White Wildflowers--2 If By Boat, One If By Land

Some native wildflowers are easiest to see by boat in mid-July.

Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) leans out over the water with its golfball-sized blooms.

LizardsTail, with the comically unpronounceable scientific name of Saururus cernuus, lines portions of Carnegie Lake's shoreline.

Here's a closeup.

Meanwhile, similar spires, of Black Cohosh, rise up on the boulder-strewn slopes of Princeton's ridge, in Woodfield Reservation.

Sustainable Jazz Performance July 30, 7:30pm

While growing native plants, I've also been growing some jazz compositions, which was my habit back when I was a professional jazz musician. I'll be performing them on saxophone at the Princeton Public Library this coming Thursday evening, with help from pianist Phil Orr and bassist Jerry d'Anna.

Titles include The Case of the Kidnapped Kalypso, Fresh Paint (composed while breathing latex fumes in a freshly painted room), Lejos de Aqui (Far from Here), Lunar Eclipse (composed while forgetting to check out the lunar eclipse that was going on outside), and For the Prez (inspired by last fall's election, and also the great saxophonist from the Count Basie band, Lester "Prez" Young).

I call it sustainable because the music is all locally grown, with notes that have been used before, albeit in a different, even fresh, order and rhythm. No virgin timbres were harvested in the making of this music.

The performance is free and lasts about an hour. We'll either be out on the plaza or in the library's community room.

A Whole Lotta Buddin' Goin' On

There's been an air of anticipation the past couple weeks as some of the biggest and brightest wetland wildflowers have been getting ready to bloom. These are some of the buds quickly developing in the July sun.

The first photo shows the buds of Joe Pye Weed.

Buds of Hibiscus moscheutos (Princeton's one native Hibiscus species)

Cutleaf Coneflower, just starting to open.

The beginnings of Boneset flowers, with pickerelweed in the background.

Photos were taken at the Princeton High School ecolab wetland, tucked inbetween the two new wings of the school on Walnut Street. If you're out for a walk, the wetland makes for a nice visit. There's a sidewalk all the way around it. The canal towpath, between Harrison St. and Washington Rd. is another great spot to see many of these flowers.

Stream Stomp At D&R Canal State Park

We went to the river, and what did we see? We saw little mayflies, at least two or three. We saw dozens and dozens of little green caddisflies that live in the water before they can fly.

We saw crayfish, small and larger, scuds that skid about on their sides like shrimp. We saw tiny leeches-a-plenty, and even a free-wheeling freshwater eel.

And how did that make us feel?

Well, fascinated, mostly, with all the slippery sublime that can be found beneath rocks and riffles in the Millstone River, a pebble's throw from Route 27 in Kingston.

For two hours, it made kids of us all, catching the river's mysteries in a net, spilling the contents into shallow dishes of water, and then peering at all the minutiae of river life.

There was some science involved, since each kind of creature can tolerate a different degree of stream pollution. The presence of mayflies, for instance, which have a low tolerance for pollution, speaks well for the river. Since the intake for Princeton's drinking water is twenty miles downstream, I like the idea that mayflies find the water clean enough to live in.

In the last photo, D&R Canal State Park naturalist Stephanie Fox shows us a stick that was half submerged next to the river bank. Hundreds of caddis fly larvae had climbed up the stick to get out of the water, then used the stick as a platform on which to grow their wings and launch into adult life. (This strategy is similar to that of the 17 year cicadas, who crawl out of the ground, climb the nearest tree or shrub, emerge from their old skins, grow wings and fly off.)

For more info on canal state park events, go to:
http://www.dandrcanal.com/pdf/milepost_summer09.pdf

Princeton Battlefield--Big History, Big Lawn, Big Trees

One of the finer ways to spend a July 4 afternoon is on the grounds of the Princeton Battlefield. Chances are, you'll see historian John Mills, who in stature, bearing and voice seems the very embodiment of 1776, offer a detailed account of the Battle of Princeton, and then don spectacles to read the Declaration of Independence.

It's also a good place for a native plant lover to feel ambivalent about the extraordinary expanse of mowed grass. It makes for a great feeling of openness and freedom of movement. On the other hand, it has nothing to do with the history of the place, and is surely a budget drain to mow.

Other historic sites around the country have started to manage for more authentic vegetation. One approach would be to keep a portion of the grounds mowed, while planting the rest to the sorts of native grasses and wildflowers that have more to do with the land's history. Some of the grounds are already managed this way.

