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.

Frozen toes in PBP

Today I visited The Meadow in Pelham Bay Park. I dressed so warmly, but instead of wearing my insulated boots I wore my summer field shoes - aka my old running sneakers. With only one pair of socks, I was dancing up and down to keep my toes limber. Hard to do when the high is only 25 F.

Anyway, this area became a meadow when the area was scraped for fill soil to create Orchard Beach - another of Robert Moses' handiworks. This time, though, the results aren't all that bad. It created a wet depression that is home to quite a nice assortment of plants, especially those that are rare in the city and the state. The clusters of staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) are such a treat in the winter.
I found several of the hard empty shells before I saw the walnut tree (Juglans nigra). It is pretty easy to id in winter. It has big, stout, sparse branches and dark deeply furrowed bark. Hundreds of Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) stems surrounded its base.

This little bluestem (Schizachyrium sp.) turned out to be the coastal species (littorale) - shore little bluestem. Pelham is outer coastal plain. The "interior" species (S. scoparium) is found across the borough in western Bronx in Van Cortlandt Park.

Lots of pasture rose (Rosa carolina) where we entered (see first photo) but this is multiflora rose (R. multiflora), one of the worst invasive plants in the state. Looks pretty here though, no?

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.

NY Biodiversity at AMNH

Today I attended Living with Nature: A Conference on Sustaining the NY Metro Region's Biodiversity Through Local Action at AMNH. Co-sponsored by the NYC Soil & Water Conservation District, the agenda had panels on education, arthitecture and green cityscape, food systems, consumer choice, transportation, and natural systems.

I missed the keynote addresses, but heard that Al Appleton was excellent. The architecture panel was great (except for the one who was incredibly lack luster. We shan't name names). As I expected, there was a lot of talk of greenroofs. The Gaia Institute has one in the Bronx using native plants. But really, all the greenways and greenroofs won't provide habitat for shade-tolerant forest herbs. So it's not all about building. You can't construct your way out of land conservation.

I sat in on the natural systems panel in the afternoon. It was excellent as well. The DEC representative was especially lively and made several good points...nature does need a Madison Avenue marketing campaign! Carolyn Summers exclaimed that there should be "no more extirpations"...brava!

Thank you sir, may I have another?

It has happened yet again - *sigh*. Wild potato vine (Ipomoea pandurata) has once again been cut to the ground.

Here's the problem, this plant, an herbaceous vine, (related to that chartreuse green windowbox favorite) existed in an area that was made into a recreational park. Despite all thoughts to the contrary, the plant came back a few years after it had been hacked to the ground to create said park. However, the plant doesn't know that things have changed. This (unnamed) park is now manicured and all things not trees get weed whacked. (This seems to be true of all NYC Parks - unskilled labor + pruning equipment = death to all plants not 50 ft tall. I'm not exaggerating). Imagine, a vine growing up a fence in a highly managed park. How unseemly! thwack

Why care? Well, wild potato vine is a New York State rare plant. And this site is its only occurrence in New York City. I am meeting with the park manager next week to discuss long term solutions to protect this plant. Which I've done every year around this time. My suggestion for 2007 is going to be a security guard.

The rarest in the land

Poor Torrey's mountainmint (Pycnanthemum torrei). There has been so much hooey over this population (then scroll 4/5 down) of the globally rare plant. It used to be part of the gorgeous! pristine (in some sections)! rare plant inhabited! 130 acres Kreischer Hill parcel, which was owned by the NYC EDC.

But conservation was not to be. Instead of thousands of years old glacial till sandy soils with their concomitant NYS rare communities and species, we have - what we've always needed! - Target, Home Depot, Bed/Bath/Beyond and a Christmas tree store. Hooray! That was certainly worth destroying the uncommonly occuring, sexually reproducing population of American chestnut. But that's just imho.

*Sigh*

Presently we are trying to conserve the population in situ (stop snickering!). This summer, we did a census of the mountainmint population. A transect was set up parallel to Veterans’ Road West. Every meter was marked off. Perpendicular to transect, 1m squared plots were set up. Within each plot the following data was collected – number of plants, number of individual stems, number of shoots, length of all stems, and the presence and number of flower heads. Casual observation suggests that the plants are grouped in clusters along this transect. This data will confirm whether or not this is the case. If so, further environmental factors will be examined to determine causal factors.

Plants 0, Recreation 1

This is a charming little change in Parks' policy from allowing only passive recreation to now installing mountainbike trails in natural areas throughout the city. These pictures are from Cunningham Parks in Queens. I have a couple of issues, aside from how devastating this will be to ferns and wildflowers of the forest floor.

The propaganda (which, please note, was written by the mountainbike person doing this work), speaks of erosion:

"There's a common misconception that bicycles cause erosion damage to the trails. In response, a group of local mountain bicyclists decided to band together and educate themselves on the science of trail erosion and how bicycles could be ridden with minimal impact. Fueled with information provided by the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) and the US Forest Service, a management plan began to take shape."

