Vascular Flora of the Greater Mount Holyoke Range, Hampshire County, Massachusetts
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Vascular Flora of the Greater Mount Holyoke Range, Hampshire County, Massachusetts Karen B. Searcy Biology Department University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01002 Special Publication of the New England Botanical Club Copyright © 2008 Karen B. Searcy i Table of Contents Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………………….....…….ii Introduction …………………………………………………………………………...…………..1 The Setting ……………………………………………….………………...………...…………...2 Land Use ………………………………………………………………………...………………..2 Geology …...…………………….……………….……………...………...………………………4 Soils ......……………………………………………..……………….……………………………5 Climate ...………………………………………………..…………………………………….…..7 Botanical Collection in the Mount Holyoke Range ……………………………………….……...7 Vegetation and Plant Communities ………………………………………………………......…11 Terrestrial Plant communities ……………………………………………………..……13 Palustrine Plant Communities …………………………………………………..………15 Communities of Anthropogenic Origin ………………………………………………...16 Methods for Developing the Mount Holyoke Range Flora …………………...………………...17 Flora Summary …………………………………………………………………….……………20 Explanation of the Vascular Plant Catalog ……………………………………………………...22 Vascular Plant Catalog ……………………………………………………………………….….24 Ferns and Fern Allies ………………………………………………………...…………24 Gymnosperms ……………………………………………………………..……………27 Magnoliopsida (Dicotyledons) ……………………………………………..…………...28 Liliopsida (Monocotyledons) ………………………………………………..………….64 Literature Cited ………...………………………………………………………………………..80 Index …………………………………………………………………………………………….83 List of Tables and Figures Figure 1. Location of the Greater Mount Holyoke Range. ……...……………………………….1 Figure 2. Map of the flora area with some of the features mentioned in the text. ……………….3 Figure 3. Cross section of the Mount Holyoke Range showing the bedrock layers. …………….5 Figure 4. Location of the bedrock types in the Greater Mount Holyoke Range. ……………...…6 Figure 5. Number of specimens collected in the Mount Holyoke Range by decade 1860-1995. ..8 Figure 6. Map showing the sampling locations and general areas used in describing species locations. …………………………………………………………………......18 Table 1. Microclimates of the Mount Holyoke Range. ………………………………...…..…….7 Table 2. People who collected at least 4 specimens in the Mount Holyoke Range, 1820-1995. … Table 3. Natural pant communities of the Greater Mount Holyoke Range. …..………..………13 Table 4. Documented species not relocated between 1999 and 2007. .....………………………19 Table 5. Excluded species. ………………………………………………………………….…..20 Table 6. Taxa summary. ……………………………………...…………………………………20 Table 7. New, Hampshire County records. ………………………...………………………...…21 Table 8. Massachusetts rare and watchlist species with current populations in the Greater Mount Holyoke Range. …………….…………………………………………………….........22 ii Acknowledgments I thank Robert B. Livingston for introducing me to the Mount Holyoke Range, Paul J. Godfrey and Gina Barletta for initiating my interest in studying its flora, and Brayton Wilson for his help and enthusiasm in actually starting the flora project. Beth Bone, Laura Chaskeleton, Dawn Ciulla, Ann Hazzard, Donald McClelland, Catherine Moran, Carolyn Pucko, Joshua Pycroft, Joshua Schaller, Arieh Tal, Donna Tremonte, and Chris Wood all spent at least a day hiking with me searching for plants. Brayton and Mary Alice Wilson contributed information on trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants from 153 plots that helped provide detailed information on the distribution and abundance of many species. Thomas Clark found the population of Aplectrum hyemale. Diana Barczc and Kathleen Rolih helped with the maps, Sally Klingener prepared the index and Laura Holland helped in printing the illustrations. Arthur Haines, Arthur Gilman, C. Barre Hellquist, Jinshuang Ma, Lisa Standley, Gordon C. Tucker, and Peter Zika kindly helped with the identification of taxa in their specialties. John Hubert and Donald Wise of the Geosciences Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst assisted with the geology section. John Burk, Smith College, provided some historical information about past collectors in the Range and John Burk Jr., Harvard Forest, provided me with copies of some historical maps. Robert Bertin and Patricia Swain kindly reviewed drafts of all or parts of the manuscript. The manuscript also benefited from the comments of two anonymous reviewers. I thank the curators of the Harvard University Herbaria (HUH), Mount Holyoke College Herbarium (MHC), and Smith College Herbarium (SCHN) for access to their collections. I thank the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation for a special use permit and the towns of Hadley and South Hadley and several private landowners for permission to access their