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Kittredge botany walk at Alewife Reservation July 5, 2013 |
"It's taking over everywhere!" was Harvard botanist Walter Kittredge's reaction to the Oriental bittersweet vine as he led a group of Cambridge and Arlington nature-lovers through the restored wetlands by Acorn Park on July 5. Another invasive vine, the black swallowwort, escaped in the late 1800s from the botanical garden of distinguished Harvard botanist Asa Gray, "making Cambridge the epicenter of the black swallowwort invasion," according to Kittredge. "You see it on all the chain link fences."
Globalization introduces many invasive plants - they often hitch a ride with international travelers or cargo - and then they flourish because they are especially well-adapted to global warming. In addition, they lack the predators, pests and parasites which keep native plants in check. As a result we see phenomena like "the march of the phragmites", the tall waving grasses taking over our wetlands and driving out the diversity of the natives.
The restoration of natural habitats was a major theme of Kittredge's educational tour, located in a meadow which only a dozen years ago was a parking lot between Acorn Park, Route 2 and the Alewife T station. On the positive side, Kittredge was surprised by the diversity of plants and wildlife he found there, including woodcocks, the sandpiper-like birds that use their long beaks to dig for worms.
On the other hand, rows of honey locust trees were left standing - perfectly spaced to match the parking spots they had once shaded! Wildflower seeds were another humorous example of well-meaning restoration attempts not up to our current standards: at one time, according to Kittredge, most wildflower seeds in the US came from Missouri, resulting in a patch of Missouri prairie wildflowers in the midst of the Middlesex Fells.
Alewife Reservation and the Middlesex Fells are connected, Kittredge explained, currently as natural spaces protected by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and originally as part of Frederick Law Olmsted's vision for parks and greenways in Greater Boston. Inspired by early naturalists like Thoreau, Olmstead had a revolutionary - for the time - vision of preserving nature rather than simply using it, a vision alive today in the fight to protect Alewife's Silver Maple Forest.
Bees also featured prominently in Kittredge's demonstration, as he peeled apart a tiny fragrant milkweed flower to show its pollen sac with a tiny horn or spike which could attach anywhere on a bee's body to be released at the next flower. (Most flowers have loose pollen which the bees pack into their own pollen baskets, but milkweed's pollen comes prepackaged for extra convenience!) Kittredge also showed us a non-native orchid, called helleborine, which also packages it's pollen.
Kittredge pointed out a wide variety of meadow plants, including the brilliant orange butterfly weed; fleabane, a tiny daisy-like flower with a fringe of white petals; the yellow clusters of St. John's wort; the little pink spikes of lady's thumb; and the waving purple flowers of blue vervain. He admitted to being stumped by clusters of lavender thistle-like flowers and was relieved to find a botanist in Ohio stumped by the same plant. He showed the participants how to recognize a plant in the mint family (square stems) and how to distinguish sedges (which have edges on their stems) from rushes (which have tubular stems). We also learned about witch-hazel with its beautiful scallop-edged leaves, that often have conical insect galls on them called "witches' hats."
Kittredge, a curatorial assistant at the Harvard University Herbaria, leads botany walks typically on the first Friday afternoon of each month during the summer, sponsored by Friends of Alewife Reservation (www.friendsofalewifereservation.org),
So check on these dates. These plant walks are an excellent introduction to the treasure which is Alewife Reservation, as well as to the larger themes of natural diversity and survival.
-- Burke Lennihan, author of Your Natural Medicine Cabinet (GreenHealing Press, 2012).
Globalization introduces many invasive plants - they often hitch a ride with international travelers or cargo - and then they flourish because they are especially well-adapted to global warming. In addition, they lack the predators, pests and parasites which keep native plants in check. As a result we see phenomena like "the march of the phragmites", the tall waving grasses taking over our wetlands and driving out the diversity of the natives.
The restoration of natural habitats was a major theme of Kittredge's educational tour, located in a meadow which only a dozen years ago was a parking lot between Acorn Park, Route 2 and the Alewife T station. On the positive side, Kittredge was surprised by the diversity of plants and wildlife he found there, including woodcocks, the sandpiper-like birds that use their long beaks to dig for worms.
On the other hand, rows of honey locust trees were left standing - perfectly spaced to match the parking spots they had once shaded! Wildflower seeds were another humorous example of well-meaning restoration attempts not up to our current standards: at one time, according to Kittredge, most wildflower seeds in the US came from Missouri, resulting in a patch of Missouri prairie wildflowers in the midst of the Middlesex Fells.
Alewife Reservation and the Middlesex Fells are connected, Kittredge explained, currently as natural spaces protected by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and originally as part of Frederick Law Olmsted's vision for parks and greenways in Greater Boston. Inspired by early naturalists like Thoreau, Olmstead had a revolutionary - for the time - vision of preserving nature rather than simply using it, a vision alive today in the fight to protect Alewife's Silver Maple Forest.
Bees also featured prominently in Kittredge's demonstration, as he peeled apart a tiny fragrant milkweed flower to show its pollen sac with a tiny horn or spike which could attach anywhere on a bee's body to be released at the next flower. (Most flowers have loose pollen which the bees pack into their own pollen baskets, but milkweed's pollen comes prepackaged for extra convenience!) Kittredge also showed us a non-native orchid, called helleborine, which also packages it's pollen.
Kittredge pointed out a wide variety of meadow plants, including the brilliant orange butterfly weed; fleabane, a tiny daisy-like flower with a fringe of white petals; the yellow clusters of St. John's wort; the little pink spikes of lady's thumb; and the waving purple flowers of blue vervain. He admitted to being stumped by clusters of lavender thistle-like flowers and was relieved to find a botanist in Ohio stumped by the same plant. He showed the participants how to recognize a plant in the mint family (square stems) and how to distinguish sedges (which have edges on their stems) from rushes (which have tubular stems). We also learned about witch-hazel with its beautiful scallop-edged leaves, that often have conical insect galls on them called "witches' hats."
Kittredge, a curatorial assistant at the Harvard University Herbaria, leads botany walks typically on the first Friday afternoon of each month during the summer, sponsored by Friends of Alewife Reservation (www.friendsofalewifereservation.org),
So check on these dates. These plant walks are an excellent introduction to the treasure which is Alewife Reservation, as well as to the larger themes of natural diversity and survival.
-- Burke Lennihan, author of Your Natural Medicine Cabinet (GreenHealing Press, 2012).