I rely on this blog as a personal record of my nature observations over the years, in particular the plants I have found, and where and when I had found them. So over the past 14+ years I have tried to make this record as complete as I could make it. But this year, due to unseasonable heat early in the blooming season, so many wildflowers are blooming all at once and then fading fast, I just can't keep up with blogging about them. For example, when I walked with my friends at Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail last Thursday (April 27), I downloaded over 60 photos from my camera. And on most days since then, my daily outings resulted in similar photo loads. Time to clear the decks! So this post will be just a digest, only the highlights of the remarkable sightings my friends and I found on this walk through one of the most delightful trails in Saratoga County.
As this photo shows, we had just entered the Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail from the Meadowbrook Estates spur trail, and just a few feet in, we'd already found many interesting reasons to halt our progress to observe trailside sightings more closely.
And somebody else, from this hollow in a tree, was observing US intruding on his/her domain!
I had suggested this entry point because this spur trail takes us directly into the middle part of Bog Meadow's two-mile long main trail, the part where "most of the good stuff grows," especially at this time of year. For here, the trail promptly descends from an upland mixed forest into a low wooded swamp, habitat for some of our region's most ancient and interesting plants -- the horsetails (Equisetum species). Five different species of horsetails can be found at Bog Meadow, but I particularly wanted to catch two particular species -- Field Horsetail (E. arvense) and Wood Horsetail (E. sylvaticum) -- in their reproductive, spore-producing stage. And both of those species are easily observed from a boardwalk that crosses this wooded wetland.
The previous night's rain had adorned with crystalline drops this green persistent stalk of Field Horsetail, its whorls of branches just emerging from stiff jointed stalks. As the growing season progresses, those branches will elongate and continue to photosynthesize until frost spells the end of this year's cycle.
Growing nearby were the fertile stalks of Field Horsetail, each tan-colored segmented stalk topped with a cone-like, spore-bearing structure called a strobilus. Once the spores have been released, these once-fertile stalks will wither completely away.
Equally abundant in this wooded swamp were the green branching stalks of Wood Horsetail (E. sylvaticum). Two easily observable features distinguish the Wood Horsetail from the Field Horsetail: the compound branching of each lateral branch, and the presence of spore-producing strobili borne atop occasional specimens of the population. Once the spores have been shed, these strobili will wither and drop off the host plants, while the host plant will persist, growing larger as the season progresses. (A third distinguishing feature, the reddish color of the teeth that ring each segment of the stalks, is less easily observed from the height of the boardwalk.)
Here are the two species of horsetail, side-by-side, Wood Horsetail on the left, Field Horsetail on the right. In both species, the whorls of branches will lengthen as the growing season progresses.
The constantly damp soil of this low swampy spot supports a number of deciduous ferns that are just now revealing their presence with uncoiling fiddleheads. Many ferns are difficult to identify at this early stage, but this one, with its stalks covered with brown flakes, suggests to me that it is most likely Northern Lady Fern (Athyrium angustum), a native fern known to be abundant in damp, shady woodland environments. Some years ago, I came up with a mnemonic phrase to remind me of this fern's ID at this stage: "This lady does not shave her legs."
There's very little about this next fern's early fiddlehead to suggest what its mature appearance will be. Now quite tiny, cherry-red, and covered with fine pale hairs, it will later grow to be nearly two feet tall with shiny, hairless black stems and a frond that divides into two tapering blades that together curve around to form a near-perfect circle, each blade adorned with delicate fan-shaped leaflets. This fern's delicate appearance when mature is probably what suggested its name of Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum).
Another clue is that I found the tiny red fiddleheads sprouting up from where I knew an extensive patch of Maidenhair Fern will appear in the weeks to come. And I also found one of those fiddleheads already branching and dangling tiny fan-shaped leaflets.
Just before this swamp-crossing spur joins the main Bog Meadow trail, we have to cross a small brook. There, on the mossy bank of this brook, a spectacular clump of Miterwort (Mitella diphylla) raised numerous spikes of dainty, white, snowflake-shaped florets.
I was delighted to find the beautiful white flowers of Rue Anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides), a native wildflower species I had not encountered along Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail before.
When we first passed this abundant patch of Wood Anemone (Anemone quinquefolia), the flowers were closed-up in response to the morning's damp and chill. But later, after the sun broke through clouds and temperatures rose, every flower had opened wide. How beautiful, the bright-white flowers so scattered across the massed green leaves, like constellations of stars in the sky!
I always hope to find Hairy Woodrush (Luzula acuminata) in bloom along this trail, since this is the only place I've regularly encountered it. When in bloom, its flower cluster looks like a wreath of tiny yellow lilies crowning grass-like leaves that are noticeably hairy at the nodes and edges. This photo is actually from my files, taken on a year when it bloomed on its normal schedule. The plants I found this year had already gone to seed and weren't nearly as attractive in appearance. I just wanted to show them at their flower-like prettiest.
And here was a second species of woodrush, called Heath Woodrush (Luzula multiflora), and I'm not sure why the sight of it out of the corner of my eye had me screeching to a halt. It was not nearly as floral in appearance as is L. acuminata, its flowers more reminiscent of sedge spikelets than blooming lilies. But something about it signaled WOODRUSH to me from afar, and a closer look revealed the fine hairs on the leaves and stems that I've read are typical of Luzula species. And then there was this: I had never seen this plant before! A new entry for my life list! And a native plant, at that (although it has a circumpolar distribution). Hardly a rare plant, having been reported from almost every county in both New York and New England. But it was a new one for me.
After more than 30 years of diligently recording every flowering plant I encounter, as well as when and where I encountered it, it's quite rare now that I find a plant I haven't seen before. So even though I have not mentioned many of the other plants I noticed during this day's Bog Meadow walk, I am happy to post this finding of Luzula multiflora along this trail today. Just for the record!
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