Late Fall Along Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail

It's November in northern New York. Deciduous trees are shedding the last of their leaves. The fall  wildflowers have all gone to seed and await the first killing frost.  And yet, much of beauty and interest still greet us on every nature walk, even this late in autumn.  My friend Sue and I went to Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail this past week, both to revisit those wonders we knew we would find, as well as to be surprised by unexpected beauty.

We entered the trail through a spur that leads directly onto a boardwalk leading to a mid-way point on this two-mile trail surrounded by wooded wetlands, wet meadows, and open marsh.  But we first lingered here in this forested swampy section, hoping we could find at least traces of some of the fascinating plants that make this kind of habitat their home.

Happy to report, due to a dearth of rainfall this autumn, the forest floor here was not all that swampy, allowing us to step off the boardwalk and wander through the woods without fearing a too-muddy misstep.

The ground was still damp enough, though, to support the usual swamp denizens, such as this green squiggly stuff called Dwarf Horsetail (Equisetum scirpoides). This species is much smaller than the three other equisetum species that thrive in this swamp, and it's the only one of those species that remains green all year. We found vast carpets of it this year. Sometimes, in other years, we have to search carefully to find it.

Here's a closer look at the Dwarf Horsetail's convoluted stems:

A second, rather delicate-seeming Equisetum species that thrives here in summer, called Wood Horsetail (E. sylvaticum), was already so desiccated its distinguishing features were hardly recognizable.  But we definitely could recognize the somewhat sturdier remains of this Field Horsetail (E. arvense) pictured below, although it had collapsed from its typical erect posture and was lying among the fallen tree leaves.

When we approached areas of standing water, we could see the remains of the fourth wetland species of Equisetum that thrive in this swamp, this one called (appropriately) Water Horsetail (E. fluviatile). A taller species than the others, many plants still remained erect, although the long slender branches had collapsed as they dried.

Although few colorful leaves remained on the trees, we did find some colorful leaves on the forest floor. These Foamflower leaves (Tiarella stolonifera) looked as fresh and green as if they had just sprouted.

It's not just tree leaves that turn a pretty red color in the fall, as this Spotted Geranium leaf reveals. (Geranium maculatum)

The Highbush Blueberry shrubs (Vaccinium corymbosum) bore leaves of a vibrant red.

Swamp Thistle (Cirsium muticum) normally flowers in August in this swamp, blooming atop stems about 7 feet tall. So it was quite a surprise to find it about to bloom in November! When Sue called my attention to it, I could hardly believe she wasn't kidding me.  We had found a number of this plant's over-wintering leafy rosettes on the forest floor, but not any remnants of the gone-to-seed flowers. And here was what looked like a flower about to burst into bloom!

Granted, we'd had many unseasonably warm days the previous week,  but we knew we would not find any Skunk Cabbage plants about to bloom. These overwintering shoots bearing protective bracts could fool you, though, they look so similar to what we see in early spring.

We found few fungi here in the swamp, except for this tree trunk absolutely covered with Turkey Tail caps! (Trametes versicolor)

Wait!  Here was more fungus!  These tiny wisps of caramel-capped white stalks called Multiclavula mucida had sprung from a patch of green algae coating the top of a rotting fallen log. This is a "lichenized" fungus that forms a permanent symbiotic relationship with a photosynthetic organism like green algae. We will never find Muticlavula mucida without its partner of green algae.

We eventually met the central Bog Meadow Brook Trail and headed along its forest-lined path, hoping to find some traces of plants we'd encountered here at other times of the year.

One of those plants is the wispy wee plant called Yellow Bartonia (Bartonia virginica), a very small native annual wildflower in the Gentian Family that looks about the same in seed as it does in bloom with tiny yellow flowers. We had found this plant along this trail in other years, but never in such an abundance as we found it this year.  I am always grateful for my friend Sue's excellent eyesight, for I'm sure I would have missed nearly all of the plants she spotted.  This one, though, was so generously multi-flowered, even I was able to spot it.

I loved how the sunlight caused the downy fluff of these Virgin's Bower's seedpuffs to glow. (Clematis virginiana)

Sue was the first to spot these glossy red Bittersweet Nightshade berries (Solanum dulcamara) held on deep-purple pedicels. What a color combiation!

Looking around, I found a leafy branch of that Bittersweet Nightshade vine, and when I lifted a few of its dark leaves toward the sun, they glowed like stained glass, with this amazing shade of purple.

We passed a number of Winterberry shrubs (Ilex verticillata) along the trail, their branches loaded with scarlet fruit. These berries will remain on the twigs until well into the winter, the woodland creatures ignoring the currently low-nutrient fruits until after freezing temperatures have softened the berries and concentrated their sugars and tempered their bitterness.

And here's the plant we ALWAYS hope to find at Bog Meadow:  a small native orchid called Loesel's Twayblade (Liparis loeselli).   Its tan seedpods are actually easier to espy this time of year, when the surrounding taller vegetation has died back, than are its tiny yellow-green flowers in summer, well-hidden then among other green plants.  But even so, we still had to search for it. Lucky for us, we DID find it! And even one or two plants we'd never found before.

Although Loesel's Twayblade is relatively common in New York State, this orchid species is frequently threatened -- even to the point of extinction -- where it is also native in several other parts of the world. Changes in its habitat that affect water supply, such as the draining or drying out of wetlands,  can be particularly damaging for this plant. Lucky for our local population (small as it is), the wetland habitat along Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail is protected by the land conservation organization called Saratoga PLAN (Preserving Land And Nature).  Not only do I feel grateful that I know where it grows around here, I also can feel confident its habitat will be preserved and protected for generations to come.

As we neared where we had parked a car at the eastern trailhead along Meadowbrook Road, we passed along the shores of this open marsh, strangely deserted of waterfowl in the middle of migration season. It felt very pleasant to move from the tree-canopied trail to pass beneath a wide blue sky.

Here on the sunnier sections of the trail, we found traces of wildflowers that had bloomed earlier in the year. I love the curling seedpods of this Willowherb (Epilobium ciliatum?), which remind me of the  touseled curls of a tow-headed toddler. This plant bears tiny pink flowers when it's in bloom, in small compact clusters that would make a perfect bouquet for a dollhouse.

I'm not sure what color these asters were when in bloom.  Purple? Or white? Or some shade in-between? No matter. They still looked quite flowery and pretty in all their fluffy white seedpuffs. They offered us a lovely farewell flower patch as we ended our walk along Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail.