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.

Optimism, Habitat, and Landscape

If people love trees so much, then how do we explain Jill Biden's choice for a painting that was part of Inauguration Day ceremonies in the Capitol rotunda. Painted by African American artist Robert Duncanson as the Civil War was looming, Landscape With Rainbow depicts a pastoral paradise in which a young couple and their cattle head back to a homestead blessed by a rainbow. 

A closer look reveals that the distant hills in the painting are forested, but it is pasture--albeit a bit overgrazed--that dominates this optimistic landscape. Though people love trees, we also love vistas, which trees are very good at blocking. Who hasn't climbed a mountain, expecting a grand vista at the top, only to find that trees have grown to block the view? 

It seems strange sometimes that communities don't actively seek to create and preserve vistas, given how pleasing they are. If people can see into the distance, maybe they'll think into the distance as well. A vivid memory from the Sourland Mountains, just up the road from Princeton, is a view of the Manhattan skyline. It came as a complete surprise, and was made possible only by the ongoing suppression of trees along the gas pipeline right of way that extends up and over the mountain ridge. Ideally, vistas would be made possible in our world by something less linear and fossil fuel-related than a pipeline, but our approach to managing preserved open spaces seldom offers an alternative means of creating areas that are more open. 

Also running counter to open space preservation norms, the focus of optimism in the painting is a house, embraced by nature, towards which the rainbow, people and animals all point. One approach to purchasing open space for preservation is to demolish any buildings left on a newly preserved property. We had to overcome this bias against buildings embedded in open space in the process of saving Veblen House and Cottage at Herrontown Woods. 

One question, then, is how to adjust the classic view of open space--as uninterrupted forest--to consider the clear attraction we have for the mosaic of habitats depicted in this painting, where people play an active role in the landscape. What is pleasing to people can also serve the needs of biodiversity. At the Botanical Art Garden at Herrontown Woods, we are actively preventing a forest opening from reverting to the deep shade that stifles the growth of so many native plant species less gifted with height. Succession to forest need not be considered the only natural destiny for a landscape. Historically, such forest openings would have been maintained by periodic fire, in what is called a fire-climax community. 

Though a deep forest of towering native trees can evoke a sense of awe and reverence, and deserves to be preserved, many areas of preserved open space are thick with stunted, second-growth trees. Add the typically dense layer of invasive shrubs and the effect becomes cluttered and claustrophobic. As the death of ash trees due to the Emerald Ash Borer opens up the forest canopy, we may want to manage some of these openings to create a more varied habitat. If the non-native invasive shrubs can be limited, and young trees kept from reclaiming the sunlight, there are many native shrubs that could flourish in a more illuminated understory. Spicebush, hazelnut, serviceberry, native azalea, blueberries, Viburnums, Hearts-a-burstin'--these are a few of the native shrubs that would bear abundant fruit for wildlife if given more sun. 

One of the most optimistic moments I had in my life had some parallels to the Duncanson painting. I was driving out of Washington, DC after picking up a passport. The president at the time was highly competent and believed in government, and the WhiteHouse gleamed brilliant white in the afternoon sun as I drove past. On the radio was a live broadcast of Copeland's Appalachian Spring, broadcast from the Library of Congress in honor of its premier performance there some 50 years earlier. Along the roadsides as city began to transition to countryside were prairie grasses, golden in autumn. The youthful roadside vegetation resonated with the music of spring's awakening, and a sense of the nation's promise. 

Grasslands, meadows, shrublands--these are the younger landscapes, whose dynamic growth happens at our own height rather than far above. Their flowers and foliage also serve the insect community through the summer when deep forest has gone floristically silent. The aim here is to become more strategic and discerning about trees, to determine where they are precious, and where they might best be managed to serve ecological and aesthetic goals. 

Video Presentation on Invasive Species

On 11.11.2020 I presented a zoom talk on invasive species as part of a series of monthly talks sponsored by the Sierra Club of NJ--Central Group. The talk was entitled "Invasive Species and the Pandemic: Thinking of Nature as a Body." Thanks to Kip Cherry for inviting me to speak, to Chuck McEnroe for film editing, and to PrincetonTV for posting the talk online.

In the talk, really two talks in one, I tell how vanquishing aggressive invasive species has often been the first step towards creating special places for native diversity to flourish and people to gather. In the second part of the talk, I discuss how my experiences in climate change theater and land management led to the concept of nature as a body. 

Herrontown Woods News

I've been posting some Herrontown Woods news at FOHW.org. There's the saga of the moving of the gazebo to the Princeton Botanical Art Garden (Gazebo Docks With Mother Ship), and a listing of the Friends of Herrontown Woods' accomplishments this past year.

