Back to Bloggin'

Must be time to start blogging about our homeschooling. Just feels right. Don't know how often I'll get to it, or how useful others (who stumble upon it) may find it. I hope it inspires ME. I'm not much into "musings" so I'll stick to facts. And lists. And pictures.



Today the kids went to a science class at Anita C. Leight Estuary center. They did Microscope Exploration and their instructor sent us some pictures of plankton that they looked at through the microscope. It's interesting because we had apparently looked at plankton a couple days earlier when we took samples of the tiny white specks that we saw darting about in the water from Conowingo vernal pools. We were wondering what those creatures were -- they must be plankton as well. We noticed two kinds, looking almost the same except for two clumps of eggs that one of them was carrying of either side of its tail. This is the one with the eggs.

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Today's trip to the Estuary Center followed our Sunday hike with the girls' cousin from Illinois. On Sunday I saw a lot of interesting plants, but the girls were busy just enjoying a good run and the company of their cousin.

Here are some of the things that captured my attention:

This is the flower of the Pawpaw tree.

(Plantae>Magnoliophyta>Magnoliopsida>

Magnoliales>Annonaceae>Asimina triloba (L.) Dunal)

Jusdging by the info I got from a brief google search, we'll be back there checking out this little pawpaw tree to see just how "malodorous" the crushed leaves are and to find some Zebra Swallowtail caterpillars who like to feast on them.

Right now it's attracting only two big fat ants.

We also learned that there is actually a white redbud -- a redbud tree with white blossoms. It is called Royal redbud, as opposed to the familiar pink kind, called Eastern redbud.

We saw a hummingbird, when it didn't even seem like there were any flowers for it to feed on. It was very heartwarming to see it -- summer must be closer than it seems.

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And here is the last two pictures for today. One is the puzzle and the other one is the answer.

This is a blossom from a tree that is rather common and is noticed a lot in the fall thanks to its seed pods. We got out our miscoscope and looked at the little balls that make up those bigger balls that you see attached to the stalks and found pollen on them. And just to prove that internet has EVERYTHING, here is what I learned about these flower clusters. What you see above is just a big bunch of stamens (male parts that produce pollen). They fall off after the pollen is passed on to the female parts -- pistils. The pistils collect the pollen and throughout the summer and fall develop into a fruit and a seed pod with tiny seeds in it. Of course, when we find the seed pods in the fall, there are hardly any seeds left in it. Apparently, little birds love them.

The seed pods look like brown balls in the fall. Even now they look like little balls with soft spikes on them.

When we pick them up from the ground in the fall, the spikes are hard and a little prikly (not too bad).

Through the spikes in the fall you can see small holes, and probably no seeds -- they would have fallen out and dispersed, or been eaten by birds.

This is what it looks like in April, with stamens and pistils all together on one branch.

The mystery is solved -- it is a sweetgum tree, with its flowering part that it is about to lose on the top (to the right of the branch) and the gum ball that will form and nuture the seeds at the bottom (to the left of the branch).