Battelle Darby
Wet Prairie
The Battelle Darby John Watts Wetland was built on historically agricultural lands, and over the years has established into a site that hosts migrating wetland birds due to its quality of native grasses and forbs. The wetland is low and damp, and the site is dominated by permanent, non-woody (herbaceous) plants. The plant community can be categorized by vertical structure: ground cover, the shrub layer, and the overstory. Some of the dominant plants we encountered in the wetland understory (ground cover and shrub layer) include big blue stem, sneeze weed, Indian grass, boneset, and grass-leaved golden rod.
One of the dominant grasses we encountered was big blue stem, Andropogon gerardii. Big bluestem, also known as turkey foot, gives off a blueish-purplish hue in comparison to other grasses around it, which you can kind of see in the picture below. The leaves have long “hairs” near the base. As it is a grass, the leaf sheath is open. Big bluestem can grow up to 6-8 feet tall, differentiating it from little bluestem. It is also known as turkey foot because the seed head resembles a turkey foot with its 3 branches attached at the tip of the stem.
Tall boneset, Eupatorium altissimum, is a dominant forb at the wetland. Bonesets are tall, erect plants that branch at the top of the stem into small heads of flat clustered flowers. Tall boneset flowers are white, their leaves are lance-shaped and have 3 prominent veins.
The narrow-leaved cattail, Typha angustifolia, is a problematic non-native aggressive species at this, and many, wetlands. Many people recognize cattails- they look like corndogs on long sticks sticking out of the grass. Narrow-leaved cattails get to be around 5-10 feet tall, have about 13 leaves per shoot, and have many small flowers densely packed into a cylindrical spike at the end of the stem. The leaves are linear and can be up to 3 feet long.
More pics of the dominant understory species!
Two trees that dominated the sparce overstory were eastern cottonwood and American sycamore. Trees were few and far between at the wetland, but present indeed.
Eastern cottonwoods, Populus deltoides, have distinctly triangular shaped toothed leaves, flattened leaf stalks, and catkins for fruit. Their leaves are simple and alternate. The field guide below refers to the tree as common cottonwood.
American sycamore, Platanus occidentalis, are most notable for their peely multi-colored bark, that flakes off. American sycamores have the largest girth in North American trees. (Petrides, George A. 1972, A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs- The Peterson Field Guide Series) Their leaves, which resemble large maple leaves, are simple, lobed, and alternate. They differ from maple leaves due to their huge size, alternate (maples have opposite) arrangement, and stipules, which you can see on the preserved specimen below.
Cedar Ridge Picnic Area- the Woods
The woods consisted of a large variety in structure, from the ground cover up to the overstory. The woods were shady and vibrant, full of biodiversity. We were on the hunt for calciphiles- high pH/limestone-loving species. We were prosperous in our findings, meaning the soil must have limey substrates. There were plenty of calciphiles, as well as not! Some of the dominant ground cover species we saw included blue-stemmed golden rod, white snakeroot, and Canadian wild ginger. In the shrub layer we encountered fragrant sumac, prickly-ash, honeysuckle, autumn olive, spicebush, and more. Some of the dominant overstory trees included hackberry, blue ash, eastern redbud, chinquapin oak, flowering dogwood, shagbark hickory, and more! We also saw vines such as poison ivy and Virginia creeper.
Calciphile time!!
Hackberry, Celtis occidentalis, leaves are coarsely toothed, uneven at the base, alternate, and simple. Hackberries have very distinct, corky bark with deep ridges. Their twigs piths are chambered, at least near the leaf scars and bud scars are hairy. Also, they’re, and I quote, “in the same family as fricken canabis!”
Blue ash, Fraxinus quadrangulata, is a fan favorite ash to identify. Why you might ask? Their twigs are distinctly square shaped! Which is much more distinguishable than comparing leaf buds. Like all ashes, their leaves are pinnately compound and opposite. Their leaves are stalked and always toothed. The trunk is whitish and somewhat scaled.
Chinquapin oak, Quercus muehlenbergii, leaves have deeply rounded toothed margins, are simple, and alternate. Bark is light gray and often flaky. They are members of the white oak category, which is represented with the rounded lobes of the leaves. Twigs are hairless and acorns are cup bowl-shaped.
Eastern redbud, Cercis canadensis, have simple, entire, alternate, heart-shaped leaves. When in flower, the flowers are a bright pinkish-reddish color. The bark is dark with fine grooves, twigs are hairless and have false end buds. The tree itself is generally pretty small! Fruits are flat, dry legumes.
More calciphiles, just for the heck of it.
Natural History Note! White snakeroot, a perennial in the family Asteraceae, causes a disease called milk sickness. When cows would start to munch on the edge foliage of their pastures, they might end up eating some white snakeroot. This white snakeroot is highly toxic/poisonous to mammals. Unfortunately the toxins can be passed through cows milk to humans, explaining the name milk sickness. Milk sickness sadly took the life of Abraham Lincoln’s mom when she was just 35, and he was only 9.
Geobotany
Cedar bog (not a bog)
Fen
Cedar bog is not a bog because bogs clog and fens flush! Cedar bog was Ohio’s first nature preserve, and it is a pretty cool place if I do say so myself. The general function of fens is as such: Water enters the fen through precipitation/surface runoff/groundwater, this water then gets drained through small streams that flush the system, the groundwater contains limestone which makes the water alkaline and clear, allowing for sedges to grow! Cedar bog exists due to the glaciers oh so long ago. It is within the previously glaciated portion of the state, but it is extra special due to end moraines and an aquifer. End moraines are glacial hills that formed a line around cedar bog, leaving it in a valley. This valley is an aquifer that holds large quantities of cold ground water. All of this history allows for some pretty cool things to be grown at Cedar bog that are rare other places in Ohio! With over 500 plant species, there is so much to see and to learn.
The sedge meadow has open sunlight and abundant cool groundwater provides habitat for the greatest concentration of endangered and threatened plants. In the understory, we sighted grass of parnassus, Kalm’s lobelia, swamp lousewort, shrubby cinquefoil, Ohio goldenrod, sun dew, bladderwort, and more. In the overstory we saw trees such as swamp birch and poison sumac! As mentioned, cedar bog is home to many rare species. One way to quantify this is through the coefficient of conservatism for vascular plants. Here is a summary of the meaning of the coefficients:
Now, with this for reference, lets look at the coefficients of conservatism (CC) of some of the plants we saw in the fen!
Swamp forest
The cool temperatures created by the groundwater allow boreal trees to thrive at cedar bog, such as Northern white cedar trees who’s seeds were deposited by the glaciers themselves! The very space cedar bog sits was once home to mastodons, giant sloths, and beavers the size of bears. Along with the northern boreal plants, a global warming event introduced Atlantic coastal vegetation to cedar bog as well. How cool! The understory of the swamp forest boasted rough-leaved goldenrod, swap goldenrod, great Liberia, prickly-ash, false nettle, swamp thistle, multiflora rose (boo) and privet (hiss). The overstory had black ash, tuliptree, etc.
Natural History Note!
In the swamp forest we saw moonseed, a pretty, twining vine. It has berries that resemble grapes but are in fact, poisonous. However, if you are dying to eat some part of moonseed for some reason, tea made with the roots has been used to treat indigestion, arthritis, bowel disorders, and as a blood cleanser. Which, a blood cleanser sounds kinda scary to me! The name moonseed is very literal, as the seeds resemble small crescent moons.