First, I would like to see the literature that supports the contention that mountainbikes don't erode trails. But that will never happen. You know why? It doesn't exist. You can, I imagine, minimize erosion, but there will always be erosion associated with mountainbiking.

Second, you want to see their answer to erosion? Look below...













That ditch off to the side? THAT is the result of their managment plan. These are placed every so often along the trails where there are slopes to encourage water (and thus water borne entities, such as soil) to pool. There is still plenty of erosion happening. What is no longer happening is the soils ending up on sidewalks and roadways when it rains. Now the soil settles into these little pools. So it keeps civic infrastructure tidy, but does nothing to retain the uppper soil layers. aka the seed nursery aka the bed of all future trees.


This is utterly awful. Acres and acres of destruction caused by all terrain vehicles - those off road motorized contraptions. Cops tell the drivers to go in the parks - these things are illegal on city streets. But see what happens when cops send these guys into the woods? This is a living graveyard. Once those trees die, nothing will take their place. Shameful. Why doesn't the Parks Department put in perimeter protection to keep these vehicles out? It's a cheap and easy solution, but there is obviously no will.

Scary Seton Falls Park

A little early for Halloween - scary but true story...

While monitoring vegetation in Seton Falls Park in the Bronx along Rattlesnake Creek approximately 100 yds from the falls area, I noticed 3 boys, about 13 years old, congregating nearby. When I asked if they needed some help, they responded with lewd and threatening comments, and then ran off. I was a little rattled, after all I was in a ravine, unseen (and probably unheard) from the street. About 10 minutes later, they returned to throw rocks at my head. Charming. At this point I ditched the field work and called the police as I promptly left the park. Once the two officers arrived, they drove around a bit to look for the kids, but no luck.

In the midst of the melee, I did come across new plant finds for the park: large-toothed aspen (Populus grandidentata) and the forb ditch stonecrop (Penthorum sedoides). Both are native, the latter is NYC-rare.

Unprepared

I always do this. I talk myself out of bringing along some obviously essential item because my field pack is too heavy. That is how I ended up this morning at the salt marsh of Marine Park without my boots.

To be fair, I had planned to stay out of the marsh itself, checking out the flora that rimmed the wet areas. I have seen Spartina alterniflora often enough that I could go without an up-close-&-personal viewing. What I didn't plan on was a poacher.

In the midst of my vegetative reverie, a middle-aged Asian man with a hand cart filled with tools & bags walked confidently by me. Suspicious. Sure enough, he proceeded to walk into the muck, pull out a tool & rake the marsh for mollusks. As you may have suspected, removal of anything from a park is illegal, especially the very animal life we are trying to conserve.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but you can't do that."
Nothing
"Excuse me, sir, you can't do that!"
Now he looks at me & smiles.
"Sir, you will have to stop that! You aren't allowed to do that!"
He shrugs his shoulders & gives me this look like he doesn't know what I'm talking about. So then I was reduced to repeating "No!" & "Stop!" while I walked out after him. I tried to stay dry, hopping from tussock to tussock, but that became futile after 5 minutes, when I slipped & went in to my knee. That's the thing with muck, you never know how deep it is.

By the time I reached him, he had out what I swear was a harpoon & was jabbing the water vigorously. He seemed to finally get it, & proceeded to leave without more protestation from me. As I climbed out of the low marsh, I watched him leave, cart in tow. I was so satisfied in having put an end to a poacher. I felt good.

Ten minutes later, I was in the nature center. This is a nice building which takes full advantage of the superb views with its large windows. As I was admiring the marsh, in the distance I saw a blue speck moving purposefully along the edge of the Spartina grasses.

BBQ

Today, I was in Bronx River Park, monitoring a recently completed restoration project where much native wetland vegetation had been planted in place of Japanese knotweed. We were taking a lunch break, & relunctantly decided that we also needed to use the restrooms (which are horrifying on so many levels). As we approached the building, I smelled smoke. The source of the billowing gray plumes? A clean cut sixteen year old kid. He had an interesting little set up, as you can see from the photo.

"Put it out!" I yelled. He responded as if underwater, all movement slow & deliberate. He did make some attempts to squelch the raging fire, none of them very impressive. Meanwhile I was fuming. It hasn't rained in weeks! What if this had gotten out of control? Fortunately it was rather far from the forest. Unfortunately it was right next to the playground & adjacent to the Metro-North train line. Obviously, I was not dealing with the sharpest knife in the drawer.

He finally climbed up, out of the pit, to speak to me. He had an innocent face & indescipherable language skills.

"Da ya wa sa ra?"
"What?!?"
"Da ya wa sa ra?"
"Again, what?"
"Da ya wa sa ra?"
"I have no idea what you are trying to say."
"Ra! Ra! Ra!"
At which point, he holds out his hands to offer me - not "ra", but "ribs".