Most everyone knows about the Mercer Oak, whose offspring now grows in the middle of the field near where the original white oak once stood.

There are some other interesting trees there as well. I'd heard that the grounds include two Hicans--a cross between a hickory and a pecan. The bark on the tree in the photo looks like a hickory for the first eight feet, then switches to pecan-like bark further up. Strange.

Closer to Clark House are a couple chestnut trees. These are Chinese chestnuts, not the great American Chestnut that once filled our forests and provided abundant food until the imported chestnut blight took its toll. The Battlefield would be a great place to reintroduce the American Chestnut, survivors of which have been bred to resist the blight.

Some other interesting trees, just behind the Clark House, are some very tall, statuesque black locust trees.

Kids Discover "Secret" Pettoranello Gardens

Hidden in full view in the middle of Princeton Township is Pettoranello Gardens, where there's a pond, walking trails and a stage for summer concerts.

Last week, Robert Olszewski, youth director for nearby Westerly Road Church, brought his summer camp kids over for a little introduction to the park and its resident plants and animals. I served as tour guide.

We started with sassafras, a fragrant native tree once used to make root beer. They then got an introduction to jewelweed, with its spring-loaded seed hurling mechanism and the metallic sheen its leaves acquire when put underwater. Though there was a very enthusiastic, cacophonous response to my offer of ten dollars to anyone who could spell "Pettoranello", the greatest attention was paid to twenty turtles clustered on what looked like a hay bale on the far side of the pond (photo).


Before they headed back, I left them with a "don't forget to smell the spicebush" moment. Hopefully, the kids will serve as tour guides to their parents, and a few more families will get acquainted with this pretty spot in the middle of town.


Photos by Henry Loevner, Princeton University PEI summer intern for the Friends of Princeton Open Space

High School Ecolab Wetland--Early Summer Edition

Planted two years ago, the Princeton High School wetland is coming along. We've been nurturing the natives, pulling out the weeds or covering them with black plastic. Each year, a few new species get added. Here's what's blooming:

Pickerelweed blooms all summer long, and likes its feet in water.

Black-eyed Susans were bought from Pinelands Nursery and planted in drier areas of the wetland several years ago. It grows naturally in the meadows at Tusculum in Princeton.

Sweet Bergamot, rather than its red-flowered relative Beebalm, is native to the Princeton area.

Daisy Fleabane, a weedy but attractive native that shows up of its own accord.

Red Clover, though not native, is not invasive.

Native Flower Arrangement

This arrangement showed up on our dining room table a few days back, and is as good a way as any to sum up what's blooming right now. Tall Meadow Rue is the white background. Beebalm in red. The daisy shaped flowers are purple coneflower (though a native, I've never seen it growing wild). And then there's some Queen of the Meadow (Filipendula rubra) washed out by the flash down at the bottom.

Of these, only the Meadow Rue would be encountered growing naturally in Princeton's nature preserves.

Manhattan's High Line a Ribbon of Native Plants

Native plant lovers have long faced a conundrum. If urban and suburban landscapes are so dominated by exotic flowers, grasses and shrubs, how will Americans ever encounter America's glorious natural heritage on a regular basis?

One spectacular way just became available in New York as of June 8. A section of the old, abandoned rail line on the west side of Manhattan has been refashioned as a pedestrian way planted with a rich variety of native flora.




The irony is pretty rich, too. You'd think that these native plants would need some sort of "natural" habitat to survive, but many of our natural areas aren't really natural anymore. Most of these plants would quickly die if planted in a typical nature preserve, where they'd wither in the dense shade or be eaten to the ground by overabundant deer. Trees and deer are natural, but we've banished the fires and predators that once held their density in check and allowed sunlight to reach the ground here and there.

The low-growing native species in these photos need sun, and they get it here, thirty feet above the streets of New York. In Princeton, the story is very similar. The native species that need sun are thriving in places highly altered by humans--along the canal and at Princeton high school's ecolab wetland.

Plants to Interact With at Community Park North

Here are some plants to seek out for good smells, food and entertainment in Community Park North. The first one, Spicebush, is Princeton's most common native shrub. It has thick, dark green leaves, and if you pick a leaf and crumple it up, you will be rewarded by a wonderful citrony smell. The shrub's berries, hidden along the stem and still green this time of year, will help with identification.

