Father Pitt

Category: Nature

  • Gnarled Old Tree

    The base of an old tree in the Mount Lebanon Cemetery.

  • Holly Leaves

    The deep green of holly leaves adds a somber but hopeful note to winter in the Mount Lebanon Cemetery.

  • Rainbow Over Dormont

    A rainbow in the northeast, seen down West Liberty Avenue from the parking lot of Dormont Village. It is perhaps not the most poetical place to see a rainbow, but it was a very good rainbow, with the beginnings of another above it.

  • Rose of Sharon Gone to Seed

    Roses of Sharon produce flowers all through the summer and fall, and the flowers each produce a pod of seeds like this. Thus the bush spreads in the city. Its favorite habitat is along fences and among hedges, where the lawn mower won’t get it; in fact, it is very good at taking over entire hedges gradually, until the hedge is nothing but Rose of Sharon. To be fair to the plant, Rose of Sharon makes a very good hedge with very attractive flowers, so you may just want to let it take over.

  • Frost Grapes

    These are the grape vines that take over whole lots and smother large trees. When they get to tree-smothering size, they produce thousands of these little grapes, which are intensely flavorful and quite tart. They sweeten a bit after a frost. The grapes hang on into the winter; these were hanging on a huge vine in Beechview in late November.

  • Porcelainberry

    Porcelainberry (Ampelopsis glandulosa var. brevipedunculata) is another one of those beautiful ornamentals with a plot to take over the world. It was brought into this country for the delightfully subtle colors of its berries. Birds love them, and the vine is distributed everywhere. Here it was fruiting at the lower edge of the South Side Slopes. Above: before a hard freeze; below, after.

  • Fall Colors on the South Side

    Leaves and berries. Above, Red Maple (Acer rubrum).

    Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia).

    The beautiful and destructively invasive Asian Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus).

    Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina).

  • Sun Through the Maple Leaves

    Sun shines through the yellow leaves of a Norway maple in the back streets of the South Side.

  • Virginia Creeper in Fall Color

    Some of the brightest and purest reds in the fall come from Virginia creeper, or woodbine. It is a beautiful vine all summer, but when its glossy dark green leaves turn fiery red in fall, it can light up whole tree trunks in the woods. These vines grew (and fruited) at the edge of a small parking area on the South Side Slopes.

  • Autumn Leaves in Bird Park

    Autumn colors in Bird Park, a stream-valley park in Mount Lebanon.