All the pictures in the slideshow were taken in the Springfield Missouri area: my home, the Missouri State campus, Lake Springfield, Busiek State Forest…the majority were during Missouri Master Naturalist or Identifying Wood Plants class field trips! October was a great month for being outdoors. Enjoy the slideshow of zoomed images!
Last week the Identifying Woody Plants class walked to Phelps Grove Park to add more trees to our list. I used my point-and-shoot (Canon Powershot SX730 HS) to capture some features of the additional trees (plus some trees already on our list). The temperaature was in the 70s…perfect for the hike…but the leaves are beginning to fall on many of the trees. Identification will get harder.
Serviceberry – Amelanchier arborea – Rosaceae: stripped bark, multiple trunks, small trees, two toned pointy buds, leaves simple and alternate
Crabapple – Malus – Rosaceae: pome without grit, twigs hairy, leaves (lobed, simple, entire)
Hawthorne – Crataegus – Rosaceae: thorns, pome, leaves round, bark pealing and patchy, the one we saw was infested with apple cedar rust (i.e. not a healthy tree)
Fig (just for interest…not added to list)
Flowering dogwood (not new) – Cornus florida - Cornaceae
White oak – Quercus alba – Fagaceae: leaves (rounded lobes, smooth, lighter underneath), acorns dark with bumpy cups and often sprout in fall
Hemlock (not new) – Tsuga canadensis - Pinaceae
Black cherry – Prunus serotina – Rosaceae: observed bark…branches too high to see more
Osage orange – Maclura pomifera – Moraceae: bark shaggy and orange in parts, leaves (tapering tip, entire, alternate, simple, size varies), the one we saw was male so no fruit
Red mulberry - Morus rubra – Moraceae: milky sap, leaves (toothed, shiny, falling)
Shortleaf pine (note new) – Pinus echinate – Pinaceae
Hackberry – Celtis occidentalis – Cannabaceae: drupe that can taste like a dry raisin, leaves (3 veins, asymmetric, rough), the one we saw had galls, bark rough and gray, large tree
Shingle oak – Quercus imbricaria – Fagaceae: acorn small, leaves (no lobes, long and narrow, soft hair underneath), multiple buds at tend of twigs, bark grayish
Previous posts about my experiences in the Identifying Woody Plants class at Missouri State University
Lots of photography done since my last Zooming post. There was travel to Arkansas and Texas…and then the classes (Missouri Master Naturalist and Identifying Woody Plants at a local university). I’ve used all three of my cameras this month: Canon Powershot SX70 HS (bridge), Canon Powershot SX730 HS (point and shot) and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
September has been a busy month, and I am still trying to settle into the higher level of activity away from home! Enjoy the slide show for September 2024….
The Identifying Woody Plants field class I am taking at Missouri State University has met 5 times. There have been two off-campus field trips that I’ve posted about previously: Springfield Botanical Gardens and Lovett Pinetum. The other sessions have included walks around the MSU campus identifying trees. Just as in the off-campus field trips, I’ve tried to get good pictures of the trees so that I can include them in my PowerPoint based ‘flashcards’ to help me learn all the woody plants presented in the class (even though I am not taking the class for credit).
In the first class, I tried using my cell phone…juggling it with my small notebook for note taking. It did not work so well; I only got reasonable pictures for three of the trees we encountered.
Black gum – Nyssaceae – Nyssa sylvatica
Buckeye – Sapindaceae – Aesculus
For the next campus walk – I used my small point-and-shoot camera and managed more pictures. I had front pockets for both the small notebook and the camera. It was a very hot/sunny day; I wore my fingerless gloves to keep my small notebook dry. I did not feel well during the later parts of the walk even though I was drinking plenty of water.
American Sycamore – Platanaceae – Platanus occidentalis
Yew – Taxaceae - Taxus
Flowering dogwood – Cornaceae – Cornus florida
Bald cypress – Cupressaceae – Taxodium distichum
Shortleaf pine – Pinaceae – Pinus echinata
American basswood – Malvaceae – Tilia americana
The third walk around campus was easier; I had my system for juggling the notebook and camera…and it wasn’t quite as hot. I also wore my hiking boots, so my feet did not hurt like they did on one previous campus walk. I am still not managing to photograph everything during the walk; for the ones I miss (i.e. not listed in this post) I glean photos from the class charts and/or web searches to populate my study Powerpoint.
