Tom ’s Comments (group member since Feb 10, 2017)

Tom ’s comments from the ORNC Book group group.

Maybe I'm weird for reading field guides but there is so much to learn. Eastern forests are a large topic since there are many (about 2 dozen) types covered in this book and each has it's own ecology. But that is really what the book is about - forest ecology. Again since this is a broad subject the coverage tends to be spotty and anecdotal but I did learn many things. It also attempts to describe how to look at things from an ecological view point - how are things related and why? I say attempts because that is a difficult subject and so many species are interrelated it's hard to put out a particular example and still do it justice. But he does discuss soils, forest age, succession, forest layers, plant and animal interactions and seasonal changes. It is a very ambitious book given it attempts to be a field guide as well for the most common species.

Having a fairly good background in ecology and evolution I felt he picked simplistic examples (or gave simplistic explanations) as his illustrations. Had I not had a strong background I would have learned more and it probably would have served as a good introduction to these concepts. As a field guide it is pretty worthless since it is organised by the species in a forest community and has no dichotomous key. Still it does point out things to look for and gives facts about specific species. I learned jewel weed, a plant I am reasonably familiar with, has small self pollinating flowers as well as the showy orange or yellow ones, something I'll look for this summer.

My biggest complaint is that it seems dated and poorly edited. It was written in 1988 and revised in 1998. It describes the monarch-viceroy butterfly mimicry as batesian when more modern research shows the viceroy as unpalatable in it's own right and it is therefore mullerian mimicry. I also noted some lack of clarity in the use of the flower parts ( sepals, petals and calyx) and an obvious error in conversion of metrics to English measurements. These are minor faults but they cause you to question other things.

I would recommend it as a help in learning to see what's around you. Pick a particular forest type you have easy access to and look for some of the things described. It does introduce the complexity of forest ecological systems and they change over time and provides many examples.

I ordered this books after reading and enjoying Dr. Maloof's books on old growth forests and her book listing and describing old grow forest in the eastern US. Malook was a biology professor at Salisbury State University so her books often have a local feel, especially this one.

The majority of chapters in the books are the names of a local tree. I thought they would be about the tree they were named after and might include the little anecdotes that add so much when you're talking about trees. On the contrary, the book is really about the ecology of old growth and it's importance. This is Dr. Malook's passion and she now leads the Old Growth Forest Network and website about this. The book contains stories about getting people involved and caring about old growth and many small ecological stories about the life in each type of forest.

She discusses how the red backed salamander mother stays near with eggs (a typical of salmanders but the eggs are also laid under logs instead of in the water) not only to help keep them moist but because they would be destroyed by fungus if not for the bacteria that live on the salamander's skin. She describes the life cycle of the locust borer that not only requires black locust trees but goldennrod to compete it's life cycle. Sweetgums lead to a discussion of the luna moth, white pines to watching eagles nest in them. Her concern is for the forest and not just the trees.

Overall I was a little disappointed in the book. While I enjoyed the ecological stories they are a minor part of the book. More is spend on discussing the importance, rarity and fragility of old growth forest. At least for me she was preaching to the choir there.

Just a side note - her other books did motivate me to stop in Cook Forest in PA during a recent trip. Beautiful old grow hemlock and white pines and well worth going an hour and half out of my way.

We discussed this book n the May 22, 2017 meeting and it was well received by the group. We had previously read "Seeds" by the same author and like it this book was well written and well researched. The book covers a wealth of information on feathers. There are discussions of the theories of the evolution of feathers in dinosaurs and they are reasonably up to date given the rapid pace of discovery in thus area. This also leads into the argument of weather flight evolved from gliding down from a tree or from take off the the ground. This includes using wings to increase traction while running, to help steer and even to catch insects. Apparently this is still a contentious area in scientific research.

Hanson then moves on to bird feathers, their features and their functions. He discusses the different types of feathers, the features and structure of each type, and how they grow, Several people found the discussion of how feathers are formed and grow to be confusing and/or incomplete. He discusses the functions feathers in flight, how the keep birds both warm and cool, and either dry or in the case of some diving birds allow them to get wet. There are many interesting facts: for example I didn't know feathers only grow from certain areas on a birds skin and the other areas are relatively featherless.

