Category Archives: Plants and Plant Communities

L. A. Kenoyer on Saving Newton Woods

By rbrewer | Published: November 21, 2011

The essay that follows is a radio address by Leslie Alva Kenoyer, who served from 1922 to 1953 as Professor and Chairman of the Biology Department at Western Michigan University –at that time Western State Teachers College .  The piece is dated April 16, 1935.  It was written for Western’s Radio Hour, which was evidently a continuing feature [...]

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Ozone, Obama, and the Deregulation Doo Dah Parade

By rbrewer | Published: October 30, 2011

[This post appeared in briefer form as a Letter to the Editor of the Kalamazoo Gazette 12 September 2011.] President Obama made two serious mistakes early this fall. First, he told the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw new, stronger, standards for ozone levels in the lower atmosphere that were intended to replace the standards held over from [...]

Also posted in Conservation, Michigan (including Kalamazoo) | 2 Comments

Find the three birds orchid in Michigan beech-maple forest, please

By rbrewer | Published: August 29, 2011

Today is a good time to take a walk in the forest, but then any time is.  It’s a really good time for a walk in the beech-maple forest, because a very rare orchid blooms this time of year. The orchid is three birds orchid (Triphora trianthophora).  It’s known from Kalamazoo County and in fact [...]

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What will happen to the sand dunes at Saugatuck?

By rbrewer | Published: August 9, 2011

At a time in southwest Michigan when protecting all our remaining natural lands and waters would make sense for human health and economic viability, threats continue. This morning I received the message copied in boldface below from the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance.  It is their updated look at the controversy involving the Lake Michigan sand dunes and [...]

Also posted in Birds, Conservation, Land Trusts (& other private land conservation), Michigan (including Kalamazoo) | 1 Comment

Quote 3, John Eastman on Wetlands as Wilderness

By rbrewer | Published: July 18, 2011

And the fount of biodiversity is wilderness.  Today, American forest wilderness exists, when at all, in patches, “museum cases” of public lands, which give only pallid ideas of the large biodiversity our ancestors blithely relinquished. Wetland wilderness, however has not fallen quite so far…. Although many surviving wetlands have indeed suffered irreversible changes… it is [...]

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Hazelnut, Fire, Oak Openings, Nostalgia

By rbrewer | Published: June 21, 2011

Early this April, I saw a tall skinny shrub without leaves but with catkins.  It reminded me that early last fall I had come across a clump of similar skinny trunks that bore pointed, toothed leaves.  The leaves were more or less like leaves of several groups of woody plants–birches, elms, hornbeams, and conceivably a [...]

Also posted in Conservation, Michigan (including Kalamazoo), Southern Illinois Ecology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Zombie Seed Production by Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata)

By rbrewer | Published: June 16, 2011

I need to give the results of the small trial mentioned a month ago, when I put out eight garlic mustard plants (four small and four large) that we had pulled up early in the spring on 23 April at the Audubon Society’s Harris Sanctuary. I spread them out on the floor of an oak [...]

Also posted in Conservation, Land Trusts (& other private land conservation), Michigan (including Kalamazoo) | 1 Comment

Quote 2, Henry David Thoreau on Preserving Land

By rbrewer | Published: May 6, 2011

  Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation. We hear of cow-commons and ministerial lots, but we want men-commons and lay lots, inalienable forever….   All Walden [...]

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Early Spring at Mildred Harris Audubon Sanctuary, Kalamazoo

By rbrewer | Published: April 9, 2011

In Oshtemo Township, it’s 64 degrees and sunny this afternoon and the wood frogs in the pond close to the road were clacking loudly.  This morning though, a few miles away at Harris Sanctuary, it was high 30s at the beginning and high 40s at the end. I spent the early part of the morning [...]

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Stewardship Work Days at Aububon’s Harris Preserve Sat 9 April AM and Tues 12 April early PM

By rbrewer | Published: April 8, 2011

Saturday 9 April 2011 is the first Harris Sanctuary (Audubon Society of Kalamazoo) stewardship day, or to be blunt, first work day.  Hours are 9-11 AM. The second work day is Tuesday, April 12, hours 5:30-7:30 PM. Anyone who has an interest in the sanctuary and its management is invited to join in the effort [...]

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