"They're good. I make good bar-be-cue"
"Well, there are facilities in other parts of the park where you can cook out to your heart's content. But you cannot do it here. We don't allow make-shift grilling."
"Oh. But they're gooooooood."
"No doubt, but you'll have to find yourself another place to hone your culinary skills."

During the course of our little tete-a-tete, he began to walk closer & closer to me. Finally, I told him he was welcome to stay & wait with me for the police to arrive.

After an "oh, man!", he hoped on his bike, pre-packed with his cooking gear & rode away. It was then I noticed the goulish Halloween mask attached to his milkcrate full of tools.

Why didn't I think of this?

Yes of course! The forest is full of birds! And to think, all these years, I had been assuming that their appetites were sated by the abundant fruits, seeds, & insects that forests naturally provide them. Oh, what a fool I have been!

As seen in Bronx River Park

Blunt Cliff Fern in Harlem


Blunt cliff fern (Woodsia obtusa) festooning the Metro North train trestle in Manhattan. This fern is native and uncommon in NYC.
The ferns are back! Blunt cliff fern (Woodsia obtusa) is growing quickly and by August should be nicely carpeting the sides of the Metro North train trestle that runs along Park Avenue in Spanish Harlem. This fern first came to my attention when I started my job 4 years ago. I walked under the trestle on my walk from the 103 Street 6 train to my office, all the while wondering what species they were but never stopping to look...until finally I did. Woodsia obtusa is not a common plant in NYC. Yet here they were, overwhelming the walls along Park Avenue.

Finally, the following year I did a floristic survey and found that within the mortar of this structure a unique plant community exists, including four fern species that are rare in the City.

Brief history - the trestle extends from 110 to 101 Streets. This portion is constructed of stone and was built in 1870. The mortar was created out of the rock, soil, timbers and various mining debris from creation of the rail tunnel under Park Avenue. Suitable fern habitat was created as these materials weathered and seeps were formed.


Close up of Woodsia obtusa

Surveys found 43 plant species. Whether native or exotic, the majority of the other plants present in the plots were weedy species more commonly found in marginal areas like vacant lots and roadsides. Five ferns were found, including sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis), a common wetland species, able to survive do to water pooling in the masonry. The other four are rare in NYC: ebony spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron), walking fern (A. rhizophyllum), purple cliff-brake (Pellaea atropurpurea) and blunt cliff fern (Woodsia obtusa), are typical of cliff habitats. At approximately 30 feet tall, this trestle acts as a Manhattan cliff.

If one looks carefull around the perimeter wall of Central Park, you will find both blunt cliff fern and ebony spleenwort.


Growing Up Denatured

Too much inside, not enough outside results in folks who can't tell the difference between maples and oaks and why this distinction matters. Growing Up Denatured (New York Times)

So many people ask me questions about their daffodils or tulips, they have absolutely no concept of what a botanist is or where they can see a "wild" plant. Open your eyes! They are all around. Sadly, this notion is expounded upon in the media (the above article is about a new book). For example, an op-art piece that ran in the Times in October touted chicory as "NYC's plant", for very merky reasons (because "we do our worst, it gives us its best" - which is what, tastier coffee?) See my rebuttal here in pdf format.

And while this ecological illiteracy grows, we continue to lose our native orchids, lilies and magnolias.

Tree Graffiti in Conference House Park


To the tagger, this was totally unnecessary.


Old growth & salt marshes in Pelham

I don't know what it is about Pelham Bay Park, but lately I feel like I live there. Not that I am complaining. Anyway, had a field meeting out there and went to part of the park that I had never been to before. It was like the enchanted place Olivia Newton John sang about in "Xanadu". But more on that later.

Mockernut (Carya tomentosa), a NYC native tree, leaves emerging with ants.

First we walked through some old growth forest on Hunter Island. I know, everyone tells you there is no old growth forest in New York City. Well honey, you can now tell your friends they are all washed up. Here is the proof...

tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipfera) trunk
See how the bark on the tulip tree is at the base, how it's broken up? That is a sign of old growth in trees. "Old growth" is defined as >150 years, although I think tulip trees may reach the fissured bark stage earlier, around 125 years or so. But you get the point - OLD.


dwarf serviceberry in flower - native and uncommon in NYC - very cool!
So back to Xanadu. We walked out over the salt marsh to one of the many outlying islands, and it was breathtaking (except for the scary vodoo doll found by Erik Kiviat). Here was a sandy soil community of juneberries, sassafras, heath shrubs, panicled hawkweed and gall-of-the-earth. This was the first time I had seen dwarf serviceberry (Amelanchier spicata), found in only 3 parks in the city. I was reveling in it - a pristine, untouched chunk of nature. Ha! the other side of the island had this...

I couldn't believe it! After I stopped ranting, I thought, well, at least these homeless folks have a little hobby. Later I found out that they are not homeless, but local old Italian guys who think the park is their private property. Warning to the old men, I am watching you.