properties. The Jane Hallenbeck Bemis Endowment for Research in Natural History supported several aspects of this work. 1 2 documented by over 1000 herbarium specimens. Local floras such as this one are also useful on a regional level since they can fine tune distribution information. For example, this study has added a number of county records and records of state rare species including the first record of Swamp Cottonwood (Populus heterophylla) in Massachusetts (Searcy and Ascher 2001). The Setting The Greater Mount Holyoke Range (GMHR) was interpreted as the undeveloped land between Chmura Road and Bay Road in Hadley and Bay Road in Amherst on the north, Harris Mountain Road and Harris Road on the east, Bachelor Street in Granby and Elmer Brook in South Hadley on the south, and Rte. 47 on the west (Fig. 2). A small section of state owned land east of Harris Mountain Road was also included. The area covered by the flora is approximately 31 km2 and is between latitudes 42o 19’ 10” and 42o 16’ 56’’ N and longitudes 72o 36’ 8” and 72o 28’ 16” W. The most conspicuous topographic feature of the GMHR is the east-west trending basalt-capped ridge (main ridge) which ranges in elevation from 150 to 300 m. The ridge line of the Mount Holyoke Range is cut by a series of faults perpendicular to its long axis creating a series of breaks that give the Range an undulating skyline. The best known of these breaks is “the Notch,” which is the current location of Route 116, the major road across the Range (Fig. 2). Movement along the faults east of Route 116 created a series of separate northeast-southwest trending basalt ridges. West of Route 116 the ridge is a single unit (Fig. 4). The north-facing slope has a steep upper region of cliffs and talus slopes, which decrease in height from west to east, and a more gradual slope at mid- to lower elevations. The change in slope angle below the cliffs on the north side gives the Range a distinct profile (Fig. 3). The lower north slope is broken by a few smaller secondary ridges and peaks such as Tinker Hill and Little Tinker, which are cones of old volcanoes now covered with glacial till (Berkowitz 1974). In contrast, the south side of the main ridge has a single relatively uniform slope of about 20o (Fig. 3). Between the base of the main ridge and the southern boundary of the study area, the topography is complex with several lower ridges, basins, and areas with little relief. Both north and south slopes of the main ridge are dissected by ravines supporting intermittent streams and seeps. Some of the larger ravines on the south side are steep-sided and have moist headwater regions. Wetlands are an important component of the GMHR. The most extensive wetlands occur on the south side of the Range between the base of the main ridge and the southern boundary. Wetlands are associated with riparian areas and with numerous small basins created by the rough, dissected topography. Wetlands on the north side are usually on the lower slopes but some are associated with the break between the steep upper slopes and the more gradual mid-slope areas. Intermittent streams are common in ravines. Only the lower reaches of some of the smaller streams and the larger streams such as Elmer Brook, Dry Brook, and tributaries of Bachelor Brook have water year-round. The area has no natural lakes or ponds with permanent water. Land Use The region was settled in the 1660s (Berkowitz 1974). Early maps suggest that the steeper parts of the Mount Holyoke Range remained forested through the period of maximum forest clearing in the mid-1800s. Although the upper slopes remained relatively undisturbed, lower areas of the GMHR experienced varying intensities and frequencies of disturbance. The major land use appears to have been logging. Historically the land was divided into wood lots (Berkowitz 1974), and Roberts, writing in 1914, indicated that the entire south slope had been cut in the previous 25 years (Roberts 1914). Logging decreased after 1900 (Berkowitz 1974), but continued on a small scale. A number of the woods roads in the GMHR were probably associated with logging activities. Grazing on the wooded slopes has been TH2m2ontour2intervl22222 power2lines22222222222222222222 rods22222222222222222222222222222 town2oundries222222222222 x strems2222222222222222222222222 flor2oundry222222222222222 rdley emherst rdley ylor eservoirs rker xG2power2line xoth eservoir felherE fy222od ghmur2dF 5 town 5 5 oute2RU wtF2rithok wtF2xorwottok he2isters fre2wtnF 5 vong2wtnF 5 wtF2rolyoke gonnF2iver 5 he2xoth 5 iG2power2line 5 rrris2wtnF2dF hry222222frook gomm2ond ilmer2222222frook erl2treet teF2IIT vithi2prings fhelor2treet eservoir the24vow2le4 qrny outh2rdley IHHH H IHHH weters Figure 2. Map of the flora area with some of the features mentioned in the text. A third power line is under the Belchertown town line. Elmer Brook is