Event: Quarterly WVNPS Board Meeting & Field trips

Dates: Sat. & Sun. June 28 & 29

Time: 8:30 am, meet at US Forest Service’s Cranberry Mountain Visitors’ Center, located on WV 39/55 between Richwood and Mill Point

Place: Handley Wildlife Management Area will serve as headquarters and is located on County Route 17 that intersects US 219 four miles north of Marlinton at Edray. Follow DNR signs to Handley WMA.

Housing: The DNR cabin will hold 10 people and a rustic campground (no hookups, pit toilets, well water) is available. The Marlinton Motor Inn (800-354-0821) and the Rustic Inn & Café (304-799-4204) are at Edray and Marlinton respectively.

Handley WMA is located on 800 acres of fields and forests on the headwaters of the Williams River. Nearby are Cranberry Glades, the Highland Scenic Highway, Falls of Hills Creek, and Watoga State Park (including the Greenbrier River Trail). Potential hikes include the 7-mile long Cow Pasture Trail that circles Cranberry Glades, a walk to see an old growth spruce/hemlock area in Handley, an others. Dinner will be at a restaurant in Marlinton or prepared at the cabin.

Date: Saturday June 28^th; 1 pm

Place: Meet at NCTC main building, reception area

Trip will be lead by EPNPS President Larry Stritch

Date: Saturday July 26^th: 1 pm

The Tri-State Chapter spent a glorious day in the Mill Creek Wildlife Management Area, north of Milton on April 5^th. We were surprised by the number and variety of wildflowers in the WMA that is used mostly for deer and small game hunting. The trip was able to explore only a small portion of the WMA. We started hiking the bottom land along Mill Creek where there were long-gone homesteads with irises, daffodils, day lilies, fruit trees, and the usual exotics (multiflora rose, autumn olive, honeysuckle, coltsfoot, wild mustard, tall fescue, chickweed, ground ivy, purple dead-nettle, short-leaved bluegrass), but most of the site was untouched. No garlic mustard was found.

Bottomland trees included butternut, walnut, sycamore, tulip, box elder, red bud, sassafras, sugar maple, musclewood, Virginia pine, beech, eastern red cedar, black cherry, serviceberry, and spicebush. The low slopes had a mixture of elms, maples, beech and ash considered to be circumneutral. The upper slopes were made up of hickory, oaks (chestnut, red and white), dogwood, ash, and red maple.

Rare plants found were False rue Anemone (Isopyrum biternatum) and Senecio obovatus var. elliottii (on rock outcropping). In Strausbaugh & Core, false rue anemone is listed for Lesage and the Senecio for Cabell and Morgan Counties.

Plants identified:

Common horsetail Bronze fern sensitive fern

Christmas fern groundpine ebony spleenwort

Luzula multiflora Luzula echinata greenbrier

Maidenhair fern cranefly orchid rattlesnake plantain orchid

Wild yam (Dioscorea villosa) poverty grass

Sandbar willow 2-leaved toothwort slender toothwort

Carolina vetch cutleaf toothwort early saxifrage

Spring beauty spice bush kidneyleaf crowfoot

Hispid buttercup tall buttercup great or star chickweed

Canada cinquefoil round-leaved hepatica wild sweet William

Greek valerian Striped or Creamy Violet Marsh blue violet

Canada violet southern wood violet large-leaved waterleaf

Spreading chervil wood betony teaberry

Virginia creeper striped wintergreen red coralberry

Honewort bluets bergamot

Goose grass sweet-scented bedstraw large-leaved aster

Cranesville Swamp is also called Piney Swamp and Cranesville Pine Swamp and is mostly owned by The Nature Conservancy. Parts of the swamp are still privately owned.

Cranesville Swamp is located in Preston County, WV and Garrett County, MD and straddles the state border in fairly equal acreages. There are 3 access routes that require good directions and a map.

