How It Grows

Five Forks BMP

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sun, 15 May 2011 17:01:00 +0000

For the second field trip of 2011 I organized a trip to a BMP (detention basin) in the Five Forks area of James City County. Most BMP's aren't worth a second look, but this particular one was constructed along a local stream and has a nice selection of native wetland plants. I scheduled the walk to coincide with the blooms of some swamp doghobble that was growing along the edges of the BMP, but there was a very small turnout since there was a competing plant walk on the same day to see sweetleaf in bloom.

We started off looking at the nice selection of vines growing on the edge of the BMP: crossvine, grapes, poison ivy and (yuk) Japanese honey suckle.

The crossvine had a very interesting structure within the flowers, with crossing stamens leading to butterfly-shaped anthers.

Another interesting thing about the flower was the smell. One of the field trippers noted that the crossvine was supposed to have a mocha scent, so I gave it sniff and sure enough, it smelled just like coffee grounds.

Speaking of scents, another flower that I had never bothered to smell before was the tulip tree flower. They have a wonderful vanilla scent.

After looking at a couple trees, we ventured into the bottom of the BMP. I didn't bring any boots, but luckily someone else did and he was kind enough to get in the mud and pluck a bloom of yellow pond lily for a close up view.
I'm still a little confused with the pond lily. Depending on the source, the number of species ranges from 1 to 25. I'm not sure there is a final consensus yet.

Not too far away from the pond lily was the swamp doghobble I wanted to see. It was a little difficult to get to however. We had to make our way through a thicket of sapling trees to find them.

Swamp doghobble has long racemes of bell shaped flowers which are sweetly scented. Standing next to the doghobble you could see the lush stands of cinnamon and royal ferns on the other side of the swamp, but we decided to leave those for another day.

A couple other plants we spotted on the walk: willow, elderberry, swamp dogwood, and American holly. The dogwood wasn't in quite in bloom the day we were there, but when I went back a week later, the white flowers seemed to be everywhere.

You can see all my photos from the walk here.

Sandy Ridge Wildlife Trail

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 14:17:00 +0000

While I was down in Duck, North Carolina for the Thanksgiving break, I took in a trip down to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge consists of 154,000 acres along the Albemarle Sound, and is known for its reestablished population of red wolves.
There are several trails in the preserve and my friends Susie and Jeff took me to the Sandy Ridge Wildlife Trail, which they had been to before. It has a great 2,300’ boardwalk that takes you through a swampy forest of pond pine (Pinus serotina), bald cypress (Taxodium distichum),
swamp bay (Persea palustris) and other trees.

It was an interesting walk, with a different palette of plants than I'm used to here on the lower peninsula. But since it was the end of the season, there wasn’t much in bloom. I did see a couple asters, smartweed, sagittaria, and a bit of hempvine. And there were some brilliantly colored blueberries here and there.

Though there weren't a lot of flowers, there was a nice variety of fruits. Some of the plants in fruit were black-druped inkberry (Ilex glabra),blue-gray druped southern wax myrtle,red druped American holly

black berried greenbriar,double black druped swamp tupelo,

amber druped poison ivy,

dark blue-black druped swamp bay,
and these red berried plants which I hadn't seen before. The fruit clusters looked a lot like those of greenbriar and I knew there was a red fruited species. A bit of research determined that it was coral greenbriar (Smilax walteri).
By the way, drupes are fleshy fruits with seeds encased in stony endocarp and berries are fleshy multi-seeded fruits resulting from a single pistil (is that clear now?).

Mixed among the fruiting plants were 4 shrubs with dried seed capsules. I immediately recognized two of the plants, sweetspire (second from top) and clethra (bottom), but there were two plants were new to me.
The first shrub was fairly low with wide evergreen leaves. I suspected it was a Lyonia, though the leaves were different from the species I knew, Lyonia mariana. Also the branches were strongly ridged. The dried fruit capsules were coarse and grew on a thick stem.The other shrub I couldn’t id was taller and had sprays of dried capsules hanging from the branches. Some of the leaves were bright red.
Once I was home, I went through my guidebooks and discovered that the plants were fetterbush (Lyonia lucida) and titi (Cyrilla racemosa). So even though it was the end of the season, I was happy to see these two plants in their native habitat for the first time.

Fall Tree Walk

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 01:04:00 +0000

I had a big turnout for the last plant walk of the year on October 23rd. At least 35 people showed up or joined us mid-walk. We took a stroll around downtown Williamsburg and crossed through the William & Mary campus and over to Colonial Williamsburg. Unfortunately, we were about a week early for the best color, but there were a few trees that had begun to turn.

We started at the Williamsburg Library where I was ready with a sticky, gummy horse apple (Maclura pomifera) from a nearby osage orange tree. Some scientists have theorized that these fruits, native to Texas, were eaten by prehistoric mammals like mammoths and giant sloths.

The library also had a couple small native trees, sweetbay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana) and redbud (Cercis canadensis). The redbud even had a few pink flowers growing out of the trunk, which is typical for the species. For some reason it thought it was spring.

