Craig Springer

Like the Christmas celebration itself, hanging mistletoe in your house is rooted in ancient tradition. But before we get to that, it’s worth noting that mistletoe has no real roots — it’s a parasite, making its way in life by living off of rooted trees. “Mistletoe makes its own sugar, but poaches water from trees,” says Savannah Ballweg, who manages the Miami University botanical conservatory in Oxford.

According to Ballweg, Ohio is home to one species of mistletoe: American mistletoe, also known as oak mistletoe, found mostly in the southern part of the state.

You might have seen a service flag: a blue star (or stars) on a field of white, surrounded by a red border — hanging in the picture window of a seemingly random home in the neighborhood or in a shop window of a downtown building. But many folks might be unaware, or at least unsure, of its significance.

That’s why they are also known as harvestmen — for their gregarious nature at harvest time. They live throughout Ohio, on the farm, in the forest, in the suburbs, in your gardens, and in every corner of every city. And they are good to have around.

More than 2,400 species of fireflies exist around the globe, including about two dozen that make a home in Ohio. Fireflies, or lightning bugs as some people call them, are not flies at all, but beetles characterized by heavily armored shells over wings. 

When they take to the wing, they move about as though they carry a heavy load; speed through the air is not a defense mechanism. Heck, they advertise their whereabouts, from just above the grass to chest-high to weaving through the treetops, for any would-be predator to swoop in and make them a snack.

First, I encountered the ruins of curious concrete edifices in the creek bed that were clearly relics from another time. Old sycamores and silver maples grew thickly through cracked concrete. A tall tower stood there, orphaned, in what seemed the most out-of-the-way place. Not 40 yards away, Indian Creek bent into a deep pool beneath sheltering box elders. That leads to the second reason for the memory: It was there that I hooked a smallmouth bass as long as my forearm and thick as a pillow from the smallest of waters.

For DeWerth, it’s a moral imperative. “People need to know about nature,” he says. “We need to look up — there is so much to see and learn in nature. I want youth to understand the significance of Ohio’s trees.”

Mildred Gillars was born in Maine in 1900 and came of age in Ohio, the stepdaughter of an alcoholic dentist who once practiced in Bellevue. Home life was tumultuous. 

She graduated high school in 1917 at Conneaut, near the extreme northeastern corner of the state, and attended Ohio Wesleyan University, where she majored in dramatic arts. Gillars, who went by the nickname “Milly,” took roles in plays and earned a reputation as an excellent orator, eccentric, and a bit of a coquette. 

Four Mile Creek, for example, rises in the uplands along the Indiana-Ohio state line, picking up the waters of small rills and runs and seeps. It bumps into glacial moraines and purls through pastoral farmsteads on its downhill destiny with the Great Miami River — by which time it has become a substantial stream. Its placid form and lyrical name belie the fact it was born from warfare. 

Grant descended on his father’s side from a family long-established in America, dating to the Massachusetts Bay Colony circa 1630. His great-grandfather served the British in the French and Indian War, and his grandfather aided the colonists’ cause at the famed American victory at Bunker Hill in the American Revolution. Perhaps, then, it was no surprise that the 5-foot, 2-inch 17-year-old Grant would accept an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1839. 

Several species of widow spiders exist in North America, and Ohio has two of them: the Northern Black Widow and the Southern Black Widow — and the fear that we hold in our hearts for both of them is rational and deserved.