Woodland Plants near Blue Hole, Virginia

Two months ago, Catey and I were just finishing up a trip to Vermont, Virginia, and North Carolina, making stops along the way to visit special people and places. One of our adventures near Charlottesville was a hike with Rose to Blue Hole. Although we put our feet in the Moormans River, we did not swim at this well-known swimming spot. As Rose told us, there had been a renowned rope swing there until Summer 2012, when someone with a chainsaw, presumably worried about liability, took it upon themselves to cut the tree on which it hung. That story is here.

Those guys walked ahead and I stopped to find some old friends in the undergrowth -- woodland plants that I recognized from doing plant surveys in Illinois when I lived there.

I stopped to photo the heart-shaped, almost glisteny leaf of the wild ginger. I believe it has fine hairs on its surface to give it the texture it has. , which was lighted nicely, by the time I found it, by the tall forest above it.

The dappled appearance of a woodland floor in the summer can have a soothing effect on us. However, plants need light -- so leaves of woodland plants have to be ready to capture the few bursts of sunlight that filter through, even in the long days of summer. I don't know whether ginger or hepatica actually follow the sun as it moves throughout the sky, but they may. Plants do this, and it's called phototropism -- here's a link to a video showing it.

Asarum canadense (wild ginger), Shenandoah National Forest, August 2013.

Hepatica nobilis var. obtusa (liver leaf), Shenandoah National Forest, August 2013.

Orb in woods (I'll call it a Virginia Fly Trap), Shenandoah National Forest, August 2013.

Despite Shutdown, the Presidio Remains Open

I'm not usually news-y in my posts. I'm mainly just posting this for you, my friends and family who will probably hear it from me here before we have a chance to talk or text. 

Ugh...the Federal Government has shut down! Citizens are locked out of National Parks. As the article linked mentions, this is really bad news for tourism-related businesses near Yosemite already hugely affected by the finally contained Rim Fire.

GGNRA gate daisy chain, Marin, 2012.

The Presidio of San Francisco, where I work as a biotech, is largely unaffected by the shutdown: we are financially self-sustaining as of the current fiscal year. As such, the Presidio remains open despite the shutdown. 

However, the Volunteer Agreement under which our volunteers work is a National Park Service agreement -- when volunteers donate their services, they actually do the opposite of "waiving" their rights; they become protected under NPS' workers compensation insurance.

I'm selfishly hoping that as a result, I will have the opportunity to lead a few extra bird walks during our regularly scheduled program times for volunteers who still want to come enjoy the Presidio. Maybe my fellow biotechs will want to do plant walks too. My NPS colleagues will have to stay home...without pay, at least until the government kicks in again and they receive back-pay.