Several people asked me to identify a tree with serrated leaves (shown below). It's a sawtooth oak, and there are lots growing in downtown Williamsburg. I think I gave out the wrong botanical name on the field trip. The correct name is Quercus acutisima. Unfortunately they are not native and kind of aggressive seeders.

After looking around the library, we walked over to the sunken gardens, passing a male osage orange and the curious shrubs below. They all had the same shape, but different colors: orange pine green, and peacock green. Turns out that they all arborvitaes. The brown ones were dead, the pine green were healthy and the peacock green ones were spray painted. It's been a tough year for container gardening.

At the sunken gardens we walked under the dark shade of several beeches (Fagus grandifolia) and a large elm (Ulmus americana) that had yet to turn it's usual brilliant yellow. Here's a picture from last year
Beyond that was an enormous white ash (Fraxinus americana) with a limb that hangs ominously over Jamestown Road. Then we crossed the street to look at the national champion water elm (Planera aquatica) which is right in front of the Campus Center. Although it's not super big, it has a nice trunk with pretty mottled bark. Here's a picture from last winter.

We then wandered through Merchant’s Square and the farmers market where we found a fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus), though without the blue fruits (seen below) that you sometimes see in the fall. Not far away was also a hawthorn (Crataegus sp.), which was in fruit.

Heading down Duke of Gloucester street we came across what looked like a sugar maple (Acer Saccharum), but I think I heard that some of the sugar maples in CW were actually black maples (Acer nigrum). Black maples have curved points on the lobes as appeared to have. I'm not 100% sure about that though.

Walking further into CW we came across a yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea) and a yellow buckeye (Aesculus flava). Yellowwood is a midwestern native that has gorgeous flowers in the spring. It’s a member of the fabaceae family (bean family)

The yellow buckeye is similar to our red buckeye though it grows further west. You can see a picture of it's bloom here.

Walking past the CW nursery, I put Cynthia Long on the spot to identify a flower growing over a fence. Of course it was no problem for her to identify - swamp sunflower. This large yellow flower is a great late season bloomer.
One way to identify it, other than bloom time, are the narrow leaves.

Along the palace green, we stopped to look at another member of the fabacea family, Kentucky Coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus). Supposedly, its large seed pods were used by pioneers during hard times as a coffee subsititute.

The pods look a bit like dead rats hanging from the tree. Here's one from the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

The leaf is also interesting because it’s doubly compound. Pictured below is a single leaf.

On the other side of the palace green behind the Robert Carter house, we came across a witchhazel in bloom, which was appropriate for the upcoming Halloween.
Next to the witchhazel was a grove of american hazelnuts which were putting out its catkins which will be quite showy later in the winter.

On the way back to the library we took the path between the Palace and the Matthew Whaley school where we spotted some goldenrod, possibly gray goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis).

There was also some Carolina cherrylaurel in fruit (Prunus caroliniana).

Thanks for coming out guys, and I'll see you next spring when the field trips start back up!

August week 4

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 01:05:00 +0000

Huzzah! This post completes my year-long survey of what's blooming this week. What a relief. From now on, I'll be updating the bloom surveys only when I have something new to add. Maybe now I'll have time to read other people's blogs again.

Here's what I saw this week:

red spiderlily,

purple passionflower,

white water lily,

colorless (?) fountain grass,

pink hardy begonia,

white moonflower,

and pale yellow okra.

You can see the rest of the week 4 photos here.

August week 3

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:31:00 +0000

A short post this week since I didn't get out much. I'm resorting to using photos from week 3's past.

Help me out folks...I didn't label these first two plants. Any ideas? I'm sure they're something obvious. I think this was in a vegetable garden.

And this was at Lewis Ginter. Please don't mock me for not recognizing them.

Here's a harlequin glory bower growing on the W&M campus.

And here's a fringetree in fruit outside the Adams garden.

Flowers still in bloom:

cardinal flower

and sneezeweed.

You can see the rest of my photos here.

August week 2

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:59:00 +0000

This post is several weeks late, so I don't remember much about the weather or anything else that happened during this week. I've been super busy with my DJ training at the William & Mary radio station. I'll just say that it was hot and that the drought continued and I'll have a 99% chance of being correct.

Liriope was blooming everywhere,and naked ladies suddenly jumped out from nowhere.

Crinum lilies were blooming
and I started to see end of the season seed pods like Chinese lantern

and goldenrain tree (which have started to turn brown).

Peegee hydranges continue their show

and sumac was out in force.

Two vines were running amok:
non-native autumn clematis,

and native milkweed.

Scarlet pentapetes was blooming in the CW nursery

and beautyberry was showy as well.

You can see the rest of my week 2 photos on flickr.

August week 1

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 23:49:00 +0000

Yikes, I'm really behind on my posting. Hope to catch up over the next week or two. I didn't get any new pictures for this year's first week of August so I dug through my archives for a few random pictures:

A field of sunflowers on the Eastern Shore,

ligularia,

water lily,

phlox,

switchgrass,

Joe-pye weed,

yellow buckeye seeds,

and Carolina spiderlily.The rest of my August week 1 photos are here.

