Three Phyla Under One Plank

The odd title of this post was inspired by that of a book penned by my late cousin, Ray Tripp, Jr., titled "Two Fish on One Hook." Ray's book was an exploration of Thoreau's "Walden," and the association seems fitting because this blog is about natural history.
I saw two short planks more or less welded to the ground in a particularly unkempt part of my yard. Camera in hand, I decided to flip over one of the planks, a habit I've had ever since pre-school days. The photos above attest to my findings: a slug, Phylum Mollusca, an earthworm, Phylum Annelida, a pill bug and a beetle, both in Phylum Arthropoda, were the most obvious inhabitants. Then I cruised around my yard a bit, paying particular attention to plants that would likely have been eliminated if I did a better job of keeping up the yard. First, the early leaves of Bindweed, known by those of us who find it attractive as Orchard Morning Glory. The early leaves are nondescript and nestled adjacent to the overgrown lawn. They don't usually get anyone's attention until they bloom. I eagerly await the blooming and will make a point of not including them in my mowing - if I get around to mowing.

Then, I moved on to a very robust dandelion growing in a warm corner of the foundation of my garage. Nearby was the young body of one of my favorite wildflowers, looking here like an odd bunch of grass. It's Yellow Salsify, AKA Goatsbeard, and soon it will sport beautiful, yellow, daisy-like flowers.

Next stop was a bunch of tulips whose bulbs had been discarded on top of a burn pile. I guess they were determined not to be discarded. The last photo is of the area by our deck from which my wife and a friend thought they had eliminated all the tulip bulbs to make way for some new shrubs. The incredible comeback of these tulips challenges one's definition of "weed."

When I was in elementary school, I always delighted in visiting cousin Ray's yard. He lived a half hour away, and his dad was on medical disability from exposure to mustard gas during WWI. The exposure resulted in a kind of sleeping sickness, so he could not hold down ordinary jobs that required paying attention for more than a few minutes at a time. As a result, with time on his hands, he became an incredible, self-taught naturalist and passed his knowledge and attitudes about nature on to his kids. Ray Jr. in particular parleyed his youthful knowledge into earning a biology degree at University of Massachusetts in just two years. Being a true Renaissance man, he then shifted his interests to literature and became an expert on Chaucer, among others. He ended up with a PhD in literature and a career as an English professor. If I have absorbed even a fragment of Ray Sr's and Ray Jr's natural history knowledge and writing ability, I am giving thanks to them via this post.