Arverne by the Sea, Queens

I had heard a lot of hoopla about Arverne by the Sea, we got there and it was a pretty big letdown. The neighborhood itself is really depressing, very impoverished. I've been all over the city, but I've never seen anything like it. It was like being in a desolate Rust Belt town.

A view down the boardwalk. Bayberry in foreground, lots of shore little bluestem in background.


Northern bayberry (Myrica (Morella) pensylvanica) holds onto some of it's leaves through winter, although you can see quite a few on the ground. Lovely russet color. The fruits are harder to see but they are there. They have a high lipid content - excellent nourishment for migrating birds. Arverne, Queens.

A view towards the A train tracks


Golden hues of shore little bluestem (Schizachyrium littorale)


Northern bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica) leaves blanket the ground, shading out grass seedlings. The shrubs are also colonial, meaning they reproduce vegetatively. These strategies enable bayberry to succeed switchgrass, little bluestem et al in maritime/coastal grassland communities. It's also a great wintry color palette: gold, russet, gray.

Urban Blight Botanizing at Dubos Point

Salt marsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) culms with sea lavender stems (Limonium carolinianum).

Poor Dubos Point. I found a reference to it as a site for "Urban Blight Birding" . This is too bad, since the 33-acre site is named in honor of Dr. Rene Dubos, he of the great phrase, “Think globally, act locally.” And while the spirit of this sentiment seems to have been lost on the NYC parks dept, that is probably a good thing. Their neglect often leads to more natural area. Parks targeted for "improvements" get excessive amounts of the built - boardwalk, trail, birdblinds while simultaneously diminishing the natural - incursion of invasive plants from disturbance and construction vehicles, loss of rare plants due to uninformed site design.

I should do more yoga - this frustration has to seep out somehow.


Just across from JFK...

Back to my site visit. Dubos Point was a saltwater marsh until 1912, at which point it was filled with dredged materials for real estate development. The project failed to materialize. Today, it is the largest salt marsh on the north shore of the Rockaway peninsula east of Rockaway Point.


High tide line with felled Spartina alterniflora, groundsel bush (Baccharis halimfolia) and marsh-elder (Iva fructescens). And, of course, detritus. This is urban blight botanizing, after all.


More floatsam. The most interesting thing is the coconut. I wonder if that came from nearby garbage, or instead from some tropical paradise. It's not unheard of, those suckers travel far. They've been found off the coast of Ireland. Today I counted 5 coconuts!

Some of the plants seen in the salt marsh areas:

Graminoids - salt grass (Distichlis spicata), blackgrass (Juncus gerardii), common reed (Phragmites australis), salt marsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), salt meadow cordgrass (Spartina patens).
Shrubs - groundsel bush (Baccharis halimfolia) and marsh-elder (Iva fructescens).
Forbs - sea rocket (Cakile edentula), sea lavender (Limonium carolinianum), glasswort (Salicornia europaea), seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens).

In addition to salt marsh, we also saw maritime grasslands. Both of these vegetative communities are rare in NYC.

Soundview Park, BX

Today I visited Soundview Park, targeting specific sections to see if there was any vegetation of interest. Most of the sections I looked at were fill soils with mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) as the dominant species - exotic, invasive, nada.

The area that had the most interesting vegetation was the jetty. My presumption is that the jetty is similar to high quality (clean) sandy fill - no nutrients, no weeds.
Soundview Park is in the south Bronx, where the Bronx River opens into the East River. This sections is estuarine, meaning the water is brackish. The salinity levels of the Bronx River diminish (becomes freshwater) a little further north, near the Bronx Zoo. So, as expected, much of the vegetation I saw was typical of salt marsh/maritime areas. The grounsel bush (Baccharis halimifolia) and marsh elder (Iva fructens) seen above are testament to the presence of saltwater. It was a rather nice saltmarsh, small, and no botanical surprises.
Seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens)


The park has been derelict for so long the the locals feel comfortable squatting on city land, whether for boats...


Or the dead. Dead what? I don't know. I don't think I want to know. After we passed the memorial, there was a wretched smell - a giant, rotting dead dog. People, I don't make this stuff up.