1. From Terra Alta, WV drive 7.5 miles north on County Route (CR) 42 that turns into CR 47. At a Methodist Church turn right on CR 49 for 1 mile; then turn left at TNC sign, drive 0.1 mile and turn right to small parking lot (holds 6-8 vehicles).
2. From Bruceton Mills, WV on I-68 follow WV 26 northward to the town of Brandonville; turn right onto the Brandonville Pike – CR 3 and drive 10.9 miles to Roaring Creek and turn left on CR 28 and drive 2.3 miles; turn right on CR 36 and drive 2.2 miles; turn left on CR 47 and drive 0.4 mile (a Methodist Church should be on you left); turn right on CR 49 for 1 mile; then turn left at TNC sign, drive 0.1 mile and turn right to small parking lot.
3. Start at Maryland’s Swallow Falls State Park. Drive west on the Swallow Falls Road to the Cranesville Road. Turn right on the Cranesville Road and proceed to within sight of Lake Ford Church, turn left and follow TNC signs.

Note: There are no restrooms nor nearby stores so come "self sustainable" with water, food, etc.

Cranesville Swamp was originally called Piney Swamp and Romeo Mansueti called it Cranesville Pine Swamp in 1958. Meshach Browning the famous Maryland bear hunter described the glades and swamps (probably included Cranesville) in his book, "Forty-four Years of the Life of a Hunter"; covering 1790-1835. Some of the better descriptions of Cranesville Swamp were by Shreve, et.al. –1910, Romeo Mansueti – 1958, Joseph Harned – 1931, and Sadie Robinette – 1964. Roland Guthrie described the Swamp Angel locomotive used to haul 6 train cars of logs on wooden rails utilizing flanged wheels, the 11 miles to Terra Alta to a sawmill in the 1890s. Remaining trees were timbered in the 1950s.

The Nature Conservancy finally bought 259 acres of the swamp in 1960 and established what is now the heart of a much larger Cranesville Swamp Nature Preserve. The entire swamp was registered as a federal natural history landmark by the National Park Service in 1965.

Cranesville Swamp Preserve presently consists of 560 acres of wetlands on the headwaters of Muddy Creek lying about 2560 feet above sea level. The swamp is a natural frost pocket with cold air draining into the swamp during nights from the surrounding mountains and knobs that are up to 2900 feet elevation. Geologically, the swamp is underlain by the Greenbrier Limestone formation that is very near the surface on the Maryland side and is quarried just north of the town of Cranesville.

Shreve, et. al. estimated that red spruce made up 2/3rds of the mature trees and pines and hemlock composed another 15-20 percent. Today red spruce occupies a small area of 3-5 acres on the south side of the power line that crosses the swamp.

Sadie Robinette listed the following as some of the more interesting plant communities:

Sphagnum-beakrush Fraxinus- Betula

Sphagnum –cranberry Red spruce

Wet grass- sedge meadow Cattail

Alnus tall shrub Pyrus-Vaccinium-Hpericum

Pteridium-Pyrus-Vaccinium

Cranesville Swamp has 4 trails on the WV side that you can walk. Three of these traverse the slopes above the wetlands and provide the hiker with a glimpse of native forest, conifer plantations, and old fields that have returned to forests. The fourth trail is a combination of boardwalk through the open bog, and trail through the swamp forest and shrub habitats. Cranesville Swamp has a very diverse set of plants and is relatively easy hiking.

Common plants that can be seen at Cranesville Swamp are:

cinnamon fern intermediate wood fern

royal fern spinulose shield fern

bracken fern crested shield fern

common clubmoss stiff clubmoss

shining clubmoss tree clubmoss

groundpine

Carex folliculata Carex baileyi white beakrush

C. atlantica C. gynandra three-way sedge

C. radiata C. rostrata Scirpus atrovirens

C. scoparia C. stipata cottongrass

bluejoint fowl mannagrass mountain-oat grass

round-leaved orchid small green wood orchid nodding ladies tresses

floating pondweed broad-leaved cattail skunk cabbage

American burreed hellebore marsh marigold

white baneberry hispid dewberry Canada lily-of-the-valley

water starwort mountain wood sorrel Canadian St. John’s-wort

turtlehead common monkeyflower marsh St. John’s-wort

gaywings marsh blue violet trailing arbutus

teaberry partridgeberry yellow bartonia

boneset bog goldenrod wrinkleleaf goldenrod

cat’s ear grass-leaved goldenrod

speckled alder silky willow silky cornel

black chokeberry meadowsweet winterberry

deerberry glade St. John’s-wort mountain-holly (Nemopanthus)

