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Feild Trip Reports

Over a dozen plant enthusiasts, more than half from other boroughs or states joined Protectors of Pine Oak Woods in a tour of Blood Root Valley in the Greenbelt. The walk was sponsored by the Torrey Botanical Society, the nation’s oldest botanical organization. Torrey holds plant walks throughout the Northeast and comes to Staten Island annually for the bloodroot blooming. The valley has been known to the botanical community since the late nineteenth century when Arthur Hollick and Nathaniel Lord Britton, world renowned botanists were living and studying on the island. Lunch was eaten in the peaceful stream valley with a view of dozens of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) flowers on the stream bank opposite us. We sat surrounded by spice bush (Lindera benzoin) in bloom with its yellow flowers, underneath mature sugar maple (Acer saccharrum) and black walnuts (Juglans nigra), both rare Staten Island trees that favor this valley because of the moisture and coolness provided. Other wildflowers identified by their leaves, though not in bloom included Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum sp.), Virginia waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum), jewel weed (Impatiens sp.), trout lily (Erythronium americanum), partridge berry (Mitchella repens), yellow forest-violet (Viola pubescens), skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), early saxifrage (Saxifraga virginiensis), alum root (Heuchera sp.), wild geranium (Geranium maculatum), spotted wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) and round-leaved pyrola (Pyrola rotundifolia). The valley is also known for its fern species. We saw dozens of Christmas ferns (Polystichum acrostichoides), cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) still in fiddlehead stage, maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes) leaves left over from last year, and thousands of the rare brittle fern (Cystopteris fragilis), which grows only several inches tall. The group headed for High Rock Park Conservation Center after leaving Blood Root Valley, and were treated to additional wildflowers in bloom growing in various wildflower gardens in the park. We found several dozen more bloodroots in bloom and the unusual Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) along with Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) which was just leafing out. One intriguing purple flower with a simple leaf shape turned out to be Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica), sometimes called cowslip. We also found toadshade (a purple Trillium) and lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), a buttercup relative, blooming at High Rock. It should be noted that even though wildflowers were either blooming or leafing out, few trees and shrubs, other than spice bush and maples, were showing signs of spring. The buds that many walkers were pointing out were all formed late last year and had not started their spring growth. Maple trees were also in flower, the reddish ones being female and the orange ones male, due to the effect of yellow pollen on the male flowers’ anthers. All agreed that even though access to blood root valley is now difficult, due to ongoing construction in the Greenbelt, we should make every effort in 2006 to repeat this annual tradition of sharing Staten Island’s rich natural history with interested botanists and plant lovers. The trip leader was Dick Buegler.