July week 4

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 20:44:00 +0000

Once again, not much time this past week to get out and about so I'm digging into my week 4 archives:

First, two plants from Colonial Williamsburg that I never got around to identifying. Any ideas? This looks like some kind of pea/bean thingy (update: now identified as Alexandrian senna),

and this looks like it came from outer space (update: this turns out to be American spikenard).And now the rest:
hibiscus were still going strong,

as well as phlox,

anemonies,

speedwell,

and peegee hydrangea.

You might have noticed that devil's walking stick have started blooming. I think they're pretty cool looking.

You can see the rest of the photos here.

July week 3

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:49:00 +0000

And I thought the previous week was hot!. With temperatures in the 100's, walking outside during week 3 was like walking into an oven! I did visit a couple of sites, however, that were dealing fairly well with the heat wave. Take a look...

At Mattey's Garden next to the Matthew Whaley School:

purple hyacinth bean,

zinnias,

squash blossoms,

Mexican petunia,

and this plant, which I can't remember the name of.

At a friend's house:
indigofera,

a drooping pineapple lily,

hibiscus,

Joe-pye weed,

and phlox.

Around town:

false aloe,

ironweed,

giant coneflower,and paw paws.And at my house:
spiderlilies.
You can see the rest of the week's photos here.

July week 2

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:26:00 +0000

The hot dry weather continues...things are starting to droop. A couple of times a strange clear liquid briefly fell from the sky. I'm not sure what it was but the plants sure perked up for a couple of hours. I don't have many pics this week. We're entering the summer doldrums and I've been distracted by my burgeoning music career.

A few things I saw:
sedum,

self-heal,
and rose of Sharon.Natives included partridge pea,

Atlantic pigeonwings,

and sumac.

I didn't key out this thistle so I'm not sure if it's native or not.

Follow this link to see the rest of my shots.

July week 1

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:44:00 +0000

I'm running behind again...too much to do! Here's what was to be seen at the beginning of July...

In CW:
tuberoses,

harebells,

cardinal flower,
and sunflower,

On the W&M campus a sophora tree was shedding its blooms.
At a friend's house:
crocosmia,

lantana,

agastache (a bit past its peak),

tomatoes,
and blueberries.

Also seen around town:
dwarf sabal palm,
deadly water hemlock

and its cousin Queen Anne's Lace,

rose mallow,and cattails.

It's also the season for lotuses.

The rest of my photos from this week are here.

Joseph Pines Preserve

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 20:46:00 +0000

I had the rare opportunity for a guided tour through the Joseph Pine Preserve in Sussex County in early June. The preserve is owned by Meadowview Biological Research Station, which was founded in 1995 to preserve Virginia's disappearing long-leaf pine/pitcher plant community. The 100 acre preserve is only open to the public on special occasions.

The property is a mix of loblolly pine plantation, hardwood forests, swamp and sphagnous seeps. The diverse terrain provides a home for 18 rare species of plants.

Long leaf pines once covered 1.5 million acres in Virginia, but now there are only about 4000 trees left, and half of those are actually plants from Louisiana planted on the Blackwater Preserve. At Jospeh Pines, they’ve recently planted 3,000 longleaf seedlings specifically from native Virginia pines. Below you can see the typical 'candles' growing at the top of the young trees that makes them easy to identify.
One reason longleafs disappeared is logging and pine sap harvesting. Through the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, longleaf pines were an important source of turpentine, tar, and pitch, until supplies were depleted (read more here). It was the dirty feet of the turpentine workers that gave North Carolina the 'Tarheel State' nickname. In the back of the preserve is a lone remaining pine stump that had been used for collecting sap. All the others were ground up by the Continental Can Company for dynamite production.
Another reason for their demise was fire suppression. Fire is critical for the longleaf life cycle, allowing pine seedlings to survive and releasing seeds from cones. Joseph Pines has had several controlled burns to reestablish the conditions that longleafs need. In the video below you can tell they got a real kick out seeing the fires work their magic.

The tour of the preserve was led by Meadowbrook President Phil Sheridan. It was a good turnout with about 20 or 30 people on the tour.
One of our first stops was a giant pile of sawdust, which marked the location of an old logging operation. According to Phil, the sawdust pile showed up on aerial photos as far back as the 1930’s. After that we walked through meadows filled with bracken fern and pine saplings, and headed for one of the pitcher plants plantings. A large depression, a couple hundred feet across, was home to the loads of yellow pitcher plants,as well as smaller purple pitcher plants. There were a few blooms to be seen but they were low to the ground.To populate the pitcher plant preserve, Phil and his compatriots grew and studied pitcher plants that were obtained from the 6 remaining populations in the state. It's a good thing too, since 4 of the sites have since disappeared. But we still have their gene pool at the preserve. The small tents in the shot below are protective coverings for young plants that keep them from getting washed away.Though Pitcher plants are now rare in Virginia, they didn’t used to be. In fact, back in the 30’s, botanists used to look for roadside stands of pitcher plants as indications of good spots to look for rare plants. But the roads themselves partly lead to the decrease of pitcher plants, as they began to block natural water courses. And as with pines, fire plays a critical role in the pitcher plant life cycle. Pitcher plants get their nutrients from the insects they consume and they don't like rich soils. Periodic fires remove organic material in the soil, and suprisingly, fire leads to more water. In a forest, only about 50% of the water actually reaches the ground. With less plant growth comes more runoff and groundwater for the seeps that pitcher plants like.
At the site, grad student John McLeod explained some the work he and other students were doing to learn about the water cycle at the preserve. They've been taking soil cores to find out how the groundwater moves through the alternating layers of clay and sandy soil on the site. The question is which layers are transporting the water.

