The Colors of a Winter Forest

I hold my clipboard to my chest, blocking some of the cold wind that swirls around me, biting at my skin. I’m sitting on a downed tree, covered in spongy green moss that hugs the thick, uneven bark.

Fallen branches lean against the trunk of the tree on which I sit, ragged and sharp edges at first, tapering into small sticks no thicker than my fingers. Their surfaces crawl with lichens, a pale greenish color. The patterns stretch outward from the center, flowery segments that resemble classic embroidery. They look too planned to be natural, too fascinating.

Lichens, a complicated life form that is the result of a symbiotic partnership between a fungus and an alga, have always fascinated me, but until recently I had no idea what they were. To me, they were merely a pretty and nameless organism that grew on downed branches. The dominant partner in this relationship is the fungus. Fungus is incapable of creating its own food, so it uses the alga’s photosynthesis.

  

My vision is filled with the browns and greys characteristic of a forest in winter, so the small patches of color immediately attract my attention. There’s a small patch of emerald grass, partially covered by dull fallen leaves. Bright moss grows upon the surface of a tree’s trunk, which lies sideways on the muddy ground.

They seem almost defiant, bright and cheery even in the cold weather. In fact, moss will survive throughout all of winter. Though today is a poor testament to moss’s ability to survive in the cold, as temperatures are warmer than they usually would be in February, moss can even keep its bright color while frozen.

There are small deposits of snow littered around the area, most of it has melted. This leaves the ground wet and, in some places, spongy. Puddles abound, and I find myself thankful that I wore boots today. The damp leaves which form a thick covering of the Earth makes it hard to tell exactly where these puddles are. In one place, the thin layer of water above these leaves gives a puddle a strange likeness to a painting, rather than real life.

Soon, I hear the voices of my teacher and a few of my classmates, calling everyone back. I gingerly collect the materials which rest upon a log and make my way back onto a path. As I walk back towards the school, I notice other students emerging from  the woods, each having made their own observation in their own places. Already, the colors of my spot are fading from my mind, their details becoming foggy. The path opens into a wide parking lot, which, in turn, leads to a street and a sidewalk and the school building. I walk towards it, leaving nature behind me, even if only temporarily.

Sources

http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/beauty/lichens/whatare.shtml

https://njaes.rutgers.edu/pubs/fs1205/

https://www.mossandstonegardens.com/re_store/faq

http://www.lichen.com/biology.html