📜 EwA Week Highlights: Late Spring Plant Happenings

[Mike McGlathery]

EwA Highlights May 19, 2024 Hello everyone! Thanks for reading the May 19th edition of the EwA highlights. This week, we're following a few goings-on in the world of our local plants. 📸 One of my favorite native New England flowers is beginning to come into bloom: the pink lady’s slipper (Cypripedium acaule). Lisa spotted this one just emerging in the fells on Friday.  EwA iNaturalist Record (© lmdfells · Winchester, MA · May 17, 2024)  Now we move from a favorite flower to one of my least favorite, the extremely aggressive invasive garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata). EwA’s Invasive Flora Patrol has been active documenting and sometimes removing invasive plants such as this. It’s a critical time to remove garlic mustard right now, if it has flowered but not yet gone to seed. Once it has gone to seed, it’s too late to remove the plant. The action of removing it will help it to distribute those seeds! You can read more about appropriate removal of garlic mustard here.  EwA Invasive Flora Patrol Record (© dan_1 · Medford, MA · May 17, 2024)  EwA’s most-observed species this week was beech leaf disease (Litylenchus crenatae), a tree disease that has been quickly spreading through our forests. It is believed to be caused by a species of nematode, and it eventually kills the trees it infects. You can spot it by the kind of discoloration and shriveling of leaves that you see in Claire's photo here. EwA iNaturalist Record (© Claire O'Neill · Stoneham, MA · May 15, 2024)  📊 Thanks to everyone for your great biodiversity records this past week, totaling 996 observations of 439 distinct species. If you’re curious about the records from this week that have been validated by the iNat community so far, you can find them » here. 🏆 Running tally: To date, we have recorded 190,265 observations of 10,911 distinct species! Check out our EwA umbrella project, see the details per site/observer, and more » here. 📅 EwA Upcoming Public Events Ewa Field Events » Check the EwA Spring [ Event details and registration » ] Don’t miss some great opportunities to follow the rhythm of the season in our local habitats and in the local wildlife! Space is limited for all our field events. Wildlife ethics is important to us and we seek to avoid putting the pressure on natural habitats which large gatherings unavoidably do. We are asking our audience to register-and-commit (or cancel when you know you can’t come) to avoid no-shows. EwA Fieldwork (and Resources) It’s a great time to join our monitoring programs. Check EwA’s Volunteer Program Calendar 📅  to know when things happen. And if a session is of interest to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to get the rendezvous location. 📅 EwA Sites Map | 🌱 Site Protocols and Guides · Field Rosters · Field Notes » All here! | ℹ️ More about EwA’s Citizen Science Program » Here ❓ Do you have any questions? Don’t be shy. Just email me or reply to this thread.  That’s all for this week—hope you have a good one! -Mike