Other plants we spotted on the property included reestablished sundews mixed with the pitcher plants, as well as white milkweed and wild yellow baptisia (below).

There was also swamp azalea, maleberry, Black-eyed Susan, wild quinine, meadowbeauty, and butterfly weed scattered here and there. And though I didn’t see it, Mary Hyde Berg reported finding a grass pink in bloom.

Thanks for the tour Phil! I'm very glad there are organizations like yours that are working to preserve these rare ecosystems. You can see the rest of my photos here. For more detailed information on the preserve, take a look at their website. And for general information on long leaf forests, take a look at the Longleaf Alliance website.

June week 4

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:57:00 +0000

Thought the hot weather continued, I got back outside this week when I went to the calcareous ravine talk at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden. Here's some of what was blooming in the garden:

At the entrance of the park were a couple of pretty but invasive mimosa trees. Luckily they don't seem to have spread farther into the park. Yet.

Other non-natives included daylily,butterfly bush,

and tall verbena (V. bonariensis).

Here's one of our native verbenas, swamp verbena (V. hastata).
Other natives in the garden were rattlesnake master,meadowbeauty,buttonbush,

milkweed,

black-eyed Susan,

St. John's wort,

soldier mallow,

wild quinine (this stuff blooms for a long time),

beautyberry (preparing for its fall display)

oxeye sunflower,

and phlox.

You can see the rest of my week 4 photos here.

June week 3

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:45:00 +0000

O.M.G.! Too hot to go outside for this installment! So here's some pictures from this week in previous years. I took these before I got my nice camera.

Black cohosh,

queen of the prairie,

pigeonwings,

gordonia,

liatris,

downy yellow false foxglove,

stokesia,

false hedge bindweed,

and Canada lily.Stay cool!

A Calcareous Ravine Garden

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:01:00 +0000

I just went to hear a talk by Dr. Donna Ware and Ralph Will at the recently installed calcareous ravine display at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden in Freedom Park. The ravine display is home to a selection of mountain disjunct plant species that can be found growing locally. Disjunct species are plants that have their primary range in one location, and a secondary location separated by a large gap, sometimes hundreds of miles.

In Virginia, the separation typically occurs between plants growing in the Blue Ridge Mountains and fossil shell-filled ravines in the coastal plain. In the picture below, from the Virginia Digital Atlas, you can see an example of this distribution. The counties colored light blue are ones where you can find dog violets (Viola labridorica). Mind the gap!
The calcium carbonate that leaches from the fossil shells makes the soils in the ravines more alkaline than the acidic soils you normally find in our area. In these alkaline soils you can find plants like wild sasparilla, American bellflower, and zig zag goldenrod that, if you didn't know better, might lead you to think that you were in another part of the country.
Donna Ware, Emeritus Research Associate Professor of Biology and Curator Emeritus at William & Mary, had an experience something like that when she first arrived at the here. On her first field trip through the college woods she recognized many species that she knew from her home in the Ozarks, such as alternate leaf dogwood (below) and wild coffee. So how did these disjunct species end up here so far from home? You have to go back a long, long time ago to find out. Here's how Donna explained it:

Way back around 4.5 million years ago, this area was covered by shallow oceans where countless shellfish lived and died, accumulating on the sea floor. After hundreds of thousands of years, the seas retreated and the shells were buried under later soil deposits. Then more recently, as the glaciers of the Wisconsinan Ice Age retreated, melt-water streams carved ravines through the soil, exposing a layer of fossil shells like the one in the picture below. The shells are typically found at an elevation of 50' above sea level and interestingly, the shells fossilized as discrete specimens, not locked in rock, so it's quite easy just to pull them out of the soil.That explains the calcareous soils, but how did the plant populations become separated? Donna filled us in:

After the last ice age, there was a continuous band of mountain species along the east coast. Jack pine and spruce at first, and later hemlocks, white pines and northern hardwoods. As the climate gradually warmed, plants from farther south spread into our area, displacing the mountain species. But some of the retreating species were able to hang on in the shell-filled ravines. It's not that these mountain species needed the calcareous soils to survive, but rather that they could out compete the more southerly intruders in the alkaline soils.

The discovery of our areas disjunct species has occurred slowly over the years. Some of the first species were recorded in John Claytons Flora Virginica back in 1700's. In the 20's botanist E. J. Grimes listed 16 species and discoveries continued with Harvard's M. L. Fernald in the 30's and 40's. By the 60's A. M. Harvill listed 36 species.

In the 80's Donna Ware studied plants in a 2 mile section of the Grove Creek watershed found 32 additional species. And recently, Leah McDonald came up with a total of 90 species while writing her master's thesis.

