Dewdrop Drops In

Yesterday I had an errand to run during lunch, and I did not take the direct route back to the office. I wanted to check in on this guy.

Strawberry tomato (Physalis pruinosa)

This is the same plant I found back in December. I picked one then so I could let it ripen, but all I could get it to do was mold. 😦 You’re not supposed to eat them until they ripen as they contain alkaloids (which are toxic if ingested). Ripening eliminates the alkaloids, but alas! Mine molded and ripened at the same time, so I still don’t know if these are any good. I may never find out.

Closer to the office there is a little street corner park (complete with benches). There is a bush growing in there that has the strangest fruits. I had no idea what sort of bush it was until I saw it today in flower.

Dogwood (Cornus)

Dogwood! I don’t know what kind of dogwood, but it certainly is some sort. Here’s a closeup of the petals (those white things are bracts, not petals).

Otherworldly dogwood bits

The fruit looks a lot like this. Sort of an extraterrestrial basketball or something.

Today when I got home, I stepped into my woods and found one (and only one!) of these:

Dewdrop (Dalibarda repens)

This is the flower that taught me to use a camera. A few years ago I was trying to get a decent shot of this one, but having no luck. I learned the following:

• Press the macro button for flowers. There’s a reason its icon is a flower.
• Don’t use flash.
• Do use a tripod
• Use a long shutter time.
• Max out the F-stop for more depth of field
• Set the ISO as low as it goes
• Make the shutter delay a couple seconds after pressing the button so the camera has a chance to stop shaking from the button press.

My camera simply cannot get this flower (or many others) in the Auto mode. Especially not a white flower in the dark woods. Nope. The earliest I have ever seen this one in bloom is June 23, so it’s ten days earlier than ever this year (according to my records).

After I took several shots of this one today, I went looking in all the other places in my woods where I have seen it growing. None of the other stands had any flowers. This stand might have another tomorrow.

These flowers are infertile. The fertile ones are inconspicuous and stay beneath the leaves. I may have seen a fertile one last year, but I could not be certain. I can’t find any photos of the fertile flowers online or in any of my books.

My tripod mount is still in deplorable shape, but I used the tripod anyway. I have to hold the camera on, and it’s not good to be touching it during a long exposure. But it’s still better than a handheld shot.

While I was in the balance-the-camera-on-the-tripod mode, I took a few shots of the partridge berry. More of them are in bloom today than yesterday.

Partridge berry (Mitchella repens)

Not too shabby. Note how the two blossoms are joined at their base. They will fuse together and turn into a berry with two eyes later on. Check it out.

Partridge berry berry (Mitchella repens)

I took that one today. See the two eyes? Some people call these snake eyes. The berries persist through the winter, and won’t come off the plant until it flowers again. And since they are edible (and I really like them), they can provide a source of fresh berries almost year-round. Thy only time you can’t get them is between the flowering and the ripening. And as this photo shows, you can even get them for a little while at least after they have flowered.

They remind me a bit of apples. They are not too sweet, but just sweet enough. And those two flowers and two eyes? They make two seeds.

 

Strawberry Tomato

On Tuesday, I set out for another lunchtime walk. While I was out, I checked on the forsythia that I had seen in bloom a little while ago. It was still going (though not going strong).

Forsythia

I continued another 200 yards or so to where I had found the strawberry tomato (Physalis pruinosa) a little while ago too. When I saw it before, none of the fruits were ripe, but some were quite overripe, shriveled, and moldy. I found the same thing on this walk.

Physalis pruinosa - unripe, still in the bladders.

Physalis pruinosa - overripe, shriveled, and moldy

Physalis pruinosa - still not quite ripe, but closer

According to Peterson, these are somewhat toxic when unripe, but very good when they ripen. Sometimes the lantern will fall off the plant while the fruit is still unripe, but the fruit will ripen inside.

I looked on the ground for some of those, and though I found a few, the fruits were of the shriveled, moldy variety. But if you can ripen a tomato on a windowsill, why not a strawberry tomato? Especially if it can ripen on the ground. I picked three promising looking, unripe fruits, stuffed them in my jacket pocket, and continued my walk.

I found some autumn olive berries still on the bush, but they were all shriveled and nasty looking. I sampled one anyhow and confirmed that its looks were consistent with its taste.

When I got back to the office, I placed the strawberry tomatoes on my desk. I peeled back the lanterns so I could keep a close eye on them. I don’t want them to shrivel and mold when I’m not looking. Wikipedia says they will keep for 30-45 days, so by the new year, I’ll either taste them or throw them out.

 

Two Surprises

I went for a walk yesterday during lunch. I was surprised twice. As I approached an intersection with a traffic signal, I noticed that there was someone waiting to cross the street – and that someone was smoking a cigarette. Ugh. Rather than standing on a street corner inhaling second-hand smoke, I took a detour. It shortened my walk by 200 yards or so, but that’s where the surprises came from.

This is the first surprise:

Forsythia

This is forsythia. It blooms profusely in the spring, and covers the plant with these yellow blossoms before the leaves appear. After a few weeks, the flowers fade and then fall off as the leaves come out. I have never known forsythia to bloom again in the fall, and I am almost positive that these flowers are newly formed, and not spring leftovers. They look too good for that!

The second surprise was a plant that was unknown to me. I don’t see those very often anymore, and this one was in bloom, making it a ton easier to identify.

Strawberry tomato (Physalis pruinosa)

This is strawberry tomato (Physalis pruinosa). This evening when I downloaded my photos from my camera, I decided to take a crack at identifying it. I could not find my Wildflowers field guide, so I reached for my Edible Wild Plants field guide instead. It was there, and it is edible (or will be soon – the unripe berries are poisonous).

Psych! Here are some more shots of this specimen:

Strawberry tomato (Physalis pruinosa)

Strawberry tomato (Physalis pruinosa)

The photo above shows the sheath which holds the fruit (yellow berries). The sheath is made from the flower’s sepals, and the berries usually don’t ripen until after the sheath holding them falls to the ground.

Strawberry tomato (Physalis pruinosa)

I cheated on this photo (above) by placing the blossom on a leaf so that the leaf would hold it in a position where I could aim the camera into the flower’s naughty bits.

Shame on me!