NATIVE NOTES
Kate’s Mountain Clover
Bill Grafton – Editor Daniel J. Grafton –Assistant Editor
West Virgina Native Plant Society
Volume 13:1 APRIL, 2005
Web site & Emails
Lynn Wagner, the previous web-meister has passed the torch to Mike Breiding. Mike will update the web site as material becomes available. Some of the categories he hopes to update and add are:
The web site is www.wvnps.org
If you prefer to receive the email version of Native Notes contact Mike Breiding and tell him you prefer emails rather than the printed copy. Contact Mike at mike@mbreiding.us Those who prefer the printed version of Native Notes need to do nothing and your copy will continue to arrive through the US Post Office.
New competition
Many of our members and other WV citizens are fighting invasives by helping SNIP and “weed warriors” programs. Others work on their own. Michael Marks and Helen Gibbins felt the Society should give recognition to those hardy souls and even a few bucks ($s) as added incentive.
After some very positive discussion, we’ve agreed to start an Invasive Control Contest. The contest will be open to all people; members and non-members. They simply need to eradicate, kill, or control invasive plants in a specific area. The evidence will be judged on before and after photos or other documented evidence. Winners will be judged on the following criteria:
(bogs, balds, and beaver ponds to barrens, bedrock, and bluffs)
Common horsetail Tree clubmoss
Groundpine Rattlesnake fern
Brittle fern Goldie’s fern
Marginal shield fern Intermediate wood fern
Maidenhair fern Broad Beech fern
Christmas fern Glade fern
Silvery Athyrium Southern Lady fern
Northeastern Lady fern Maidenhair spleenwort
Mountain spleenwort Walking fern
Common polypody Bracken fern
Poa alsodes Fowl mannagrass
Nodding fescue Bottle-brush grass
Carex radiata Rhyncospora capitellata
Fraser’s sedge Carex communis
Carex plantaginea Carex digitalis
Carex virescens Carex torta
Carex lurida Carex intumescens
The Manns Creek canyon drive/walk on the road to Sewell is a fantastic natural garden of spring wildflowers. It is scenic with tall trees stretching upward for sunlight, numerous boulders covered with mosses, flowers, and many are large enough to support hemlock trees. All of this becomes the home to Swainson’s warbler, rings with the songs of the winter wren, and deep in the canyon below comes the constant roar of Manns Creek as it thunders downward over thousands of boulder to New River. It is a special place everyone should visit before our time on earth is over.
Jack-in-the-pulpit Mealy bellwort
Yellow fawn lily Large-flowered bellwort
Ramp Yellow stargrass
White Clintonia Plumelily
Canada mayflower Hairy disporum
Indian Cucumber-root Downy Solomon’s seal
Wake robin Common Sol. Seal
Wake robin (white) Large-flowered trillium
Painted trillium Wild yam
Sessile trillium Downy Rattlesnake plantain
Crested dwarf iris Large yellow lady’s slipper
Pink lady’s slipper Showy orchis
Wild ginger Coltsfoot ginger
Carolina Spring beauty Virginia spring beauty
Wood chickweed Early meadowrue
Rue anemone Sharblobe Hepatica
Mountain anemone Windflower
Dwarf larkspur White baneberry
Goldenseal May-apple
Blue cohosh Bloodroot
Squirrel Corn Dutchman’s breeches
Yellow corydalis Cutleaf toothwort
Slender toothwort Two-leaved toothwort
Fire pink Lyreleaf rockcress
Smooth rockcress Sicklepod
Wild stonecrop Early saxifrage
Foamflower Bishop’s cap
Trailing arbutus Wild geranium
White wood sorrel Wood spurge
Green violet Marsh blue violet
Common blue violet Downy wood violet
Arrow-leaf violet Palmate-leaf violet
Sweet white violet Primrose-leaf violet
Roundleaf violet Halberd-leaf violet
Smooth yellow v. Canada violet
Long-spurred violet Ginseng
Dwarf ginseng Clustered snakeroot
Spreading chervil Hairy sweet anise
Harbinger-of-spring Smooth sweet anise
Golden Alexanders Wild blue phlox
Creeping phlox Virginia waterleaf
Broad-leaved waterleaf Small-flowered Phacelia
Showy skullcap Loose-flowered Phacelia
Wood betony Robin’s plantain
English Daisy Golden ragwort
Squaw-weed Yellow passion flower
Black cohosh Mountain bugbane
Alumroot Barren strawberry
Allegheny vine Purple flowering Raspberry
Bowman’s root Hog-peanut
Seneca snakeroot Great yellow wood sorrel
Rose polygala Indain pipe
Purple giant-hyssop Riddell’s hedge nettle
Basil balm Southern mountain-mint
Richweed Maryland figwort
Turtlehead Smooth Yellow foxglove
Beechdrops Lopseed
Tall bellflower Cardinal-flower
Great blue lobelia Wreath goldenrod
Sweet goldenrod Bigleaf aster
Short’s aster Lowrie’s aster
Wavy-leaf aster Late purple aster
Purplestem aster Mountain aster
Flat-top white aster Stiff aster
White-flowered leafcup Yellow-flowered leafcup
Tall coneflower Thin-leaved sunflower
Wood tickseed Small yellow crownbeard
Tall Coreopsis Yellow sneezeweed
Cranefly orchid, puttyroot, and showy orchis are rare but can be found in the rich woods of Manns Creek canyon. Searching the uplands can turn up large yellow lady’s slipper, yellow nodding ladies’ tresses, pink lady’s slipper, autumn coralroot, yellow fringed orchid. Nodding ladies’ tresses is frequent around Boley Lake.
White pine Hemlock Mountain magnolia Umbrella magnolia
Bitternut hickory Tulip poplar Yellow birch Yellow oak
Yellow buckeye Basswood Black sugar maple Butternut
White ash Buffalonut Prickly gooseberry Alternate-leaved dogwood
Striped maple Spicebush Mountain maple Mountain holly
Smooth azalea Rhododendron Purple laurel Sweet pepperbush
Hobblerod Red elderberry Dutchman’s pipevine
In Clifftop & on the Washington Carver Camp Road are wetlands, & along the former railroad grade are great places to look for plants. Note: These are on private property.
Here can be found:
Small burreed Three-way sedge
Climbing fern Rhyncospora capitellata
Scirpus purshianus Turk’s cap lily
Bog clubmoss Carex stricta
Cinnamon fern Mermaid weed
Eupatorium pilosum Crested shield fern
In dry areas look for:
Slender clubmoss Lespedeza nuttallii
Blunt Mtn.-mint Yellow Bartonia
Gentiana decora Small’s ragwort
Prenanthes trifoliata Quaking aspen
Table Mtn. Pine
Dry uplands in Babcock, such as, around Boley Lake, Island-in-the-Sky, and Skyline Trail also have a very interesting set of flora and some rare plants:
Pitch pine Rattlesnake plantain orchid
American chestnut Coltsfoot ginger
Chinquapin Wild indigo
Galax Flame azalea
Black huckleberry Pinxter azalea
Sweet pepperbush Purple laurel
Mountain laurel Sweet goldenrod
I hope this has whetted your appetite to explore Babcock State Park. However, the most fascinating habitat (and the most difficult to access) is the floodplain of New River at Sewell. Here you can find:
Royal fern Smilax pulverulenta Cyperus erythrorhizos Cyperus inflexus
Wild onion Creeping dayflower Eastern gama grass Switchgrass
Big bluestem Prairie cordgrass Melica mutica Wild oats
Purple rocket Partridge pea Senna (var. commixta) Ninebark
Blue false indigo Lizard’s tail Tasselrue Galactia volubilis
Shrubby yellowroot Honeylocust Mimosa Goat’s rue
Ward’s willow Leatherflower Flowering spurge Croton glandulosa
Bluebells Stachys latidens Stachys hispida English ivy
Loomis’ Mt.-mint Gay Feathers Sand grape American germander
Paulownia Water willow Sweetgum Silverbell
Red ash Green ash Hoptree Fringetree
Leatherwood Showy goldenrod Zizia aptera Buttonbush
Stiff aster False boneset Running tickseed Cup-plant
McDowell’s sunflower Coreopsis pubescens Eupatorium hyssopifolium
Other rare wildflowers worth searching for are:
Alpine enchanter’s-nightshade, Allegheny vine and rock skullcap in moist rocky, rich woods. Aconite saxifrage in ditches and along streams. Loose-flowered phacelia in rich, moist woods. Allegheny cliff fern on dry cliffs. The rarest plant is probably Carey’s saxifrage that grows on moist mossy boulders and ledges and is fairly common but blooms very early in spring.
GARDENING WITH NATIVE PLANTS
By: Helen Gibbins
Spring always brings an excitement about the upcoming flower season. Many of us would like to incorporate native plants into our gardens but such gardening is sometimes a challenge when we search for plants. Fortunately there are several nurseries in the state and nearby states that sell native plants and some popular catalogs sell native plants and seeds. Here are some colorful plants or ones that keep their foliage throughout the season. They work well along side cultivars. I am not including the many ephemerals that we all enjoy.
