McDaniel Park

The last field trip of the Identifying Woody Plants class was to McDaniel Park – a convenient commute from the campus. It had a lot of invasive plants (Japanese honeysuckle, Winter creeper, Bush honeysuckle, White Mulberries) but some native species too --- lots of good review. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my bridge camera so only had my phone for photography.

One of the review trees was Osage orange – Maclura pomifera – Moraceae. None of the trees had fruit under them. Had it been picked up or were they all male trees?

A new species was Rose of Sharon - Hibiscus syriacus – Malvaceae.  I was as fascinated by the insects on the seed pods (Hibiscus Scentless Plant bugs?)as I was the plant. This is a plant I am familiar with…not native but widely planted. The seeds are hairy!

The River birch - Betula nigra - Betulaceae is an easy one to id from the bark and catkins.

Did you know that poison ivy seeds are white? It was something I learned this semester…not sure why I had never noticed before.

Arcuately veined and opposite fall leaves of a silky dogwood – Cornus obliqua – Cornaceae.

And the variability of Sassafras leaves – Sassafras albidum – Lauraceae. For some reason, I got stuck years ago on ‘mitten’ leaves but the leaves are not always like that!

Our teacher collected seeds and twigs for the lab next week and that included Winged sumac – Rhus copallinum – Anacardiaceae.  I am intrigued that it is used to make tea. We previously saw smooth sumac but there were no seeds on those plants.

I couldn’t resist taking some pictures of fall foliage and a recently cut tree trunk (the tree was around 50 years old).

The field trip was a pleasant fall afternoon – a good finale. I am realizing I that  will miss the weekly classes and am solidifying my plan for the spring semester.

Identifying Woody Plants (Month 2)

The Identifying Woody Plants field class I am taking at Missouri State University has met 5 more times since my last post about the field sessions on the campus.

I am continuing to take pictures of items in the classroom before class:

An opened Maclura pomifera (Osage orange) fruit

Some Quercus macrocarpa (Bur oak) acorns

An herbarium page showing Tilia americana (American Basswood) fruit which we have seen in the field, but my pictures were not very good.

Cuttings from two plants were brought in and we were asked to ID them based on our notes – with the hint that the first one had milky sap (hard to see since it had been cut):

Morus alba (white mulberry) – a non-native that is frequently seen as a ‘weed’ tree and Vitis (grape).

Recently the walk from the parking lot to the classroom building has been full of late blooming pollinator plants and fall foliage.

The one session where we stayed on campus added some new trees to our list:

Quercus bicolor (Swamp white oak)

Sassafras albidum (Sassafras)

Carya ovata (Shagbark hickory)

Quercus lyrata (Overcup oak)

We also saw some review trees and I got better pictures of Celtis occidentalis bark (Rough hackberry)

And some add odd growth of a Liriodendron tulipifera (tulip/yellow poplar). The trunk of the tree was growing at a slant rather than straight upward and it had small branches coming out relatively close the ground.

The hikes on campus and further afield have been more pleasant this past month because the temperatures have been cooler. There have been no rainy days in the field either!

Previous posts about Identifying Woody Plants field class

Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area

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My husband and I visited Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area yesterday – taking advantage of the dry fall day before a few days of forecasted rain. It’s located less than 45 minutes from our house and I’ve had it on my list of places to visit since I was in Master Naturalist training a few years ago; I’m a little surprised that we haven’t found the time before now.

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The visitor center is open on Saturdays and sporadically on other days. We got there shortly after 11 and there was already quite a lot of activity. We got a map and headed out to hike. Rather than hiking from the visitor center, we drove a short distance to an overlook that doubles as parking from some of the trails. The overlook shows the area back toward the visitor center.

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The loop trail we took started across the road – following red blazes then orange and rejoining the red to get back to the overlook. It past some remains of one of the mines – fenced off to prevent accidents.

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There were leaves beginning to fall. Some of the oaks had a very large crop of acorns this year judging by the piles on the path. My favorite leaf was a red sassafras. There were some areas of invasive plants but not as many as places that have richer soils. There were swaths of ferns in a few areas. We walked down to a little stream. The water runs over bedrock in most places.

The critter-find for the hike as a fuzzy yellow caterpillar with some black tufts. I looked it up after I got home – an American Dagger Moth Caterpillar. It eats oak leaves – among other things.

More than half the path was over rocky areas; Soldiers Delight is – after all – a serpentine barren.