Shaky Shaky Seeds

Walking from our house into the village of Cold Spring gives Kai and I lots of opportunities to see odd things. For about a month there was a dead squirrel to the side of the pavement that brought us to a stop each time.  This particular dead squirrel was noteworthy because the animal that had been eating it had peeled its fur back in a way reminiscent of how children pull socks off their feet from the top down, turning them inside out in the process. In my experience, children are almost always more curious than disturbed by their encounters with nature's more gruesome aspects. Kai insisted a monster got the squirrel - it was during the weeks leading up to Halloween. I told him it was probably a hawk, he disagreed, and we left it at that. On our next walk he pointed and said "The hawk ate the squirrel." Lesson to me: present the facts and let other people make up their own minds, in their own time. Thank you for teaching that to me 39 years on, Kai.

Honey Locust pod by Andrew Dunn

Another regular sight on our walks this autumn and winter have been what we've named the Shaky Shaky Seeds. Unlike the walnuts along our walk that squirrels hid and ate almost as quick as they fell, and unlike the maple helicopter seeds which have all blown away, the Shaky Shaky Seeds have been sitting unwanted under their mother trees for months. Good for us! Each time we walk by, Kai gets to pick up a ready made instrument: the seeds rattle loudly in the pod when shaken, hence the name. We are carrying on a tradition of our species that has been taking place since there have been children. Wherever and whenever there are seed pods, people use them to make music. On a recent vacation to the Caribbean we saw brightly painted pods from the Poinciana tree that were being sold as musical souvenirs.

The Shaky Shaky Seeds are the pods of Honey Locusts (Gleditsia triacanthos) and it is when you see hundreds of these orphaned pods that you realize how out of place they are in our urban and suburban plantings. Like the Ginkgo and the London Plane (whose leaf is the logo for the NYC Parks Department), the Honey Locust is a tree from outside of our region but that was chosen by city and town planners for its hardiness and resistance to pollution. Our Honey Locusts were taken from river valleys in the middle of our continent and brought to our little village where their seeds and pods are ignored by squirrels and other wildlife. In their natural setting, the sweet Honey Locust pods would be grazed upon by cattle and horse, or prior to their arrival on this continent, by various, large and now-extinct mammals. The animals would enjoy the pulp and pass on surviving seeds in their droppings. Our local trees' pods will remain on the ground among the grasses until lawn mowers sputter to life in a few months, and then they will be chopped to pieces. Except for the few that Kai and other children will save, shake, and scatter.

Inky Cap Art

Coprinus comatus (aka. Inky caps). Pic by nejmlez (Wikimedia)

After a tasty Thanksgiving dinner with the extended family at my mother's house, Kai and I came across a pair of sorry-looking Inky Cap mushrooms growing from the soil at the edge of the driveway. Inky Caps are amazing mushrooms. They are large (the particular ones we found were about 7 inches long), distinctive (they look like British lawyer's wigs - which is also one of the common names for them), and have the strange habit of turning from firm, white flesh to thick, black liquid overnight. When young, they are edible. When old, like the ones that Kai and I had found, they can be used as a natural ink.

Just a few hours earlier, my wife, Mary, and mother, Bonnie, had suggested I begin writing a blog. It seemed as if I'd have a lot of time on my hands since I'd been given the news a week earlier that the Cranberry Lake Preserve nature center where I work was scheduled for permanent closure at the end of the year. So the find of these particular mushrooms and the fun that Kai and I had with them became the final push for beginning this project, as well as the inspiration for the name of the blog and its first entry.

Kai fingerpainting with liquified Inky Caps

Since these Inky Caps were clearly not suitable for the cooking pot, we did the next best thing. I plucked the caps with their gills well on the way to turning into black liquid, flipped them over to make ink pots, and grabbed some paper from the car. If mom had some Paper Birch growing in the yard we could have made it an all-gathered activity. With a little encouragement, Kai poked his little fingers into the cold, wet glop and began to draw a black sun.

Kai learned the name of the mushroom, how to recognize it, and had a good time. I learned too, but it wasn't so immediate. "Why does the mushroom turn to liquid?" is what I had wondered for a long time. It had to do something with spore dispersal, but there was no obvious answer. If the spores were part of the inky fluid, they had no place to go but back to the soil below which was already inhabited by the Inky's mycelium ('fungal roots' - not a very accurate description, but that's a lesson and blog post for when Kai is older). That would be as senseless as for all of a tree's seeds to land and remain on the ground below, where they would germinate but be quickly outcompeted for light and nutrients by their mother. Apparently, there is something else going on: the spores mature from bottom up and, to facilitate escape, the portion of the gill just below the mature spores liquifies and falls away. The spores are discharged into the air and not as part of the liquid. For more on this check out the description on http://www.anbg.gov.au/fungi/spore-discharge-mushrooms.html.

The Importance of Nature Education

Until the age of 30, I couldn't tell a beech from a birch or a tiger beetle from a dung beetle.

Bold Jumping Spider by astrojunta. Pic from wikimedia.

Why is that important? "Losing their names is a step in losing respect. Knowing their names is the first step in regaining our connection," says Robin Kimmerer in her book Gathering Moss. And it is true. Imagine this sequence of events: child sees bug, shrieks, stomps bug. Now compare it with this: child sees a Bold Jumping Spider, crouches down, watches as it stalks its prey. Learning a mushroom's name (or a bird's or a flower's) is like making a friend - it sets that species apart from what can be an overwhelming blur of feathers, leaves, and fur. It is also the first step towards a true conservation ethic. How can this be? Just remember your last drive on I-684 or your last visit to the comments area of a newspaper's website: people tend to be much crueler and more inconsiderate if they are dealing with anonymous strangers. Likewise, it is much easier, psychologically, to bulldoze a stand of nameless trees than a grove of Flowering Dogwoods, maples, mayflowers, and morels. 


Knowledge leads to respect, which leads to conservation. Unfortunately that chain's weak link is right at the base. Most people can't identify a bird unless it is on a baseball cap or football helmet. All evergreens are pine trees, right? And it is not their fault - schools don't teach natural histories, including universities that issue degrees in biology. Parents often don't have this knowledge to pass on either since there was no one to impart it to them. Those that do have the knowledge are often in clubs like COMA or Audubon, although members often don't have the time or teaching skills to educate large groups of children or adults. Well-meaning television shows and books often educate about rainforests and endangered species, but that knowledge is not as immediate or relevant as a guided walk through our local woods. Which leads to the importance of local nature centers where trained staff can impart both love and knowledge of the natural world to the public. As an employee of one such place, I have seen first-hand how contagious both wonder and enthusiasm can be. I have been a spokesperson for slime molds, a peddler of puffballs, an evangelist for elms, and a pusher of poplars. During the recent budget proposal to close nature centers I saw some of the same children I had taught, write letters and speak out passionately at public meetings to support the parks that they had grown to love. And it worked. They have preserved some of our preserves for another year. Knowledge led to respect, led to conservation.


To save the environment, teach children to love it. If you can, go for a walk with your grandchildren and share your own personal experiences and knowledge of the outdoors. Encourage local schools to use their grounds as living classrooms. Support your local nature center by joining a Friends group. Tell local leaders to invest in the environment by investing in its educators. Tell large environmental groups that the best way to gain new members is not to send out free giftwrap or calendars, but to support local nature centers that are grooming future members with each guided walk in search of dragonflies, polypores, and orchids. Each introduction of frog or mushroom or turtle that an environmental educator makes to a child, could be the start of a beautiful friendship.