NYFA Newsletter
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NYFA Newsletter New York Flora Association of the New York State Museum Institute Vol. 3, No. 3 Co-Editors: Richard S. Mitchell Robert E. Zaremba December. 1992 New York State Museum The Nature Conservancy ADDRESS AIL COR.RF.sPONDENCE TO NYFA, 3132 CE~ ALBANY, NY 12230 - DUES $10 PER YEAR Finding New York's Fern "Hot-spot" - by Frank Knight Where will New York's premiere natural fernery be found - that single contiguous site with the most fern species? I propose a friendly competition, and if it gets fierce, we'll change the word "single" in the question above to "smallest". Pterido-fights? What a concept. How and why did a casual, after-work bachelor outing to Joralemon Park (July 1991) lead to this? Soon after joining NYF~ I went on my first association field trip in June 1991 to the ice meadows below The Glen near Warrensburg. Dick Mitchell told us, while awaiting a few late comers, about Joralemon Park in the Town of Coeymans, Albany Co., the site of an earlier NYFA field trip. Around 1980, a friend of his who lives near the Park had excitedly told Dick about 20 or more kinds of ferns she had seen there. Incredulously, he accompanied her there and confirmed, after a leisurely stroll, that there were at least 18. In July 1991, with our spouses and children off vacationing, Craig Thompson, a bored, fellow Environmental Educator at DEC, and I decided to take an after-work look at Joralemon Park. As Town residents, the Thompsons had become interested in the ferns there while clearing Park trails with their son Robert's Cub Scout Pack ( #67). Swatting mosquitoes with one hand and holding our fern field guides in the other, we began our look a quarter mile south of the park's tennis court, east of County Rt. 102 near the old lime kiln. We dutifully found 18 species and tucked our lists away. The following spring, Craig's wife, Roseanne committee) wasn't able to make the field trip, but he Woodard, asked me to present a fern slide show at the agreed to come along on our dry run. Before seeking June meeting of the Capital District Audubon Chapter ferns, he also showed us golden-seal (Hydrastis for which she serves as program chair. A walk at canadensis) and green violet (Hybanthus concolor). Joralemon was scheduled for the next Saturday. I agreed to lead the walk, provided we take another In the following listing, the 18 ferns found on our look and get a confirmation to be sure that our list original trip are not marked. Additions are noted by was accurate. Fellow town resident and fern the following symbols: ferns added by Mike in June enthusiast Mike Corey (who teaches moss/liverwort '92 are marked with (*), and those he added later in courses at HVCC and serves on the town park September with a ( + ). My finds are marked (**) 1 FERNS OF JORALEMON PARK (1992) touch with no threat of giving me a rash. Claire Schmitt, while impressed with our finds, was even Botrychium virgi,nianum rattlesnake fern more delighted with her discovery of an uncommon Osmunda claytoniana interrupted fern limestone lichen, Psora pseudorussellii, which she had 0. regalis royal fern never seen before. Back home, I called Bob 2.aremba Polypodium virginianum common polypody and Dick Mitchell asking about fern grottos, but I was Dennstaedtia punctilobula hay-scented fern still left with the nagging question: where is New Adiantum pedatum maidenhair fern York's single fern hot spot - the site with the most *Pellaea atropurpurea purple cliff brake naturally occurring species? Is it in Onondaga County Pteridium aquilinum bracken where more than 50 of New York's approximately 88 +Asplenium ruta-muraria wall-rue spleenwort native fern species and hybrids occur? A. platyneuron ebony spleenwort I saw an old friend, Diane Wheelock, from OPRHP's A. trichomanes maidenhair spleenwort Clark Reservation, Jamesville, NY at the annual Athyrium asplenioides lady fern conference of the Coalition for Living Museums *A. pycnocarpon glade fern (CLM), and asked her to send me a list of the ferns **A. thelypteriodes silvery spleenwort from that site. She sent the lists, which date back to Camptosorus rhizophyllus walking fern collectors and observers in the 1950s and before. To Cystopteris bulbifera bulbet fern my surprise, with the exception of hart's-tongue fern C. fragi1is fragile fern (Phyllitis scolopendrium), there were only three on her Dryopteris carthusiana spinulose wood fern lists that we didn't have at Joralemon: cinnamon, oak D. marginalis marginal wood fern and Goldie's ferns. Diane had also confirmed that she + Matteuccia struthiopteris ostrich fern had recently seen all the ferns on her lists. They didn't Onoclea sensibilis sensitive fern have the interrupted fern and a