Friday I went to Sandy Hook, a beach at the tip of New Jersey, with my forest ecology class to look at the holly (Ilex opaca) forests present almost impossibly close to the shore. The forests were absolutely glorious, had some of the most dense canopy covers we'd analyzed yet, and were filled with this STUPID understory thorny vine (Smilax rotundifolia) which every time I got snagged in, I'd yell "SNORLAX."
It was absolutely spectacular and throughout the trip my professor was obsessed with all of the edible plants/berries (of which there were many!) along the way and made sure to show us one of the most beautiful things I've seen yet,
Winged sumac leaves:
The leaves are composite alternate in formation, but are structured in a way that look simple and opposite. If you look carefully, you'll see that every little thing that looks like a leaf is, in fact, connected to its neighbors by more little leaf-appearing things. One full leaf is actually much larger and much more complex than it appears (composed of many little leaflets), and it's absolutely fantastic and mind-blowing.

Saturday I went to Long Island and went to the Brookhaven marina and then to... another beach with my friend Brian.
Do you realize how beautiful our hometown is? So beautiful! The tides had wiped out this perfect little ledge, and I kept imagining how, if we were much, much smaller, it would not be a stretch at all to imagine little homes carved out of the face of this wall.

"How believable does this look?"
Not believable at all. But please don't stop.

-Camille