Two views of snow-covered greenbrier leaves

with 23 comments

Smilax bona-nox; Great Hills Park; January 10.

Written by Steve Schwartzman

January 16, 2021 at 4:32 AM

Posted in nature photography

Tagged with Austin, ice, snow, Texas, vine, winter

23 Responses

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dothob

January 16, 2021 at 5:33 AM

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- Danke. The e-mail notification of your comment came through partly in German. That made me think Schnee, which in turn made me wonder if the painter Paul Klee ever painted pictures of snow. Turns out he did.
  
  Steve Schwartzman
  
  January 16, 2021 at 6:13 AM
  
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  - Paul Klee malt Schnee? Ach nee? 😉
    I guess I have to check these out then.
    Thanks!
    
    dothob
    
    January 23, 2021 at 5:06 PM
    
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    - I had to confirm that nee is a colloquial form of nein, like nah and nope in English.
      
      Hier malt Klee Schnee:
      https://www.google.com/search?q=paul+klee+snow
      
      Steve Schwartzman
      
      January 23, 2021 at 5:17 PM
      
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      - yup, that’s correct!
        und dankee! 😉
        
        dothob
        
        January 23, 2021 at 5:19 PM
        
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        It’s what you’d expect from a Yankee.
        
        Steve Schwartzman
        
        January 23, 2021 at 5:46 PM
        
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        😏
        
        dothob
        
        January 23, 2021 at 6:32 PM
        
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Beautiful

beth

January 16, 2021 at 5:59 AM

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- Two days later I went back and photographed greenbrier vines without snow.
  
  Steve Schwartzman
  
  January 16, 2021 at 6:21 AM
  
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Now here is a plant I am quite familiar with! I spend a lot of time cutting it for fawns when I’m out foraging for browse for them. Deer eat it green or dried. Your images give it a sugarcoated appearance which is quite beautiful.

Littlesundog

January 16, 2021 at 7:58 AM

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- Sugarcoating with snow is one thing, but I would never sugarcoat the hazard that this vine presents to walkers in the woods, as we both know so well from experience. You’ve surprised me by saying that fawns eat greenbriers; how do they deal with the sharp prickles?
  
  Steve Schwartzman
  
  January 16, 2021 at 8:15 AM
  
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The snow looks like crystalized sugar in these elegant photos.

melissabluefineart

January 16, 2021 at 8:25 AM

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- Two in a row: Lori in the previous comment also saw sugarcoating. That’s sweet (as is elegance) for a nature photographer to hear, yet with not a calorie in sight.
  
  Steve Schwartzman
  
  January 16, 2021 at 8:31 AM
  
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The icing on the leaves make some beautiful photos, Steve. The word graupel came to mind, but I am not sure that is what this is.

Lavinia Ross

January 16, 2021 at 10:33 AM

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- I thought graupel, too, Lavinia. I waffled between graupel and garden-variety sleet, but some of our forecasters were talking about graupel showing up here and there, and this sure looks like it.
  
  shoreacres
  
  January 16, 2021 at 10:29 PM
  
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  - We had a mix of types of precipitation. Some of the time real snowflakes came down, and at other times barely raindrops just barely freezing, or sleet. When I looked up the definition of graupel I found ‘precipitation consisting of snow pellets,’ which might suit what’s on these leaves.
    
    Steve Schwartzman
    
    January 16, 2021 at 10:42 PM
    
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So nice, it looks like sugar.

picpholio

January 16, 2021 at 1:12 PM

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This was one of the few plants that I did not like when I encountered it in Oklahoma. (I took seed anyway.) It was weird that it was foliated while the weather was so cold! I do not know how long it was like that, since we left before New Year’s Day.

tonytomeo

January 16, 2021 at 3:10 PM

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- I’m used to seeing green greenbrier leaves all through our mild winters. Individual leaves can die off, of course, like the one in the second picture.
  
  Steve Schwartzman
  
  January 16, 2021 at 9:15 PM
  
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Looks more icy than snow-like, both fine photographs. Ironically, it’s just in the 40s up here in the northeast.

tomwhelan

January 16, 2021 at 7:28 PM

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- It soon went back to normal for Austin, too, with high temperatures in the 60s. You’re right that the snow we got was very wet; in fact some of it was mixed with sleet, and that’s why what you see in these pictures looks icy.
  
  Steve Schwartzman
  
  January 16, 2021 at 10:17 PM
  
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The trefoil shape of the leaf in the first photo is especially appealing, and just a little surprising. I’m not sure I would have guessed greenbrier if I’d seen the leaf without any context, although the stem and the thorns might have been the clue. There’s a certain drama to the second photo. I can’t quite put my finger on what’s giving it that flair, unless it might be the brown and black combination. It’s quite striking.

shoreacres

January 16, 2021 at 10:40 PM

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- “Striking” is okay with me, thank you. In these here parts greenbrier leaves often have three lobes, for example:
  
  https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/greenbrier-in-autumn-part-3/.
  
  In fact a showed a snow-covered one last February, too:
  
  https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2020/02/07/white-wandered-in/
  
  This year’s snow was a lot better than last year’s, as you’ve been seeing in post after post.
  
  Steve Schwartzman
  
  January 16, 2021 at 10:49 PM
  
  Reply