Day 7.269: Orris Falls

Our leaf-catching hike on Saturday morning was at Orris Falls Conservation Area. It's a strange little place really - a mile and a half of trails in some pretty woods with a graveyard and the foundation of a house belonging to the family who owned the land. Interestingly, Orris is the name of the son who inherited it - the family name is Littlefield.

Somehow though this place is much more than the sum of its parts.

Let's start with the falls. When we were there at least they were undetectable. We did see evidence of a stream and a rocky ravine it must flow down, but as for falling water - nothing.

On the other hand, the glacial erratics are very striking - most of all the famous balancing rock, but the kids climbed another one and posed rather nicely on it. We nearly gave up before we found the balancing rock, but I'm glad we stuck to our guns when we started to think we were on the wrong trail.

Also, as I mentioned these are very attractive woods - even on a dreary drizzly day.

At the bottom you can see some indian pipe. We love to find this unusual plant, but it's the first time we've spotted its seed heads.

The other thing that caught our eye was this strange green/black leaf-like growth on some of the large rocks:

It turns out that it is smooth rock tripe (Umbilicaria mammulata) - a lichen that is often described as being brown but I found references to it also coming in green. It is one of the largest foliose (leaf-like) lichens in the world.