SHADE - Groundcovers and edging plants - Wild ginger (Asarum canadense); Wild bleeding hearts (Dicentra exima); Greek valerian (Polemonium repans); Violets (Viola sp.); Golden-knees (Chrysogonum virginianum); Celandine-poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum); Toadshade (Trillium sessile)
Some taller flowers that work well are the showy lobelias (Cardinal flower and Great blue lobelia);Waterleafs (Hydrophyllum sp.); Jack-in-the Pulpit (Arisaema tryphyllum); Black Cohosh – (Cimicifuga racemosa); Geranium (Geranium maculatum); Plume-lily (Smilacina racemosa); Trillium (erectum and grandifolium)
Native ferns can be incorporated into your flower garden, too.
SUN - Butterfly and hummingbird attracters – Monarda sp.; Obedient plant (Physotegia virginiana; Native Asters, Phlox, Coreopsis, and Sunflowers; Liatris sp.; Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium sp.); Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa); Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta); and if you have room for a weedy place, Milkweeds (Asclepias sp.) and Goldenrods (Solidago sp.) Consult with a butterfly book to find all the native plants, trees, and shrubs that are larval hosts.
These are just a few of the wonderful native plants that are easy to grow. Send us your list – wgrafton@wvu.edu.
The WV-DNR Wildlife website ( www.wvdnr.gov ) lists 6 WV nurseries that have native plants:
Peter Heus Barry Glick
HC 77 Box 108 HC 67 Box 539B
Hinton, WV 25951 Renick, WV 24966
(304) 466-3154 (304) 497- 2208
Website : www.sunfarm.com MO, H, S, SH, T, W, 99% H, SH, T, W, 50%
Landscape Design & Garden Clements State Tree Nursery
420 Dam #4 Rd. PO Box 8
Shepherdstown, WV 25443 West Colombia, WV 25287
(304) 267- 6924 (304) 675-1820
Email: provenzano4@earthlink.net MO, SH, T, 60%
MO, SH, T, 100%
Josh Meadows or Trey Flemming Rt. 1, Box 39
Rt. 2, Box 484 Shepherdstown, WV 25443
Salt rock, WV, 25559 (304) 876- 2096
Day (304) 541-0184 Email: homeviewfarm@aol.com
Evening (304) 736-6219 H, I, SH, T, 15%
I, SH 100%
Abbreviations in last lines are:
H- Herbaceous, ferns, grasses
I - Offers installation services
MO- Mail order
S – seeds
T- Trees
% - percent of native plants
W- wetland plants
Two additional nurseries that are very close to our borders are:
Riverview Herb Farm Elk Ridge Nature Works LLC
Frank Porter Ron Boyer & Liz McDowell
49607 State Rt. 338 283 Elk Ridge Lane
Racine OH 45771 Grantsville, MD 21536
(740) 247- 4565 (301) 895- 3686
Email: riverviewherbs@juno.com Email: info@elkridgenatureworks.com
MO, I, H, S, SH, S, T, W, 100% H, 100%
Tri-State Chapter
For more info contact: Romie Hughart, 304 - 523-1049
WVNPS Weekend
Mike Breiding has made arrangements for the Oglebay Institute Mountain Camp facility near Terra Alta. Dates: July 15-17
Located on Lake Terra Alta which is motor boat free. Bring your swim trunks, kayak or canoe and maybe see Thelypteris simulata and other nifty plants.
The facility has a new Field House with a full kitchen, dining room and meeting room. There is a shower house and out door toilets. Sleeping can be inside on cots or mats or you can pitch you tent. A large canvas wall tent can be used if enough people prefer.
Food will be communal and we could all contribute and pitch in.
Come for a day or the weekend.
Contact Mike Breiding (phone: 304-292-0020 or email: FrondFondler@Mbreiding.us
From Christina Kosta : Editor of Native Plants Magazine
Direct phone: 212.831.2415 email: ckosta@wildflower.org
Here is a link to a resource page that explains what we at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center are calling the Native Plants Magazine Readership Program. http://www.wildflower2.org/npin/magazine/premium.asp
The Wildflower Center's Native Plants Readership Program is structured to reward native plant societies and their members for their commitment to native plant conservation. It is also an opportunity for your organization to increase the value of its membership by offering a discounted subscription to Native Plants magazine to your members and an opportunity for your members to connect with national native plant issues and information. (It is important to note that the Native Plants Readership Program is in no way connected with the membership program of the Wildflower Center and that there is no intent to at any time make Wildflower Center members of your society's supporters who have become readers of our magazine through the program.)