velvetleaf blueberry black huckleberry mountain laurel

wild raisin smooth arrowwood Rhododendron/ great laurel

nannyberry

white pine red pine Scotch or Scots pine

red spruce Norway spruce hemlock

quaking aspen yellow birch red maple

mountain-ash wild black cherry fire cherry

rose pogonia purple fringed orchid yellow fringed orchid

grass pink : according to Maurice Brooks

small cranberry large-fruited cranberry

Kalmia polifolia : according to J. Harned

white azalea : according to R. Mansueti

dwarf cornel black ash tamarack or eastern larch

American yew : according to Shreve (1910) not seen since

bladderwort pitcher plant – introduced round-leaved sundew

intermediate sundew and thread-leaved sundew were introduced recently but the latter has disappeared.

Harned’s or swamp Clintonia a sometimes questionable species

slender groundpine Jacob’s ladder burreed (Sagittaria chlorocarpum)

goldthread narrow-leaved gentian snowberry

log fern Carex comosa yellow-eyed grass

Cranesville Swamp is also an excellent "watchable wildlife" and "birding hotspot" site.

Meshach Browning killed cougar, timber wolves, bobcat and many black bears in the vicinity of Cranesville Swamp. Black bear and bobcat are still present and, if you are a skilled observer, you can still see the following:

red fox gray fox snowshoe hare

raccoon gray squirrel red squirrel

whitetail deer smoky shrew northern water shrew

cottontail rabbit beaver woodland jumping mouse

muskrat mink

Birds you may see or hear at Cranesville Swamp are:

red-shouldered hawk sharp-shinned hawk northern harrier

turkey vulture northern saw-whet owl barred owl

great horned owl eastern screech owl hermit thrush

veery wood thrush northern water thrush

solitary vireo dark-eyed junco alder flycatcher

American woodcock ruffed grouse wild turkey

Virginia rail whip-poor-will great blue heron

green-backed heron raven bluejay

Canada warbler magnolia warbler mourning warbler

Nashville warbler black-throated blue warbler black-throated green warbler

American redstart purple finch red-breasted nuthatch

northern flicker hairy woodpecker pileated woodpecker

downy woodpecker belted kingfisher brown creeper

cedar waxwing

timber rattlesnake northern copperhead eastern garter snake

northern water snake northern ringneck snake eastern milk snake

slimy salamander redback salamander red-spotted newt or red eft

pickerel frog northern spring peeper long-tailed salamander

Cranesville Swamp is not easy to find, so try to find a map or good directions before you start your journey. If you venture into the actual forested swamp, go with someone and tread lightly. It is easy to sink into 2 to 3 feet of muck and mud.

Hazards? Yes! But,it is well worth it.

One step below "tree line" and two steps south of "tundra" might well describe this wind swept mountaintop located along the Tucker-Grant county line and on the Eastern Continental Divide. Elevations range from 3500 to 4100 feet elevation, with the Bear Rocks parking lot being 3954 feet above sea level. The weather on Dolly Sods is notoriously harsh and very changeable. Wild windy thunderstorms can pass over in a matter of minutes; or a warm morning can turn chilly by noon; or driving sleet and snow can send hardy hikers scurrying back to their vehicles. Eerie fog can settle in for hours. Go prepared. Check the weather. Take map, compass, GPS, first aid, food and water, plus extra warm clothes.

The terrain is rough, rocky, and shrubs are so thick in places that you can’tpush your way through. Despite this, it is very safe to walk on trails for ½ to 1 mile and backtrack. No other place in the mid-Atlantic region is quite like Dolly Sods. You owe it to yourself to take a friend and visit this fabulous plant paradise.