He also discusses the uses of feathers by humans from quill pens to fishing flies and millinery fashion. The group got into a nice discussion of quill pen and calligraphy based on what was in the book.

Overall the group thought the book was both informative and entertaining and well worth the time it took to read. It reads easily and most parts are not very dense.

This book should be subtitled a physical scientist looks at trees. Vogel is a biologist but this book takes a look at leaves and trees from a physical science (think physics and chemistry) viewpoint. I confess I love the beauty of newtonian physics and therefore this was right up my alley.

Vogel discusses everything from leaves collecting sun, gas difussion and circulation, gathering carbon dioxide, using huge quantities of water, keeping from overheating, staying clean, avoiding freeze damage, and leave deployment. Add a chapter on trees standing up and surviving storms and he's got it covered. There is very little bio-chemistry (like photosynthesis formulas) but he covers diffusion, fluid flow, beam strength, heat flow, surface tension, and several other topics in pretty good detail. It's not light read but you don't need to deal with a lot of formulas unless you dive into the footnotes. All the formulas are there.

So why are leaves leaf shaped and what physical factors influence their form? How do they get water all the way up to the leaves and what properties of water allow for these processes? how does wind effect trees, from their leave shapes, to the entire tree? How are trees "engineered" to withstand storms? If you want a description of the answer to these questions this is your book. But be prepared to deal with laminar and turbulent fluid flows, coefficients of drag, viscosity, rates of flow and diffusion given various conditions.

This is a different perspective on leaves and trees but is fairly technical. I would advise you to avoid it unless you have a basic understanding off physical chemistry and physics and want to learn more. For me it was pretty neat, informative and thought provoking but I only gave it 3 stars because many others would probably find it technical gobbledygook.

This book is about the importance of fungi and will make you reconsider your opinions of it. The world as we know it would not exist without fungi. It's essential role in decaying organic matter removes the dead trees, leaves, and animals that would otherwise continually accumulate. Some of fungi's other roles discussed in the book include causing and curing disease, fostering plant growth, pest and weed control, plant and food stock pathogen, as a food source as well as in making bread rise and alcohol, and even potentially in pollution remediation and as a structural material.
Given a subject as miraculous as fungi the group found the actual book somewhat of a disappointment. The writing style varies from chapter to chapter, sometimes dry and textbook and other times much more lighthearted and even jokey. Many ideas are introduced but not fully developed or clearly explained.
The author is a professional mycologist and university professor and is an advocate of fungi. He wants more research into this under appreciated kingdom of life that is everywhere. At least it's spores are everywhere, waiting for an opportunity to grow. Probably worth reading but could have been better written. We also wondered if it had been written more recently than 2001 if there would have been more research available to present.

I saw this at the BCPL and picked it up because of the title and beautiful pictures on fungi on the cover. It's the story of a food writer who tastes wild mushrooms and decides she has to learn to collect them herself. She joins a local organization and finds there is a whole community of fungi lovers, most of whom are also collectors and consumers. As she gets more and more into it she goes to various mushroom foray's (identification, collection, and often consumption sessions) and festivals across the country. She also finds to be a better collector one has to think like a fungi - or at least understand what they are and how they grow. She ends up the president of the New York Mycological Society.

The book is definitely about a foodie and other fungi lovers (mycophiles). She was a journalist and a writer for food magazines before she went fungi crazy. I could have used a more about fungi ecology and less about the people who love consuming fungi and their stories, but I don't really like eating mushrooms, just looking at them. Her writing style is lively and entertaining and the experiences and characters she describes in their pursuit of fungi are unique and often quite humorous. Apparently, mycophilia can become an overwhelming obsession.

It was worth the read and I wonder about her poor husband. There's a lot of discussion of particular types of mushrooms, commercial production, wild collecting and collectors and praise for fungi and their ecological role. It is fairly recent (2011) so has some of the newer research. These include new findings in where fungi fits in the kingdoms of life, fungi genetics and even new uses being explored for fungi (including bio-remediation of pollution and custom, "green" packaging materials. Some of the facts I learned where fungi are more closely related to animals than plants and many mushrooms form as small nodules with every cell that will be part of the mushroom in place and just waiting for the right conditions and enough moisture to erupt.

