Adapting

I decided to head to the library today and pick up some books after hours of web browsing last night. I am so unsatisfied with all the answers I find. It seems as if no one has surveyed this area in particular. Here is what I have gathered:

1. This is a Piedmont region
2. This forest is in a riparian zone
3. The forest seems to be oak-hickory even though it is mostly tulip poplar
4. Possibly also some northern swamp forest (because of  all the skunk cabbage and spicebush)
5. Very species rich region

It seems that all of these things seem to have an affect on this particular area. We have a well defined canopy, understory, shrub and herb stratification. I guess I need to be looking for the following trees:

nothern-red oak, black  oak, scarlet oak, willow oak, pignut hickory, mockernut hickory, bitternut hickory, dogwood, sassafrass,  hophornbeam, hackberry, greenhawthorn, elm, sweetgum, black tupelo,  big toothed aspen, eastern hemlock,  holly,

Shrubs:mountain laurel, blueberry, maple leaf verbenum, deerberry, speckled alder, sweet pepper bush, arrowwood

These forests are so different then anything I remember coming across in Michigan even though some species are obviously the same. I think I grew up in mainly beech-maple forests. Florida is even more different! I don't know my hickories at all so I guess that is what I will be working on to identify.
The canopy seems to be mostly oak-hickory forest but the understory is mostly northern swamp forest. The northern swamp forest is a little more familiar to me. As an interesting aside, these forests use to be oak-chestnut until a fungus killed back the chestnut canopy. Now only chestnut shrubs can grow. I use to work with that particular fungus in the lab in college. Very interesting work.

Leaves of Three

Today was another perfect day and the calm before the storm according to our weather man. We made sure to take advantage and get out to do some walking. I think I have enough pictures to write all week! Before I get lost in the world of newly rediscovered plants that I had previously forgotten I think we need to talk about poison ivy. There is a vast amount of it all through the woods. I am wondering if I should call someone to take care of it. It hangs over the trail as if they are branches on a tree and can be so deceptive to the unperceptive.

This is all poison ivy! Every other tree is covered in it along the walking path. All the poison ivy got me thinking about teaching again and how I would structure a plant unit. I'm sure I would want to warn anyone against picking leaves of 3 but there are other very harmless plants that have leaves of 3.

Jack in the Pulpit: Arisaema triphyllum
This is a very interesting plant that typically grows low to the ground. I find it easy to distinguish from poison ivy, despite the 3 leaves because of the pedistal like stem the leaves sit on.The leaves tend to stay perpendicular to the stem. Poison ivy doesn't do that. If it is flowering it is even more distinguishable.

Mock Strawberry - Duchesnea indica
(I think, wasn't able to see the flower, but they looked like the ones in my yard)
There are at least 2 types of wild strawberries. The ones with white flowers that are edible and sweet and the ones with white flowers that are not. The mock strawberries are the ones that are not. But, they also have 3 leaves that are usually small. (Poison ivy does not have white or yellow flowers and does not have red berries)

Wild rasberries:  Rubus sp.
Yum! You don't want to confuse raspberries with poison ivy either! Although I think that is also rather difficult. Raspberries look like they have leaves of 3 as well but they also have prickers, poison ivy does not. These ones were black when they matured so does that make them a blackberry? I have no idea and the web isn't too helpful on that at the moment.

Have fun out in the woods! If you do encounter poison ivy, don't wash with hot water! Cold water and soap, maybe some rubbing alcohol.

Tip Toe Through the Tulips

The weather has turned just wonderful. Highs of mid 80s and really cooling off at night. We took advantage of the weather and headed for a walk yesterday with a couple mom friends. They were both patient with me as I marked what I felt easy to identify.
 On the way in to the woods I found a couple giant hemlocks in yards. Along the road there were about 20 smaller black walnut trees. Tulip, sycamore and maple were also abundant and easy to identify. One plant I couldn't figure out my friend knew as spice bush. It's a pretty generic looking smaller tree with single leaves of an average size and shape. Pretty indistinct until you crushed a leaf. It had a very spicy smell to it, very distinct. We found many more spice bushes the further we walked. Another tree that baffled me is what I think to be hickory. The leaves didn't look quite right and I want to look it up in more detail later to be sure.
As we walked on the dominant tree is by far the tulip tree. These were not all that common in Michigan and I am still a little disconcerted that a whole forest is filled with them naturally.  Apparently this is not true in forests 500 years or older so that confirms this forest is younger then that which I guess I already knew. Tulip trees grow tall and fast, are great for honey, and shade intolerant. I've always loved the unusual shape of the Tulip tree.

Family: Magnoliacea, Liriodendron tulipifera, related to the Magnolia tree

We saw some other plants that were pretty easy to identify: skunk cabbage in abundance, jack in the pulpit, black cherry and choke cherry, grape vine, and some of the healthiest poison ivy I have ever seen. Avoid touching any unidentified leaves in this forest. Many trees have the vines growing up them to make them appear as poison ivy trees!

All this foliage is poison ivy all the way up the tree! Toxicodendron radicans, very fitting

The Piedmont Plateau

I know very little about this area so I'm going to do a little googling and share. So apparently Maryland breaks down into several regions with varying habitats because of it's close location to the Atlantic and Appalachian Mountains and it's a weird shape. I myself can attest to the very strange weather here. In Michigan, storms came from the west (usually). In Florida storms usually just popped up every day do to heat and humidity. You just came to expect them. Here we seem to get weather from the west, east, north, south depending on  where the jet stream is moving through. I would really hate to be a weather person here although it might keep things exciting:)

Anyhow, I was getting to what“Piedmont” stands for: Foot (pied) Hill (mont) so quite literally the foothills of the Appalachian. The dirt contains a lot of different sediments but is heavily clay and fairly fertile. It runs from New Jersey to Alabama and right through Maryland.

As I do a little more digging I am in awe of how much I either don't know or never learned about ecology as a botany major. Perhaps an oversight. Apparently the woods near me is located in the Paint Branch Park, a part of the Paint Branch Watershed which is a tributary of the Anacostia River. This tributary seems to be the most natural and least developed which is good for me:) It is mostly “Riparian Zone” I could tell you to google it but I will save you the trouble. The Riparian zone is one of the 15 land biomes on Earth and is the buffer area around a river. Because Riparian zones are so important to the health of the river (prevent run off, erosion, pollution and great place for animals to hang out) many are under national protection. I think this area is. It is all park with miles of walking trails running through it.

This is an example:

There are areas in a Riparian Zone including: woodland, forest, buffer and strip. At least in wikipedia, I can't seem to find these anywhere else.  Fertile soil and moisture contribute to a Riparian zones diversity which is much greater then other biomes. Knowing this, I expect to find large numbers of plant species in my forest. Apparently the Riparian zones in Maryland are “key microhabitats” which makes sense as to why driving is a pain around here. Only a limited number of roads run east west to avoid cutting through the parks.

“Dominant overstory species in early- and mid-successional stands were tulip poplar, birch, white basswood, and black cherry. Late-successional and old growth stands were dominated by hemlock, white pine, and oak. “ I will probably start with looking for types of trees.

http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/420/420-152/420-152.html