Some recent additions to the botanical art garden include a birdhouse painted with the four seasons, donated by artist Lisa Phox, 

and a mushroom garden and pinecone forest created by Andrew and Rachelle. The moss comes from a particularly productive roof.

Regular workdays are from 10 to noon on Sunday mornings, for anyone who wants to come by the main parking lot off of Snowden Lane.

The Hidden Life of Trees, and Other Deeply Flawed Books on Nature

There are some very misleading books, articles and opeds out there, claiming to give you the inside scoop on what nature is really like. Nature is very complex, involves a long learning curve to gain some understanding, and thus many readers prove vulnerable to cherry-picked evidence used to promote skewed points of view. 

Over the years, I've reviewed many of these false characterizations of nature, posted on another website and at Amazon and Goodreads, and reached out to some of the authors and editors. I'd like to think that I've played a role in diminishing the prevalence of one strand of skewed thinking: invasive species denial. I encountered it first in opinion pieces in the NY Times, then came across misleading books like The Rambunctious Garden, Beyond the War On Invasive Species, The New Wild, and Inheritors of the Earth. I also critiqued and reached out to the radio show, You Bet Your Garden, which was pretending that invasive species aren't a problem. 

Interestingly, one strand of invasive species denial springs from a blanket condemnation of pesticides, much as climate change denial is often motivated by a distaste for government. If the solution is objectionable, then deny the problem. Now, I don't like herbicides--Rodale's Organic Gardening Encyclopedia was my bible back when my interest in plants centered around growing food--but their targeted use is critical when dealing with invasive species on any meaningful scale. What works on an organic farm is not fully transferable to a nature preserve. There is an understandable desire for purity in our sullied world. Consider, though, the pragmatism with which we view western medicine and our own bodies. Just because antibiotics are abused by the meat industry doesn't mean we vilify all antibiotics everywhere, or refuse to take them if needed.

One book that's highly misleading is The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben. Though it doesn't fit in the category of invasive species denial, it does use similar techniques to manipulate readers. It seems like a gentle book, but has an underlying logic that is not so pretty, as described here in a small excerpt from my review:

A book will garner more interest if it has an applecart to spill and an "Other" to dislike. In this case, the applecart is antiquated views of trees, and the "Others" to look down upon are narrow-minded scientists and commercial foresters. Another common ingredient is to let the reader off the hook by suggesting we as individuals need expend no energy to compensate for all the ways human activity has thrown nature out of balance.

Nearly all of these books are written by non-scientists and reviewed by non-scientists, leaving the public unprotected from any misinformation the books may carry.

Though invasive species denial seems to be fading, Wohlleben's book remains very popular. Many of these books get very high ratings on Amazon and elsewhere. Though the Amazon review section for a book is a useful place to break people's bubbles, I've noticed that the reviews that Amazon labels as "top critical review" are neither the strongest nor the most informative and recommended negative reviews on the site. Here's an example, in which the most highly recommended negative review is buried below others.

2020 has definitively demonstrated just how hard it is for truth to compete. In politics, a preponderance of the misinformation is being generated and consumed by the rightwing, but it's instructive to witness how those who care deeply about nature can also prove vulnerable to false narratives.

Piano Talk -- Original Compositions and Thoughts About Self and World

Maybe not everyone reading this blog knows that, in addition to botanizing and nonprofit leading, I've been a professional jazz musician and composer since college days. Though my main instruments are saxophone and clarinet, I started studying piano in my 20s and got good enough at it to compose music, and even taught piano for awhile to beginners/intermediates in Ann Arbor and later in Durham, NC. 

I've composed hundreds of tunes--ranging from jazz to latin, classical, and blues--and some of the shorter piano pieces I've started recording along with some thoughts on how the tunes work and what they mean to me. With the music comes personal stories, like how I started playing jazz, and thoughts on how the music speaks to our time. The videos are recorded in the unglamorous milieu of my "mancave", where decade-old newspapers are still waiting to be read.

Four of them can be found on my youtube station. Their names are Palindrome, which is built on a musical palindrome, Why Am I So Happy?, which explores how music can simultaneously carry happiness and sadness, Con-tin-u-ing, which is a musical portrayal of long unsolved problems in our world, and The Daughter's Song, which sounded when I wrote it like the theme for a daughter in a play about climate change. 

Diggings in the Lawn

Earlier in the fall my friend Gail reported that her backyard was getting torn up this year--something that had never happened before. One interesting  clue as to why this was happening now and not before was the death of three ash trees just across the fenceline in the neighbor's yard. This year, multiple experiences have made clear for me the dramatic impact active trees have on soil moisture. Trails at Herrontown Woods dried up as soon as the trees and shrubs leafed out and began drawing moisture from the ground. The death of many ash trees in Princeton is changing soil conditions, allowing sun to warm the ground and water from rains to remain in the soil longer. The dead tree roots are also a food source for underground organisms. 

I claim no expertise on which animal is doing the damage, nor on how to stop them. Here's an organic approach. The internet puts the blame mostly on raccoons and foxes, as they search for grubs and earthworms. Both have upped their game in Princeton in recent years. That, along with heavier rains, warmer weather, and the loss of trees could be leading to more digging. Skunks also dig, but are more precise in their digging, making smaller holes that limit damage to the lawn. The photo below is from another homeowner's lawn near my house. This damage was noticed only a couple weeks ago, late in the fall. 

Towpath Nature Trail Loop in Late Fall

A walk along the towpaths's nature trail loop near Harrison Street a couple weeks ago had an unexpectedly uplifting effect on my spirit. Nature has played a big role this year in keeping people emotionally afloat through the pandemic, and even as nature shifts towards dormancy I felt gratitude for the patterns and small bits of color it still offered. 

The trail is not as wide as it was in years past, since there's been a breakdown in who is responsible for mowing, but foot traffic has kept it open. Just by walking along it, you do the trail a favor.

A splash of burgundy from a blackberry.

The remnants of a common milkweed's seedpod.

The deep lobes of pin oak leaves still bright.

Bright yellow of a solitary Norway maple. Gratefully, Norway maples haven't invaded natural areas in Princeton for the most part, though they do tend to take over along fencelines in people's backyards.

The stunted red leaves of a multiflora rose afflicted with rose rosette disease. For those of us who have had lots of run-ins with multiflora rose's barbed thorns, a little help from a disease to curb the aggressiveness of this shrub is good news.

Along the shore next to this memorial bench are some plants I always check out. 

Looks like the nightshade had a good year. It's related to tomatoes, but don't eat the berries.

The seeds of native Hibiscus are held suspended over Lake Carnegie in cup-like capsules. Its preferred habitat is the banks of streams, but it flourishes in a garden if there's enough sun.

Of the many shrub dogwoods adapted to wet ground, silky dogwood is the one found locally. It's less red than red osier dogwoods.

Even botanists can find grasses intimidating, but if you steer clear of the giant tomes with mind-boggling plant keys, and simply take note of their shapes and colors, the more common ones can be easily learned. It's like recognizing someone from a distance by the way they walk, even if their back is turned. Plants have body language that can be learned.

Wood reed is a common native grass in shady lowlands.

Broomsedge--it's a grass, not a sedge--takes on a nice bronze look in the fall. 

Deertongue grass is very common here along the trail, often growing in masses. Note the broad leaf.

Where the trail takes a sharp meander there's a wonderful gathering of hollow-stemmed Joe-Pye-Weed growing in the open shade of giant oaks. A few seeds still cling to their tops, taking the mind backwards to the bright flowers of July, and forwards towards new plants to come.

We're used to seeing a sharp division between open fields and dense forests where little ground vegetation can survive. What's special about this nature trail is that trees are more scattered, allowing sun-loving wildflowers to flourish underneath. This savanna-like habitat would have been much more common in the past, when trees were harvested more selectively, or fires were allowed to sweep through, killing some trees and leaving others to grow. In the more recent past, the state parks crews would mow this habitat once a year in late winter to limit woody growth, but the past few years I haven't had luck getting it done. The strategic, episodic maintenance needs of native habitats, e.g. mowing once a year, seem harder to integrate into maintenance crews' schedules than the recurrent once-a-week mowing regimes that are far more expensive but can be routinized.

There were some ornamental plantings done long ago, probably in the 1960s, and some of these persist. A row of fragrant honeysuckle makes super-fragrant little white flowers in February. Though other shrub honeysuckle species are invasive, I've never seen Lonicera fragrantissima spread beyond where it's planted.

The fluffy seeds of the nonnative vine autumn clematis are quite a sight when backlit. The native version, virgin's bower, is distinguished by its toothed leaves, and must be more tasty for wildlife than the nonnative version, given its relative rarity. 

Take the short stub trail to the lake and you find a stump suspended partway out over the water on a tangle of roots. This is the remains of a sweetgum tree that used to serve as a roost for dozens of cormorants. The site was impressive and haunting at the same time. The tree finally succumbed, whether from erosion of its roots by the lake, too much fertilizer from the birds, or some other cause. Not sure where the cormorants went.

Those horizontal lines in the bark are the prominent lenticels of an ornamental cherry tree.  

These giant ornamental cherry trees, evocative of the cherries in Washington, DC, remain from the university's plantings long ago. This one marks the western entrance to the loop trail, closer to Washington Road.

Learn to identify some plants, and even a walk through the stripped down nature of late fall can stir an energizing mix of recognition, memories and anticipations.