Marshy area meets young successional forest

This area is adjacent to the Natchez Trace Parkway near Tupelo.

A few hundred meters from a large swathe of mixed hardwoods, old fields begin to be invaded by longleaf pines (Pinus palustris) and are interspersed with these mostly-permanent wet areas that support lots of hydrophyte grasses (Juncus sp.).

Squirrel snack

The two major groups of oaks--red and white--have seeds that differ generally in chemical makeup, says Smallwood. Red oak acorns are rich in fats but are laced with tannins, the compounds used to tan hides. White oak acorns are less fatty and lower in tannins. Red oak acorns lie dormant in winter and sprout in spring; white oak seeds usually sprout soon after falling to the ground in autumn.

The researchers found that in those red oak acorns that were eaten, frequently only the top half--the end farthest from the embryo--were consumed. Because the embryos were not destroyed, these damaged red oak acorns also germinated.

The germination and the bitter-tasting tannins might explain why a white oak acorn is more likely to be consumed on the spot and why only the top half of a red acorn is eaten.

Read more about squirrels and acorns.

Droplets

My plan with this blog is to post photos of random naturalesque things I encounter. I also wanted this to be a phone photo blog-- no fancy DSLR here, just my Galaxy S3. Expect lots of macro shots.

Water also has a high level of surface tension. This means that the molecules on the surface of the water are not surrounded by similar molecules on all sides, so they're being pulled only by cohesion from other molecules deep inside. These molecules cohere to each other strongly but adhere to the other medium weakly. One example of this is the way that water beads up on waxy surfaces, such as leaves or waxed cars. Surface tension makes these water drops round so they cover the smallest possible surface area.

Source.