Sedges Have Edges, and the Blessing of Wet Ground

Sedges are an acquired taste that, once acquired, deepens the pleasure of botanizing. They are grasslike plants that show their beauty not through color but through architecture. Many of them flourish in wet ground. Perhaps the most famous sedge is papyrus, which we were all taught was used by the Egyptians to make paper.

In New Jersey, we have lots of native sedges. One of my favorites is the fringed sedge (Carex crinita). I planted one in the mini-raingarden in front of the Whole Earth Center, along Nassau Street. I guess it looks like a grassy blob, but if you look more closely, 

you'll see it has these pendulant clusters of seeds that look like fingers. The fringed sedge's graceful aspects disguise the toughness at its root, so to speak, as it holds fiercely to the ground. That and its capacity to thrive in wet ground makes it very useful for stream restoration projects.

To distinguish a sedge from a grass, take a close look at the stems, which aren't round like a grass but instead are triangular in cross section. "Sedges have edges" is a fun way of describing the stems. Roll the stem between your thumb and forefinger and feel the edges. Some sedges have more rounded edges than others.

In a much larger raingarden that I manage, over in Smoyer Park, there's a massing of sedges that look like a sea of grass with little pompoms on top. I had been repeatedly forgetting the name of this one, so I was happy to see my "Seek" app (a version of iNaturalist) identify it as squarrose sedge (Carex squarrosa). 

Sedges, like all plants, encourage you to look closely and make fine distinctions, which can help your thinking in other aspects of life. This one probably looks a lot like the squarrose sedge, but the seedheads are a bit heftier. My Seek app is calling it hop sedge (Carex lupulina), which I'll go with. We botany types are often in our own orbits. It really is transformative to have a fellow botanist in the form of a cellphone to carry around in your pocket.

This one has elongated seedheads in clusters. I'll call it sallow sedge (Carex lurida). 

Another sedge I've been dividing and moving to new locations--in my front yard and at the Barden in Herrontown Woods--has distinctive seedheads that look like stars. Having enjoyed calling this morning star sedge, I was surprised to find Seek calling it Gray's sedge, but these are just two common names for the same plant, Carex grayi.

There are other sedges that you're likely to encounter if you gravitate like I do to wet, sunny places. Green bulrush and woolgrass are sedges that were obviously named by people who couldn't tell a sedge from a rush from a grass. Feel the edges, people. 

So-called woolgrass is one of my favorites. This photo was taken at the Barden, later in the season, after it has developed its wooly inflorescence. Unlike most sedges, which mature early in the season, woolgrass grows taller and over a longer arc of time, with attractive features at each stage of development. 

One sedge you're less likely to encounter is tussock sedge, which I've only seen in a springfed marshy area of Mountain Lakes that is unfortunately inaccessible via existing trails. 

Often contrasting beautifully with the light-green leaves of sedges is the deeper green of soft rush (Juncus effusus), which here in the Smoyer Park detention basin has achieved a lovely vase-shaped form decorated with pendulant clusters of seeds reminiscent of earrings. I've seen soft rush used as a striking specimen in gardens--not bad for a native plant that mostly hangs out in ditches and other low ground. 

Sedges have edges; rushes are round, meaning that rushes have rounded stems.

Another reason I like sedges so much--along with other plants they associate with in wet, sunny places, like this Hibiscus (moscheutos)--is that so many native plant species thrive in wet ground and full sun. That, and the soft ground that facilitates weeding, makes for less work and more time to gaze across the expanse and appreciate the beauty. 

Documenting the PHS Ecolab's Recovery From Last Year's Trauma

Passerby on Walnut Street may have noticed that the Princeton High School Ecolab wetland was completely stripped of vegetation by an outside contractor this past November. After the shock of having so many native shrubs and wildflowers suddenly gone, it took us awhile to realize that the roots of the native plants might still be alive beneath the bare dirt. Having lobbied successfully to have stewardship of the Ecolab returned to the teachers, students, and volunteers who had cared for it free of charge for fifteen years, we are watching for signs of its rebirth. 

Most obvious is the annual grass planted by the contractor for erosion control. But I took a closer look and found gratifying evidence that the wetland will rebound. Click on "Read more" below to see a photo inventory of 40 native species (and a few very manageable weeds) that have popped up thus far, ready to refoliate this wonderful teaching resource for the school's environmental science program.

Wisteria's Tamed and Wild Twinings

The front porch of Morven has an educational feature for gardeners.

Go to the right side of the porch and witness Chinese wisteria twining up and to the right. 

Go to the left end of the porch and witness Japanese wisteria twining up and to the left. 

This contrast in twining direction appears to be a thing. There's agreement that the two species twine in opposite directions, but disagreement on how to describe it. The Japanese wisteria's winding up and to the left is described as either clockwise or counter-clockwise, depending on the website. The two websites I happened upon agree, however, that the direction of twining is not determined by whether the plant evolved in the northern or southern hemisphere. This is disappointing, as I had hoped for a pattern, which would be all the more satisfying if it happened to match the direction of swirl when water goes down a drain. Alas, some other force must be at work.

What Morven's porch won't show you is just how aggressive wisteria's twinings can become after a garden is abandoned. To comprehend the scale of expansion, you would need to travel to Herrontown Woods, where the extent of a wisteria clone (Japanese by the look of its twining) is still apparent in the woods. There are two clones, both covering more than an acre each. At their exuberant zenith, they had grown up and over trees and rendered the ground a monoculture of their foliage. One clone, up at Veblen House, is now mostly vanquished, in large part due to the extraordinary persistence in years past by Kurt and Sally Tazelaar. The success of that work depends, however, on ongoing vigilance to cut any sprouts still rising from the remnants of its sprawling root system. 

We are still very much in battle with the other clone, however, across the stream from the Barden. Each year for about four years now, the town has paid contractors to spend a couple days each summer applying systemic herbicide to this or that side of the monster. The herbicide is absorbed and translocated down, to weaken the wisteria's massive network of roots and runners. I think of it as comparable to the medicines we use to maintain our own health, well targeted and no more than necessary. 

Then, this past fall, a volunteer named Bill Jemas (posing in the photo with a wisteria vine) contacted the Friends of Herrontown Woods, looking for a good project to give him the equivalent of a workout in the gym. He came several times a week for much of the fall, working largely on his own, checking in with me periodically with a question or two. Cut, cut, snip, snip--he took on the still very intimidating tangle with hand tools and perseverance, making the hillside navigable once again, dotted with piles he made of the cuttings. He then announced his family was headed to Florida for the winter. Reportedly returning this spring, his contribution to the battle has already given us hope that the wisteria monster will not eat the Barden, towards which it was headed, and can be subdued like the one at Veblen House, so that we need only snuff out a few stray sprouts each year. 

A couple related posts:

Another Perilous Embrace--Wisteria and Horse Chestnut : About the horse chestnuts near Morven, and the horse chestnut that was getting overrun by wisteria in front of the 1755 house at 145 Ewing Street. Why does one often find a horse chestnut growing near a historic house? Because they bloom around Memorial Day?

Trees and Thunderbolts : The puzzling story on the Morven grounds of how a thunderbolt killed not the tree it hit, but the tree next to it.

The Many Fall Colors of Herrontown Woods

Late season color along the Princeton ridge:

Orange and Red

Shall we have a shrub of the month for October? Hearts a' Bustin' wins hands down. Rarely seen due to it being a favorite food of the deer, we discovered a few remnant populations ten years ago in Herrontown Woods, and have since brought it to our Botanical Art Garden, where it can grow unbrowsed upon to its full glory. 

Flowering dogwoods call attention in the fall. This young one along a path at the Barden was particularly colorful.

This young tupelo (black gum, Nyssa sylvatica) in the Barden is shaped like an umbrella draped across the path. 

Tupelo turns bright red or orange one leaf at a time. Here, one part of a leaf has turned color before the rest.

Sumacs growing along edges of a woodland can turn brilliant red or orange. I've experienced this most vividly in Michigan, where clones of sumac along roadsides would show brilliant red, with the equally brilliant orange of sugar maples as a backdrop. We have three kinds at the Barden--staghorn, smooth, and winged--two of which popped up on their own. As they get established, they may put on quite a show in future years. 

Anyone know what sort of tree this is, with its bright orangey color?

Poison ivy can grow up a dead trunk and pretend it's a tree. The "harry-is-scary" stems meander up the trunks while branchlike lateral shoots extend outward to form flower and seed. Few people have seen poison ivy flowers because, like many vines, it only flowers when it's climbing something. 

Don't take my word for it, but this looks like a fine feast of Chicken of the Woods found while cutting invasive shrubs near the red barn. 

Orange on top, yellow on the bottom--surely this has meaning beyond being a convenient transition in this post from orange to yellow.

Yellow

Hickories, along with tulip trees, provide the high yellows.

Closer to the ground is wild senna, a native floodplain wildflower that has been proliferating in the Barden, making for a beautiful mottled effect en masse. The deer don't seem to eat it.

Another distinct mottling effect can be found on spicebush. 

There's a stretch of the red trail near the Veblen farmstead that we call Spicebush Alley, particularly pretty this time of year.

Blue tags you may occasionally see at Herrontown Woods mean either native shrubs that volunteers should not cut down, or a potential reroute for a trail.

White pines also look mottled this time of year. A white pine weevil caused the dieback of the tip on the left, but the yellow needles mixed with green are last year's needles being let go.

Other conifers like arborvitae are also shedding last year's growth.

Late-Season Flowers

Always a treat to find a new population of turtlehead along a stream.

Obedient plant popped up in the Barden this year.

A new find is this aster. I'm calling it crooked-stemmed aster for now, blooming in full view along the red trail, somehow unnoticed in previous years. With scientific names under constant revision, it's sometimes fun to go retro and look in an old Peterson field guide, where the plants I have yet to find are as interesting as the plants I do.

Meanwhile, a katydid is having nothing to do with all this changing of color. 

Finding Native Swamp Rose Amidst the Multiflora Rose

For those who need deadlines, the last cold days of spring are a prompt for action by a wild gardener. It's the last chance to get some work done in a nature preserve without having to worry about doing tick-checks. It's also a time when leaves have yet to dampen the light pouring into the forest, and the invasive shrubs are still in their less intimidating winter dormancy.

Scott Sillars and I took advantage of a cool afternoon this week to cut invasive multiflora rose and privet at Herrontown Woods. There is constant surprise in how this awkward, gutsy work is way more satisfying than it has any right to be. 

Though rose-rosette disease has reduced its rampancy, multiflora rose is still a highly invasive shrub in Princeton forests. With its gangly growth, the sprawling shrub can best be described as a blizzard of thorns, whose introduction from Asia long ago has rendered many forests impenetrable. 

Cutting it down, I'm always reminded of the many-armed "omnidroid" monster in The Incredibles movie. But the way to emerge unscathed from a multiflora rose cutting session is to be gentle and methodical. Cut enough of the gangly stems to gain access to the center of the shrub, then reach in to cut its multiple stems at the base. Extract yourself carefully from the situation, and if your heavy clothing (another advantage of cool weather) gets snagged by a thorn, rotate to loosen the fishhook thorns or cut the clinging stem so that it will fall off on its own. What seems like rough work is actually an opportunity to exercise finesse. 

Also, don't forget your work gloves, as I did one day.

Though there are thousands if not millions of multiflora rose growing in the preserve, the work does not seem futile. We pick our spots, in this case focusing on a route for a planned boardwalk from the parking lot up to Veblen House. 

Satisfaction is increased by encounters with native shrubs. Spicebush are fairly numerous, and the highbush blueberry in this photo is about to open its flowers. 

A surprising find was the native swamp rose. I almost cut it down before noticing its characteristic thorns, which come straight out from the stem. The lack of a fishhook shape makes them far less hazardous. 

At the base of the stem, the swamp rose's thorns become small and dense compared to multiflora rose. 

This is the third swamp rose I've discovered at Herrontown Woods and Autumn Hill Reservation. Their rarity compared to the countless numbers of nonnative multiflora rose speaks to their need for a more stable supply of moisture. Only where seepage prevents the soil from drying out do they survive. 

With this preparatory work, we hope to ultimately end up with an attractive and varied corridor for visitors to walk through, from stream to meadow to wetland--all part of a short walk up to Veblen House. 

Autumn Hill Reservation--Past and Present

Perched on the Princeton Ridge and yet standing in the shadow of better known preserves is Autumn Hill Reservation. When the Friends of Herrontown Woods formed in 2013 to reopen long-neglected trails at Herrontown Woods, we adopted Autumn Hill Reservation as well, which was in a similar state just across Herrontown Road. By "we" I mean largely Kurt and Sally Tazelaar, who did most of the much-needed trail work, with periodic help from the rest of us. 

Large expanses of the Autumn Hill preserve reflect a common condition of central NJ woodlands, with native trees above and invasive shrubs massed below. But there are some memorable spots that attract hikers: the large, flat, butterfly-shaped rock that once had a wonderful view out across the valley, and the charismatic wreck that I believe someone told me was an abandoned ambulance from the 30s or 40s.

 

That was part of a squatter's homestead commemorated by a plaque on one of the boulders, 

and Kurt and I found the foundation of another homestead dating back even further. Native wildflowers become more numerous as one heads to the back of the preserve, which with other publicly owned lands extends to River Road, creating an unbroken corridor of open space all the way down to the Millstone River. 

There's still evidence of a previous pulse of energy put into the Autumn Hill preserve--an Eagle Scout project by John Shaw in 2004 commemorated in this sign at the entrance. Probably arborist Bob Wells, who was very involved with scouting, had something to do with the project. 

Some of Autumn Hill Reservation's deeper history came to light more recently, after Robert von Zumbusch of the Friends of Princeton Open Space contacted me, asking if I'd ever heard of Helen Hunt and the Friends of Autumn Hill Reservation. I hadn't but was quickly able to get an answer for Robert by doing keyword searches at the super-helpful Papers of Princeton website, where Princeton newspapers are digitized dating back to the 19th century. 

Up popped an article from April, 1998 about a series of nature walks being organized for Earth Day by the Princeton Environmental Commission. It was like a Who's Who of Princeton environmentalists, with nature walks being led by Henry and Betty Horn at Mountain Lakes, Tom Poole at Rogers Refuge, and Bob Wells at Herrontown Woods. Additional walks with Nicholas Carnevale and friends at Pettoranello Gardens, and John Mills at the Princeton Battlefield were also planned.

And there was Helen Hunt, leading a walk at Autumn Hill, where "trails have been resurfaced, widened, and extended down to the great rock overlook. Work has been progressing all winter." Clearly, Autumn Hill received a good pulse of stewardship energy back in 1997-98. Conveniently, the article included a phone number to contact her. Though knowing that most land lines are dead ends these days, I gave the number a try, left a message, and soon was talking to Helen about her initiative back then.  

Helen said she briefly led a group called Friends of Autumn Hill Reservation, back in the late 90s. The group wasn't much more than her and Bob Wells, whom she paid to expand the trails by helping him buy a machine for the purpose. Her main interest was to have an off-road alternative for jogging--a smaller version of the towpath. The trails were wider than normal hiking trails, but it was hard to get them smooth enough for jogging. Once the trails were made, the group didn't go much beyond that. 

Further delving into the time machine that is Papers of Princeton reveals snapshots of Autumn Hill's history that extend back from 1998. 

An early presence out Autumn Hill way, east and south of the present day preserve, was Camp Tamarack, the 30 acre Girls Scout camping ground  that dates back to 1948. Remnants of a foundation and outhouse can still be found by following an old abandoned trail down from the end of Autumn Hill Road--a deadend street that was built as part of a subdivision in 1956. Girlscouts would camp there on weekends, sometimes combining the camping with sailing on Carnegie Lake.

A 1966 article announces obliquely that Township Open Space Commission "has obtained use of the Autumn Hill Reservation," and in 1969 the preserve is described as "new", with a parking lot but trails not fully laid out. The sign on the kiosk says that most of the land was acquired in 1967, with funding from township, borough, and the state's Green Acres fund.

The 1970s, which began with the first Earthday, brought a new level of accessibility for the preserve, this time thanks to the YMCA Rangers, as reported in 1972:

"Autumn Hill" is the newest of the Open Space lands in terms of a good loop trail you can follow. The trail was built by YMCA Rangers. Picnicking is invited in Autumn Hill, too, and later this spring, there will be picnic tables. Right now, there is drinking water and you can bring your own picnic lunch. 

In 1984, a big battle raged to fend off a proposed road, Route 92, that would have destroyed large swaths of open space, including part of Autumn Hill Reservation.

Fast forward to 1995, when local arborist Bob Wells proposed to officially adopt Autumn Hill Reservation. Bob was renting the nearby Veblen House from the county at the time. 

Committee accepted an offer from Robert Wells that his tree and landscape firm adopt the park at Autumn Hill Reservation off Herrontown Road. Mr. Wells, chair of the Township Shade Tree commission and a Herrontown Road resident, has performed extensive tree and trail maintenance in the park on a volunteer basis over the past several years. He also supervised the creation of one trail that was an Eagle Scout project. He now proposes to reestablish the picnic area off the parking lot, rebuild the frost-free water spigot and erect an additional foot-bridge. He also plans to install tree identification signs and a trail map and do general maintenance to the trails and path system. In accepting the offer, Township Committee signaled it was launching an "adopt-a-park" program to enable other businesses and individuals to volunteer their services for Township parks.

There's been an increase in interest in Autumn Hill recently, particularly from people living on the other side of the ridge in Montgomery who would like a better connection to the preserve from that side. Though we've done some small reroutes of trails onto drier ground, there is more we hope to do this year, laying boardwalk and shifting some trails to drier ground.

Winter is a good time to look for better routes for trails. Andrew Thornton and I recently noticed a potential improvement that would run along the edge of a stone wall currently hidden by densely growing honeysuckle, winged euonymus, Asian photinia, barberry, and privet. The nonnative shrubs flourish because deer and other wildlife don't eat them. I made some headway one afternoon, cutting through the thicket with loppers and a saw, constantly dodging the thorns of multiflora rose. Who's to say what the dominant motivation is. Love of a good trail? A desire to leave the world a better place than one found it? The satisfaction of work where progress is clear? A stewardship ethic engrained from youth? One strong motivation is the standing water that makes the current trail route nearly impassable this time of year. Rerouting the trail along higher ground, next to a rock wall, will give us a trail that's both drier and more interesting. Win-wins help to spur one on. 

Looking back through time, it can be heartening to see how people in the past stepped up to take care of public lands, just as we do now. It can also be unsettling, though, to see that periods of care do not always last, and can be followed by periods when trails slowly return to thicket, awaiting the next inspired steward to come along. What makes us think current efforts will be any different? That "adopt a park" program started in 1995 was well-intentioned, but the groups that stuck with it after the first flush of interest are few. 

During my Durham days, I started a program in which interested neighbors could adopt 20 feet of a paved bike trail that went through a nature preserve. The aim was for each family or individual to gain a sense of ownership of a small section of trailside vegetation, planting native plants and weeding occasionally, until the entire length of trail would be a verdant showcase for sedges, rushes and wildflowers. There was early interest, but most people didn't stick with it. What I learned is how few people are hardwired to garden, and even fewer hardwired to garden in a public space. 

Back in 1973, recycling was in a similar "heroic" stage, with a few dedicated volunteers trying to divert newspapers, bottles and tin cans from the waste stream. Like many municipalities across the country, Princeton was grappling with how to "get recycling out of the garage and volunteer stage and into the solid waste volume reduction and resource recovery stage on a long term regional basis." I was part of that 70's era volunteer recycling stage as well, standing on a flatbed truck as we drove through a neighborhood, stacking homeowners' bundled newspapers on the truck, and crushing glass--brown, green, and clear--in oil drums, as part of a pilot curbside recycling program in Ann Arbor, MI. Curbside recycling ultimately became institutionalized, but stewardship of open space is still in the "catch as catch can" volunteer stage. 

Postscript: There's another question that lingers from this dive into history: Where is that water spigot from which drinking water once flowed in Autumn Hill Reservation?

