This early Spring season has been interesting. First with 80-something degree days, and now with more normal 60 degree temperatures. If anything, the warm weather was a great reminder of how fun running can be in the summer. It’s nice to run without a shirt on. The warmth also brought some early plant growth, and I went out on the trails at work the other day to see what was growing. The first picture is of a fiddlehead fern. More specifically, it is a Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides).

Fiddleheads or Fiddlehead greens are the unfurled fronds of a young fern,^[1] harvested for use as a vegetable. Left on the plant, each fiddlehead would unroll into a new frond (circinate vernation). As fiddleheads are harvested early in the black season before the frond has opened and reached its full height, they are cut fairly close to the ground.

Fiddleheads have antioxidant activity, are a source of Omega 3 and Omega 6, and are high in iron and fibre.^[2] The fiddlehead resembles the curled ornamentation (called a scroll) on the end of a stringed instrument, such as a violin. It is also called a crozier, after the curved staff used by bishops, which has its origins in the shepherd’s crook.

I also saw some duck eggs that had apparently been eaten.

And here’s a photo of some flower that I found as well. Not sure what it is though.