Phelps Grove Park

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Last week the Identifying Woody Plants class walked to Phelps Grove Park to add more trees to our list. I used my point-and-shoot (Canon Powershot SX730 HS) to capture some features of the additional trees (plus some trees already on our list). The temperaature was in the 70s…perfect for the hike…but the leaves are beginning to fall on many of the trees. Identification will get harder.

Serviceberry – Amelanchier arborea – Rosaceae: stripped bark, multiple trunks, small trees, two toned pointy buds, leaves simple and alternate

Crabapple – Malus – Rosaceae: pome without grit, twigs hairy, leaves (lobed, simple, entire)

Hawthorne – Crataegus – Rosaceae: thorns, pome, leaves round, bark pealing and patchy, the one we saw was infested with apple cedar rust (i.e. not a healthy tree)

Fig (just for interest…not added to list)

Flowering dogwood (not new) – Cornus florida - Cornaceae

White oak – Quercus alba – Fagaceae: leaves (rounded lobes, smooth, lighter underneath), acorns dark with bumpy cups and often sprout in fall

Hemlock (not new) – Tsuga canadensis - Pinaceae

Black cherry – Prunus serotina – Rosaceae: observed bark…branches too high to see more

Osage orange – Maclura pomifera – Moraceae: bark shaggy and orange in parts, leaves (tapering tip, entire, alternate, simple, size varies), the one we saw was male so no fruit

Red mulberry  - Morus rubra – Moraceae: milky sap, leaves (toothed, shiny, falling)


Shortleaf pine (note new) – Pinus echinate – Pinaceae

Hackberry – Celtis occidentalis – Cannabaceae: drupe that can taste like a dry raisin, leaves (3 veins, asymmetric, rough), the one we saw had galls, bark rough and gray, large tree

Shingle oak – Quercus imbricaria – Fagaceae: acorn small, leaves (no lobes, long and narrow, soft hair underneath), multiple buds at tend of twigs, bark grayish

Previous posts about my experiences in the Identifying Woody Plants class at Missouri State University

Hike at Mt Pleasant

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A couple of weeks ago – I went on a hike with fellow volunteers at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant. We hiked on some of newer trails that avoid the muddy areas that had developed on some of the older trails in recent years. We headed down toward Hodge Podge Lodge. The stream nearby was frozen, but the Christmas ferns still provided a bit of greenery along the banks. It’s easy to see the stream with so much of the undergrowth in winter mode.

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Some old logs always seem to have new shelf fungus.

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The new trail passed a stand of large black cherry trees – with beautiful bark.

As we walked through an area planted with native trees in the past few years – we spotted some egg cases of mantises.

I always enjoy photographing seed pods too. The dogbane pod (to the right) must have popped open recently….the puff od seeds to be carried away on the next breezy day. The Queen Anne’s Lace seeds have already been distributed.

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There are some non-native grasses that probably started out as ornamentals in someone’s yard….and the seeds somehow got to the meadow.

Finally, we came to the area that I wanted to check for skunk cabbage. I noticed the frost on the plants along the stream.

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And then we saw the skunk cabbage. We’ve had some warm days and then it was in 20 and 30s again. The plants have overcome much of that; they can generate some heat with their chemical processes and draw themselves down into the muck when it gets cold.

But the big new things for me on the hike was skunk cabbage seeds! Most of the time the seeds are down in the muck, but we found some on the surface looking like some odd deer poop at first glance. I’m glad the stand of skunk cabbage is producing seeds…probably expanding.

Another good thing about the hike on a cold day is that the boggy places were frozen. We could hear the crackles of ice in the grass under our feet….and we didn’t come back with muddy boots! We looped around to an older portion of the trail and I saw the 2 logs that crossed the stream have now  rotted enough to clearly not be good ‘bridges.’

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As we made our way closer to the Nature Center, we talked about a stand of paw paws that are popular at least one week of the summer camp (for their fruits). I noticed some ferns that had dried in interesting shapes.

There was also a picked apart seed pod (maybe sycamore?) on a bed of oak leaves….a last picture before checking out the witch hazel before we went inside to get warm.

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