Winter Solstice

These pictures of moss from Mt View cedar glade,

moss dominates in its favorite season, winter,

which just started today, it loves winter because

sunlight can reach the forest floor around the 
gladesedges and along the gravel while
the plants and trees are sleeping
naked over the winter.

 

You can see where migrating birds have

eagerly picked this common glade moss

to bits looking for goodies underneath.

 

Some wild strawberries

waiting patiently for spring

a HUGE deerfoot lichen wakes

up breifly in the low solstice sun

 

Some moss on a log

 

another kind of moss nearby

 

and yet another,

youll see this one stuffed

in orchid pots at 

the market.

 

a most diminutive resurrection fern

growing in an assortment

of mosses and lichens

 

I have never seen one with such sparse 

growth and small leaves!

Could it be environmental?

 

one of the oldest cedars around is at 

the entrance to mt view cedar glade

 

as is this sign

 

These were all taken on Dec 21, 2009 

as the solstice sun was already 

beginning to set around 2 pm,

 it looks like later in the afternoon,

due to the southern sun of the northern winters.

Mt view glade is precariously sandwiched

between a development and a highway,

but manages to have one of the 

densest echinacea populations,

and a colony of coreopsis.

We'll come back here in the spring and take another look around,

Until then you guys, Happy Holidays!!!