Coffee, Korean Food and a Wedding Date

I recently had a chance to visit the Mandolin Cafe, a coffee shop/eatery, in Tacoma. I had been hearing about it quite a bit for the past year--how they had free internet access, good coffee and a nice decor. It was actually more than I expected. It occupies a large building which used to be an auto parts store I think, and the decor is delightfully funky. It's warm and friendly with a large number of places to sit. I really get irritated with places that don't have enough seats for their patrons. Their parking lot, however, is small and from what I hear it is sometimes hard to find a place. They have their own large coffee roaster and a large supply of coffee beans in several gunny sacks. Apparently they have music on every day but Monday. Nobody was playing when I was there in the morning, and there wasn't a time indicated. I also saw a wine bar which I assume opens later in the day.

Last Thursday I also met Jessica and her fiance at a Korean restaurant on South Tacoma Way in Tacoma. I don't know the name of the dish we ordered, but it consisted large amounts of raw beef, pork, chicken and bacon which we broiled on a broiler set into the middle of the table. There was also the usual small dishes of various vegetables: rice, sprouts, Kim Chee of various types, etc. The typical way to eat all this was to place rice, meat, and any of the other dishes on a large leaf of lettuce and then cram it into your mouth. You have to cram it, because if you take small bites it falls apart. As usual it was very tasty and I came away stuffed. The highlight of the evening was when Jessica said that they had (finally!) set a date for their wedding--next May!

More Plants Springing forth...

Well, there are so many plants flowering forth that I thought I'd put on some more photos. I am in the process of learning what some of these plants are, so bear with me. The shrub with the red berries are shown to the right is yet to be identified. I thought for a moment that it was the hips of the small wild rose that blooms here, but the stem and leaves are totally different. It is growing in the brushy area between my driveway and the street that runs by my house. Another red berried bush that grows here is the red huckleberry, but this isn't it. Further research on my part needs to be done...

Below right is a view of my street in front of my house. As you can see it is strewn with the male Red Alder catkins that I mentioned in the earlier post. I believe this to be the culprit responsible for my annual bout with hayfever. Actually thus far it has been a minor problem with only mild attacks, and I haven't had any problem with it in over a week now.

Also just in front of my house by the front street are clumps of Salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis). They are stickery bushes that are extremely common in damp areas of the NorthWest. There are places down the street where these plants cover large areas. As you can see, the blossoms are small but have a pleasing dark pink color. The berries range from a light orange to a deep red color. The taste is rather bland I am afraid, but I make sure that I don't eat them until they are good and ripe, because they can be quite bitter otherwise. Once I was eagerly gobbling some of these very ripe berries by the Green River in Flaming Geyser park. These Salmonberries were very ripe and had begun to separate from their base. Unbeknownst to me large numbers of Earwigs (Dermaptera) had collected between the berries and their cuplike base, and I discovered too late that I had been happily munching on them!

Lichen is extremely common here (Not a plant, I know). It grows especially well on branches and the bark of trees such as the Red Alder and the Big Leaf Maple. Here is a photo I took of a dead branch covered with lichens that had blown down during a recent windstorm. You can see there are four or five different forms. Since I have no taxonomic knowledge of lichens, I can't begin to identify them. I hope to remedy this ignorance since it irritates me not to know what I am looking at. I just know that they are roughly classified by shape--crustose, foliose, fruticose, etc). Lichens are comprised of an algae (aquatic, plant-like organism, usually green algae or cynanobacteria) and a fungus (usually an Ascomycete) in a mutualistic relationship where both partners help out the other. The fungus, unable to make its own food protects the "photobiont" and supplies water and minerals, and the algae in turn produces food for the fungus through photosynthesis. Some claim that the relationship is parasitic since the algae can do very well without the fungus, but this seems to ignore the fact that the fungus can protect the algae from dessication, allowing both to live in extreme conditions where the algae couldn't possibly live. Apparently this habit of "lichenism" has evolved many times and often the partners have a variety of ancestors. In addition to being an example of an interesting case of cooperation between two very different organisms, lichen are important nitrogen fixers, taking free nitrogen from the air and making it available to other plants. Thus the web of interelationships gets quite complex.

Spring and Pollen

Almost three hours ago, the sun passed over the equator heading North...thus the Spring or Vernal equinox, when day and night is almost of equal length. Of course we would not have seasons if it wasn't for the axial tilt of the Earth (23.4 degrees). Well, there would be some annual differences I suppose as the Earth cycled through it's elliptical orbit about the Sun. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on or after the Vernal Equinox.
About a week ago, I began having the unmistakable symptoms (sneezing, "itchy eyes") that were indicative of Spring. I have tried to identify the plant culprit, but I can only guess that it is the Red Alder (Alnus rubra) which is wind pollinated and begins blooming at that time. The streets are strewn with the male catkins just now and I'm sure that this must the plant whose pollen irritates me so much.
Lots of rain yesterday with high winds, but today it was partly sunny with gusty winds.

