Today offered me yet another in a string of cold mornings, and coming home from errands I stopped at Piney Woods Church Road, my camera with plus ten macro in hand. I explored worlds contained in leaves, mosses, and bark from a long-dead pine tree. My choice from the day’s ramblings is this image of the leaflets of a Christmas fern, verdant green in a stark brown and gray Georgia winter landscape.
I raced and approaching front (with its impending clouds, colder temperatures, and strong winds), getting out to Piney Woods Church Road while the skies were still clear. Morning sunshine offered marvelous backlighting for macro photographs of oak leaves, mosses and fern fronds. The veins on this water oak leaf (Quecus nigra) form a kind of botanical map, reminiscent of medieval strip maps showing paths of pilgrimage (you can view an example of one here). What kind of journey does this leaf offer us? What holy lands does it reveal?
I have wandered by this wild winter grass — still clutching much of its seed — for sixteen days now, and I have even photographed it on several occasions. Today, I finally add it to the Piney Woods Church Project image collection. While I had long appreciated its beautiful seed heads in the late afternoon light, I had never stopped to wonder what it is called, and whether it is invasive or wild. After some online research, I discovered that it is called wood oats, along with a host of other common names, such as Indian wild oats, Northern sea oats, and river oats. To avoid confusion, I suppose I ought to call it by its scientific name of Chasmanthium latifolium instead, but this translates into the rather non-poetic “gaping flower fat leaf.” The grass is native to damp wooded places in the southeastern United States. It reseeds itself quite readily, and manages to grow practically anywhere, including along this roadside in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia.