wall-rue or woodsia. Polystichum acrostichoides Christmas fern With their 26 species to our 25, we only had one find Thelypteris novaboracensis New York fern left to tie the record and two to win. The pteridofight * T. palustris marsh fern was on! **Woodsia obtusa blunt-lobed woodsia It would be a simple enough task to ask John Mickel of the N.Y. Botanical Garden for help in locating such Some of our finds were downright serendipitous. a hot-spot, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun as As Mike and his son Eben left early during our June prompting folks to go afield in quest a friendly 1992 dry run field trip, he pointed off to our right to contest. The birders do it, with their Christmas Bird a trail through a notch of limestone saying, "Just cross Counts and Big Days. There is even an annual the old Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) bridge and international event in May in New Jersey called the go down into a large sink and you'll find the Athyrium World Series of Birding, in which each team attempts spleenwort just off the trail on your left:" So, over the to record the highest number of bird species in a hill and through the woods we went, and sure enough, single 24 hour period. If one of NYFA's written goals there was A. thelypteriodes. Comparing notes later, we is to update the list of vouchered species across the both thought the other had misidentified the plant. state, why not stimulate exploration with a little sport? On our next and last 1992 visit to the site in I promise you that the Coreys, Knights, Thompsons September, we verified that Mike had been describing and Claire Schmitt will be out sweeping the his find, glade fern A. pycnocarpon, the narrow-leaved Joralemon area in the spring to find fern species spleenwort, while I had not followed the trail far numbers 26 and 27. Is there anyone out there in New enough, and had instead found the silvery spleenwort. York who can find a 28, 29 or 30 in your area? On this September visit, Mike and I proudly Frank Knight, NYS DEC Environmental Educator, showed our finds to lichenologist and co-author of 50 Wolf Rd., Albany, NY 12330 Natural Areas of Albany County, Claire Schmitt. As we hurried along to the special rock outcropping that Editorial Note: supported Pellaea atropurpurea and Asplenium ruta Fine idea, Frank! Let's take it one step further and muraria which neither Claire nor I had seen at have a contest with a prize offered by NYFA to the Joralemon before, Panax quinquefolius caught our winning team or individual (See page 8). By the way, attention with its bright yellow autumn leaves. Once the first 18 fern species you found at Joralemon were I'd seen and noted the new ferns, I was distracted by not the same 18 that we saw there a decade ago. No other interesting flowering plants: Symphoricarpos matter. You've found all those by now and more. alba, snowberry growing in its native haunts, where for (Dick Mitchell) the first time I was tempted neither to pop its fruits nor throw them at someone; Rhus aromatica, fragrant Note: The illustration on page 1 is by Anne Lacy, sumac, with its deep red autumn foliage, invited my from the TNC Publication, Adirondack Wild Guide. 2 Recent Introduction of Certain Prairie Jamming on the brakes, I exclaimed, "Ratibida Species into the Albany Pine Bush -- columnifera!!" into Tim's ear. When the color returned to his face, he casually looked out, and with by Chuck Sheviak . ' Among the biogeographic significa of the Mohawk recogmtron born of his North Dakota youth, calmly - and Hudson River valleys are occurrences of a number remarked, "Yeah ... " Then, after a pause, "Yeah!" The of species characteristic of the prairies. Bouteloua plants were in early bloom, and closer examination curtipendula, Sporobolus heterolepis, Lithospermum disclosed a number of plants scattered along the canescens and others speak of past climatic shifts and roadside and up a side street toward a cul-de-sac. I corresponding plant migrations. Many others, collected a specimen for the State Herbarium. however, clustered at points of commerce, such as the Port of Albany, are clearly the result of recent human activity. Still others are less easy to explain: did a plant fragment fall off a train and find root on a disturbed embankment, or did plants seed in from an ancient patch on a nearby cliff; was there an escape from an early garden plot, or have populations persisted for millennia in sandy openings; were some of these species cultivated by Native Americans, cleaned from a Buffalo hide obtained in trade, or did seeds fall naturally as the beast wandered eastward? Such questions are rarely answered definitively, and are perpetual sources of frustration for students of floristics and biogeography.