A Woodland Tour - Photo Guide to NatureCITE podcast #4

A Woodland Tour (April 17, 2020)

by Justin Thomas

Director of Science

NatureCITE

The following photos have been posted for folks listening to the NatureCITE podcast #4 (link here) to follow along with. The photos aren't great, but by using the captions of each photo while listening to the descriptions on the podcast one should be able to better understand of the phenomena and lifeforms explained in the podcast. 

My travel companions.

Looking downstream at the beginning of the tour. White flowers are Nothoscrodum bivalve (False Garlic) and Thalictrum thalictroides (Rue Anemone).

Close up of the general ground flora in the photo above. In addition to Nothoscordum bivalve and Thalictrum thalictroides, there is Rubus enslenii, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, Agrimonia pubescens, et al.

Photo of a leaf litter dominated slope taken from bottom - up. Though depauperate now, with time, as this forest matures, the flora is likely to increase in density, diversity, and quality. And where there are more plants with deep ecological connectivity (embeddedness) there will be more life and more ways for life to exist. This time-driven dynamism is the process, not of becoming, but of being, a stable, rich, complex, and persistent natural community.

Rich flora of ecologically embedded species beginning to take hold. The "grass" looking plants around the base of the tree are Carex blanda, which isn't a particularly good indicator of ecological complexity, but it is ubiquitous in the region as a matrix sedge. In the background are other more high quality indicator sedges like Carex oligocarpa and Carex digitalis.

 A close-up of the Carex blanda. Still immature, but you can see the developing perigynia (the "fruits" of Carex).

Farther down the ravine (visible on the left) the side slope begins to display an increasing mix of ecologically embedded and stable species despite more aggressive forms of modern "management".

 A young expanding Cunila origanoides (Dittany/Wild Oregano).

Hypoxis hirsuta (Yellow Star Grass) was plentiful along this stretch. 

 A nice colony of Oxalis violacea (Wood Sorrel) in the buttress community of a nice old Quercus stellata (Post Oak).

 Open woods with maturing timber with a natural proportion of immature understory.

 Uphill shot that doesn't look like much is going on, but there is a lot of plant life assembled here (see next landscape shot for a better angle.

 Solidago radula (Rough Goldenrod) elongating from its winter nap into a warm sunny spring day. A fire during this process would kill all above ground biomass causing this quality species to start over with resources that it doesn't have; or the expenditure of which could make it susceptible to disease. This is just one reason fire after mid-February induces increasing levels of mortality, chaos, and simplification in a systems that is trying to live, sort, and complexify. Spring fire is a bad idea.

 A woodland shot with open understory due to a nice proportion and mix of overstory species. A young Quercus velutina (Black Oak) in the middle.

 Viola pedata (Bird's Foot Violet).

Carex abdita (no common name). Note the mature spikes (they are small) in the middle of the image near the ground. Guess who disperses the seeds of this sedge. That's right, ANTS!! How neat is that?

Hieracium gronovii (Hairy Hawkweed): not a "weed" by any definition, but an embedded woodland lifeform.

 Eryngium yuccifolium (Rattlesnake Master). As much, if not more, of a woodland species in this part of the world.

 Rich, complex, ecologically stable woodland defined by deeply embedded lifeforms here exemplified by plants. Young Eastern Red Cedars and scattered Broomsedge are indicative of some minor level of ecological damage. But, luckily, this site maintained enough lifeforms - from single-celled soil microbes to mature-ish trees - that its ecological relevance is reassembling completely on its own. THAT is what rich, complex, ecologically stable communities are all about.

 Same area as the last photo but facing uphill where the community got tighter and more complex.

Monarda bradburiana (Bradbury's Beebalm). Give John Bradbury a Google, if you want an interesting botanical history story. Here's a teaser: he was the only scientist to provide a first-hand eye-witness description of the New Madrid earthquake of 1812. It all went downhill from there.

 Another rich buttress community under a Quercus stellata (Post Oak).

 Chaotic woodland across the draw from the rich dry woodland. 1st photo of 2.

 2nd photo of 2.

 Eupatorium sessilifolium (Upland Boneset).

 Taenidia integrrima (Yellow Pimpernel)

 Geranium maculatum (Wild Geranium)

 Viola triloba (Three-Lobe Violet)

 Anemone virginiana (Tall Thimbleweed)

 Taenidia integrrima (Yellow Pimpernel) again.

 Log bridge/slide with Oxalis reward at the top for foraging young foodies.

Ranunculus recurvatus (Hooked Buttercup)

Quiz plant

Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) filling empty niches brought on by ecological damage and subsequent niche abandonment. Multiflora Rose is not invasive in stable systems.

A section of the floodplain with a fair degree of ecological intactness.


Phlox divaricata (Wild Blue Phlox) patches are scattered in the nicer little fragments of the historic community in this floodplain. Lots of Trillium sessile (Wake Robin) associating with it as well.

Incised stream banks. Light green understory on the extreme left (midground) is a recent recruitment of a dense Ulmus americana (American Elm) seedling colony. A sure sign that chaos has been and currently is rippling around the edges and cracks of this once stable and harmonious valley.

 Brighton's clay source. Later we found pure blue-gray clay deposits that he went nuts for.

Echinacea purpurea leaves hiding in the middle of the photo. Look for the largest leaves that are mixed in with the lacy leaves of the Chervil (Chaerophyllum procumbens). The Polygonatum biflorum (Solomon's Seal) has the oval leaves. The blue-gray-green linear leaves just a bit right of center is Arabis laevigata (Boechera laevigata; Smooth Rock Cress). The sedge in the bottom left is Carex jamesii. In an ancient, stable, complex, and ecologically efficient system there would be more Echinacea purpurea and Polygonatum biflorum in this valley. Where these and other floodplain matrix lifeforms co-occur now, one is witness to fragments, crumbs, of the once glorious condition into which natural processes crescendo. The processes are different now. They are chaotic. But in time, deep time, they will re-sort and life will achieve a stability, complexity, and ecological efficiency once again. The role humans play in this process should be one of gentle understanding and NOT one of forced subjugation; neither in the form of further resource exploitation nor misguidedly assuming we can make it what it once was - especially when we don't even know what that means.   

 Another rich fragment of historical complexity.

 Cardamine bulbosa (Spring Cress) in a slope seep.

 This is the shot up the valley I mention in the video. It is an old road that cuts through the heart of several wet slope seeps that feed into the valley. It is sad because these wetlands likely harbored a unique and complex expression of life that is not only mostly gone, but not likely to return.

 A flowering Hydrastis canadensis (Goldenseal) colony just above the slope seeps. This species is fairly common in Missouri but listed as a species of conservation concern in many other states to the east
.

 Ranunculus hispidus (Hispid Buttercup) in the strict sense (which means it is "hispidus" even as a variety or subspecies). Here it is growing along the wet edge and transition to upland. This is the wet extreme for this species, yet it maintains its smaller size, bristly hairiness, and more rounded leaflet shape. The next photo is from a swampy wet area in the floodplain not more than 50 meters away.

 Ranunculus caricetorum (Swamp Buttercup) in the swampy floodplain. Notice that, unlike R. hispidus, it is bigger, more leafy, hairless, and has more pointed leaflet lobes. One needs no geneticist to tell these two species apart (at least not in this part of the world).

The mother load of blue-gray clay Brighton discovered later. He'll make some great art with it, I assure you.

That is the end of the tour. Thank you for following along. I hope you enjoyed it.