so begins the long-awaited post for the hike we had last Saturday. It was a pretty amazing hike, I must say. This time, it wasn't just Jonathan and I. Cory came along, and was, of course, the guest of honour. Since it was the first time she came hiking with us, Jonathan and I brought food for the three of us... although next time, she doesn't get off so easy! We expect delicious baked goods, Cory :P

Sitting down on a log and eating, covered in mud, is a pretty unique experience. Especially after a long walk, and a lot of untruthful talk of stopping at the next bend of the river. I don't know why I'm starting the story off at lunch time, because we walked a long way before we allowed ourselves to sit down and enjoy our well-planned lunch. It might be because I'm hungry, so it's what comes to mind the quickest, although I think it's because lunch gave us a chance to sit down and really just enjoy the moment. On a half-rotted log, eating lunch out of zip-locks with two very interesting people, and watching snails slowly make their daily commute, I realized there was no place I'd rather be.

I could have started at the very beginning of our journey. The first thing we saw when we got to our starting point was a dead frog, which was kind of encouraging in a strange sense, because one of the primary goals of our trip was to see if we could find some frogs, salamander, or other slithery things... and we certainly did!

T-bone (yes you, once more) keeps having excellent ideas, so I'm constantly telling him he should come on a hike. His contribution to Saturday's hike was the idea that we should look under rocks for salamanders. And, believe it or not, we found about 7 different ones in a small area! We also found a bunch of other cool things, like grubs and beetle larvae, but nothing compared to the Sallies :D We were pretty happy with our find! I had the idea of looking under rocks which were right by (almost in) a little stream, but Jonathan correctly pointed out that the place we were looking was simply too wet, and when we moved to an area that was still very moist, but with no pooling water, we found one under the first rock we checked!

Cory didn't join us in our salamander catching, but she definitely outdid us in the animal-catching department. Here's Cory holding a very discontent-looking frog. We didn't hold it very long, of course, because it seemed like it thought it was in danger. Not to worry, froggy, your fate won't be that of the first frog we saw on our hike... not by our hands anyways, although we definitely came across some mean-looking vultures at the end of our hike... so be careful! :P

This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip! Jonathan and I were walking, minding our own business, when Cory calls out to us, and points out that we not only missed, but quite possibly kicked, a garter snake without realizing! Before we can even catch it, in our fumbly way, Cory pulls a Rambo and grabs the snake with expert precision, securing it in her hands by holding it at the back of the head and supporting its slithering body with her arm. Jonathan and I looked down in shame... it was Cory's first time ever catching one. Hahaha, way to be awesome, Cory! The snake was definitely not pleased, though, and made sure to release its scent all over Cory's hands before she let it go.

Those were some of the fauna we saw on our trip, but we also came across a wide variety of different types of bugs. This is a 4-minute video I put together of more fauna we saw on this trip. I hope you enjoy, and keep reading the next posts!

The Mushroom Speaks

2009-05-14T15:25:00.005-04:00

"The mushroom which you see is the part of my body given to sex thrills and sun bathing, my true body is a fine network of fibers growing through the soil. These networks may cover acres and may have far more connections than the number in a human brain."-- Terence McKenna

Mushrooms. According to Terence McKenna, they are responsible for our evolution as a species. While this might seem a little extreme, it is undeniable that mushrooms play as large of a part in our culture as they do in ecosystems. Mushrooms are more to us than heterotrophic masses that decompose things all day. Many of them are edible, and some are even so prized as a food that they cost almost $100, 000 a kilo. Others have provided cultures around the world with hallucinogenic experiences for hundreds of years, and have been important as culture-enhancing entheogens even in modern times. In many cultures, mushrooms have also had a special connection to the mythical world, which is really not surprising, considering such mushroom phenomena as fairy rings. With all of these interesting aspects, Jonathan and I decided we would take some photos of these important organisms, so that we could share not only what we saw, but also some of our enthusiasm.

Consider a piece of wood you have in your room. How long have you had it? How long do you think it'll be before it decomposes? Now consider this fallen stick. The fungus threads running through it speed up the decomposition at a rate which makes forest life possible. Without mushrooms, the forest would not be sustainable.

