08 October 2020

Dancing Spirits

Mass Audubon Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, Massachusetts

I love walking through fern-lands...
   ... forests with moist grounds where ferns live happily in the shadow of trees...

Ferns are one of the oldest plants, dating back to the middle Devonian, some 390 million years ago. They became the most dominant plants on the planet some 300 million years ago, in the Carboniferous period, when Earth abounded with tropical swamp forests - the ideal places for ferns to thrive - and left us all this coal we are burning today...

   ... looking at their fronds... curving, twisting, rolling... dancing spirits from far-distant times...

Wachusett Meadow: ... autumn tapestry...

Wachusett Meadow: ... with these ferns...

Wachusett Meadow: ... coloring...

Wachusett Meadow: ... in interlaced harmonics...

Wachusett Meadow: ... coming close...

Wachusett Meadow: ... and closer...

Wachusett Meadow: ... to the twilight...

Wachusett Meadow: ... wonderland...