Two views of the Squaw Run, swollen from yesterday’s rain, as it flows past Salamander Park in Fox Chapel.

A well-grown specimen of Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) is an extravagantly beautiful sight in the fall, covering stout tree trunks with a blanket of fiery red. If you love Poison Ivy, rejoice! The more we suburbanize the landscape, the more opportunity we create for this splendid vine, which naturally grows only at the edge of the woods.

Fall is just beginning to work its magic in the suburban forests. This little stream runs through the Kane Woods Nature Area in Scott Township; a little farther on it runs into Scrubgrass Run, which runs into Chartiers Creek, which runs into the Ohio River, which runs into the Mississippi, which runs into the Gulf of Mexico.

There’s a good crop of mushrooms this fall, and some of them are extraordinarily beautiful. (Some of them, like these splendid orange Jack-O’-Lanterns, are also poisonous.)

A dragonfly (or some close relative) lights on a dry grass stem hanging over a pond in the Homewood Cemetery. Old Pa Pitt is no entomologist, and all he knows about dragonflies is that there seem to be infinite varieties of them, and every one is beautiful.

A Morning Glory (Ipomoea purpurea) blooms in Beechview this morning.

 

Late-summer flowers line the banks of the Squaw Run as it meanders through Salamander Park in Fox Chapel.