Access from the west is through Harmon on US RT. 33 or Canaan Valley on WV RT. 32. Thence, you go to the small town of Lanesville on County Rt. 45 or 32/2. Then proceed eastward up the long gravel road (Forest Service 19) to the top of Allegheny Front Mountain. Then proceed north on FS 75out the top of the mountain, through Dolly Sods, a distance of 8 miles.

There are 2 access roads to Dolly Sods from the east. Both start from Jordan Run Road – CR Rt. 28/7. The southern access route begins on WV Rt. 28 at Hopeville and follows Jordan Run road northward about 1 mile. Turn left onto FS 19 that travels up the Allegheny Front Mountain to the top where it joins FS 75. Turn right and drive the 8 miles through Dolly Sods.

The northern access road from the east begins on WV Rt. 42 about 2.5 miles north of Maysville. Take the Jordan Run Road (CR 28/7) and drive southward about 5 miles. Turn right and drive on FS 75 to the top of Allegheny Front Mountain to Bear Rocks.

All 3 Forest Service roads are solid gravel based and travelable with typical sedans with medium to high clearance. Along the 8 miles of FS 75 on the top of Allegheny Front are 8-10 small parking areas at trail heads leading into the Dolly Sods Wilderness or recreation areas. Bigger parking lots are at a scenic overlook, the Northland Loop Trail, Red Creek Campground, and Bear Rocks. Toilets are available at the south end on FS 19 and at Red Creek Campground. Water is available via a hand pump at Red Creek Campground.

History

The first Europeans to see Dolly Sods were a party surveying the western boundary line between the uppermost head springs of the Rappahanock and Potomac Rivers for Lord Fairfax. The survey party included Thomas Lewis (relative of Merriwether Lewis of the Lewis & Clark Expedition) and Peter Jefferson (father of Thomas Jefferson). Thomas Lewis’ journal describes the narrow grassy strip (grass bald) along the Allegheny Front and Cabin Mountain as a great relief from the brushy thickets of mountain laurel toward Petersburg and the rhododendron "hells" westward in Canaan Valley.

Henry Gassaway Davis built a railroad to Davis in 1884 and the exploitation of the "best spruce and black cherry forests in the world" was underway. Most operations ended in 1924 and the devastation was complete when "the last tree on the mountain was cut".

Wildfires burned the slash and organic soil and greatly expanded the grass balds and heath shrub areas. Families such as, the Dollys, Rohrbaughs and others grazed their cattle on the sods during the summers. Dolly Sods was used as an artillery range during World War II. In the 1960s, The Nature Conservancy paid $15 million for the mineral (coal) rights under the present Dolly Sods Wilderness. In the 1990s, The Nature Conservancy bought 6,000 acres, lying west of FS 75 between Red Creek Campground and Bear Rocks for $6 million. This was later sold to the US Forest Service. Recently Dominion Resources donated the land that contains Bear Rocks, Stack Rocks and Haystack Rocks to The Nature Conservancy for a nature preserve.

During September, the Brooks Bird Club and other birders band and count migrating songbirds and hawks just east of the Red Creek Campground. These migrating birds have caused a controversy over possible windmills to produce electricity on the high peaks and ridges north of Dolly Sods.

Juncus filiformis balsam fir beaked dodder

oceanurus northern stitchwort star violet

round-leaved sundew three-toothed cinquefoil dwarf cornel/bunchberry

goldthread mountain bindweed white monkshood

purple virgin’s bower linear-leaved gentian small cranberry

white alumroot goldthread oblong-fruited serviceberry

Senecio plattensis black-girdled bulrush Carex canescens

Glyceria grandis Carex aestivalis Carex pauciflora

stiff clubmoss common clubmoss bog clubmoss

groundpine tree clubmoss bracken fern

hay-scented fern New York fern common polypody

cottongrass Carex folliculata Carex lurida

Carex gynandra crinkle grass bleeding heart

painted trillium mountain bellwort Canada mayflower

small green wood orchid pink ladies’slipper primrose violet

northern white violet hispid dewberry teaberry

trailing arbutus fireweed cow-wheat

Canada St. John’s-wort yellow bartonia gaywings

bog goldenrod mountain aster white flat-topped aster

pearly everlasting musk thistle coltsfoot

spotted knapweed orange hawkweed bristly sarsaparilla

table mountain pine red spruce red pine (planted)

