by Carl Strang
However familiar a landscape has become, there always is something new to discover in it. I have begun my second year at Mayslake Forest Preserve, and still I am finding rather large organisms I completely missed last year. Recently I noticed a conspicuously flowering shrub I did not see in 2009.
Unless I miss my guess, this is a blackhaw, one of the native viburnums. Fungi are an entire group with which I have only spotty, passing familiarity. Here is one of the common ones, Polyporus squamosus, which appears on the trunks of several different tree species in spring.
The scaly looking shelves of these reproductive structures are worth taking some time to enjoy. Novelty and surprise certainly are among the factors that draw me again and again into wild places, even ones with which I am reasonably familiar.
Nature Inquiries 
Scott Namestnik said,
May 20, 2010 at 11:49 am
Hi Carl. Check Viburnum lentago as a possibility for your flowering shrub. the leaf shape (broadly ovate with an acuminate leaf apex) looks more like V. lentago than V. prunifolium. Also, V. prunifolium usually has a reddish petiole and often midvein that the leaves in your photo lack. I don’t, however, see the wavy petiole of V. lentago, though I think this sometimes develops a bit later in the season.
Hope you’re having a nice spring… last night I heard crickets in northern Indiana for the first time this year!
natureinquiries said,
May 21, 2010 at 5:49 am
Thanks, Scott, I’ll check it out.
natureinquiries said,
May 26, 2010 at 5:59 am
Subscriptions can be done, as I understand it, via the “Entries RSS” option under “Meta” in the left-hand margin of the blog. Thanks for your interest!
I Stand Corrected! « Nature Inquiries said,
May 26, 2010 at 6:18 am
[…] a recent post I identified a shrub at Mayslake Forest Preserve as blackhaw (Viburnum prunifolium). Fortunately I […]