PostPostscript: Didn't take long to find the old water spigot, just a few feet away from the parking lot. 

A Threatened Old Bridge, and Dead Fish Along Harry's Brook

We mostly hear about collateral damage, but there can be a lot of collateral discovery in the actions we take to care for nature or history. 

When I saw a young man named Galdino tuckpointing some stonework along Snowden Lane a couple weeks ago, I asked him if he would look at an old bridge that straddles a tributary of Harry's Brook just down the hill. 

Before a new bridge was built beside it in 1965, this old bridge was used by the Pynes of Drumthwacket to reach their horses at "Pyne Ridge", and by the Whiton-Stuarts, the Veblens and Einstein to reach what we now call Veblen House. The bridge carried Princetonians out to Herrontown Woods during its first years of existence.

It's a beautifully made bridge, built of arched stones, and as you can see it is starting to slowly come apart, flood by flood, stone by stone. If it were to collapse, the town would have a big mess on its hands, with the stream blocked by rubble.

I have suggested that the bridge be preserved, repaired, and used as part of a bike/pedestrian route to give the Little Brook neighborhood safe access to Smoyer Park and Herrontown Woods. Currently, anyone walking or biking needs to "run the gauntlet" where Snowden Lane narrows between steep ditches from Overbrook out to Van Dyke. 

But town engineers claim the bridge is now owned by the neighbor. Curious that a private homeowner would be responsible for a bridge whose collapse would block a New Jersey waterway.

The collateral discovery was that we noticed a number of dead fish in the stream. I put one next to a walnut for scale, and sent the photo to a young naturalist named Felix who is learning about fish in the local streams. He told me it's a creek chub.

Hard to say what's going on. Fish kills can be caused by bacterial outbreaks, or low oxygen when the water gets too warm. Maybe the misuse or overuse of pesticides played a role.

What IS known, however, is that this lovely old, carefully crafted bridge is not going to mend itself. Galdino pointed out that the stone arch work is not just on the facade but extends the full width of the bridge. Proposed development upstream could increase the runoff headed towards this fine piece of history that speaks to a time when Snowden Lane was considered a country road.

More Kinds of Dragonflies and Damselflies Found at Rogers Refuge

What wonderful names have the dragonflies and damselflies that Mark Manning and his son are finding at Rogers Refuge. Known mostly for its birdlife, this patch of floodplain along the StonyBrook below the Institute Woods also is home to other diversities. My ecological assessment of the refuge from 2007 includes a plant inventory, and now we have an expanding list of Odonata as well, totaling 36 different species. Below are the Mannings' photos of a few, and their full list to date. The names make one want to write an ode to Odonata. 

Now Dasher, now Dancer, now Skimmer and Jewelwing!

On, Bluet! on, Glider! on, Darner and Clubtail!

To the top of the sedge! To the top of the cattail!

Now fly away! fly away! fly away all!

The names--Fragile forktail, pondhawk, meadowhawk--are as vivid and full of action as the insects themselves.

Ebony Jewelwing

Blue Dasher

Painted Skimmer

Unicorn Clubtail

Blue-tipped Dancer

Lancet Clubtail

Black-shouldered Spinyleg

Rogers Refuge Odonata List as of 7/17/2021-Mark Manning

 

Ebony jewelwing

Blue-fronted dancer

Violet dancer

Powdered dancer

Blue-tipped dancer

Azure bluet

Double-striped bluet

Familiar bluet

Turquoise bluet

Stream bluet

Slender bluet

Fragile forktail

Eastern forktail

Common green darner

Comet darner

Unicorn clubtail

Black-shouldered spinyleg

Lancet clubtail

Ashy/dusky clubtail

Prince baskettail

Common baskettail

Halloween pennant

Eastern pondhawk

Slaty skimmer

Widow skimmer

Twelve-spotted skimmer

Painted skimmer

Great blue skimmer

Blue dasher

Wandering glider

Spot-winged glider

Eastern amberwing

Common whitetail

Autumn meadowhawk

Carolina saddlebags

Black saddlebags

 

Total: 36

Update: at season's end, in early September, the Mannings added one more species to the list: 

the russet-tipped clubtail