By Kathryn Wrigley Colors burst forth from the trees. It is fall. Or so my Instagram feed, chocked full of apple cider donuts and flaming red trees, portends. I am soaking in the beige and pale yellow of my desk in the University of Vermont’s Aiken building. The first-year Field Naturalists appear sporadically to study,… Continue reading Inside Studying the Outside
By Emma Stuhl An insect death trap resides in our local wetlands. It’s a grisly tale of plant versus animal, with an unusual twist. Using a modified leaf to create a snare, the Northern Pitcher Plant is one of Vermont’s most unusual and sinister herbs. Pitcher plants live in wetlands where the peat soil is… Continue reading A Deadly Drink
By Maddy Morgan I was afraid that this year, like so many others, I would lose track of time. I was afraid I’d spend all of the fall foliage season behind a computer or buried in a book. I was afraid that in grad school I would have too much homework to do to be… Continue reading Making Time for the Leaves
By Kat Deely As the maples put on the fireworks above, witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) buds are ready to pop open their spindly, yellow flowers. Given a basic understanding of seasonal growth, it is curious that this plant is flowering in the fall. Is this some invasive plant, out of sync with this ecosystem? Witch-hazel is where it… Continue reading Seeking The Witches
By Ben Lemmond “Be not concerned,” Dr. Cathy Paris advises us, in a soft, lilting voice that could outsparkle Glinda the Good Witch: the twenty-page packet on graminoids that she’s just handed us is “mostly diagrams.” In it we see the somewhat archaically-classified “tribes” of grasses. One can imagine them roving across the land in waves,… Continue reading Graphite Terrarium
fnepalumni.com 