Extremely Sweet with Many Feet

This wonderful Big-Leafed Maple (Acer macrophyllum) is one of my favorites on my walk to the beach. It is only about two hundred yards from my place, and I always have to stop and admire its moss-covered branches which are festooned with the lovely epiphytic Licorice Fern (Polypodium glycyrrhiza; aka P. vulgare). The Licorice Fern is called such because of its licorice-flavored rhizomes. I usually see it growing in the thick moss on the Big-leafed Maple, where it can be instantly identified by its distinctive pointed tips. The Indians of the area often chewed the rhizomes for their flavor, and they were used as a medicine for sore throats and colds.

These ferns are luxuriant during the rainy season, and I have seen them growing in great abundance on the eaves of an old shed. They shrivel up, however, during the dry months. The generic name, Polypodium, means many feet which apparently applies to the footlike appearance of their rhizomes. Glycyrrhiza means "sweet root" which refers to the fact that the rhizomes contain ostadin, a steroid, which is three thousand times sweeter than table sugar! No wonder that the people in this area used it as a sweetener also.

Read a detailed description here with a mention how these ferns have been involved in forming polyploid species. Instant speciation involving nondisjunction is a topic for later I think!

All the early spring flowers are pretty much in bloom now. Forsythia, flowering crab apple, and of course camellias are blooming. The camellias in this area are amazing with large bushes tall as the eaves of a house being common in the older sections of town, where they usually begin blooming about the middle of January. I am always disappointed in the camellias that I see, however, because they all seem to be touched with what I call the "brown blight" which causes the petals to turn brown and ugly. This is especially evident in the white camellias. Apparently this is caused by a fungus. The Great Northwest is a fungus heaven! I hope to photograph the many mushrooms this coming autumn.

Seed Dispersing Ants and "Woodpecker Trees"

Western Trilliums (Trillium ovatum), the beautiful early Spring wildflowers, are now blooming in the nearby woods. As you can see the white flowers (sometimes pinkish or purplish as they age) are arranged above three offset leaves or giving the plant a pleasing symmetry. This set of "threes" is reflected in their name, latin for "threes." The arrangement of threes is also reflected not only in their petals and leaves but also the flower parts--sepals, stamens (6) and stigma. They often occur in moist, shaded woodlands in this area. I first encountered Trilliums in Northeastern Kansas and have also observed them in Northeastern Iowa, and Maryland. Another common name is "Wake Robin" since they appear in early spring about the time that Robins become more active.
Apparently, ants carry the seeds back to their nest, where they eat an oil-rich appendage (elaiosome) that is on the seeds. They then discard what's left of the seeds and thus disperse the seeds in the quiet forest floor. Some believe that this structure produces a pheromone that elicits a "dead corpse response" in the ants. This interesting hypothesis states that the fatty acids in the oils of the elaiosomes of certain plants have undergone convergent evolution to resemble those of arthropods resulting in them being more attractive to carnivorous and omnivorous ants (Hughes et al. 1994) . Apparently this mutualistic relationship is common in eastern north America where ants disperse (myrmecohory) as much as 30% of the spring flowering herbaceous plant seeds in the deciduous forests. The more I learn about the ecology of ant seed dispersal the more interesting it gets. This great site discusses the entire subject and talks about how certain stick insects lay eggs that look like seeds and are taken back to the ant nest and cared for. The hatchlings of some species of these stick insects even look and behave like the ants!
I like Hansen's site for it's interesting descriptions of his plants of the Northwest that he offers for sale.

I went out and cleaned out some more of the dead bracken fern from the flower beds this morning. The bracken fern is one of those annual ferns that is so very common here. I'll take some photos soon of the edible fiddle heads that are just now beginning to emerge from their winter dormancy. They are beautiful when they first emerge and in the fall when they turn a golden yellow, but they quickly become leggy and take over your gardens and flower beds if you let them. Also they die back in the winter and leave their unsightly brown foliage which has to be cleared out.
I also encountered on one of my walks a dead tree covered with woodpecker holes. The common Pileated Woodpecker appears to have made most of the holes, judging by their large rectangular appearance. These are the types of trees that foresters, working for the most part for the large timber companies such as Weyhauser, want to eliminate. They talk of the diseases that they carry and advocate cleansing the forests of such "trash." In a tree farm this might be the thing to do, but in a balanced forest ecosystem, such dead trees provide an invaluable source of food and living places for numerous species of insects, fungi, amphibians, birds, etc.

Hughes,L; Westoby,M; Jurado,E (1994): Convergence of elaiosomes and insect prey: evidence from ant foraging behaviour and fatty acid composition. Funct. Ecol. 8, 358-365.

Darwin and the Three Hundred Spartans

I just got back from seeing "300" which as probably everybody knows is about the Spartan defense of Greece at Thermopylae. I am not sure if many people in the general population were aware of this battle and if they did, I'm not sure if they realized its significance. I was really looking forward to seeing it. It was interesting...more of a surrealist version of the battle than an historical account. For people used to the special effects in the movies today, it might not seem so outlandish. The king of Persia, Xerxes, was really, really something else. I found his seven foot, shaven, bejeweled, pierced, androgynous figure with its enhanced voice, most...well interesting. I also was trying to place the accents on the actors, but never could quiet place them. With all my reservations, I enjoyed it greatly. I guess the thing that I was most disappointed with was that the battle scenes showed less of the coordinated action of the Spartan phalanx and more of individuals fighting separately. The battle scenes themselves, however, were quite awesome, sometimes in slow motion and resembling an intricate dance. I recommend it highly and give it four stars (****).

I just got in the mail two books on Darwin. Actually one book, the first in a two volume biography by Janet Brown, was about Darwin, and the other was by Darwin. Or rather it was a compendium of his books: From so Simple a beginning: Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, with a forward by that eminent biologist Edward O. Wilson. I have read Brown's excellent second volume (got it on sale at Half-Priced Books) and enjoyed it immensely. I look forward to pleasant hours ahead.

Watermelon Rind and Cat's Urine?

Ok, I made a mistake. Those early blooming shrubs that I mentioned a couple of posts ago were NOT Hazelnuts. About an hour ago, I saw one of these shrubs at the edge of the woods across the street from me. I saw immediately upon examination that they were not the catkins typical of Hazelnuts but were a dangling cluster of white flowers. I took a photo and then immediately went back to see if I could identify this bush. I have seen it for years since in early March it is the very first plant in the forest understory to leaf forth and produce flowers.
Apparently it is the Indian Plum (Oemieria cerasiformis) which in the fall produces blue black fruits about a cm in diameter. Small plum, huh? It is described as being one of the first plants to flower in the Spring. The flowers are described as being similiar to watermelon rind and cat urine in fragrance. The leaves smell like cucumbers. Ok, hold on I'll be back.

I just went out and confirmed that the leaves and blossoms definitely have a cucumber/watermelon rind smell and there is also an unpleasant hint of musk. Ok, I guess this really is Oemieria cerasiformis until I find out differently. The Indians of the Northwestern U.S. used the bark to make an astringent tea with purgative qualities. Tasting the twig I find it quite bitter. Apparently the native people also chewed the twigs and applied it to sore places. It seems that any plant that tastes bitter or nasty is often used in some sort of medicinal way...strange. Here is a very good article from a grower and seller of the plant who says that the fruit might have cyanide in it! Interestingly he always says that another name for it is Skunkbush. :)

Did You Feel As IF You Had Saved Some Time Today?

No wait...we lost time (counting on fingers). Daylight Savings Time came early...seems like this was decided upon as a means to save energy. I think that I also heard that some companys stood to make millions over this decision. I dunno...
I set all my clocks ahead yesterday afternoon so I wouldn't have to do it when I came home early this morning. Then I woke up two hours earlier than I normally do and couldn't go back to sleep.

The Pineapple Express still is tearing through the area today...a steady good rain with wind about 25 mph from the Southwest. I enjoyed watching it as I sipped my hot coffee this morning. The rain overflows from the eaves and falls on some metal sheets that I put up to protect the shingles. This is right outside my second floor bedroom window and provides a soothing splashing that lulls me to sleep.

Intimations of Spring

The leaf buds on my lilac bush began to swell over a month ago, and now the hazelnuts are blooming in the forests with their long catkins hanging down and the first hint of new green leaves. Crocuses are emerging, but only open up in the sun. Flowering crabapple trees are also beginning to bloom. Early daffodils have been blooming for a couple of weeks now.
A few days ago we had the first warmish day, it got up to 58 here! Now another of those Pineapple Express rain fronts is beginning to come through.
I got some interesting books the other day. One was on the Permian extinction when as much as 95% of life disappeared, possibly due to Global Warming. The others dealt with Natural History themes which interest me, for example, the relationship of surface area and volume with all its implications. I think I'll write a paper on this topic.

Will You Die with Your Song Unsung?

I just heard somebody say that they didn't want to die with their song unsung. I got to thinking about this, and wondered about how common this phenomenon is, how many people really go through their lives and never live their dreams...never really sing the song that is playing within. We go through our lives making our living, working long hours perhaps, putting off until "later" our dreams and our aspirations. Then we wake up some day and realize that there is no more time, that we must put up or shut up, and then we wonder just where all the time went and wish that we had lived our dreams and sung our songs all along during our life when we were busy making a living.

So...now, today, begin to sing your song; begin to live your life. Start in small ways if you must. Take a moment, look around, examine your senses, take a deep breath, see the beauty...the wonder of this incredible universe. And then do something that you really want to do. You don't know what you want to do? Make a plan for your life, write down your goals and then write down how you can achieve them. Too old you say? Never! Use the time you have, take your life and squeeze the juices out...drink deep!

I'm at the end of another semester. Tomorrow is the final, and I just recorded the grades on my grade sheets so that tomorrow all I have to do is to record the final exam grade, let the computer do all the averaging and then post them online. Then a couple of weeks between semesters to refresh my batteries. And I actually will get two days off next week, the first in a month!