{"id":259,"date":"2006-06-17T22:42:58","date_gmt":"2006-06-18T02:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2006\/06\/17\/alewife-tick-patch\/"},"modified":"2006-07-02T20:36:46","modified_gmt":"2006-07-03T00:36:46","slug":"alewife-tick-patch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2006\/06\/17\/alewife-tick-patch\/","title":{"rendered":"Alewife Tick-Patch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I decided to identify all the woody shrubs, trees and vines between the nasty stream and the tick-grass.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>eastern cottonwood <em>(Populus deltoides)<\/em> (salicaceae)<\/li>\n<li>red-osier dogwood <em>(Cornus stolonifera)<\/em> (cornaceae)<\/li>\n<li>American elm <em>(Ulmus americana)<\/em> (ulmaceae) &#8211; these got as high as 30&#8242; or so.  Some looked pretty bedraggled, but some seemed reasonably healthy.<\/li>\n<li>silver maple <em>(Acer saccharinum)<\/em> (aceraceae)<\/li>\n<li>blackberry (<em>Rubus<\/em> sp.) (rosaceae)<\/li>\n<li>a hickory (<em>Carya<\/em> sp.) (juglandaceae) &#8211; I think this might have been shagbark, but it was growing in the understory &#8211; under one of the elms &#8211; and wasn&#8217;t big enough to tell by the bark.  So with the buds not yet developed, I couldn&#8217;t be sure.<\/li>\n<li>multiflora rose <em>(Rosa multiflora)<\/em> (rosaceae)<\/li>\n<li>ashleaf maple <em>(Acer negundo)<\/em> (aceraceae)<\/li>\n<li>fire cherry <em>(Prunus pennsylvanica)<\/em> (rosaceae)<\/li>\n<li>rugosa rose <em>(Rosa rugosa)<\/em> (rosaceae)<\/li>\n<li>Northern catalpa <em>(Catalpa bignoniodes)<\/em> (bignoniaceae) &#8211; nice big handsome flowers<\/li>\n<li>buttonbush <em>(Cephalanthus occidentalis)<\/em> (rubiaceae) &#8211; is the genus name supposed to suggest a head-shaped (i.e. spherical) flower?<\/li>\n<li>common buckthorn <em>(Rhamnus cathartica)<\/em> (rhamnaceae)<\/li>\n<li>green ash <em>(Fraxinus pennsylvanica)<\/em> (oleaceae) &#8211; olive family always seems weird to me, because I&#8217;ve never seen an olive plant (tree?)<\/li>\n<li>smooth alder <em>(Alnus serrulata)<\/em> (corylaceae) &#8211; Last year I thought this was a speckled alder.  It is reasonably speckled, but the cones were stiffly sticking out in all directions &#8211; not drooping.  Also, the buds, such as they were, were brown, not black.<\/li>\n<li>red maple <em>(Acer rubrum)<\/em> (aceraceae)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is, I&#8217;m happy to say, everything from a stretch of over 100 feet. I ended on a plant I could not recognize, because when I walked back to my backpack I noticed that ticks had penetrated my safety perimeter.  I didn&#8217;t freak out this time, but I did have to do a pretty thorough decontamination before I was comfortable putting my backpack back on.  The first little bastard climbed up onto my helmet, which was resting on my bike.  I suspect a strap may have been dangling into the grass.  The second just appeared on my wildflower guide.  I wonder if these are actually different kinds, or just different instars or whatever.  The first is what I&#8217;d call a &#8220;deer tick&#8221; and the second&#8217;s what I&#8217;d call a &#8220;dog tick&#8221;.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"other tick\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/desultor\/files\/2006\/06\/other%20tick.JPG\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"tick\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/desultor\/files\/2006\/06\/tick.JPG\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Popular non-woody plants growing in here included teasel, common milkweed, tansy, phragmytes, various grasses.  I saw my first yellow warbler.<\/p>\n<p>IMPORTANT UPDATE: I also heard a warbling vireo, I&#8217;m pretty sure.  And a knowledgeable friend tells me that both the ticks are dog ticks, <em>Dermacentor variabilis<\/em> &#8211; the first is female and the second male.  <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:Adult_deer_tick.jpg\">Deer ticks<\/a> also have a <s>bib<\/s> cape thingy, but it&#8217;s black and their bodies are red.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I decided to identify all the woody shrubs, trees and vines between the nasty stream and the tick-grass. eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) (salicaceae) red-osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) (cornaceae) American elm (Ulmus americana) (ulmaceae) &#8211; these got as high as 30&#8242; or so. Some looked pretty bedraggled, but some seemed reasonably healthy. silver maple (Acer saccharinum) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[407],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}