pitch pine speckled alder smooth serviceberry

quaking aspen scrub oak yellow birch

skunk currant black currant black chokeberry

mountain-ash fire cherry velvetleaf blueberry

early low blueberry black huckleberry rose azalea

Allegheny menziesia rhododendron mountain laurel

mountain-holly (Nemopanthus) mountain holly (Ilex) glade St. John’s-wort

witch-hazel wild raisin bush honeysuckle

Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Update – Article from Chinquapin-The newsletter of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society. Suggested by Sally Anderson.

The USDA Forest Service reports that the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) is moving south faster than expected. Confined to areas in Virginia until just a few years ago, HWA is moving about 20 miles per year throughout its entire range and moving faster in the south than in the north, according to Rusty Rhea, entomologist with the US Forest Service’ Forest Health Program.

"Hemlock woolly adelgid is now distributed through almost half of the hemlock range in the eastern US." said Rhea. The first infestation in the Great Smoky Mountains NP was found last year. Now there are more sites in the Park, sporadic attacks in north Georgia, heavy infestations near Franklin, North Carolina, and newly reported infestations near Elizabethton, Tennessee."

First noticed in the US in the 1950s, HWA causes extensive damage and death to the eastern hemlock it infests. The insect feeds at the base of the tree’s leaves, killing the foliage that makes it possible for the tree to produce food. Without leaves, the hemlocks starve to death within 10 years of infestation.

HWA is primarily spread by migrating birds: apparently the adelgid hitches a ride to a new habitat, often deep within the interior forest. The insect has entered the southern Appalachian region on infested nursery stock. The region has a lot to lose; the Great Smoky Mountains National Park includes 5000 acres of hemlock-dominated forest, with some of the trees well over 400 years old.

Infested trees within landscape settings can be treated with sprays, soaps, or by systemic injections of pesticides: none of these treatments are practical for forest stands. The greatest promise lies with bio-control methods, which involve establishing communities of the natural enemies of HWA in HWA infested hemlock stands. So far, three species of beetles- all so tiny they can barely be seen with the naked eye- hold the most promise, but it may take a decade to determine how effective they are in controlling HWA infestations.

"The good news is that we are ahead of the curve" said Rhea. "The adelgid is newly established in this area, so we have time to build predator populations, unlike areas in the Northeast where they have to catch up with well-established HWA populations in already weakened trees."

While HWA has been reportedly controlled in Connecticut with release of the little ladybird beetle, Pseudoscemus tsugae, James F. Stimmel of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Agriculture reports last year that the "southeastern area of Pennsylvania-which has endured the presence of this pest longer than any other area of our state- still has an abundance of hemlocks, is encouraging." Stimmel also notes that the HWA can be killed at -20 degrees Farenheit.

If you want more info: www.fs.fed.us/na/morgantown/fhp/hwa/hwasite.html

Note: HWA presently infests the entire Eastern Panhandle and extends westward to Preston, Tucker and Randolph Counties. HWA also infests the southeastern counties of Pocahontas, Greenbrier, Fayette, Raleigh, Summers, Monroe, and Mercer.

WVU Herbarium Welcomes New Specimens

By: Lynn Wagner

The herbarium at West Virginia University in Morgantown houses 170,000 plant specimens, making it the largest collection in the state. It is designated a national resource collection and contains the best collection in the world of West Virginia and central Appalachian vascular plants.

While 60 percent of the specimens are from West Virginia, 30 percent are from other states, and 10 percent are from other countries. The 115 year-old collection includes seeds, which are organized by family.

The primary mission of the herbarium is to "serve the people of West Virginia," says curator Donna Ford-Werntz. The facility receives an average of 50 specimens a year, many of which are submitted by West Virginia extension services, for identification. The herbarium also serves important teaching and research functions.

