Category: In the Field

Sunday was my last visit to Ellanor C. Lawrence Park, at least for the purposes of the class project. I pulled off a couple of sections of the dessicated fruiting body of my Chicken of the Woods specimen to see the remnants of the pore surfaces underneath.

One of the tools we used in the course of the class was a rough-and-ready estimate of a tree’s age, given a measurement of its diameter at breast height (DBH). Now, it’s pretty clear from the landscape (as well as what we know about the general history of the region) that the park was once a farm. I don’t have enough information to determine whether this 40 acres or so that I’ve been studying was cleared for pasture, row crops, or what have you—no matter. But we can read some of the history of the land in its current trees.

Along the stone fence line, I found the oldest trees in the patch, White Oaks about 150 years old. Away from the fence, I found Black Cherry and Red Maple trees not much younger, maybe 135 years old. So these trees germinated during the period 1864 to 1871, give or take. And this observation fits with the historical record: Centreville, Virginia was a crossroads of fighting and encampment during the Civil War, especially 1862-1862. In the first half of the 1860s, every tree on the old Walney farm would have been cut down: you’ll find nothing older here.

We can go further. I see another cohort of trees: an American Sycamore about 78 years old, a Black Walnut of 80, a Tuliptree a bit older at 89 years old. These trees would have been seedlings about 1930, sprouting in old fields ready to undergo succession. The brief history provided by the FCPA web site admits that information about when the fields were abandoned is sketchy, but it would have been some time before 1935, when the farm was sold to Ellanor Campbell Lawrence for a summer place.

Sunday I spent most of my time in the park measuring mature trees to estimate their ages. I was surprised to find 90-year-old Red Oaks and Tuliptrees, which would indicate that this patch was no longer farmed as of about 1925. I also found a small outcrop of bedrock—I’m still trying to puzzle out the geology map to understand exactly what this rock is.

I’ve spent so much interest on this bloom of Chicken of the Woods, but not on the tree that it’s growing on. It turns out that it was a substantial Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), now deadfall. You can see the dark red wood, somewhat weathered, in the image. The tree had fallen across the trail; park managers would have sawed it into several large chunks, stretching through the woods toward the east and the housing subdivision. The chunks form a line about 100 feet long and end in a tangle of former canopy branches. This was a big tree.

Third and final trip with Joe and Stephanie, this time to forests of the Coastal Plain in P.G. and A.A. Counties.

First, we stopped at Watkins Regional Park, a mile or two from Central Avenue. The park is host to some humungoid old-growth trees: a Sweetgum the size of a Red Oak, a White Oak with a circumference of 152 inches at breast height that we estimated to be 242 years old. So what did I get a good image of? This lovely Round-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica americana) (a new plant for me), beginning to hunker down for the winter.

Nature fun analogy of the trip: the branches of a Pawpaw (Asimina triloba), bare of leaves, look like an old school VHF TV antenna.

Then, east over the Patuxent River and on to the Parris Glendening Nature Preserve, where we chased butterflies two springs ago. Geologically speaking, here the early Eocene Nanjemoy Formation lies above the Marlboro Clay. While the profusion of River Birch (Betula nigra) on the clay-based bits of the Preserve is quite nice, it’s the sandy passages, residues of the overlying Calvert Formation, that are really interesting. The trees are a near-monoculture of Virginia Pine (Pinus virginiana), but down at the herb layer we have the lichen Cladina subtenuis (at left), one of the so-called “reindeer mosses.” Recent rains led to a bloom of brittlegill mushrooms (Russula sp.) (at right).

Lying below the Nanjemoy is the Aquia Formation. This Paleocene unit of sand crops out to the west of Anne Arundel County, in Prince George’s County, where it makes a recharge zone. In A.A., now deep under other geologic formations, the Aquia constitutes an aquifer.

Back to the park this past Saturday, on a rather cloudy and breezy afternoon, with Leta riding shotgun this time. Many of the trees’ leaves are down; the unexpected Partridgeberry is still holding on to some fruits. The persimmon tree at the wineberry bench was holding some of its fruits, but I found lots on the ground, too. We gave them a taste, and the consensus is that while the pulp is okay, the pucker of a little bit of persimmon skin goes a long way.

We found a somewhat ratty example of Daedalea quercina on a dead branch.

I got out to the park not long after sunup today, so the birding was much better. White-throated Sparrows have definitely moved into the neighborhood for the season.


The Chicken of the Woods fruiting bodies on this log continue to fade and deteriorate. The image at left was taken twelve days ago; that on the right is from today.


I found an interesting dead branch that was full of boring insect galleries. No guesses as to what sort of beetle is responsible.

Joe and Stephanie led the class to several sites of Piedmont forests in Montgomery County, including one patch that I had never visited. Along the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail, there’s contact between the sedimentary rocks that filled in the Culpeper Basin and the crystalline rocks of the Marburg Schist. That’s an opportunity for groundwater to collect, and therefore you can find some tree species that like their feet wet in this otherwise upland locale. Best example: this humongous Box Elder (Acer negundo), found along the remnants of a hedgerow.

Down along the Potomac at Riley’s Lock, where that same Seneca Creek has its mouth, is a handsome row of salmon-skinned River Birch (Betula nigra) (left), as well as single trees of Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) (right), soaring into the sky.

We talked about mnemonics and keys for separating the white oak and red oak groups. The acorns of the reds, somewhat like red wines, are more acidic and require some aging underground before they germinate (or become palatable to squirrels). The bristle tip on the leaf of a red oak is not a separate structure, but rather an extension of the leaf vein. Even a red oak-group Willow Oak (Quercus phellos) shows a small bristle tip. White or red, a dry oak leaf takes a long time to decompose; thus, “an oak forest is a noisy forest.”

