Protected Plants on the Powerline

At a casual glance, this sandy-soiled powerline clearcut just north of Mud Pond at Moreau Lake State Park doesn't exactly look like a hotbed of rare plants. But it is.  And thanks to efforts by Casey Holzworth, Natural Resource Steward for our region's state parks, those plants will no longer have to endure periodic herbicide applications by the power company, intended to keep trees from interfering with the lines. After a number of state-protected plants were reported from this site,  Casey met with a National Grid supervising forester, who consented to allow the park to assume vegetation management for the stretch of trail visible in this photo, which is where most of the plants requiring protection are known to grow.  I visited this stretch today, curious to see how our rare and otherwise protected plants were doing.

I didn't have to search very long to find the first Rare plant, our native American Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) with its flowers now in bud. An abundant patch lies close to the trail, easily accessed from a nearby parking area.  

Formerly common throughout our region, this vine is growing ever rarer as it becomes supplanted by the aggressively invasive Oriental Bittersweet.  Our native Bittersweet can be distinguished most easily from the non-native invader by how it bears its flowers and fruits in terminal clusters, rather than in the leaf axils along the vine. The buds shown in this photo will open shortly into small yellow-white five-petaled flowers, followed by scarlet berries in the fall.  The vines at this site have nothing to climb on, so they sprawl on the ground.  I sometimes think I should go put a trellis there.

As I descended the sandy path toward the pond, I began to find the first of dozens of plants of Green Rock Cress (Borodinia missouriensis), rated as a Threatened species in New York.  Although its small white four-petaled flowers look very much like those of other Mustard Family plants, its slender, arching seed pods are its most distinctive field mark. As this photo reveals, those arching seed pods (called "siliques") have already begun to form and acquire their distinctive profile. 

In the past, I have found Green Rock Cress almost always as a solitary plant, so I was quite surprised to find this thick cluster of individual stems growing so closely together.

As it happened today, a similar Mustard Family plant called Tower Mustard (Turritis glabra) was also blooming nearby.  Tower Mustard is a quite common native species, and I placed a stalk of it next to a plant of Green Rock Cress to display how these two tall slender plants with very similar small white flowers actually differ substantially.

 Even at a glance, it is obvious how the siliques appear vastly different, even though both are long and slender. Those of the Green Rock Cress are flexible and arch away from the stem in graceful curves, while those of the Tower Mustard are stiff, and they cling closely to the plant's stem as they point directly upward. And while both species bear terminal clusters of small white flowers, only the Tower Mustard will bear more flowers from the leaf axils along the stem.

The leaves are also an important clue.  The Green Rock Cress will have at least 30 minutely-toothed sessile leaves crowding its smooth green stem.  Also, the leaves and stem are a clear green, with no whitish bloom on them.

The Tower Mustard has many fewer non-toothed leaves so closely clasping a glaucous stem they appear to almost completely wrap it.  Note, too, the frosted-green color of the leaves, which are also touched with purple, and the flower buds emerging from the leaf axils.

Here is one more plant under these powerlines that is classified by New York State as "Rare", our native Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis).  I do see this plant in many other places around Saratoga County besides this, so I had no idea it was considered a rare plant until I checked the New York Flora Association Plant Atlas. We do have very sandy soil in this county, which is exactly the kind of low-nutrient habitat that this species prefers, so that might account for its abundance locally.  It also prefers burned-over sites, and the Plant Atlas suggests that it may be decreasing in abundance as fires are prevented.  I have often thought that the clear-cut areas under powerlines do resemble the clearings caused by forest fire, so it should not be surprising that Wild Lupine likes it here. That's one more reason to rejoice that herbicides will no longer poison the wildflowers under these powerlines!

If I want to find this next wildflower, the Pink Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium acaule), I often visit this powerline near Mud Pond,  where this beautiful native orchid grows in abundance.  But I find it not out under the power lines, but rather back toward the edge of the pine woods that lines the trail here.  Although this plant is not state-listed as "Rare," it is, as are all our native orchids, a protected species in New York, classified as "Exploitably Vulnerable".

This year, I was astounded to see how the Pink Lady's Slipper population had extended quite a way out into the clear-cut area, establishing new territory among the mats of Big Redstem Moss, where it certainly appeared to be thriving.

Some of the plants bore flowers of a deep vibrant pink.

Other plants bore flowers of a paler pink.

There are many other interesting and beautiful plants that have found a home in this sunny dry habitat,  plants that, while they may not be legally classified as rare, certainly do deserve to be protected.  Probably the most spectacular of these is our native Wood Lily (Lilium philadelphicum).  

A population of these beautiful lilies still manages to persist at this site, despite periodic doses of herbicide that reduce their numbers drastically.  Somehow, the flowers manage to struggle back after a year or two following their poisoning.  Our hope is that, with the park now selectively clearing the young trees mechanically instead of the power company destroying all plants chemically,  this site may yet once again be restored to Wood Lily Paradise.

And of course, a Wood Lily Paradise would be a heaven for all the native wildflowers that share this powerline clearcut.  It sure would be lovely to see the currently sparse population of Blunt-leaved Milkweed (Asclepias amplexicaulis) expand to waft its incredible fragrance on the air.  And also to offer its leaves to the larvae of Monarch Butterflies.

The same would be true for a second milkweed that could thrive here more abundantly than it does now, the brilliant-orange, aptly named Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa), seen here sharing its space with another plant much desired by native pollinators,  the white-flowered shrub called New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus).

Did I mention that Butterfly Weed was aptly named?  This lovely little American Copper Butterfly attests to that!