I believe mushroom eaters would enjoy it even more than I did. Not a heavy read but well written and very light hearted. Be aware, some mycophiles appear to be very earthy people and she openly shares that. Don't expect recipes either, but she does try to describe the taste of her favorites.

Elizabeth B. added this and hopefully will add her comments and recommendation soon.

Elizabeth B. added this and hopefully will add her comments and recommendation soon.

Elizabeth B. added this and hopefully will add her comments and recommendation soon.

Elizabeth B. added this and hopefully will add her comments and recommendation soon.

This is kind of a field guide to the tracks and particularly other sign that insects leave as they live their lives. It's not a true field guide since it does't have a key to lead you to a specific ID. Instead it is divided into sections; eggs, pupae, silk, sign on wood, leaf mines, droppings, galls, etc. Within each section there are descriptions of sign usually grouped by types of animals i.e. beetles, spiders caterpillars. You can ID quite a few sign back to at least the family of the creator and often the species if the sign is unique enough just by paging through the section. Both common and latin names are given for the invertebrate creating the sign. I found quite a few things I have seen and many I will now be looking for.

The best part of this book is just reading through it for the wealth of information and the amazing life styles about mostly insects and spiders but also covering crustaceans and mollusks. From life stages, to nests and breeding behavior, to feeding, there are signs everywhere. My favorite was the parasite that lays it's eggs on the edge of a leaf so a parasitized caterpillar can eat it and it can then infect the parasite inside the caterpillar. Parasitism is common in insects and now that I know how to look for signs I'll look more. For instance I've seen caterpillars with rows of what I thought where parasite eggs on their backs. I now know to look more closely because they were more likely pupal cocoons of the parasites.

The diversity of life is truly illustrated here. Most of the pictures do not include the creator of the sign but some do. If you ID a sign you may have to use a field guide or the internet to actually see what the creator of the sign looks like.

Some sections I skimmed thru but others I read thoroughly. It a great resource to open your eyes to seeing this small but fascinating world and it is available in the BCPL, numbered 595.7097 E

A book that covers a something you can't see but is integral to the web of life on earth, microbes and fungi and how they keep soil fertile and keep people healthy . The first third covers fungi and microbes in soil and the second two thirds talks about gut microbes, our microbiome. A lot of interesting info on areas that are currently being heavily researched and more fully understood. I am in no position to determine how accurate the info is but it seems well researched. The final couple of chapters draw a comparison of the rhizosphere (the part of of the soil containing the root hairs and their related fungi and microbes) and our microbiome (the microbes inhabiting our bodies and particularly the colon in this case).

This book is a fairly heavy read since it deals with a lot of science but it tries to give a good background to prepare the reader to understand what they'll need to grasp the new research. This is often done by giving a history of the scientists and their research that led up to and established these facts. Most of that research is much older than the current renewed interest would indicate. I would not call this a casual read but I did learn a lot and enjoyed it enough to read the whole thing even though I was really only interested in the soil and plant-fungi-bacteria relationship when I picked it up.

Available from BCPL.

This is a short book about a woodland snail. More exactly it's about a women who, while bed ridden with a serious illness, gets a plant as a gift and that plant has a woodland snail on it. As she recovers from her illness the antics of the snail amaze, inspire, and bring her a sense of connection to something greater than her illness. It sounds dumb but it's not.

It is not about her illness but rather land snails. What are they like and why do they make a noise when they eat? How do they live, reproduce, and move in all that slime? Did you know baby land snail's first meal is normally their egg shell because it contains calcium, which is often in short supply for land snails? The author becomes a little obsessed with snails and shares the research she does on them while watching "her friend" as she is recovering.

I think the mostly uncovered back story of her recovery adds to the drama of the snail's slow motion life. I learned a lot about land snails. Certainly more than I need to know but I was still engrossed and really enjoyed the book.