Some fruiting bodies are held on stalks (called a stipe). To me, these are the most impressive mushrooms. The underside of the cap (called a pileus) is sponge-like and filled with spores. What you see here is a sex organ. The fungus is not this alone, its threads run throughout this stick, and possibly into the ground on which we found it.

This is a good example of the spongey underbelly of a shelf mushroom. Shelf mushrooms (polypores) do not have a distinct stem. They are usually found on rotting logs.

This photo was taken without any effects or manipulation. These vibrantly coloured mushooms were on the moist underside of a thin, rotting log, and were definitely the most impressive ones we came across on our 11-hour hike.

Polypores can resist rot fairly well, to the point where they get to be so old that moss begins to grow on them.

These mushrooms looked a lot like cocoons, anchored sideways to a log by a slender connection, and protruding into the air, for a gust to come and carry their spores.

Many logs we saw on our hike looked a lot like this; polypores growing out of their cut ends.

We were particularly amazed with how much this mushroom resembled a seashell. It's astounding how such similar shapes occur in completely different kingdoms.

Lastly, for good measure, these are some of the mushrooms of which we saw the most. They may not be as extravagant as other ones I just talked about, but they were pretty interesting nonetheless!

I hope you enjoyed the last post about the 11-hour hike, and I'm planning to go hiking this coming Saturday... so hopefully I'll be posting again soon! :)

I guess I'm just a fungi. :P

(I'm sorry, I had to. Maybe you'll learn to forgive me in time.)

Jack-in-the-pulpit

2009-05-11T23:18:00.006-04:00

Even if Jonathan and I hadn't seen anything else on the 11-hour hike, it would be worth it to have gone just for the incredible Jack-in-the-pulpit plants we saw (Arisaema triphyllum).

And, of course, all the conversation :)

In any case, we did see a lot of cool things, but the one that I enjoyed the most was Jackie!

This is the first you'll see of Jackie, the protagonist of this blog post. At the beginning of May, he sends up inconspicuous shoots, which will unfold into something beautiful if you're willing to come back. If you're impatient, search harder. There might be other Jackies around!

What do you know? A young, colourless Jackie. Grow, Jackie, grow. And, as Eugene Hutz would say, start wearing purple for me now.

Now we're starting to see some amazing colour. The way the sun shines through the plants' veins is unbelievable. There are names for the "Jack" and "Pulpit". The spathe is the leaf around and over the spadix, which is the unmistakable fleshy spike.

Here's a photo of Jonathan lifting the spathe to expose the spadix... naughty naughty! What's worse: The spadix isn't even mature! Jonathan, you pervert. Although I guess I took the photo... Does this make us pedophytomacropornographers? If it does, we should get some awesome shirts made.

Some spadices (yes, this is the plural of spadix) are much darker in colour. This is typical of the older Jackies. When Jackie is old enough, unisexual flowers will begin to grow at the base of the spadix. Only insects brave enough to venture all the way inside will be able to get at the goodies.

I'm getting into the convoluted habit of putting the first photo in a series as the last photo in a blog post. This is, to be honest, the first photo we took of Jackie. Jonathan had the amazing idea of venturing into a marsh-like part of the trail to see if we could come across some plants that could not be found elsewhere. That's when he caught my attention and said "Hey, look at that plant!" It was the first Jackie I had ever seen, and the most perfect one of the whole trip. We came across many other ones that day, but none compared in shape, colour or size to the first one.

This plant does have some edible / medicinal uses, but they require knowledge on how to dry / prepare the plant. Otherwise, the oxalic acid and asparagine might really mess you up! It's common for kids to eat these and get seriously poisoned, though, just because they're such attractive plants. But don't do it. Leave it for the kids. Hahaha, that's terrible.

But what you can do next time you go hiking in May (there's still time! :D), is keep an eye out for Jackie. It's a really interesting plant! Come June, I'm gonna see if I can take some photos of the plant fruiting. I'll keep on posting, and keep you posted!

Thanks for always reading,

-- Ioni