Red Maple – Sapindaceae – Acer rubrum
Burning bush – Celastraceae – Euonymous alatus
Northern red oak – Fagaceae – Quercus rubra
Northern catalpa – Bignoniaceae – Catalpa speciosa
Yellow poplar – Magnoliaceae – Liriodendron tulipifera
True cedar – Pinaceae - Cedrus
Siberian elm – Ulmaceae – Ulmus pumila
Sweet gum – Altingaceae – Liquidambar styraciflua
Pin oak – Fagaceae – Quercus palustris
Honeylocust – Fabaceae – Gleditsia triacanthos
There is some memorization involved…but I am beginning to find that I remember the scientific names as well as the common names as I continue to study…adding new woody plants to the list each week. The class is living up to my expectations in helping me expand my identification skill of woody plants of Missouri.
Previous posts about my experiences in the Identifying Woody Plants class at Missouri State University
The field class I am taking at Missouri State University made a trip to the Springfield Botanical Gardens in late August – on a sunny day when the temperature was in the high 90s and the humidity was high too. We tried to stop in shady spots and didn’t walk all that far. There were no misshapes but everyone was glad that the field trip did not last as long as it could have.
I opted to wear my photovest so that I could put my water bottle in the back pocket; my field notebook and pencil was in the front pocket and I had my small point and shoot (Canon Powershot SX730 HS) on my sling strap. It worked well to write notes and take pictures. The point and shoot worked better for me than my phone which I used in the previous class during a field walk around the campus because the camera is easier to hold steady and has better optics for zooming into the parts of trees.
Here are some of the trees we stopped to talk about:
Norway Spruce - Picea abies – Pinaceae: with its large cones that have visible resin and dangling branches
Eastern Hemlock – Tsuga canadensis – Pinaceae: with green and brown cones and flat needles
American Elm – Ulmus americana – Ulmaceae: with its doubly serrated leaves and vase shape
Blue Spruce – Picea pungens – Pinaceae: with its glaucus needles, papery cones, and pegs where needles used to be
Flowering Dogwood – Cornus florida – Cornaceae: with its bark like alligator skin and red drupes
There was an old Bradford Pear which we stopped to look at…and talk about the invasive aspect of this tree that was highly recommended for planting not that long ago. (Bradford/Callery Pear – Pyrus calleryana – Rosaceae)
Yellow/Tulip poplar – Liriodendron tulipfera – Magnoliaceae: with braided bark…I didn’t take a picture since this a very familiar tree for me!
Silver Maple – Acer saccharinum – Sapindaceae: with heavily indented 5-lobed leaves with the silver underside
I couldn’t resist taking at least one flower picture while we were at the garden!
Kittens – holiday lights – plants in winter – a great blue heron….pictures made possible by the Zooming capabilities of my three cameras: phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e), small point and shoot (Cannon PowerShot SX730 HS), and bridge (Canon PowerShot SX70 HS). The one I have with me all the time is the phone; the point and shoot fits in a coat pocket so it is easy to take along, the bridge camera I need for the optics (i.e. the greatest optical zoom of my cameras). Enjoy the December zoomed images!
My husband and I set up a vase of flowers with lights and cameras on our kitchen island for some photography experiments. It was a good winter-time activity for us.
My first experiment was with my Canon SX 730 HS in macro (flower symbol) mode. I tried handheld at first…but the tripod made for the better pictures. The shallow depth of field is always a challenge.
Next I put a petal on a clip in front of the light source and used my 15x macro clip-on macro lens with my Samsung phone. Both of the pictures below were taken with the light shining through the petal.
A day or so later I realized that it would be handy to have a light source that I could easily take into the field for macro shots of things like macroinvertebrates. The solution I came up with was my iPad.
I simply turn the screen to its brightest…bring up something that is a white screen…and put the specimen on top of the iPad. Then I can use my phone’s camera with a clip-on macro lens or
Rest the phone on a jeweler’s loupe (the one I have is 22x magnification).
For macroinvertebrates that are in some drops of water, I could protect the iPad by covering it with a clear plastic bag. Depth of field is still a big issue; the specimens that will look the best are ones that are flatter and not too opaque.
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