A New Hampshire Interlude

Back in August I went back to visit friends and family. My mom and I spent some time in a couple of nature preserves, one I’ve been to before and love – Bradford Bog & Cedar Swamp and a new to me preserve that has recently come to my attention – The Florence M. Tarr Nature Sanctuary. Both are lovely in their own ways.

Let’s start in Bradford. It hasn’t really changed and the light was harsh, but we loved it. It was mom’s first time, but my third. I processed some boardwalk shots very differently to convey the changing light and feeling. Most of the time I process photos to match what I saw, not taking any artistic license, but this time I did. A little.

This time it was a little greener and the flowers were gone by. But there were plenty of mushrooms as usual!

This first one is a good example of the constantly changing mushroom taxonomy and has been named Inocephalus quadratus, entoloma quadratum, nolanea quadrata, entoloma salmoneum, nolanea salmonea. Phew.

That last one eludes me. Sometimes with 6 books and the internet, mushrooms can’t be positively IDed. I think it’s a russula or a lactarius, but I don’t know which. It took a few shots to get the light I really wanted and everything is handheld because I didn’t bring my tripod.

When you walk through the cedar swamp, you come to a textbook kettle bog featuring all the usual flora – tamarack pine, black spruce, bog laurel, rhodora, leather leaf and pitcher plant with plenty of peat moss. I love these places.

That was one outing. The other was to a new preserve in the Piscataquog Land Conservancy portfolio. It’s been funded out of a trust created by Florence M. Tarr and family. I can just imagine the greedy land developers gnashing their teeth in the throes of nightmare over 300 acres of prime Bedford real estate that they can’t get their hands on. I’m so glad and almost wish I still lived there so I could explore it more. Here we go!

OMG the laurel!! I miss it so much and this place is loaded with it. It hasn’t been logged in a while so the mushroom species is huge and the specimens of each of those species are numerous as well. I love old(er) growth forests for just this reason.

These first two are probably amanita jacksonii or caesarea. See what I mean about ID?

Here’s another reason I wish (a little) that I still lived nearby – the motherlode!!

Both of those are types of chanterelle – horn of plenty and black trumpet – and they are both choice edibles. There were dozens and dozens of both growing in the same area along side each other. Oh to find them here.

And this bolete is edible, too, but they’re a lot more work in terms of prep and there was just this one. Good for photos though!

It’s another good example of how fungi taxonomy is changing; formerly known as boletus bicolor, but renamed because an unrelated Italian mushroom already had that name.

So once again my camera was on the ground a lot of the time. I did go indoors sometimes though and here’s a shot of me at BVI having lunch with mom.

So that was it. A little time with my mom in my home state!