Nature-based Games

My wife enjoys playing games - scrabble, scattergories, cribbage, etc - but we had only a handful of games that I liked to play with her. I was beginning to get tired of them, so I took to the internet. Were there new quality games coming out all the time and we just didn't know about them? The answer was yes. For the next few years we delved into the world of European-style board games, where we learned new terms like “worker placement” and “engine building”. But there are a few games that we really like that revolve around the natural world, and we learn a little along the way, whether we planned to or not.

The most science-based game we have is called Ecologies. It was originally designed by a biology professor to teach students about biomes, food webs, and ecosystems, but it has become a popular card game. The deck of cards contains 77 unique organisms throughout seven different biomes. Players build food webs using cards in their hand. Each web starts with a biome card and a producer, an organism that only needs sunlight. These become the foundation for the rest of the food web. Each card has a point value, and the first player to 12 points wins, but watch out - there are cards that your opponent can play to negatively affect your biomes. There are two subsequent decks that have their own unique biomes as well. Pictured is the swamp biome from the second deck, Ecologies: Bizarre Biomes.

We’re also backyard bird watchers, so when I read about Wingspan, I knew it was a game we had to try out. Designed by Elizabeth Hargrave, who has a love of birds and spreadsheets, each player takes turns gaining food to attract birds to their habitat. For example, a roll of the food dice, which is done through a birdhouse, may give me fish to feed a brown pelican to play in the wetland habitat. The birds can also lay eggs in varying types of nests which add points. Each of the more than 170 bird cards accurately reflects its diet, nesting habits, and habitat. After four rounds of play, the player who has the most points wins.

Elizabeth Hargrave’s second game, Mariposas, also has a nature theme. This time you are shepherding four generations of monarch butterflies from Mexico through eastern North America, as they stop to feed on flowers such as yarrow, tickseed, and coneflower, and stop to breed on milkweed plants. After three seasons (rounds) of play, the player with the most points wins.

Each game offers its own unique strategies and challenges when playing so each time we play, it’s a different experience and we learn something new. These games are a great way to spend some time with nature when we can’t actually be in nature. If you're interested in any of these games, Ecologies is probably the most straightforward with Mariposas being my second choice. Wingspan is a great game, but it can be challenging to play at first. If you want to learn how to play these games in a social setting, check out Game Night Charleston in Park Circle or Here Be Books and Games in Summerville or you can watch play-throughs of the games on YouTube.

Fringed Orchid

I’ve been wanting to search for native plants to photograph in the Francis Marion National Forest for a long time, but it has always seemed like a daunting task, with the combination of the immensity of the forest plus the heat and humidity of summer. But an opportunity arose this summer that I could not ignore.

A neighbor and a native plant enthusiast began posting photos of his trips into the forest on social media, including some stunning fringed orchids that I knew I had to photograph.

Since the end of summer was approaching, I needed to act fast if I wanted to photograph these plants while they were still blooming. After getting directions to the area of the forest where they were located, I set off early one morning in order to beat the heat. I was prepared for a long search in the woods, but I actually spotted them from the road as I slowly drove by.

It ended up being a relatively quick trip, but it worked out well, because it started to rain heavily within thirty minutes of being there. As an extra bonus, I didn’t even notice the praying mantis photobombing the orchid until I looked at the photos afterward! Can you find it?

Purple Knotweed

While waiting on the arrival of hurricane Florence in 2018, I decided it was the perfect time for an indoor photography project. While most of my subjects can be found close to my North Charleston home, I sought out the smallest flowering plants I could find in my own yard. I wanted to examine these overlooked plants more closely and what I found was a fascinating and beautiful world.

I didn’t have a name for it at the time, but purple knotweed grew all around the edges of my yard, anywhere grass didn’t grow. When it blooms in the late summer and fall, it’s just a sea of small purple flower spikes. Like most of the subjects of this show, I had no idea what I would find on closer inspection. I never imagined there would be so many flowers, their tight buds accented by even smaller hairs.

I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface while photographing this plant, and would like to take more photos of it during other stages of its development.

Ladies Tresses Orchid

I never paid much attention to the handful of flower spikes that popped up in my front yard every May, until I heard Amanda McNulty on SCETV radio talking about the Lady’s tresses orchids that would fill her yard every summer. Sometimes it takes an “aha moment” to identify a plant, and that’s what happened to me.

There are almost fifty species of lady’s tresses orchids in the genus Spiranthes, and they are worldwide. The ones in my yard usually bloom in May, near the beginning of mowing season, and since identifying them as orchids, I have been known to mow around them until they finish blooming.

The plant itself is hidden in the turf, but when the flower stalk emerges, they are very noticeable. They grow to more than a foot in some cases, and have a fairly thick stalk. The flowers are very small, with dozens of them forming a spiral around the stem, resembling ladies’ tresses. They are active for weeks, with the lower flowers blooming first while the uppermost ones are still forming.

Their blooms may be gone this year, but I look forward to May when I will see them again.

Kyllinga

All I knew about this weed was that it was called Kyllinga, and it seemed similar to nutsedge, but that was it. And when I googled it, most of the results are about how to kill it. It appears to be an unremarkable plant, but I was curious, so it was one of the “flowers” that I chose to photograph during my hurricane vacation. One of the reasons weeds are so hard to control is that they are so prolific. In the case of Kyllinga, each one of these spikelets is capable of producing a seed

After taking this photo, I just loved seeing the interplay of light and shadow among the spikelets as well as the stray seeds still left on the flower. When deciding which photos should be part of the show, this one was almost didn’t make the cut, but the more I look at it, the more I remember why I liked it.