For some reason, our area of the coastal plain seems to be a hot spot for disuncts. A county by county analysis by Donna revealed the highest concentrations of species in James City County with 67 species, followed by Surry County with 48, and York County with 34. This is significantly more than surrounding counties. Donna said one theory about why there are so abundant in our area somehow has to do with the Chesapeake Bay impact crater.
Also on hand at the talk was Ralph Will, who operates a native plant rescue organization with his wife Carolyn Will. Ralph spent a lot of time helping to build the ravine exhibit and talked about how it was conceived and constructed. As Ralph explained, it was immediately apparent that you couldn’t just dig a ravine in the garden. It would just fill up with water. So William & Mary Professor Emeritus, Dr. Jerre Johnson suggested building the ravine above ground and facing north, as many of the ravines naturally occur. And he wasn't just talk —Jerre built the stone wall himself, following a clay model sculpted by Donna. The walls are reinforced against the weight of the soil with metal stakes and chicken wire, and soaker hoses have been built in to help with keep the plants watered. It's kind of an experimental approach. As far as Donna knows, no one else has attempted such a garden.

Jerri also suggested planting things within the crevices of the walls. Earlier this year I found nice clumps of bloodroot (below), hepatica, columbine, and robin's plantain blooming in between the stones. While not disjuct species themselves, they are companion plants that are often found alongside the disjuct species.Other companion plants planted around the ravine are putty root orchid, leatherwood, and maidenhair fern. All the plants used in the garden are rescued or donated plants. Donna describes them as hyper-local; she wanted to get plants as genetically appropriate as possible. By the way, Donna's looking for an umbrella magnolia to add to the garden. Can anyone donate one from their yard?

If you stop by to see the garden, don't be suprised if it seems a little bare. It's still young, but it will be great to see it fill in over the next several years. You can see more pictures of the ravine here.

June week 2

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:32:00 +0000

I'm a couple weeks behind in my posting, so a lot of this stuff is old news. I think the hot weather is affecting my motivation. So belatedly, here's what I came across in the second week of June, all from Colonial Williamsburg.

Spotted horsemint,

flowering tobacco,Hostas,

Hollyhocks,

rose of Sharon,

soapwort,

bottlebrush buckeye,

beebalm,

meadowsweet,

castor bean,

acanthus,

rose campion,

dill,

rosinweed (I think),
and this little flower I can't (or am to lazy to) identify.The rest of my photos are here.

June week 1

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:45:00 +0000

I always like the first week of June; it's the unofficial start of summer and it includes my birthday. If only I had the entire summer off like I did years ago and like all my professor friends still do...

I was surprised to discover this grass pink, a native orchid, had volunteered itself at the library native plant garden.

Other things around town:
a venus flytrap at my office,

white coneflower,yucca, which has been blooming for several weeks now,
a beautiful red lily,
and at my house a Shirofuji hydrangea.
I stopped by a nearby house for sale and found:
pickeral weed,
wild petunia,

and milkweed.

I made a return trip to my friends Susie and Jeff's house and their yard was full of interesting blooms including:
Chastetree,
Mexican hat
beebalms with bees,

Schubert allium (well, past bloom in this case),

a neighbor's golden rain tree,

lizard's tail,

hydrangeas,

and hydrangeas.

Oh, and a white grass pink.

You can see the rest of my photos here.

Newport News Park Boardwalk

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:44:00 +0000

Phew! The VNPS field trip at Newport News Park at the end of May went a lot better than the last field trip I led. Turnout was good and there were several interesting plants to see. It was kind of a long hike though; it was almost a mile from the parking area to the wetland boardwalk where the good stuff was.

Walking through the shady, deer infested woods, I hadn't excepted to see much, but shortly after starting out we came across a couple Indian Pipes (Monotropa uniflora). I was surprised to see Indian Pipes at this time of year since I usually see them in the fall. This parasitic doesn't have chlorophyll so it lives off tree roots and can grow in very shady locations.A bit further along, a sharp eyed field tripper spotted the tiny white flower buds of spotted winter green (Chimaphila maculate). This evergreen plant is pretty common in the local woods.Along the trail to the boardwalk there was lots of Black gum (Nyssa sylvatica). I didn't realize until now that it was in the Dogwood Family (Cornaceae). It obviously liked the moist soils along the shore of the park reservoir.

Crossing some bridges, we saw a LOT of duckweed in the nooks and crannies of the reservoir. Duckweed is a very tiny floating plant and a member of the Aracea family (peace lily, calla lily, skunk cabbage, etc.). Some duckweeds are native, some not. One type of duckweed, Wolffia has the world's smallest flower.
We also saw a bit of skullcap and hawkweed, and walked through several paw paw patches, though I didn't notice any developing fruits.