Maybe the real point is to remind us how fascinating any little piece of nature can be and how it can inspire and motivate us while putting the our normal day-to-day world back into perspective. Definitely worth your time, in my opinion.

Available from BCPL.

Now that you've joined the group you can review the books in our Bookshelf. It shows up at the bottom of the ORNC Book Group page. These are the books we are reading in the book group and you can also add any books you've read and would like to recommend to others.

Adding a book is easy. Below the Bookshelf books is an Add book link. Simply click on it and use the search box to find books matching your search. The title doesn't have to be exact, just use the major words. This shows a list of books that match your search. Just click the "Add to Group" botton on the line of the book you want to add. That opens a small window to add info about the book. Don't worry about the adding any information on this page. That's the next step.

You may have to refresh the ORNC Book Group page to see your book. At this point anyone can click on it and see any reviews the publisher or any other Goodreads.com members have added in Goodreads.com. This is helpful but I thinks it's nicer if you start an ORNC discussion on it.

To start the discussion you will probably want to give a recommendation or review of the book. This isn't necessary but is really nice. On the ORNC Book Group home page, right below the "Currently Reading" section is the Discussion Board. On the top of this section to the right you will see "Topics: All | New | Unread". Click on the word "New" to open a window for a new discussion group window.

In the new window, put the book title in the Topic box and from the folder box drop down select "Books Added To Bookshelf". Then type your review/recommendation into the comment box. Once you have it fairly well composed hit the "Post" button to see how it will appear. If you want to make corrections, hit the word edit at the bottom of the preview page. This will open an edit window of the text you entered. Use the "Edit Post" button at the bottom top back to preview mode. Once you're satisfied with the way it looks you can hit the words "ORNC Book group discussion" at the top of the page and it will be saved. You can always go in and edit your discussion again later by clicking on it and then the edit button.

I have added a number of books this way and you can read the discussions to think of what I thought of them and to use as an example. If you know the book is available in the Baltimore County Library system (BCPL) please add that info for those of us who would rather borrow then buy.

Now we have a book on the bookshelf and a discussion of it. Anyone can click on the book in the Bookshelf to see what the publisher and general public think of it. Or you can read the discussion topic on the book to see the review/recommendation of the person who added it.

If you have read the book, feel free to add a comment to the discussion of the book. Simply click on the Discussion to see what is already there and add your comment in the comment box at the bottom. It can be as simple as an "I agree, great book" or "I'd like the group top consider reading his book". If you're more ambitious, you can add your own review/recommendation.

Hopefully this will make it easy for use to share what we're reading and enjoying.

If all this seems too complicated and a little scary, you can always email me (33tomfarrell@gmail.com) the book title and your review and I'll add it for you.

Goodreads.com is a web site to help you track your books and see reviews of books you might want to read. I have set up a page for the ORNC Book Group which contains the books we are reading and a list of books others recommend. I have entered some of the books I've read recently and hope others will do the same so I can get recommendations. This is strictly for natural history or nature books.

You do not have to join Goodreads in order to be a member of the book group but to get to the ORNC book group page on Goodreads.com you do. In addition to telling what books we're reading next I've also set up a way of recommending books for others to read. I've added some of the natural history books I've read recently. There is no cost other than getting some emails from them. You also do not have to be a member of the book group to join Goodreads and see our recommendations. Feel free to invite friends if you like it.

To join, simply use a web browser and go to Goodreads.com (full address http://www.goodreads.com). There you will see create new account space at the upper right. You can skip over the Find Friends, Set a Goal, Rate Books and Get Recommendations sections. It's pretty simple.

You will be sent an email with a link to click on to confirm your email address. Once you do this you will be a full function member of Goodreads.com.


Once you join Goodreads.com and sign in, you can join the ORNC Book Group group. On the top line of the page click on the "Community" drop down and select "Groups". This will bring up a search box. Type "ORNC" right over the words "Find Groups by Title or Description" and hit the search button. You'll see our group. Click on it and you can join it by clicking on the Join Group button below the group of people icon at the upper left.