My third trip to Ellanor C. Lawrence Park, yet earlier in the day this time. It’s quite warm for October, and I heard Common Katydids in the early morning. White-Throated Sparrows are making their presence known. The Japanese Stilt-grass is starting to die back.

The park has provided some unexpected herps. This is the first Rough Green Snake (Opheodrys aestivus) that I’ve ever seen and identified. I nearly stepped on it, as it was lying across the trail and looked like a strappy leaf from a house plant, not like an animal at all. You can’t see the impossibly skinny tail in this image, but trust me, there’s another ten inches of snake out of frame.

Margaret Chatham led a grasses walk through the managed meadow at Riverbend Park on Sunday, a new place for me. This patch of twelve acres is upland, rather than down by the river where we go looking for bluebells, and it’s regularly mowed in strips. Access is from Jeffrey Road and the nature center, rather than the vistor center farther downstream, where the boat rentals happen.

Nimblewill (Muhlenbergia schreberi) was a new grass for me. The culms are a nice ruby red at this time of the year.

We looked at woody plants and forbs, too. I got a pointer on distinguishing a young catalpa tree from an invasive Paulownia. Look for the whorl of three or more leaves at the stem, as you see in this image. The Asian invader has only a pair of opposite leaves. Similarly, the only two Verbesina wingstems that we see here in the mid-Atlantic can be separated by their branching pattern.

Your botany WOTD is endozoochory, that is, seed dispersal that depends on passing through the gut of animals. Habitat managers found out too late, to their dismay, that Rosa multiflora can be invasive when aided by birds’ digestive tracts.

One of the learning objectives of this class project is to observe changes in the forest over the course of a season. I stumbled upon an unexpected case of before-and-after with this log, seen in two images. The image at the left was made on 27 September; the one on the right today. The bright yellow, striped fruiting body, just little blobs on the log in September, is the mushroom Laetiporus sulphureus. It’s an edible polypore known by various common names, including Sulphur Shelf and Chicken of the Woods.

Our first class field trip, examining forest ecosystems of the mid-Atlantic, visited three spots in Shenandoah National Park. Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) (left) was in fruit in Buck Hollow, on the flank of the Blue Ridge. And up top, we found Mountain Holly (Ilex montana) (right) likewise offering red yummies; the holly’s fruits have four seeds each.

Katydids were singing at mid-day, clearly understanding that “last call” was imminent. On the Stony Man Nature Trail (which I last walked in May), Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) was blooming like crazy. We also made the acquaintance of Poke Milkweed (Asclepias exaltata), a milkweed of the woods, and Mountain Maple (Acer spicata), which looks like Striped Maple without the stripy bark.

I scooped up a American Carrion Beetle (Necrophila americana) for everyone to admire. And Stephanie identified a trio of Table Mountain Pine trees (Pinus pungens) across Skyline Drive from the Stony Man Overlook parking area. I’d like to make a map of everywhere P. pungens can be found in the Park.

How do you keep a wildflower meadow as a meadow? Well, it’s a matter of controlling successional plants. There’s a nice patch of meadow at Huntley Meadows Park, accessible by the new access road that extends from the hike-bike trail. (There’s even a vernal pool that has formed in a new low spot next to the built-up road.) Park management chose not to use fire or a bush hog to keep down the shrubby trees that want to grow into this meadow (which would ultimately reclaim it for forest). We love Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) and it’s a native, but the trees will eventually shade out the grasses and flowers; we’re not so wild about the invasive Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) that is also growing here. Both of them were our targets.

Instead, the Park sent in the volunteers, equipped with limb loppers and pruning saws. I’ve seen dense stands of Sweetgum before, but I didn’t realize that many of those trees were sprouts from a common stem. In the photo, by the pruning saw, you can see three small stems that we clipped off, all growing from a common root, as well as the three-inch trunk that I cut through.

I also helped Karla and Gwen pull collect Autumn Olive fruits, lest they lead to germination. The berries are not bad, kinda tart like cranberries. Just resist the temptation to spit out the seeds.

For my Labor Day hike, I pushed a little longer and harder than I have done of late. My notebooks say that the last time I did the long circuit loop hike to South River Falls in Shenandoah NP was in 1999, back when my legs were fresher. It was a muggy day, but almost all of the walking was under the canopy, so the heat wasn’t oppressive. It’s post-breeding dispersal time, so almost all of the birds I detected were heard-only (Common Ravens croaking). I did see a few butterflies: some fritillaries, a few swallowtails.

The destination for this hike is the falls, and the falls (dropping 83 feet, including the upper and lower cascades) are worth the hike down and the long climb back to the car. I was astonished that, on a holiday weekend, I had the falls all to myself for a good ten minutes.

I also stopped at the South River cemetery, located off the Pocosin Trail near the Park boundary. Unfortunately for the Taylors and Meadowses resting there, the place is not being maintained.

The PATC rates the 10-mile long circuit as Moderate, and that’s a fair assessment, save for the long 950-foot climb back from the bottom of the falls to the parking areas. There’s also a 600-foot gradual climb of Bareface Mountain in this circuit that sneaks up on you. I made the circuit in 6:45, not much more than PATC’s par of 5:45 when you consider that I missed a turn and came back on the fire road rather than the dedicated trail. Trail or fire road, both are generously sized: lots of room for walkers who need to overtake or take a breather.

At the beginning of this loop, I came across a couple of long-distance hikers on the AT, and one of them gave me a trail name. I’m not sure whether I’m going to own up to it.