Finally we got to the boardwalk, which is quite lovely. It's about 600 feet long with a couple observation decks along the way. There's a nice diversity of plants there, though sometimes it takes a bit of effort to see them.
Several species of trees were growing in small hummocks that barely rose above the water: green ash, swamp dogwood, willow, tag alder and persimmon. The trees were covered in a hairy lichen called old man's beard (Usnea sp.) along with a bit of mistletoe. According to Shirley Devan, there are three types of lichen:

Crustos lichens – look like white paint on tree; least sensitive to air pollution
Foliose lichen –looks like green wrinkled paper (folio)
Fruticose lichens – look like little green bushes on tree branch; most sensitive to air pollution

By the way, one field tripper asked about the sex of the dried green ash flowers (the brown masses below) which were visible from the boardwalk. The trees are dioecious, having either male and female trees. This tree has samaras, so it's a female.
Swamp Dogwood (Cornus foemina) was just finishing it's blooming season but there were still a few clusters left. Growing up the some of the dogwoods was woodvamp (Decumaria barbara), a vine which is in the hydrangea family. I almost didn't see it since the blooms looked similar to the dogwood.Mixed in with the trees there was a bit of swamp rose (Rosa palustris) and sweetspire (Itea virginica) which was just finishing blooming. Growing in the water there was a whole lot of smartweed (Polygonum or Persicaria, depending who you ask), though it wasn't in bloom yet. I'm not 100% sure what species it was...I'll have to go back to check. Here's a picture of it in bloom last year.There was also plenty of arrow arum (Peltandra virginica). Here and there you could see some of its green flowers floating on the water.
There was also a quite a bit of swamp loosestrife (Decodon verticillatus), though it wasn't in flowering yet. This member of the loosestrife family is related to crapemyrtles and you can see some similarity in the flowers. Good thing I brought along a photo of it in bloom. Other plants we saw growing in or around the water were lizard's tail (below), cattails, bog hemp, and dodder.On the way back to the parking lot we got a nice surprise. A luna moth was resting on a tree branch on the ground. It looked like it must have just emerged from its cocoon—its wings weren't completely dry. The poor thing must have been scared to death as we all converged on it with our cameras.
Thanks for coming out guys, it was fun! You can see the rest of my photos here.

Hickory Hollow Natural Area Preserve

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 22:23:00 +0000

I had a terrific walk through Hickory Hollow Natural Area Preserve with members of the Northern Neck chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society this past May. The preserve is way up on the Northern Neck, not far from Kilmarnock, and about an hour and a half drive from Williamsburg.

The goal of the expedition was to see a disjunct population of Kentucky lady's slipper orchid (Cypripedium kentuckiense) in an area known as Cabin Swamp. It's the only spot in the state where these rare orchids can be found. Most Kentucky lady's slippers are found in two states: Alabama and Kentucky, but its range was extended when this disjunct population was discovered in 1996. Kentucky lady's slippers are closely related to yellow lady's slipper (c. parviflorum) and there was some debate about whether they should be categorized as a separate species. Recent genetic evidence supports its designation as a separate species. You can read a detailed discussion of the issue here.

The walk was led by Master Naturalist and Northern Neck Audubon Society past president, Tom Teeples. Tom was very familiar with the site and he, along with Ann Messick and other concerned citizens, helped convince Lancaster County officials not to turn the area into an industrial park.

It was a very pleasant walk down to Cabin Swamp. The temperature was perfect, though the sky was overcast, giving all my pictures a gloomy feel. Near the entrance to the trail were a few mountain laurel still in bloom.Under the canopy of the hardwood forest, we found large patches of running cedar (Lycopodium digitatum), along with bluets (Hustonia purpurea), snakeroot (Sanicula canadensis), partridgeberry and Virginia pennywort (Cardamine concatenata). Here and there you could also see a few heart's-a-bursting in bloom. Sseveral purple twayblade orchids (Liparis liliifolia) lined the path to the swamp. It was my first time seeing them.

To get to Cabin Swamp, we climbed down a fairly steep ravine, stopping to look at the flowers of heartleaf (Hexastylis virginicus). At the bottom of the ravine was a convenient boardwalk. It led us through the bog, rich in leafy perennials including skunk cabbage, marsh marigold, lizard's tail, and Jack-in-the-pulpit. There was also still a bit of sweetspire blooming along the edge of the open water. Of course the most spectacular sight were the lady's slippers, though there were just a handful in bloom. Tom mentioned that a recent survey had found 77 out of 120 plants in bloom. In addition to the lady's slippers, I was especially intrigued by a plant I had never seen before, false hellebore (Veratrum viride).

This is another disjunct that is normally found in higher elevations in the western part of the state. It may be old news to some of you native plant aficionados, but I thought the plant was quite striking with its huge hosta-like leaves growing along the three foot tall stems. The green flowers weren't exactly spectacular, but they were definitely interesting. This plant would look great in my water garden…I MUST find it somewhere! It doesn't seem to be that readily available online. If anyone has some to share, let me know.

You can see all my photos from the trip here.

May week 4

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:02:00 +0000

It's beginning to look a bit summery with the first hints of crapemyrtle blooms popping up here and there. I was too busy to get out much this week but here's what I did see. By the way, I should have included lots of pics of hydrangea blooms, but I'm sure they'll still be around next week.

At my friends Kim and Loren's house:
oakleaf hydrangea

purple water iris,

and powdery thalia.

In Colonial Williamsburg:
the first whorled rosinweed bloom of the season,

tawny daylily,

elderberry,

Madonna lily,

lavender,

and some tyical season plants, coleus and impatiens.

At the Williamsburg Library native plant garden:
white baptisia,

skullcap,
butterfly weed,

purple coneflower,

swamp milkweed,

Things I saw while out and about:
dogwood (Cornus amomum perhaps?)

white milkweed,

and pink waterlily.

You can see the rest of my week's photos here.

Cherry Orchard Bog Natural Area Preserve

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sat, 29 May 2010 20:30:00 +0000

Earlier this spring I made two visits to Cherry Orchard Bog Natural Area Preserve, one of Virginia's newer natural area preserves. The preserve lies south of the James River, on the border between Sussex and Prince George County. It's home to several seeps and springs which flow through the gently rolling terrain. The low ph/low nutrient water creates habitat for several uncommon plants including bog buttons, large flowered camass, and white fringed orchids.

The first trip I made was in the middle of April. I took the ferry across the James and drove down towards Waverly, following some rural back roads to get to the preserve. At the entrance to the preserve there's a small pull off and a wooded walk leading straight into the preserve. Along the this trail I came across some deerbeery and bluets in bloom. After a couple hundred feet the trail opened up to a wide power line corridor stretching miles into the distance. The constant sound of the crackling lines made me a bit nervous. I couldn't help thinking: what if one of those lines snapped and a whipping wire zapped me with a bazillion volts of electric current?The area under the utility line was full of grasses and perennials, including a lot of bushy bluestem. The first things that struck me were the drifts of yellow ragwort. But it wasn't the familiar golden ragwort that you see along streams in early spring, it was woolly ragwort, identifiable by its hairy, almost blue leaves. Looking around a bit more I began to notice lots of tiny violets, oak saplings with deep red coloring to the emerging leaves, and scattered dogwoods along the edges of the woods. Walking along the right of way was difficult at times. I had to get my feet wet a couple of times to get across small streams and water-filled depressions.

I noticed the trees on the on the south side of the right of way were all charred black from a recent fire (photo at the top of the story). The area had been burned last April in order to reestablish the open, boggy habitat that had been declining because of fire suppression. A dense growth of blueberries, huckleberries, and bracken fern was thriving below the trees. At a low point along the treeline a small sign and patch of vernal iris marked a path into the bog. The area was full of ferns, mostly cinnamon, but also royal ferns and a couple other species.I knew it was still early for any pitcher plants blooms but it looked like there would be lots of interesting plants in this area and I decided to return later in the spring.

Outside the bog I walked further along the power line corridor until I found a wide looping access trail winding through the higher, drier part of the preserve. Along this path I found wild lupine just starting to bloom. Each lupine leaf contained a single drop of water. On the return trip to the preserve in late May, I brought along a couple friends from the native plant society. Under the power lines, several types of plants were blooming that I had seen previously, but this time it was balsam ragwort instead of woolly ragwort and slender blue flag iris instead of vernal iris. These were joined by many new blooms including wild quinine, venus' looking-glass, daisy fleabane, and the burgandy-colored blooms of clasping milkweed.We also found the wavy leaves of kidney-leaf rosinweed (which looked a little like Swiss chard) and instead of dogwoods lining the edges of the woods, we found sweetbay magnolia in bloom.

We all headed to the boggy area to see if any interesting plants had come up since my first visit and were not dissappointed. At the entrance to the path we found a clump of orange milkwort, and after heading down the path only a few feet, we ran into a nice patch of bog buttons. They were so small and delicate, it was hard for me to get a good shot. A bit further along, we found pink lady's slipper (though not in bloom) and several specimens of whorled loosestrife, which I had never seen in person. And growing under the shrubs at the edge of the path there were several Indian cucumber roots in bloom, also hard to photograph. Eventually the path petered out into the woods so we headed back to the power lines and the loop trail where I found the lupine. As we walked, we began to see more and more of the orange milkwort. They seemed to be everywhere! In the wetter parts of the easment we found maleberry and even some swamp azalea that was still in bloom the sticky blooms confirmed the species). Along the upland loop trail of the park we saw more lady's slippers, frostweed and several large colonies of goat's rue, which I had never seen before.After the walk we pulled off all the ticks and headed over to the Virginia Diner in Waverly for their Sunday buffet. The tasty buffet was a meat-lovers paradise; vegetarians, not so much.

You can see all of my pictures from the walk here. If you're interested in visiting the park, contact Darren Loomis, SE Regional Steward with the Department of Conservation and Recreation at (757) 925-2318.

May week 3

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sat, 22 May 2010 23:53:00 +0000

This week, there seemed to be a lot of yellow blooms, the most dramatic (in my opinion) being sundrops.

Other yellow (or yellowish) plants included prickly pear,

St. John's wort,

balsam ragwort,

yarrow,bush pea,

basswood,

and feverfew.
Moving into the whites, which also made a big showing, I found penstemmon,

chameleon plant,
daisy fleabane,valerian,

southern magnolia,agarista,clary sage,

oakleaf hydrangea,
and lots of ligustrum.
Reds were represented by fragrant sumac, pinks and purples sweet William,Virginia rose,

allium,crown vetch,and just barely, puttyroot orchid.

