Hollis

LATEST ARTICLES ( 440 )

• Plants of South Dakota: the Chaste Slender Lip Fern

  

  Slender lip fern, Cheilanthes feei, on limestone.As some readers already know, I'm part of a group of botanists revising Vascular Plants of South Dakota. When... Read more

  Posted on 21 April 2022 OUTDOORS

• Tree-following: Today's Topic is BARK

  

  For those in cooler climates who follow deciduous trees, this time year is often spent searching for alternative news. Our trees still show no evidence of... Read more

  Posted on 10 April 2022 OUTDOORS

• Holy Hoppin' Horsetail Spores!

  

  Equisetum hyemale is an able colonizer in spite of its lazy sporangia. Nevada roadcut, Matt Lavin photo.Do you know the horsetails, also known as scouring... Read more

  Posted on 31 March 2022 OUTDOORS

• Fern Seeds?

  

  Woodsia (left) and Polystichum; from "A popular history of the British ferns" 1862, BHL.Today we start with a quiz with one question:TRUE or FALSE? Spores are... Read more

  Posted on 23 March 2022 OUTDOORS

• Tree-following in the Footsteps of Wyoming Botanists

  

  Balsam poplar in Montana in August. Photo by Matt Lavin who writes: "Balsam popular is the most common poplar in montane riparian settings in western... Read more

  Posted on 13 March 2022 OUTDOORS

• Ruby Mountains: Island in a Paleozoic Sea Or Metamorphic Core Complex?

  

  Deformed lower crustal rocks high in the Ruby Mountains. How did this happen?!In August of 1868, Clarence King's Survey of the Fortieth Parallel arrived in the... Read more

  Posted on 01 March 2022 OUTDOORS

• So Long Jerry Hansen, It's Been Good to Know Yuh

  

  Never too old to play with trains.I didn't know Jerry Hansen well. But I knew him well enough to know that he loved railroads. Read more

  Posted on 23 February 2022 OUTDOORS

• Tree-following: Late Start, Dim Light

  

  Always prepared.My visit to the trees I'm following this year didn't go as planned. There was too much snow to drive the road to the old campground where they... Read more

  Posted on 14 February 2022 OUTDOORS

• South Dakota Plants: the Shaggy Borage Family

  

  Common borage, Borago officinalis. Click to view the coarse hairs (Andrey Zharkikh).For the past two years, roughly contemporaneous with the pandemic, I've... Read more

  Posted on 29 January 2022 OUTDOORS

• Lamoille Canyon—V, U, and Much More

  

  A "glacier cañon" in the Ruby Mountains (2021, but in the style of 1868).Lamoille Canyon, in the Ruby Mountains of northeast Nevada, is a geotripper's dream. Read more

  Posted on 17 January 2022 OUTDOORS

• Tree Following 2022: Looking for a Tree, I Find Two

  

  Balsam poplar?Just before Christmas, I set out to find a tree to follow in 2022, specifically a balsam poplar. A few grow along one of my favorite nearby... Read more

  Posted on 10 January 2022 OUTDOORS

• Two Trees and a Rock on a Trail

  

  First, the Weather Report.It's time for a final report about the trees I followed this year. But they haven't changed since last month, and it's cold and... Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2021 OUTDOORS

• Late Season Early Morning Beauty

  

  Prickly poppy, Argemone sp.When I visited northeast Nevada in October, the days were mild, the nights cold, and the light low and warm. Read more

  Posted on 30 November 2021 OUTDOORS

• A Glimpse of the Underworld, High in the Ruby Mts

  

  Trailer Park Rock, part of the Harrison Pass pluton.Plutons are large bodies of rock, specifically igneous rock and therefore once molten. Like their namesake,... Read more

  Posted on 14 November 2021 OUTDOORS

• Treefollowing: Wordless Wednesday (nearly)

  

  Flash the maple is thick with dried samaras.Spike the hawthorn still sports a bit of red and green.~🍂~Though the beech is goldenI cannot stand beside itmute, bu... Read more

  Posted on 10 November 2021 OUTDOORS

• Finding Petrophytum & Sereno Watson's Ghost

  

  Petrophytum caespitosum mat on limestone. Dark spots are shadows cast by flower clusters.In a narrow rocky canyon on the east side of the Ruby Mountains, I was... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2021 OUTDOORS

• Crystalline Beauty Amid the Garbage and the Flowers

  

  On my recent geotrip in eastern Nevada, I often stopped at road cuts—those man-made features so beloved by geologists. A cut removes weathered rock,... Read more

  Posted on 19 October 2021 OUTDOORS

• Tree Following & Other News from the Yard

  

  I asked my young trees, "What does the future hold?" But all I heard was wind in the leaves.From a distance, it looked like Flash the maple and Spike the... Read more

  Posted on 12 October 2021 OUTDOORS

• Reassembling Western Nevada

  

  Lone Mountain, a thick stack of Lower Paleozoic sediments deposited on the continental shelf of Laurentia. North of US Hwy 50, c. 15 mi west of Eureka.This... Read more

  Posted on 27 September 2021 OUTDOORS

• Mysterious Stones of the Laramie Mountains

  

  A story of granite, grus, and tors.If you wander the summit of the Laramie Mountains as dusk falls, chances are you will spot mysterious creatures silhouetted... Read more

  Posted on 20 September 2021 OUTDOORS