Taxonomists around the country and the world continually loan herbarium plants to one another. The specimens help researchers identify what plants grow where, and understand conservation needs. This year, the WVU collection, along with specimens from five other herbaria, facilitated the completion of the WV Vascular Flora Checklist and Atlas, which contains county distribution maps of every native and naturalized plant species in the state.

The purpose of the Atlas is to "update and complement the state flora (Strausbaugh and Core 1977), as well as to support and stimulate additional botanical investigations," said a description in the most recent WVU Herbarium Newsletter.

The Atlas is being published by the WV Division of Natural Resources and is expected to be available for sale later this year.

Native plant enthusiasts can contribute to the important work that’s done at the WVU herbarium by submitting new specimens for the collection.

The first step is to find out whether a particular plant is already in the collection. You can do this by contacting Ms. Ford-Werntz at dford2@wvu.edu. Plants that you see which are not on the list can be pressed and submitted . Here’s how:

Dry the specimen in a plant press.

--You can make your own press with the following materials: 2 pieces of wood lattice; 2 sheets of corrugated cardboard; 2 sheets of blotter paper; layers of newspaper; 2 straps to wrap around and secure the press.

--Spread out the plant specimen, turn it upside down and place it between the layers of newspaper.

--Layer the press, from bottom to top, in the following order:

-Wood lattice; corrugated cardboard (cut to fit the size of the lattice, with the grooves running perpendicular to the long side of the lattice); blotter paper (cut to fit the size of the lattice); newspaper with the specimen inside; blotter paper; cardboard; lattice.

--Secure the press with straps.

--If you are traveling and have a luggage rack, you can place the press on top of the rack. The air flow will dry the plant more quickly. It will take four to seven days for the plant to dry. The plant is thoroughly dried when you hold it up and it is stiff.

--Specimens should be submitted in the newspaper layers in which they were dried.

--The specimen must be submitted with a label that contains the following information:

-Collector’s name

-Scientific name of the plant

-Common name of the plant

-Location where the plant was found, including a brief description of the habitat, such as forest, dry meadow, etc. For example: moist opening on Rte. 11, 2.4 miles north of the Queen Street exit. Include GPS coordinates if you have them.

-Date the plant was collected. The date should be written out, for example: Oct. 9, 2003. Remember the collection is over 100 years old, so a date of 10/9/03 would not indicate to future users whether it was collected in 1903 or 2003.

-County where the plant was found

The label should be printed on high quality paper. Try not to use an ink jet printer, as the ink smears, and the label will not be readable.

Send specimens to: Donna Ford-Werntz; West Virginia University; Life Sciences Building B2; Dept. of Biology; PO Box 6057; Morgantown, WV 26506-6057.

You can find out more about the herbarium by visiting it on the web at: http://www.as.wvu.edu/biology/facility/herbarium.html.

Article from Romie Hughart with credit to "Wildflower" North America’s Magazine of Wild Flora – Winter 2003

For the second year in a row, Maryland Native Plant Society member and native plant nurseryman Sam Jones has brought to our attention that Home Depot is selling Trillium grandiflorum, six rhizomes for $7.96 under the Growing Colors line. WalMart is selling Trillium grandiflorum, and two other species, six rhizomes/rootstocks for $6.47, under the Better Homes & Gardens label. Both have the misleading statement: "Grown in the USA from cultivated stock. Inspected by the US Department of Agriculture." According to the Investigative Division of the USDA (APHIS) the USDA does NOT inspect any plant material. Not only is the label blatantly false, the price of these plants is so low, that the plants are surely wild-collected. The shelf life of the plants is probably less than a month. Head to these stores immediately and protest the sale of unethically, and often illegally, collected plants. Inform those who you may know about this threat to our native plants, so that they won’t purchase them.

Send your field notes, articles, and other information for the Native Notes to:

Bill Grafton

WVU

POB 6125

Morgantown, WV 26506-6125

Email: wgrafton@ wvu.edu

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