![]() ![]() They have many other nicknames such as wooly bears, black-ended bears and banded woolly bears. Woolly worms are known scientifically as Pyrrhactia Isabella, and they are the larval form of the Isabella tiger moth. Each black band is thought to represent a week of bad winter weather. You also have to remember that before sophisticated computer models of weather patterns, and the other technology we now have at our disposal, people relied on things they could readily observe and interpret to try to predict important natural events like the severity of an upcoming winter.Upon closer examination of the woolly worm, it is noted that woolly worms have 13 segments which coincides with winter lasting roughly 13 weeks long. And, unfortunately, there isn’t much data to suggest this type of prediction is particularly reliable anyway. After splitting several seeds, I discovered it isn’t always that easy to tell which utensil is represented. Various references interpret these shapes as having a meaning for the upcoming winter season: a knife signifies the winter will be bitterly cold, with winter winds cutting through you like a knife a fork means a winter with milder conditions, and snow will likely be light and fluffy a spoon means cold, wet and heavy snow that requires shoveling. After finally splitting a few and looking at the shapes, it appears that my seeds contained either spoons or knives. First of all, it isn’t easy to split open a persimmon seed…you have to get the gooey (but tasty) pulp off or they are simply too slippery to hold. I collected a couple of persimmons still hanging on a tree and decided to check it out. The lore states that if you split open the seeds from a ripe persimmon fruit (usually they ripen after cold weather starts in late October) you will see different shapes resembling our meal-time utensils – a knife, a fork, or a spoon. I was surprised how often this popped up as a topic. Different degrees of acidity I suppose.īut while looking that up, I also found a link about persimmon seeds and the weather, then another, and then even more. I turned to Google and found a research paper stating that persimmon seeds do have enhanced germination rates when a raccoon eats them, but not-so-much when they are eaten by a coyote. It certainly is in terms of seed dispersal, but what about germination success? For certain types of seeds with extremely hard coverings, it helps them germinate if they first pass through the physical abrasion in the crop of a bird, or the acidic intestines of a bird or mammal digestive system. It started me wondering about whether, like in some other types of seed, it is beneficial from the plant’s point of view for a critter to ingest the fruit, pass the seeds through its gut, and then deposit them in its scat. Over the years, I have seen evidence of many species of mammals that seem to really like persimmons (raccoon, opossum, foxes, and beer drinkers at Fullsteam brewery in Durham – their First Frost persimmon beer is quite tasty). I found some coyote scat containing numerous persimmon seeds. ![]() It all started with a walk at Mason Farm Biological Reserve a few weeks ago. I checked the weather history for that location and it was clear the next day, as you might expect from that “red sky at night”. Above is a sunset image from earlier this year, an especially fiery red sky in Eastern North Carolina. If we see it looking east at sunrise, it means the high pressure has passed and a low pressure system (bringing not-so-good weather) may be approaching. If that happens at sunset (looking west toward incoming atmospheric conditions), that generally means a high pressure system is headed our way, bringing good weather. As low-angle (dawn or dusk) sunlight passes through that type of air, it tends to scatter the longer wavelengths (the red colors) more efficiently, meaning we see reddish colors. High pressure systems (good weather) tend to produce an atmosphere near the surface that is cloud-free, but that contains a lot of dust and other particles. In the mid-latitudes, weather systems generally move from west to east. Well, there does seem to be a scientific basis behind that particular weather lore. Most of us have heard the saying, “Red sky at night sailor’s delight, red sky in morning, sailor’s warning”. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |