Sourlands as Big Bro to Herrontown Woods

When my daughters suggested a walk in the sourlands, I took it as an opportunity to test out a theory: that Herrontown Woods is in some ways a miniature version of the sourlands preserve. 

The trails are certainly larger, wider, longer than those at Herrontown Woods, with sections of broad boardwalk between stretches of familiar mud.

Some things are of similar scale. Familiar at Herrontown and the Sourlands are efforts to aid hikers through muddy patches with dense gatherings of stepping stones,

and places where the rocky landscape threatens to swallow the trail whole with its boulders.

Whereas Herrontown Woods has its boulder field, beneath and through which a gentle stream flows, making a kind of stereo music in the spring, the Sourlands has Roaring Rocks, named for the spring rush of water beneath super-sized boulders. 

My daughter provided scale for the jumble of giants spilling down the valley. 

This long, smooth boulder, like a whale surfacing for air,  is an outsized version of a similarly shaped boulder that surfaces near the Veblen Cottage in Herrontown Woods. 

This rock face, too, is a larger version of a prominent geologic feature at Herrontown Woods, 

with a higher, longer view from above.

There's a familar play of lichens and mosses on the boulders,

and a familiar mix of smooth and finely fissured rocks.

These boulders, by the way, are not a legacy of glaciers, which did not extend this far down, but of igneous upwellings exposed by subsequent erosion of the surrounding, less resistant material.

Probably not a source of pride, but the Sourlands even has its own derelict fence, newer and longer than the one at Herrontown Woods. Something there is in a woods that doesn't love a fence.

The Sourlands probably has more examples of trees perched on boulders, if anyone were to count.

It took awhile to figure out the Sourlands' system of trail markers.

A half hour in, my younger daughter had a useful insight, that these two angled squares mean that the trail is about to turn left. 

Where the blue trail splits in two, one of the routes carries a black dot in the middle. Pretty clever.

The gas pipeline right of way at the Sourlands is steeper, with a more dramatic view than the one at Herrontown Woods. My daughters pointed into the distance, where the Manhattan skyline was clearly visible. That was a surprise. 

As at Herrontown Woods, the Sourlands pipeline is a mixed bag of invasive mugwort,

and chinese bushclover, with some native species like Indian grass and tickseed sunflower mixed in. Whenever I walk one of these right of ways, I think of Leslie Sauer's The Once and Future Forest: A Guide to Forest Restoration Strategies. Therein, read long ago, she made the point that these linear openings have a different ecological impact from the small, isolated, more circular forest openings that would naturally be created by fallen trees or fire. The linear corridor facilitates the spread of invasive plants and the parasitic cowbird in ways that natural, disconnected openings do not. 

One of the invasive plants spreading along the edge of the pipeline corridor is Ailanthus, or Tree of Heaven. The Ailanthus has in turn been expediting the spread of the newly arrived invasive insect, the spotted lanternfly. Cutting and treating Ailanthus--a favorite host of the lanternfly--is a way of discouraging both of these introduced species.

Sometimes smaller is better, as in Herrontown Woods' smaller problem with Ailanthus, and its smaller population of deer (thanks to the more intense management Princeton has been able to sustain), which reduces browsing pressure on native species. 

One of my favorite features at the Sourlands are these very shallow stream crossings, where there's no distinct stream channel. The water becomes like us, just one more traveler over stones, and we become like the water. 

The Sourland Mountain Preserve is ten miles from Princeton. Drive up 206 and take a left on Belle Mead Blawenburg Road.

A Misty Walk Through Herrontown Woods

Last Saturday, towards the end of a rainy patch of weather, Herrontown Woods offered a special mix of solitude, surprise, promise and peace. An early surprise along the trail was a native azalea. What might this one solitary azalea, with a grand total of three clusters of flowers, tell of what these woods once held, and could there be others surviving in pockets yet unfound?

Near the parking lot, a vernal pool--one of many generous legacies a fallen tree leaves behind--was alive with the tadpoles of woodfrogs.

While the rainy week was not getting good reviews in town, Herrontown Woods was patiently taking it all in, filling its ground full of water, to be slowly exhaled through a rock-jumbled stream, no rock the same in the patterns of life upon it.

Witch hazels and christmas ferns grow just up-slope of the stream, with vistas lengthened by the habitat restoration work our Friends of Herrontown Woods volunteers have done.

Spicebush is growing more common, with leaves that give off a citrusy fragrance.

