The Olentangy Trail separates main campus from West campus and quite a bit of construction has been taking place over the past few semesters. With seed-planted dirt and wood-chip-filled barricades between the trail and the vegetative area before the river, this was a unique site that had all the invasives expected of a site so close to the city and a surprising variety of wildflowers. There were both meadow-like situations on the banks of the river and some forested areas, which were both sampled. Nonetheless, the biodiversity was relatively good for the proximity to campus and the city, and provides a pleasant escape from the concrete jungle.
While I failed to find any within my study area, poison ivy is always a good thing to look out for! With a hairy vine, lobed leaves of three, and sometimes-visible white berries, poison ivy is a recognizable and avoidable plant. It has roots jutting out from the stem of the woody vine and attaching it to the bark of any tree close enough. The poison ivy produces an irritating and reaction-inducing oil on any of its surfaces; I am currently lucky enough to lack a reaction to this oil right now, but the oils are building up on me, preparing to inflict a proper reaction one day!
NEW FLOWERING/FRUITING PLANTS
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This plant is reportedly native to Britain and endangered there, as it can be locally overabundant and a weed. This specimen is very small in comparison to a fully grown specimen.
Source = Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland
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This plant can induce vomiting and hallucinations. There was a family that accidentally consumed soup with leaves in it, which sounds absolutely crazy, as it must have been in the mother’s garden when she was preparing ingredients for the soup.
Source = National Library of Medicine
NEW TREE SPECIES
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Cottonwoods act well as windbreaks and soil stabilizers, which is very interesting, as one of their ID-characteristics involves how their leaves interact with wind. I often used to look out the window to see the “cotton” floating down from these trees and imagine or fool myself into thinking it was snow—that winter had come early.
Source: Southern Research Station USDA
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This tree is well-known among birdwatchers as the preferred habitat of Yellow-throated Warblers and it attracts many more warblers past that one species. When birds migrate by, sycamores and hackberries are the first places my eyes are drawn to on a walk.
NEW VINES/SHRUBS
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One of the most interesting things, in my opinion, about this plant aside from the ecological function provided by its greenery and fruit is that its scientific name originates from an Aesop’s fable that perpetuated the fox being particularly fond of grapes! Foxes are opportunists, so I would not be surprised to see one snacking on the fruits in the least.
Source = Missouri Department of Conservation
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The Korean Mulberry is a known treatment of diabetes and an introduced, cultivated tree from Asia.
Source = iNaturalist
INVASIVES
This well-known invasive originates from the Amur River Basin in China and Russia, where is lives out its years peacefully. In America, a different story is told as it vigorously chokes out other plants all over the Midwest. From woods to prairies to wetlands, honeysuckle has its leaves everywhere. It is a habitat generalist, as is true for many invasives, and leafs out before most, if not all, natives. Digging up Amur honeysuckle proves effective and a cut-and-apply method with Roundup herbicide works well in most seasons, excepting the spring.
Source:
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This plant originated from Europe when settlers brought them over to feel more at home. This is now a pervasive weed wherever men go, particularly in disturbed grasslands nearer to urban areas. Removing them fully, including the taproot, is a wonderful way to eradicate them from an area without pesticides, but this must be done before the plant goes to seed.
Source = University of California Agriculture
This plant was likely brought to the US as shipping packaging from China and attack forests and edges in the US. This plant can be managed by preventing the creation of seedheads, as the seeds are fertile for a very long time. If the seeds cannot be produced, the population quickly declines.
Source = North Carolina State Extension
This plant originates in Eurasia or Africa and is widespread around the North American continent now as an invasive species capitalizing off of the draining of the soils conducted by mankind. They are often found in poor-quality soils and in disturbed habitat. Fire management is the best control of this invader.
Source = US Forest Service
FRUITS
The Osage Orange fruit is so recognizable to me that I am not sure I even know how to identify it based off of leaves! The aggregate of drupelets stuck out like a sore thumb in the foliage around. I could smell the tree as I walked by it.
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This tree is a childhood memory, as I recall using the berries to make a mock-poultice when playing pretend in my backyard and stacking the seeds within the fruit in a separate pile from my “mortar and pestle” (a rock and another rock). If you had asked 8-10 year old Holly what I had found, I would have said “Berries!” Now, though, I know better. These are drupes. Their pasty white colour is pretty distinctive and I do not know of another tree with anything similar. Those paired with the magenta-chestnut inflorescence stems identify this tree down to species.
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This was a tree I had not previously been acquainted with and took a bit of research to learn what it was. The fruits, which could not be seen from their cone-like protectors, are in fact samaras. The scaly exteriors of the cone-like structures make me think of pangolins and the classic image of an ankylosaurus. Looking back at my pictures, they might be able to be used in one of those picture books that are conglomerations and collages of objects being used to depict other objects. They would be fantastic trees. The cones combined with the spent flowers are distinctive of the black alder.
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At first glance, the pods on this tree struck me as peculiar, because I would have pegged them as redbud legumes with a funny shape. These are dry legumes, just like a redbud’s. This pod is distinctive from the honey locust’s based on size alone, but also it lacks the characteristic wavy swirl of a honey pod. The rounded, irregular shape distinguishes this fruit from that of the eastern redbud.
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Another legume! The eastern redbud are distinct from any other fruit by their regular, snow-pea shape (but terribly thin) and the thick clusters jutting out from the bark. The strange positioning of these dry legumes are caused, predictably, by the recognizable flowers that grow from the branches and trunk directly. It creates quite the comical picture!
THREE LICHEN AND ONE MOSS
On this tree, one can see the bright Hooded Sunburst Lichen, the smaller and dimmer coloured Lemon Lichen, and what I believe is the grey-green of Hammered Shield Lichen or Common Greenshield Lichen, though I am unsure for that one.
