A Sparkling Day on the Mountain

Bright sun, blue sky, and just a dusting of new snow on the mountain trails at Moreau Lake State Park:  conditions were perfect Sunday for a hike to the Spring Overlook and beyond to the Tupelo Swamp.  My friend Sue met me at the trailhead on Spier Falls Road, and off we climbed, Yaktrax on our feet to keep us upright on the steep, icy, snow-covered trail. 

Although the day promised to warm to above-freezing temperatures, the newly fallen flakes were still cold enough when we started up the trail to dazzle us with their multicolored sparkles.  It's an interesting phenomenon, and one I can't explain, that sometimes the snowflakes behave like tiny prisms, flashing all the colors of the rainbow.  It's hard to capture this effect with a camera, but these two shots (the second with boosted saturation) show something of what we saw with our eyes.

I was eager to show Sue the big old Black Tupelos that my friend Laurie had taken me to last week, which are growing in a swamp way up in the Palmertown Mountains.  We would get there eventually, Sue and I, but first we had to stop to explore the gigantic rock formations that tower over the Spring Overlook.  These rocks are watered by little seeping springs that create lovely icicle spills in the winter and also create perfect habitat for a rich variety of colorful mosses, lichens, and liverworts.

We stopped for a snack while we took in the splendid view of the Hudson River from the overlook, and then proceeded to the swamp that lies in a central area of the Palmertown mountains.  Our trail took us through beech and hemlock stands, each forest type with its own quality of light and companion vegetation,  and we then left the trail to follow a rock ledge down into the swamp where the tupelos grow.  I was eager to show these trees to my friend, but I also wanted to make sure that I myself could find them again.  And I did.  But it took a little searching.  It's hard to believe that a tree that towered over all others in this swamp would be hard to find, but the surrounding hemlocks did their best to hide this tree's distinctive twiggy crown from view until we were right beneath it.

These tupelos are of such an unusual size (for tupelos) that I hope we can interest some dendrologist in doing core sampling to determine their age.  This part of the country was so extensively lumbered over the past centuries, hardly any trees of great age remain.  It would be quite exciting to know we had some ancients among us here in Moreau Lake State Park.  In a neighboring state forest a few miles away, Black Tupelos there have been dated at 600 to 800 years old.


I don't know what kind of ancient fallen tree has formed a nursery bed for these vividly colored Turkey Tails.   Whatever it is, it has produced a fungus of remarkable beauty.

On our descent from the mountain heights, we passed a row of craggy cliffs adorned with spectacular ice formations.

Below these cliffs lies a powerline access road, well traveled by both hikers' feet and power-company vehicles.  In the very middle of this hard-packed dirt road are several patches of Pink Earth Lichen, whose dainty appearance and diminutive size belie its extreme hardiness and tolerance for abuse.  I always go out of my way when I'm near this road to stop and admire these tiny pink lolllipops, so minute that most folks would walk right over them and never see them.  I don't know how I, with my very bad eyesight, ever came to see them in the first place, but I'm really glad I did.  And they're there, unchanged, in every season, seemingly as unaffected by the weather as they are to pounding traffic.

Hidden Treasure in a Mountain Swamp

Who would have known they were there, hidden away for ages, those big old Black Tupelos in a swamp on the top of a mountain?  Only someone who knows the Palmertown Mountains of Moreau Lake State Park like the back of her hand, that's who.  Someone like my friend Laurie, who led me up into the mountains yesterday so that I could lay my eyes on these trees myself.

Laurie counts these mountains and woods as her own backyard and has been hiking, skiing, and snowshoeing here for years and years, both on and off the trails.  But even she was surprised when she came upon these towering trees in a hidden swamp, recognizing right away they were something special.  She also knows that I have a special fondness for Black Tupelos and was quick to report her find to me and offer to take me to see them.  So off we went together, along with Laurie's teenaged daughter Johanna, on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.  We followed a well-marked trail for a mile or so, until we came to the spot where Laurie knew we should leave the trail and follow a ridge downhill to a swamp that lies in a hollow of the mountain.

Laurie and Johanna led the way, assuring me that I wouldn't get lost if I just followed the ridge.

We soon came to a swampy area, which, lucky for us, was sufficiently frozen over to allow for easy exploring.

Mats of sphagnum moss lay thick around the edges of ice-covered pools.

In many of these pools, the ice had formed lovely patterns as it froze.  And refroze and refroze and refroze.

We found a number of baby Black Spruces, typical occupants, along with the sphagnum, of boggy sites.

And there they were,  the Black Tupelos, tall and straight, towering over their neighboring trees in the swamp.  Not as monumental as some 800-year-old tupelos I have visited in a lowland swamp nearby, but much larger than the tupelos I have seen growing along the Hudson River at Moreau.  We measured the trunks of two of them at shoulder height and determined that they were about six feet around. To determine their age, they would have to be core-sampled.  It sure would be interesting to know how old they really are.

Here's a view looking up toward the crown, revealing the horizontal branching and distinctive twigginess so typical of this species.

