Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Chimaphila maculata colonies and strange game's end box


Nate, Neal, Alice, and I did some more peripheral reclamation (I'm going to stay with this euphemism, it's explanatory and implies neither culpability nor previous neglect) and while we mostly encountered Asian Viburnums, Mulberries, and three truckloads of Greenbrier (Smiliax), we also found a few small interesting things.

Apparently there was some sort of contest, rally, game? a few weeks back with clues, riddles, etc, the obect of which was to end up on the top of Hickey Hill. I remember seeing one group of people being photographed and heard some nebulous rumors. Well today Alice found a waterproof box that contained a pad and pencil to be used by the successful to record their presence. It seems only only four groups made it. Apparently it is traditional to leave a small gift/prize for whomever arrives after you. We found a Teddy Bear stamp??!! After examining the contents of the box we replaced it though I don't expect there will be any more finishers.

We found a number of colonies, including hundreds of individual plants, of Chimzphila maculata, Pipsissewa, a lovely little evergreen native in the Pyrolaceae (subsumed in current taxonomy, into the Ericacee). They are charming little plants, and I agree with Michael that they would be excellent subects for Young to include in her Kusamono.

2 comments:

Amy said...

was it a geocaching thing? Found one of those in Asian once, below the woodland. I left it alone...

ChrisU said...

You know what, I bet it was. We didn't leave it alone, but we put it back just as it was. We were curious!