A couple green plants I came across were cardoon,

paris,
variegated Salomon's seal,
and this very big clump of the native Solomon's seal.

You can see the rest of my May week 3 photos here.

May week 2

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Fri, 21 May 2010 23:29:00 +0000

Natives first this week. Along the roadsides there was plenty of mountain laurel to be seen

In CW I found this milkweed just starting to open.

The woods around town are full of these clusters of micro-grapes.

In the Williamsburg Library native plant garden:
sweetbay magnolia

and lanceleaf tickseed.
And outside my office, the serviceberries have been loaded with tasty fruits.Non natives to be seen around the burg were clematis,

poppy,

delphinium,

pomegranate,

peonies,

Japanese snowbell,

bletilla,

Japanese tree lilac,

and schizophragma.

You can see the rest of my May week 2 shots at this link.

May week 1

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Sun, 16 May 2010 02:11:00 +0000

It seems like this was a week of missed opportunities. I was out of town for part of the week and when I got back Ifound I had missed a couple of my favorite blooms. There's a beautiful specimen of golden chain tree behind the sorority houses on Richmond Road. It's not very common this far south. It must have bloomed about a week earlier than last year. I also missed the blooms of the umbrella magnolias in the woods behind Bassett Hall. Oh well, here's a bit of what I did see:

On my way to look for the umbrella magnolias, I took a stroll down the long axis leading from the back yard of Bassett Hall into the woods to take a look at collection of rhododendrons that line the path.

Elsewhere in CW:
I came across these yellow-flowered bushes blooming in the parking lot. I'm not sure what they are...any ideas?

These sweetspires were blooming in the same parking lot.
Along the Palace Green, the catalpas were in bloom.

At the Custis Tenement, there was a lovely display of foxglove and sweet William.
In the CW nursery:
baptisia,

love in a mist,

and amsonia.

Out in some nearby woods I found another patch of umbrella magnolias, all small saplings,

as well as the pale blooms of hearts-a-bursting,

rattesnake weed,

some naturalized oxeye daisy,

and the tiny double flowers of partridgeberry.

The rest of my pictures from the first week of Mar are on flickr.

Tuckahoe Plantation

noreply@blogger.com (How It Grows) — Wed, 12 May 2010 22:35:00 +0000

In honor of this year's garden week, I made a visit to the west side of Richmond to visit Tuckahoe Plantation, boyhood home of Thomas Jefferson. Even though I've lived in the area for almost 20 years, I somehow hadn't heard of this property. Tuckahoe is privately owned but the beautiful grounds are open year round and the house is open by appointment. The house is surrounded by an extensive garden that has changed quite a bit over the years. The current garden is not a period reconstruction, but a combination of elements both old and new.
One of the great things about the property is the impressive entrance. Two wooden pillars and a historical marker are the only things that indicate that something intersting lies in the woods beyond. The nearly mile long drive is lined with rugged red cedars and open pastures. If you didn't know better, you would think you were at one of the old plantations out in the middle of Charles City County.

Admission to the grounds was $5, which you drop in a box near the front of the property. After driving over an hour to get there, I discovered I had a $20 and $1. So I left the $1, and made a mental note to send the rest of the money when I got back home.
The north part of the house dates from 1733, and the south end was built in 1740. Jefferson's family moved there in 1754. The house has a lovely view out towards the James River, though you can't really see it once the trees have leafed out.
But that's not a bad thing. In a spot like this you can see how landscape can be an important part of a view, not something that gets in the way. Nowadays, if this property were developed, the owner would probably cut down all the trees so they could get a better view of the river in the distance.

The ghost walk below, marks a prominent axis in the garden. To the south there used to be an elaborate boxwood maze until it was destroyed by boxwood decline in the late 1970's.

The maze is the dark patch to the left of the main house in the picture below. Years ago, the maze was anchored by the still-standing one room building that was supposedly Jefferson's boyhood schoolhouse. It now backs onto an empty field.from National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Tuckahoe Plantation

On the other side of the ghost walk is a large ornamental garden with long rectangular flower beds and dotted with large flowering shrubs. In mid-April, the garden was filled with assortment of pastel colored tulips and the scent of blooming lilac.
The garden was also accented by an assortment of hand made trellis and vine structures, giving it a very homey feel.
On the eastern edge of the grounds is memorial garden designed by Charles Gillette in 1949 (below). Its formal structure struck me as a little out of place and disconnected from the more rural feel of the rest of the garden. Also in this area of the property is a small enclosed cemetery and several scattered graves. I always enjoy seeing old family graves in a garden—it adds a certain gravitas. I think we should bring this tradition back.
On the west side of the property is the Plantation Street, a collection of original buildings including slave quarters, a dairy and kitchen. These buildings make the property one the best preserved plantation layouts in the country.
The Plantation Street is accented with several small flowering trees like the large, beautiful fringetree below.
And tucked away behind another building was a small herb/knot garden containing a loose mix of perennials including these frilly pink peonies.
Tuckahoe Plantations still functions as a working farm by raising chickens, grass-fed beef and cut flowers. You can also board your horses in their stables if there's room available.

I hope you all don't overlook Tuckahoe Plantation as long as I did—be sure to visit soon!