Spicebush is related to sassafras, a tree whose roots were originally used to make root beer. It also grows in the park, and has fragrant leaves that come in three shapes, one of which looks like a mitten.

Along the nature paths, you'll likely see a brambly plant with a whitish bloom to the stem and clusters of green, pink, red and black berries. This is the native black raspberry. The berries are pretty tasty after they turn black. Watch out for the thorns, and be sure of identification before eating anything, of course.

One of the funnest plants in the woods is the jewelweed. Try picking one of its swollen seed pods (just above the orange flower in the photo) and see what happens. Also, try putting one of the leaves underwater and check out what happens to its color. Jewelweed is a wildflower that grows in low wet areas, which is often where poison ivy grows. Conveniently, the juice of the jewelweed stem can be rubbed on skin to treat poison ivy.

One plant that you may want to avoid interacting with, but which definitely wants to interact with you, is the stickseed. Later in the season, it grows green seed burs that will coat your pants if you happen to brush against a plant. It's clever "schtick" is to use you to spread its seeds.

Lookalike Flowers of Meadow Rue and Basswood

One of my favorite NJ native wildflowers is in full bloom now. Meadow Rue is a very large plant (up to ten feet) with a very small flower. To the left is a closeup, in the early stages, when only a few of the plant's thousands of flowers have opened. They are like tiny starbursts,

which en masse create a cloud of white in a garden that is otherwise caught in the lull between spring and summer flowerings. The photo shows a ten foot high Meadow Rue draping itself over an Ironweed (foreground), which is tall in its own right.

In this photo, the Meadow Rue flowers look like sparklers, or a mob of fireflies, surrounding the Ironweed.

I add this photo to show the remarkable similarity between the Meadow Rue flowers and those of American Basswood (Tilia americana), which is also blooming now.

Politicians' Tendency to Pick On Plants

Though no one else in my home is enthusiastic about the newspapers that get delivered to our door, I continue to find little gems in them that I would otherwise never encounter.

In a 6/19 Trenton Times article on Chris Christie's opinion of New Jersey's state budget, Mr. Christie reportedly singled out for ridicule expenditures for research on plants in space. When politicians or pundits are searching for some small budget item that exemplifies governmental waste, they often choose money being spent on plants or protecting biodiversity. Though the reason for this is clear--plants and animals don't vote--it gives evidence of a widespread ignorance about plants and biodiversity, and their role in sustaining our civilization.

Past examples include Bill Clinton, who in his 1995 State of the Union address criticized spending $1 million to research "stress in plants." The long-running columnist David Broder once criticized spending money to guard Hawaii from the accidental introduction of the brown snake--a species that has wiped out bird populations on other Pacific islands.

Spotting a Spotted Beetle

One day at the FOPOS office in Mountain Lakes House, I looked out the window to see a couple hikers scrutinizing something on the driveway. A little later, I was passing by them in my truck and stopped to ask them what they had seen. "A big black bug with white spots," they reported.

Alarms went off in my mind, as this accurately describes the Asian Longhorned Beetle (see first photo, taken from the internet), an exotic insect with the potential to wipe out our forests and street trees. The A.L.B., as it is commonly called, was accidentally introduced into the U.S. when it hitchhiked over from China in wooden shipping crates. Government agencies have been fighting to extirpate populations found in New York city, Chicago, Toronto and most recently in Worcester, MA.

I immediately turned around and headed back up the driveway to search for the bug. I was elated to find that the bug was not the dreaded A.L.B. but instead an Eyed Elator (2nd photo), which has two large black spots on top that must do a good job of intimidating potential predators. The driveway provided a less than safe place for the beetle to blend in.

(Thanks to Nancy, office manager for Friends of Princeton Open Space, for the identification.)

What's in bloom

Here are a few natives in bloom right now. Virginia Sweetspire (Itea virginica) is a small, very ornamental shrub whose graceful appearance disguises an impressive capacity to endure both wet and dry conditions. When rarely encountered in the wild, it typically grows along streams, but is becoming common in the nursery trade.

Indigo Bush (Amorpha fruticosa) is a lovely shrub in the pea family. It grows along lake and river banks in Princeton. Benefiting from the cool, wet spring, it has bloomed profusely this year, drawing a great commotion of pollinating insects with its unusual color combination of purple and orange.

Other notes: Catalpa came into bloom a couple days ago. Kousa dogwoods (an exotic but non-invasive small tree that blooms later than our native dogwood) have been blooming for about a week.