Anyone who has joined the group can add a book to our bookshelf. The group Bookshelf is the list of books we are reading and books suggested by members of the group. Please see the "Add a Book to Our Bookshelf" entry in this discussion folder for more information on that.


To log out of Goodreads, click on icon of a person reading a book at the right end of the top line of any page and then clicking "Sign Out".

You can minimize the emails you receive once you join by logging in selecting person reading a book icon at the right end of the top line and then clicking Account Settings. There is a tab for your email preferences.

If you find I have made any mistakes in this post or have suggestions for improvements send me a message in Goodreads or simply add a comment to this discussion post. I plan on using this post to send to other's who would like directions when joining so would like it as accurate as possible.

Thanks,
Tom Farrell, ORNC Book Group Goodreads page moderator.

This book is a series of journal entries about the author's hikes thru the Soldier's Delight Natural Area Park in the Owings Mills (Deer Park Rd.) area of Baltimore County. I had picked this up several years ago but hadn't read it. After the ORNC Trail Guide Outing there in September I thought it was time. Plus I'm now retired and have more time.

Wennerstrom walked in the park several time a week through out the year the book covers. About half way thru I became a little disenchanted with the book as it seemed more of a species list seen on the hikes along the parks various trails and at the nearby Liberty reservoir. That didn't bother me until I got to the mid point of the book but I found it missing the little antidotes and histories that tie species to this rare and unique environment.

It did encourage me to visit the park again in different seasons and explore the habitats (which haven't done yet) but it didn't give the linked facts, antidotes, and framework that I like to really understand what I am reading about and why it exists. It is nice to read about an area you can actually visit with a short drive. In addition to the natural history of the area some of the human history is also covered. Wennerstrom obviously knows and loves the park but I can't give it an unqualified recommendation as something you should read unless you develop an interest in this environment and want to get to know it better.

This book is avail from BCPL.

I loved this book, more for the tone and feeling of it than all the information presented. A Native American woman who holds a PhD in botany talks about her understanding of nature based on those very different ways to see nature. I found the Native American attitude of gratitude enlightening and inspiring.

Lots of natural history, mostly from the upstate New York area. Also many personal but interesting vignettes of her experience. Many of the stories are of how she raised her 2 daughters to know and learn from nature. Since I raised 2 daughters that was very reminiscent for me. I would rate this the best natural history book I've read in a long time.

Available from BCPL.

Maloof was a professor at Salisbury State and shares her love and knowledge of eastern US old growth forests. Much info on the differences between true old growth and 100 to 150 year old forests. Made me want to get out a experience old growth. Kind of a "Hidden Life of Trees" for this area and includes all of the forest ecosystem, not just the trees. Much about the high species diversity and complexity that exist in an true old growth (virgin) forest as opposed to one that has been growing 100-200 years on former farm land.

Available in BCPL.

Quick read about looking at a forest and seeing what it might have been a century or more ago (forest, pasture, or plowed field). Based on New England forests but many observations will translate here. Written as a field guide (does it have this or this) but can be used to familiarize yourself with things to look for to determine a forest's age and history. One more way to help you learn to see/read the forest.

Available in BCPL.

Dr Kimmerer is a bryologist, a specialist in mosses. This is a relatively small book but it is a great intro to mosses. It touches on their life cycles, reproduction methods, growth, and the conditions necessary for it to grow. There are many examples of specific moss's, mostly from New York but also Wisconsin, southern Appalachia, and the Pacific Northwest, to illustrate the conditions necessary for growth and the life cycle. The importance of mosses in the environment was surprising to me. I'd often overlooked them after a quick admiring glance. They provide a habitat for very small animals, are important in water and nutrient management and essential in long term process of converting bare rock into a habitat for higher plants. For what is labelled a "primitive" plant because it lacks vascular tissue they are remarkably varied and Dr. Kimmerer gives many examples. She also gives some incites into how research is done as she discusses some of the studies she and her students have performed. The text is easy to read with only the necessary jargon, which is defined. I would definitely recommend it if you would like to get to know more about mosses in general.

The book is not in the Baltimore County Public Library but can be obtained thru BCPL via their Marina Inter Library Loan system.