Great Falls of the Potomac - Part 2

Day before yesterday I posted about our visit to the Maryland side of Great Falls with a focus primarily on the water. Today my focus shifts to plants.

There are rocks on both sides of the boardwalk out to the viewing area for the falls. These rocks may have been scoured by the river at some point but it has been quite some time. Lichens are quite thick in many places and tiny leaves have found enough decayed rock and dust in some cracks to support their roots.

Mosses carpet some areas - usually a lower place in the rocks that holds water.

Taking a broader view of a side channel of the river that is still enough to reflect the rocks and small trees - the size of the trees tells the tale of how long it has been since the last big flood along this stretch of the river.

The water of the C&O Canal bed is placid and it is late enough in the season that some of the grasses are heavy with seeds. Do you see the moth resting on the top of this one?

Jewel weed is still blooming. It is interesting that the plant was used to sooth poison ivy but often grows in the midst of the itch producing bane of summer for many.

Great Falls of the Potomac - Part 1

The Maryland side of the Great Falls of the Potomac are part of the C&O Canal National Historic Park. It was our Labor Day outing this year. Quite a lot of people had the same idea. The parking lot was already half full of cars and there were joggers and walkers - people on their own, couples, groups, families. Starting out the path between the canal and river shows the slower, shallow edge of the river through rocks.

I noticed a tree growing on what looked like solid rock.

The roots cling to each nook and cranny in the rock. Even in the zoomed view below it does not appear that there is much soil.

And then we get to the end of the boardwalk that lifts us over the side channel and over the last rocky ridge to the make falls. The rocks here are scoured bare by water.

To give you a sense of scale - the picture below shows the platform for visitors to view the falls from the Virginia side of the river.

Even with the scouring of the water, there is an algae film visible on some rocks.

When I looked more carefully at one of them I noticed a large pothole had formed. The water level on Labor Day was not high enough to scour it….but the water must get high frequently enough to form it. I’ll look for it every time I go from now on!