Winter Greens

     Though winter in the Middle Atlantic States is generally regarded as a drab season with little color, there is lots of color if we look more intently for it.  Clear skies are still blue and clouds are gray or white.  Deciduous tree trunks are gray and tall grasses are yellow, beige or brown.  And many kinds of berries are red or orange.  But green, even in winter, is a dominant color on the ground in this area, whether snow is on the ground or not.  And green, even in winter, represents life to us humans.  Winter green is comforting to many of us weary of snow, ice and winter in general with its shorter periods of daylight each day.   
     Our suburban areas are the most green habitats in this area when snow is on the ground.  There planted coniferous trees, southern magnolia trees and American holly trees lend much green to our lawns, even when snow is on the ground and those trees.  And if the winter is mild with periods of no snow, the short grass of each lawn is still green with hardy life.
     Though deciduous forests are almost completely gray, except for sprinklings of dead, beige beech leaves still clinging to their twig moorings and carpets of dead, brown leaves on the forest floors when not snow covered, closer looks will reveal small, subtle patches of green on or near those woodland floors.  Patches of great rhododendron and mountain laurel in the shrub layers of deciduous woods are green with the leaves they retain through winter.  Some woods here have a few, scattered American holly trees with their evergreen foliage.
     And there are several kinds of small plants on certain forest floors that are green all winter.  The common Christmas ferns and poly-pody ferns are two of those plants.  Christmas ferns are large, have deep-green leaves and grow on slopes of forest floors.  Poly-podies, however, are small and grow in thin layers of soil and decaying leaves on top of boulders and rocky soil in the woods.  Poly-pody means many "feet", referring to the many small rootlets needed to grip the thin soil on rock.
     A few common, widespread species of fern relatives, called lycopods, are also green on some forest floors all winter.  Ferns and their relatives are an ancient group of plants that were far more dominant in the past than they are today.  At present, they are much like their ancestors, but much smaller.  However, in the Carboniferous Age of 200 to 300 million years ago, ferns and their allies were so large and numerous, like trees today, their dead and decaying vegetation in swamp muck became today's coal deposits.
     Some common lycopods today growing just inches above some of our forest floors are crow's-foot, ground pine and shining club moss.  The closely related crow's-foot and ground pine are similar in appearance, the former resembling birds' toes and the latter looking like tiny coniferous trees.  Both these plants inhabit the drier soils of bottomlands.
     Shining club moss is not a moss, but it is a bit moss-like.  This plant grows up to four inches tall in constantly moist soil, particularly along tiny trickles and puddles of water on bottomland forest floors.  And this lycopod has many tiny, shiny leaves along each stem from top to bottom.  
     A variety of lichens and mosses are also green in winter and are noticeable when not buried in snow.  Lichens are flat patches of fungi and alga growing together, mostly on rocks and boulders.  Fungi gives lichens body while the green alga uses sunlight to make food for both the fungi and itself, an example of a symbiotic relationship.
     Moss grows on boulders, bark and from the soil.  Sphagnum moss is a larger, spongy moss that grows along trickles and pools on forest floors, sometimes filling the puddles with itself.
     In winter, too, if there is no snow on the ground, some extensive fields are deep-green with living, growing winter rye, an important and useful crop planted by farmers in fall after harvests.  Rye holds down the soil, uses carbon dioxide to grow, takes nitrogen from the air and puts it into the soil, enriching it, and puts oxygen into the air.  Cattle and horses graze on rye, and wild geese and swans eat it, too.  Eventually rye is plowed under to enrich the soil further, or it might be left to grow.  The resulting grain is harvested and sold and the stems are baled to be bedding for livestock in barns in winter. 
      There are other green plants in milder winters, including young sprouts of ground ivy, garlic, garlic mustard, stinging nettles and poison hemlock plants.  Their green presence adds another bit of color and cheer to local, winter landscapes. 
     Yes, there is a lot of green in winter in the Middle Atlantic States, as elsewhere in North America.  That green is delightful to see in winter, a mostly dormant, and potentially depressing, time of the year.