For now, the West Virginia Native Plant Society is listed on a test subscription site which you may access by clicking subscribe at the top right corner of the page which you will access from the above link. We'd like your permission to keep that connection and hope you will use the downloadable ad for your newsletter. Alternately, there are two other levels of participation to consider (options A and B), that offer Native Plants magazine to your members at lower rates. We hope that your board of directors will consider these as well.
The Spring 2005 and Winter 2004 magazines are on their way to you. I look forward to speaking with you in the near future. You can also read news about the magazine and browse excerpts of articles by navigating www.wildflower.org
Comments from a seminar by Dr. James McGraw (WVU Biology Dept.)
Ginseng adds about $46 million of income to ginseng diggers in the US each year. There is an estimated 87.8 million ginseng plants in West Virginia based on suitable habitat where ginseng can grow. The prime sites for ginseng are rich woods on north facing slopes where yellow-poplar, black cherry, and sugar maple grows. It will also grow on many other sites. About 5 % of the total ginseng plants are harvested each year. After a digger harvests a site, it will take over a decade for the population to recover.
Major threats to ginseng are heavy harvesting, voles eat the roots, deer eat the tops, and habitat is being destroyed.
A summary statement was: there is no single population in the eastern US that is large enough to escape extinction in the next 100 years. Suggested steps to sustain our ginseng are to reduce the deer herd, allow no harvesting until the berries are mature. Seed maturity occurs in mid-September in southern WV and by October in northern and eastern WV.
Note: Gary Kaufman (botanist with the US Forest Service in North Carolina) spoke at a later seminar. He noted that the Forest Service is banning ginseng digging on about 20 % of the national forest lands in NC in an effort to restore ginseng populations.
A partnership of DNR-Wildlife, WVU Extension, Canaan Valley Institute, WV State Parks and Davis & Elkins College jointly tested material for a Master Naturalist Program during 2004. Fourteen people came to the 4 weekends held in various state parks and will be certified as Master Naturalist as soon as they complete their volunteer hours of service.
Participants will complete 48 hours of a core curriculum (birds, plants, animals, ecology, etc. plus an additional 16 hours of elective classes on a wide array of topics. They the complete 30 hours of approved volunteer naturalist service for certification.
Planning meetings will be held in as follows:
Charleston: June 6th at Cross Lanes United Methodist Church in Cross Lanes at 7 pm
Davis/Canaan Valley: May 5th in Spruce Room at Canaan Valley State Park at 7 pm
Morgantown: April 28 in Room 308, Percival Hall, WVU Evansdale Campus at 7 pm
PROTECTING FOREST PLANT DIVERSITY
To Ensure the Survival of Butterfliesand Other Pollinators
The following chart discusses the herbaceous larval host plant foods for approximately 30 of the 128 known species of butterflies that spend all or a part of their life cycle in West Virginia. This chart represents less than a quarter of the species commonly abundant or widely distributed throughout the state as noted in Tom Allen’s comprehensive book, The Butterflies of West Virginia. The range of most West Virginia species extends throughout the Appalachian Mountains from New England south all the way to Florida. The range of several others also extends across the Midwestern plains.
How throughout a thousand millennia butterflies evolved to hitch their survival to the hundreds of native woody and herbaceous plants, involves a remarkable series of interminable events of trial and error. And as the astute evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould revealed to us, hundreds or perhaps thousands of those experiments failed along the journey, gone in a whisper of geologic time. What some philosophers would call the mystery of life, and hard core biologists deem - survival of the fittest.
At any rate, compare the list of butterfly species from this chart with the one printed in January which discusses butterflies utilizing woody plants as larval hosts. You will observe that there is very little overlap between those butterflies utilizing herbaceous species and those using woody plants. The spring azure appears to be the only species with any affinity for both woody and herbaceous plants.
The most significant observation that appears to me is that butterflies have evolved to occupy the various vertical trophic layers in the forest. Butterflies utilize the spring ephemerals, small shrubs, medium sized trees and canopy layer trees of the forest. It is important to note that thousands of other insects including moths, parasitic wasps, beetles, ants, aphids have evolved similar essential relationships with host specific plants.
The concept here I wish to emphasize is the importance of protecting forest plant diversity – everywhere. There are no expendable plants, trophic layers or forests. The forestry practices that we allow in this state need to maintain and enhance the natural diversity of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants so that our important insects, pests-and-all continue to thrive to fill their niches as pollinators, soil enhances, pest controllers, and food for a wide majority of wildlife species. Where possible, fill your urban or suburban neighborhoods with a wide diversity of native trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants.
