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Alewife Wet Meadow Report from Walter Kittredge |
More special plant species discovered - July 2013
On July 5th four people ventured out to join me in the 95 degree mid-day heat to learn about the plants growing in the Alewife Reservation. We retired to the shade where we sat and talked about how the Reservation came to exist as part of Olmsted's vision of a series of urban wilds connected by a winding system of parkways linking them. Of these parkways only the Alewife Brook and Mystic Valley also have reservations.
We were sitting next to a restored meadow full of bright wildflowers of orange butterfly weed, the related pink-flowered common milkweed, lavender wild bergamot, bright magenta thistle, and blue vervain, among many others. As we talked, bees and butterflies flew from flower to flower making the meadow dance with activity. I explained how the originators of the park system were visionaries who saw that city-dwellers needed opportunities to get out into nature, that even back then they understood the intrinsic need we have for being in wild green places for our health and well-being.
They were also visionary in that they immediately set about inventorying the plant life in the parks so that future generations would be able to make comparisons and understand the changes that would occur over time. Although the Alewife Reservation wasn't included in the original survey, the Great Marsh had long attracted scientists as a place to study nature. As a result there is a good deal of documentation in the form of preserved plant and animal specimens in the collections of Harvard University. Continuing in that tradition I've been making dried plant specimens at the Reservation to document the current flora.
I'm particularly interested in the restored meadow because it was formerly a parking lot. This was one of the early efforts at restoring natural habitats, and has been around long enough to have grown from the original plantings to include many other plants. Two interesting plants I've found are there are native broom-rape, with tan stalks that is parasitic on goldenrods
and the non-native helleborine orchid with greenish-cream and pink flowers. There are still many surprises to be discovered here. Earlier this spring I found bur chervil, which has umbels of white flowers like a wild carrot, and is new to New England.
So far this year I've recorded 63 new plants for the Reservation, bringing the total that have been reported up to 343. Of these, I've confirmed seeing 219, and collected specimens of 43. The different types of plants include 3 ferns, 31 grasses and sedges, 203 herbaceous plants, 40 shrubs, 56 trees, and 10 vines. With all the open meadows and thickets it's not surprising that the majority of plants are non-woody. Only a little over half of the plants are native versus introduced. This is a result of both the urban setting, small size, and history of disturbance of the Reservation. It is noteworthy that despite this the Reservation hosts a rare and endangered plant in the bottle gentian.
Walter Kittredge
On July 5th four people ventured out to join me in the 95 degree mid-day heat to learn about the plants growing in the Alewife Reservation. We retired to the shade where we sat and talked about how the Reservation came to exist as part of Olmsted's vision of a series of urban wilds connected by a winding system of parkways linking them. Of these parkways only the Alewife Brook and Mystic Valley also have reservations.
We were sitting next to a restored meadow full of bright wildflowers of orange butterfly weed, the related pink-flowered common milkweed, lavender wild bergamot, bright magenta thistle, and blue vervain, among many others. As we talked, bees and butterflies flew from flower to flower making the meadow dance with activity. I explained how the originators of the park system were visionaries who saw that city-dwellers needed opportunities to get out into nature, that even back then they understood the intrinsic need we have for being in wild green places for our health and well-being.
They were also visionary in that they immediately set about inventorying the plant life in the parks so that future generations would be able to make comparisons and understand the changes that would occur over time. Although the Alewife Reservation wasn't included in the original survey, the Great Marsh had long attracted scientists as a place to study nature. As a result there is a good deal of documentation in the form of preserved plant and animal specimens in the collections of Harvard University. Continuing in that tradition I've been making dried plant specimens at the Reservation to document the current flora.
I'm particularly interested in the restored meadow because it was formerly a parking lot. This was one of the early efforts at restoring natural habitats, and has been around long enough to have grown from the original plantings to include many other plants. Two interesting plants I've found are there are native broom-rape, with tan stalks that is parasitic on goldenrods
and the non-native helleborine orchid with greenish-cream and pink flowers. There are still many surprises to be discovered here. Earlier this spring I found bur chervil, which has umbels of white flowers like a wild carrot, and is new to New England.
So far this year I've recorded 63 new plants for the Reservation, bringing the total that have been reported up to 343. Of these, I've confirmed seeing 219, and collected specimens of 43. The different types of plants include 3 ferns, 31 grasses and sedges, 203 herbaceous plants, 40 shrubs, 56 trees, and 10 vines. With all the open meadows and thickets it's not surprising that the majority of plants are non-woody. Only a little over half of the plants are native versus introduced. This is a result of both the urban setting, small size, and history of disturbance of the Reservation. It is noteworthy that despite this the Reservation hosts a rare and endangered plant in the bottle gentian.
Walter Kittredge