Among exotic invasive shrubs, there's a useful progression of blooms in the spring that can be used for surveying populations in the field. Asian photinia is followed in blooming by Multiflora rose (just finishing up), which is followed by Privet (just about to open).

Saw my first firefly tonight.

Princeton Trails Presentation June 7th, 3pm

As many already know, there's a wonderful new pocket-sized guide to nature trails in and around Princeton available at various bookstores, and also on the web at http://www.walkthetrails.org/index.html. Even long-time residents of Princeton are often unaware of the many natural wonders to be explored hereabouts. This guide can help change that. The creators of the book will be making a presentation at Labyrinth Books this coming Sunday. Profits from the book go to preserving open space. Sophie is on the board of Friends of Princeton Open Space. See more info below:

Sophie Glovier and Bentley Drezner —

Walk the Trails in and around Princeton
Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 3PM

Labyrinth Books, Princeton

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Join Bentley Drezner and Sophie Glovier, creators of Walk The Trails In and Around Princeton. Enjoy a virtual tour of the 16 walks on preserved land featured in this unique guidebook. Sized to fit in your pocket, it includes detailed parking and walking directions and effective maps, as well as beautiful photographs and 16 postcards of local trails. Their talk and slide show will introduce you to the more than 1,000 acres of preserved open space and 25 miles of trails open to the public in and near Princeton. Hidden in plain sight, most of us drive by this open space every day without realizing its natural wonders - waterfalls, secret caves, fields of wildflowers and ponds full of aquatic life.

Profits from sales of Walk The Trails In and Around Princeton are being shared with local land trusts devoted to saving open space in our region.

Labyrinth Books

122 Nassau Street

Princeton, NJ 08542

609.497.1600

A Garden Grows in Harrison Street Park

This wildflower garden in Harrison Street Park was full of flowers last summer, and is off to a good start this spring. The photo shows five things that are helping this garden thrive in a town park.

The stakes and string clearly mark its boundaries, so the mowing crew knows to steer clear. The mulch, which the borough supplied and neighbors distributed, suppresses weeds.

In the distance, up the slope, is a parking lot, from which flows runoff during rains, providing the garden with additional water that it can absorb and use during droughts. The lack of trees growing near the garden, combined with the runoff, provides the wet-sunny conditions that are optimal for the success of a showy native wildflower garden.

Most important, and key to any garden, is the gardener, in this case Clifford Zink, who lives next to the park and has brought community resources together--plants from friends, mulch from the borough, and particularly his time and interest--to make these plantings an aesthetic and ecological asset for the park.

There is even an educational dimension--perhaps we should call it passive education, in the same way we refer to passive recreation. Investing in passive outdoor education means creating places like this where, if parents and children happen to wander over, they can discover the great variety of plants native to our area, and can scrutinize all the winged and webbing creatures that find sustenance there.

A Giant in the Backyard

There are a number of very tall wildflowers that thrive in sunny, wet ground. Cutleaf coneflower can grow to ten feet. Joe-pye-weed, late-flowering thoroughwort and native sunflowers can reach impressive heights in late summer. But one plant is already towering over me in the backyard.

In the photo is the growing tip of Tall Meadow Rue (Thalictrum pubescens), which, growing at the rate of 2 inches a day this spring, has now reached a height of seven feet, with no sign of stopping.

Tall meadow rue plays a role that is complementary to the boneset described in detail last July. Both grow into vegetative high-rises topped by masses of white flowers that attract a surprising diversity of insect life, with meadow rue doing its work early in the season, and boneset reaching maturity in mid-summer.

Even before flowering, the meadow rue is serving as substrate for the life cycles of the local insect community.

Maple Seed Sprouting

These seeds were trying to sprout in a planting tray. Maples manufacture an elegant device for propagating themselves--a so-called "samara" that is part seed, part wing. The wings catch the air in such a way as to rotate like a helicopter, slowing their fall and allowing the wind to carry them some distance away from the parent tree.

The photo shows three stages, progressing from left to right. The seed sends out a root, then its first leaves--cotyledons--expand and turn green, then it forms its first pair of "true leaves", which have the classic maple leaf shape.

Snowbells in May

Spring flowers have faded, summer has yet to begin, but one small tree on Snowden Lane is filling the void. Japanese Snowbell (Styrax japonica) is showy in a private way, aiming its blooms downward. The second photo was taken looking up from underneath the tree.

There's a native Styrax that grows in the southeast U.S.