Now's a good time to see wild geraniums,

and the last of the rue anemone flowers.

Maybe if carrion flower (Smilax herbacea) had a more flattering name, I'd remember it more reliably.

Here are the wings and flowers on winged euonymus, a very numerous nonnative shrub we've been cutting down. In this regard, we play a role complementary to the deer, exerting browsing pressure on the nonnative species the deer won't eat.

In the case of winged euonymus and multiflora rose, the deer then follow up by nibbling the tender sprouts from the stumps we leave behind. With these two shrub species, at least, we can actually partner with the deer to bring the habitat back to greater balance and diversity.

The greatest delight came while crossing a large boulder field near the top of the trail. It's a miniature version of what can be found in the Sourlands, where a stream flows largely hidden, through and under the boulders, making music the way we make music by exhaling into an instrument.

In some places, there was an uncanny stereo effect, with the sound of water coming from multiple directions. Returning three days later, the music was gone, as if the woods' breath were spent until it can be recharged by another week of rain.

Moonseed's a cool little vine that seems only to grow among large boulders along the ridge, at Herrontown Woods and Witherspoon Woods.

A cherry millipede, giving off a maraschino scent when you pick it up, finds a home in the leaf litter.

One of the quiet, distinctive beauties of Herrontown Woods is the showy orchis, growing in only one spot and not found anywhere else along Princeton's ridge. Botanists Henry and Betty Horn tell the story of photographers making a pilgrimage each spring in years back. One thing our Friends of Herrontown Woods group is doing to hopefully allow this small population to grow stronger is removing the nonnative shrubs whose biological clocks, evolved elsewhere, cause them to green up too early in the spring, casting shade before the orchids have had a chance to absorb enough solar energy for the next year.

Far more numerous is Smilacina racemosa, what we used to call "False Solomon's Seal", because it's easily mistaken for Solomon's Seal. Note the terminal flower cluster, which makes Solomon's Plume a useful way to name it for something other than what it is not.

Solomon's Seal is called Polygonatum biflorum because it has a couple flowers at each leaf axil, rather than at the end. Even latin can make sense sometimes.

Other wildflowers peeping up through the leaves are wood anemone and trout lily, their flowers past,

mayapple

pink wood sorrel,

and jack-in-the-pulpit. Three of these grew near my childhood home, their hoods an object of early fascination.

Maple-leaf Viburnum seedlings and bloodroot rise above the natural mulch of leaves protecting the soil.

There's a heartening diversity of native shrubs in the understory. To the blackhaw Viburnums and spicebush common elsewhere are added the maple-leaf Viburnum,

and occasional blueberries (the Kramer inventory from the 1960s lists four species of Vaccinium).

Among the thousands of nonnative winged euonymus are a grand total of two native Euonymus americana, sometimes called strawberry bush or hearts-a-burstin, that somehow grew tall enough to elude the deer, who seem to prefer munching on this shrub above all others. They keep the rest of this shrub's population in a state of arrested development, several inches high. With some protection, those too could grow to maturity.

Either a new discovery or an old forgotten discovery was a dogwood that doesn't have the cobbled bark. Digging back into the memory banks, I checked the branching--alternate rather than the flowering dogwood's opposite branching. Alternate-leaved dogwood! And not one but two found during the walk. For someone wanting to see Princeton's preserves regain a past diversity, these warmed the heart.

And then a mystery shrub, a Viburnum with reddish tint and red petioles. Also two found, but its name not to be found in any past inventories.

Note: This has been identified as Tea Viburnum.

Other sites seen: a musclewood secure in its height, feeding the deer with its stump sprouts.

We've done enough researching of his papers at the Library of Congress to know that Oswald Veblen, who with his wife Elizabeth donated land for Herrontown Woods in 1957, was not happy about the gas pipeline being built. As you can see, it's become a monocrop of mugwort.

One curious, bristly nonnative is the Japanese angelica, which looks very similar to the native Devil's Walking Stick. We've been "browsing" this one, too, since the deer do not.

Last stop was the Veblen House grounds, where the Friends of Herrontown Woods has planted native hazelnuts, pawpaws, and a few of these butternuts--a tree with edible nuts that we're helping local expert Bill Sachs to reestablish in Princeton's preserves.

More info about Herrontown Woods and the generous legacy left behind by the Veblens can be found at VeblenHouse.org, including a map. Join us on facebook at facebook.com/friendsofherrontownwoods.