Also of significance, our spirits need that annual recharge from the summer long spectacle of beautifully colored butterflies floating, tilting and drifting across our meadows and lawns; escorting us on our hikes and bike rides out of their territories; or that lucky chance of the silver spotted skipper sensing the salts, lighting on your hand to slurp imperceptibly from your skin.
|
HERBACEOUS
PLANTS THAT SERVE AS
BUTTERFLY LARVAL HOST PLANTS |
||
|
The information in the following table was extracted
from The Butterflies of West Virginia
by Tom Allen. This book includes
comprehensive life histories and distribution information on most species of
butterflies known to occur in West Virginia. |
||
|
Plant Name |
Habitat
Requirements |
Butterfly/common
name |
|
Alfalfa (exotic) Medicago
sativa |
Meadows; fields |
Orange sulfur;
eastern-tailed blue |
|
Asters/Compositae |
Open areas; woodlands |
Pearl crescent |
|
Bittercress / Cardamine pensylvanica |
Old fields; woodland
trails; yards; vacant lots |
Falcate orange tip |
|
Black cohosh / Actaea racemosa |
Woodlands; edges of woods |
Spring azure; Appalachian
azure |
|
Carrot family/native &
exotic |
Fields; pastures;
roadsides; gardens; rights-of-ways |
Black swallowtail; |
|
Clovers/native & exotic
|
Meadows; fields; lawns |
Clouded sulfur; orange
sulfur; Gray hairstreak; |
|
Columbine / Aquilegea Canadensis |
Limestone bluffs; rock outcrops |
Columbine duskywing (sole
host plant) |
|
Crown vetch / Coronillaa varia |
Open disturbed sites;
roadbanks; strip mines |
Orange sulfur; wild indigo
duskywing |
|
Dock / Rumex spp. |
Open disturbed sites |
American copper |
|
Garlic mustard / Alliaria petiolata |
Edges of roads &
streams; woodland roads |
Falcate orange tip; |
|
Grasses / several families |
Meadows; fields; woodland
roads |
Little wood satyr; Common
wood nymph |
|
Heal all / Prunella vulgaris |
All open areas |
Peck’s skipper |
|
Joe Pye weed / Eupatorium sp. |
Wet meadows |
Peck’s skipper |
|
Lespedeza spp. |
Disturbed sites; old fields |
Eastern-tailed blue; |
|
Mallow / Malva spp. |
Wetland edges; wet meadows;
streambanks |
Gray hairstreak; |
|
Milkweed / Asclepias spp. |
Roadsides; roadbanks;
fields |
Monarch; Peck’s skipper |
|
Mustards; Brassica spp.; Barbarea sp.; &
cultivated |
Old fields; waste places;
meadows; vacant lots |
Cabbage white (exotic) |
|
Nettle; Urtica dioca; Boehmeria cylincrica |
Woodland openings; open
fields; stream banks |
Question mark; Eastern
comma; Red admiral |
|
Plantain; Plantago spp. |
Rights-of-way; yards |
Baltimore |
|
Purple top / Tridens flavus |
Meadows; rights-of-way |
Hobomark; little
glassy-wing skipper |
|
Pussytoes / Antennaria spp. |
Roadbanks; dry-open fields;
shale barrens |
American lady |
|
Rice cut grass / Leersia oryzoides |
Open moist fields; wetlands |
Least skipper |
|
Rock cress / Arabis shortii |
|
Falcate orange tip |
|
Sunflower / Helianthus spp. |
Woodland streams; open
streams |
Silver checkerspot |
|
Thistles / all general |
Open fields; rights-of-way |
Peck’s skipper |
|
Toothwort / Dentaria spp. |
Moist woodlands |
West Virginia white;
falcate orange tip |
|
Vetch / Vicia spp. |
Moist thickets; woodland
edges; open fields |
Orange sulfur; gray
hairstreak; eastern-tailed blue |
|
Violets / Viola spp. |
Woodlands; fields; yards;
woodland roads |
All fritillaries depend
largely on violets |
|
Wild indigo / Baptisia
tinctoria |
River banks, sunny open,
rocky soil |
Orange sulfur; Wild indigo
duskywing |
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______________________________________________________________
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*** You must be a member of the state WV-NPS organization in order to join a chapter.
Mail all dues to: Steve Mace
PO Box 808
New Haven, WV 25265-0808
WV NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY
PO BOX 808
NEW HAVEN, WV 25265-0808