1/5/2024 0 Comments French broom keeps deer out![]() I think it would be a great place to visit on a hot summer day because it’s probably always a good 10 degrees cooler here. The deep gorge that the brook has cut through the hillside above the middle falls is a very rugged and beautiful place. This is a look back downstream from near the upper falls showing many fallen trees in and along the brook. Several other towns had similar problems at the time. Merriam brook really raged at that time and also washed away large parts of the road and flooded houses. Apparently this cable and a plank or two that I’ve seen is all that’s left of it. I’ve read that a snowmobile bridge made out of steel cables and wooden planks was washed away in severe flooding in August of 2003. The old bridge cables are slowly being engulfed by the trees they rub against. I watch my step and pick my way up the hill and usually have no problems, but those oak leaves are always very slippery. I’ve tripped over the cables and slipped on the oak leaves and have taken a couple of spills up here, but luckily nothing serious has come of it. Two things make the climb to the upper falls a little hazardous slippery oak leaves and old bridge cables. I can say for sure that I don’t want to be near this brook when it floods badly. Most ferns have fronds that taper gradually widest at the base and narrower towards the tip.Ī look at the middle falls reveals how strong the forces at play are, with grown trees torn up and tossed around like first year saplings. Another unusual thing about Christmas fern is the shape of its fronds, which start off narrow at the base, widen in the middle, and then get narrow again at the tip. ![]() If you look closely you can see that each Christmas fern leaf has a tiny “toe,” which makes it look like a Christmas stocking. Native Americans used the Christmas fern to treat chest ailments like pneumonia and to relieve flu symptoms. They are one of 5 or 6 evergreen ferns found in these woods, and their common name is thought to come from the early settler’s habit of using its fronds as Christmas decorations. I hope science is trying to find a cure.Ĭhristmas ferns ( Polystichum acrostichoides) were dotted here and there on the forest floor. ![]() Beech is a beautiful tree at any time of year. There is no cure and infected trees will ultimately die. By 2004, the disease had spread as far west as Michigan and as far south as western North Carolina. ![]() The disease originally came from Europe and the first case in the United States was reported in 1929 in Massachusetts. These cankers are what look like blisters on the bark of beech trees, as can be seen in the above photo. If the spores from either of two fungi, Neonectria faginata or Neonectria ditissima, find the wound and grow, cankers form. ![]() I was sorry to see that many of the beech trees here had beech bark disease, which is caused by beech scale insects ( Cryptococcus fagisuga) that pierce the bark and leave a wound. That’s an unusual way for a brook to behave in these parts. Though it looks like I was standing in the brook when I took the previous photo of the lower falls I didn’t even get my feet wet, because the brook takes a sharp left turn at this spot. There are three waterfalls along this section of Merriam Brook what I call the lower, middle and upper falls. It can sometimes be dark even after the leaves have fallen because of all the evergreens overhead but usually on a bright sunny day like this one the camera can cope. I wait until the leaves are off the trees to go to 40 foot falls because the light is very dim in that particular part of the forest. ![]()
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