Also typical of tupelos of this size is the way the bark grows:  deeply furrowed on one side, but relatively smooth on the other.

We even found some leaves and seeds, which provide further evidence for this tree's identification.

So, what is it about this tree (Nyssa sylvatica is its Latin name) that I would consider it a treasure?  Certainly, lumbermen have no use for it, with its interlacing fibers that make it impossible to split and prone to warping.  For this very reason, no doubt, this tree was allowed to stand through the centuries while all others around it were lumbered again and again, so that by now the oldest stands of living timber in the northeast are likely to be Black Tupelo.  And that's very interesting.  It's also a beautiful tree, with glossy green leaves that turn a spectacular cranberry red each autumn, as well as a rather uncommon tree for this part of the world.  Considered more of a coastal species, Black Tupelos survive in the Hudson/Champlain Valley because of a moderating effect those bodies of water have on the regional climate.  So this tree is not seen around here all that often.  I had never seen its like when I first encountered it while paddling the Hudson some 15-20 years ago, and my desire to discover its identity inspired my desire to then learn the name of everything that grows along the river.  And then, everything that grows, everywhere!

So that's why I felt it was worth the effort to climb up a mountain and push through a swamp to see another stand of these amazing trees -- especially ones as old and large as those we found up there.  Thanks, Laurie, for sharing your find with me.  What a treasure!

Seed-hunting for Ed

My friend Ed Miller is the creator and curator of a remarkable collection of woody plants at the famous Landis Arboretum in Esperance, New York.  Ed's goal for his collection is to have it contain every tree and shrub and woody vine that is native to New York State, and I guess he must be missing a couple, since he asked me if I would collect some seeds from the Black Tupelo and Sassafras trees that grow in the places I regularly paddle.  Of course, I was happy to oblige, both because I would love to do Ed a favor, and also because I'm glad for any excuse to revisit the lovely banks of the Hudson River at Moreau.  Especially on such a beautiful day as it was yesterday.

On foot instead of afloat, my first destination was a rocky promontory I call Bear's Bathtub, where I remembered a number of Sassafras trees in beautiful bloom last spring.  Surely, with all of those flowers then, there would now be fruits.  Right?

 
Well, there were lots of Sassafras trees out there, dressed in their splendid autumn colors, but not a single fruit could I find on any of their branches.  Had the birds consumed them all, or had they already fallen from the trees because it was so late in the season?

I went back into my photo files to retrieve this photo of a Sassafras fruit I took almost exactly a year ago on October 17.  The trees were full of these fruits last year at this time, but for some reason they did not produce fruit this year.  I've heard that Sassafras can be like that.  I'll have to keep looking elsewhere.

My next destination was a second promontory I call Rippled Rocks Point, where a number of Black Tupelos grow in a marshy area nearby.

Approaching the site through the woods, I could, from some distance away,  see the red glow of the Tupelo branches backlit by the sun, where they hung down low over the water.

These trees had been laden with fruits when Ed and I paddled under them just ten days ago, but by now the birds had nearly stripped the trees bare of them.  I did manage to find a few, however,  and I collected all I could reach for Ed.

My seeds collected, I was happy to wander around on the promontory,  where blueberry bushes had found a foothold among the rocks.  Does any shrub turn a more exquisite color of red than Highbush Blueberry?

Even the stems and the buds for next year's growth take on this vivid color.

 There is one little blueberry bush out there that, every year,  produces flowers as late as November.  I scrambled out onto the rocks at the very end of the point and, sure enough, there they were!  I wonder why a plant would do that, blooming too late to ever produce a fruit.

Heading back through the woods, I was dazzled by the sight of this fallen Red Maple leaf caught on a twig,  lit up like a magic lantern by a ray of sun that penetrated the gloom of a stand of Hemlocks.

This yellow leaf (maybe a Hornbeam?) also caught my eye, first, because it was dangling in midair from a strand of spider silk, and second, because its yellow color was so beautifully set off by the lichen-covered bark behind it, its color like that of verdigris on bronze.

Perfect Day for a Paddle

Perfect!  That's the only way to describe the  Hudson River this exquisite morning, when I joined Ed Miller and some of his friends for a leisurely paddle. 

We put in at the boat launch below Spier Falls, then crossed the river to glide along under sun-warmed banks.  About a mile downstream, we crossed the river again to follow where the waters flowed around rocky promontories and tree-studded islands.

Because of high water levels due to excessive rainfall this summer and fall, we were able to paddle well back into a swamp  that was bordered by an abundance of Black Tupelo trees.  Unfortunately, most of these trees have had their trunks girdled by gnawing beavers and so are slowly dying, if not already dead.  I've often pondered why the beavers left the trees standing, since their usual habit is to topple trees to access the tender bark and twigs at the top.  My guess is that the beavers found the tough wood of the tupelos as difficult to penetrate as did early human settlers whose axes would simply bounce off the interwoven and cross-braided fibers of the timber.




 Those tupelos added just about the only vivid color to the forest today, what with our autumn foliage so long delayed this year.  Thankfully, the Winterberry shrubs are right on schedule with their brilliant berries.