Okay, so what's to see here? Some stones and a scrappy plant? Those of you who participate in trail work sessions may recognize the context of this photo as a bit of stone fill for a low spot on the trail. But the real message is in the scrappy plant. This is a lone opportunist sprout of Japanese stiltgrass, that invader of natural areas which you see along so many trails in the park. It comes from a seed which was carried here from another site on boots or fill material, and is a demonstration of how all the stiltgrass has achieved its invasion. If this insignificant bit of plant life is not exterminated, it will produce hundreds of seeds, creating an ever-expanding population of stiltgrass at this site. If hikers, trail monitors and trail maintainers are vigilant and uproot such opportunists, this new infestation can be avoided.
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A few warm days was all it took for the mayapple to begin sprouting from its hiding places on the forest floor. Mayapple, or Mandrake, or Mayflower, is a native perennial common all over the eastern United States. The mayapple name is attributed to its apple-like (sort of) flower which develops in May. It is common in part because all parts of the plant are toxic, except the ripe fruit, so it is generally not disturbed during its brief growing season. That toxicity can be turned to advantage for us because a chemical in the plant is effective as a cancer treatment. Mayapple grows in patches because it propagates by underground rhizomes. It can successfully reproduce by seed, as well, especially when the fruit has been eaten by a box turtle and the seeds have passed through the turtle’s digestive tract. --Ben You’ve been to various hiking or biking trailheads at the park. You’ve seen the notice about preventing Lyme disease. Well, folks, the weather notwithstanding, it’s spring and that means tick season. There are three ticks to watch for here: Blacklegged (a.k.a. Deer Tick), Lone Star and American Dog (a.k.a. Wood Tick). The Black-legged is the smallest and the one which transmits Lyme disease. The other two can also transmit diseases. On a warm day, these spider-relatives hang out on the tips of grasses and shrubs (in a position known as "questing") waiting to ambush unsuspecting passers-by. By all means, get out and enjoy the woods, but brush up on your tick-avoidance skills and do a careful tick check when you are back home. For more information visit ww.vdh.virginia.gov/TickBrochure.
--Ben That dark and obscure pool of water off in the woods that shows up during the winter, which we usually pass by with nary a thought, may be a forest biological hot spot. Vernal pools, as they are known, develop in depressions where water collects only during the wet weather of winter and spring. In these quiet, seasonal waters a variety of animal species find a hospitable habitat, primarily insects, crustaceans and amphibians. Water-dwelling insects as well as the smaller microbes pass through their brief life-cycles, providing food for the hatchlings of frogs, toads and salamanders who lay their eggs here. These larger predators are in turn part of the food web in the forest, so the vernal pools are an important component of forest ecology. Pools which do not serve as a breeding ground for frogs and salamanders are not included in the “vernal pool” category, although they may still benefit the forest ecosystem. The Pocahontas Master Naturalists are developing a monitoring program for vernal pools in the park. So far, 28 vernal pools have been identified. There are probably many more yet to be discovered. Spring is the critical time of year to view them because frog and salamander egg masses are easily identified now. --Ben It’s considered to be a common owl of the eastern United States. But there aren’t really all that many of them. As a carnivore of rodents and birds, the barred owl needs a sizable territory and a suitable habitat for roosting and nesting, such as Pocahontas, with almost 8000 acres and a variety of forest ecosystems. If you get lucky, you may hear one or a pair calling briefly in the afternoon, as I have along the Bright Hope Trail. Our expression “that’s a hoot” might come from listening to barred owls, as their vocalization can be quite amusing. This photo shows the pine stand where one of the owls was hiding, but I was unable to pick out its roosting place in the trees. --Ben Let’s begin a mind’s-eye hike at the Swift Creek Forest Trail parking area. Moving south, we shortly pick up the Fendley Station Trail and pass the northern intersection with Fendley Station Loop A. We are now in the watershed of a small stream which is evident as we pass through a low area and cross a culvert through which water flows to the east. Proceeding up a slight grade, we come to the southern intersection with Loop A, and we turn onto it. Continuing eastward for some distance we begin to descend through the watershed, eventually reaching a ford where the trail again encounters the same stream, now somewhat more robust. Here we go off-trail to follow this stream, a tributary of Swift Creek called Shawondasee Creek (Shawondasee was a god of the American Indians). As we bush-whack downstream southward, water from another brook joins the creek, keeping the water flowing through all months of the year. After a few minutes of tromping through this area of deciduous forest, we begin to see the water of the creek widening into pools. The pools are backed up behind dams of sticks, built by beavers that have found this area to be suitable habitat. Continuing along the creek, we find a series of these dams and the tell-tale chewed tree trunks and saplings. Four such pools are pictured below. Eventually we come to the park boundary with YMCA Camp Thunderbird. The creek feeds into the camp’s Lake George, a reservoir which is also beaver habitat. The camp staff find that they and the beavers can coexist peacefully, and they have designated the landscape of beaver dams as Beavertown. --Ben There’s something about big trees that grabs our attention. They are all older than we are; they were here long before we arrived. They are all bigger than we are; we must look up to see the whole of them. They are survivors. The biggest of them have been registered, with the Virginia Big Tree Program in our state, and with American Forests’ National Big Tree Program for the national champions. Chesterfield County has a state champion Eastern Cottonwood, with a girth of 25 feet. Pocahontas State Park doesn’t boast any trees of that stature. The park was carved out of lands that had been harvested of their timber, and some of it had been replanted to loblolly plantations. Timber harvest continued until recently in parts of the park that were designated as State Forest. So what we see now is mostly trees less than a century old. Still, there are a few exceptions. Pictured here is a Tuliptree with a girth of just over 11 feet, impressive to stand beside though far short of the champion in Chesapeake County with a girth of over 32 feet. --Ben Anyone who has walked or ridden the full length of the Bright Hope Trail has passed through the “wisteria patch”. This patch marks the site of one of the old home properties in the park, and as is so often the case, exotic plants established by the homeowners have persisted even though the buildings are long gone. On this site the persistent plants are Chinese Wisteria, Japanese Honeysuckle and English Ivy, but it is the abundant climbing stems of wisteria that are most obvious along the trail. From what was probably a planting of one or just a few vines to provide some spring color around the house, the aggressive Chinese wisteria has spread to become the primary vegetation over an area of five acres. Wisteria is called a twining vine because is climbs by wrapping itself around the stems of other woody plants (or even one of its own stems). As the vine and the host plant continue to expand in girth, the host plant is constricted into interesting contorted shapes. A closer look at the twining habit also reveals that the vine may encircle its host in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. This directional habit is specific to species, so in our patch we are able to recognize Chinese wisteria, as opposed to Japanese wisteria, because the vine climbs from lower left to upper right in our line of sight. A more thorough discussion of wisteria can be found on the web here. The only way to prevent the wisteria from continuing to expand and suppress more native vegetation is to take some controlling action. If you pass along the trail now, you will see that the Invasive Plant Volunteer Squad has been at work cutting the climbing vines and the shrubby wisteria plants. However, the large stems reaching into the tall trees and the effects of encircling constriction will be evident for years to come. --Ben Back in 2005 a biologist added an entry for the Northern River Otter to the ongoing inventory of life in Pocahontas State Park. There is no detail in the record about where it was sighted, or if it was only inferred from signs. Today I was tramping along an off-trail border of the park when I came across this apparent mud-slide into Swift Creek. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, but it could be that we still have river otters here. There is still quite a lot of wild land along Swift Creek, through and below the park. Otters are sensitive to water quality, so their presence would be another sign that Swift Creek has not been overly degraded by upstream suburban development. --Ben One can't wander in the Pocahontas woods in this season without noticing the dark green of Christmas fern fronds contrasting with the browns of the fallen leaves. Somehow the fronds manage to avoid being buried as all those leaves drift down. A patch of ferns such as this one is pleasing to the eye. And it will continue to be attractive through December, thus its common name. I found some interesting facts about Christmas fern here, and I quote from that site: "Christmas fern may grow in large, extensive colonial masses but more typically is found in clusters of two or three individuals. Growing ferns and the accumulated detritus of past sterile fronds form a dense covering mass over the soil surface. This mass helps to stabilize the underlying soil and prevent or lessen erosion. It also generates a protective, concealing habitat for a number of ground feeding and ground nesting bird species. Because of their complex chemical composition, ferns are eaten by very few browsers or grazers." --Ben |
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