Battelle Darby and Cedar Bog

Battelle Darby Metro Park

Wet Prairie

A wet prairie, such as the one found at Battelle Darby Metro Park in Central Ohio, is a flat, low-lying landscape characterized by water-saturated soils and is dominate by grasses and forbs. The overstory layer is sparse, often featuring scattered trees like Eastern Cottonwoods and American Sycamores, which thrive in the typically saturated conditions. In the shrub layer, dense grasses and forbs such as big blue stem, sneezeweed, Indian grass, pile wort, tall boneset, goldenrods, and false white indigo provide structure and habitat for wildlife. The shrub layer is necessarily flush with the grass cover as the vertical structure doesn’t go much higher than the infrequent American Sycamore and Eastern Cottonwoods. Together, these layers create a diverse, water-adapted community that thrive in the unique wet prairie environment.

Eastern Cottonwood – Populus deltoides

Eastern Cottonwood Cutting: This is one of the two dominant woody plants seen in the wet prairie ecosystem at Battelle Darby Metro Park. Eastern Cottonwoods are easily distinguished by their alternately arranged and simple complexity leaves with toothed margins. Growing from flattened petioles, these leaves often wave around rapidly in the wind. If you ever pass a waving Eastern Cottonwood, make sure to be polite and always wave back!

American Sycamore – Platanus occidentalis

American Sycamore: The American Sycamore is known to be a giant; however, in the wet prairie they are often much smaller than we are used to seeing them. These trees can be identified by their alternately arranged leaves and simple complexity. Their leaves often resemble that of a much larger maple, but don’t be mistaken as maples are oppositely arranged.

Big Bluestem – Andropogon gerardii

Big Bluestem: Another name for this beauty is turkey foot as it’s seed heads have three spikelets that resemble that of a turkey’s foot. These are heavily abundant in the wet prairie and are noticeable as they peak up above much of the over shrubs and have that blueish-purple tint to them. This is a grass, which is different than a sedge because grasses don’t have edges, and they have an open leaf sheath as opposed to a closed one.

Common Sneezeweed – Helenium autumnale

Common Sneezeweed: This forb consists of a radiate capitulum where disc flowers create a giant yellowish-green ball and the yellow ray flowers surrounding it droop downwards to the ground.

Woodlands

In the woodland ecosystem at Battelle Darby Metro Park, the landscape is gently rolling with a mix of upland and lowland areas, where soils are rich in limestone and of a high pH – making this place rich in calciphiles! The overstory consists of a dense canopy formed by tall, deciduous trees like sugar maples, red elms, hackberries, ashes, eastern red cedars, eastern redbuds, Chinquapin oaks, American basswoods, ironwoods, and eastern hophornbeams. In the shrub layer, species such as spicebush and pawpaw, Witch Hazel, honeysuckle, autumn olive, common prickly-ash and flowering dogwood thrive in the dappled sunlight. The ground cover is a diverse mix of shade-tolerant plants, including bluestem goldenrods, sanicula, white snakeroot, and Canadian wild ginger, which carpet the forest floor.

Blue Ash – Fraxinus quadrangulata

Blue Ash: With similarly oppositely arranged and pinnately compound leaves as other ashes, blue ash stands out with its uniquely squared off bark. As noted in the picture above, you can see how the bark is ridged to form a rectangular prism of sorts that makes it easily identifiable among the ashes and other calciphiles in this woodland ecosystem.

Common Prickly-Ash – Xanthoxylum americanum

Common Prickly-Ash: Also similar to the ash leaves, common-prickly ash is identifiable by its thorns surrounding twigs and branches.

Common Prickly-Ash: Also helpful to identify this plant is its bright orange buds! Fun fact, the common prickly-ash is actually not an ash, it is part of the citrus family!

Hackberry – Celtis occidentalis

Hackberry: Another calciphile, hackberries have deeply furrowed bark that makes it quite unique! You may recall from our last webpage the leaves are ob-ovate and asymmetrical at the petiole attachment. These are one of the most easily recognizable trees in my opinion!

Eastern Red Cedar – Juniperus virginiana

Eastern Red Cedar – Leaves are scale-like, but not flat like other cedars. You can often find them with their fruit on them like this one here! Their fruit is called Juniper and fun fact, is used to make gin. Juniper, Giniper, Gin…makes sense!

While the Battelle Darby Metro Park is home to many special calciphiles, it unfortunately also houses easily adaptable invasive species too

Invasive: Autumn Olive – Elaeagnus umbellata

Autumn Olive: This invasive plant is identified by its alternate and simple leaves, but more uniquely its silvery and sometimes speckled undersides of its leaves. It also produces red fruits that look like that of a honeysuckle (another invasive) or a flowering dogwood (native).

Natural History Note: One species we identified in our walk through the woodlands was poison ivy. Poison Ivy is loathed by many gardeners or outdoor explorers as its oils cause an allergic reaction that produces itchy red rashes across the contaminated area. Beware and Be aware of how to identify it so you may avoid it in the future. Poison Ivy has trifoliate leaves (leaves of three), aerial roots, meaning it often climbs trees and shrubs, and lastly has collective white drupes, which are an important food for lots of animals not impacted by the allergens.

Poison Ivy – Toxicodendron radicans

Cedar Bog (that is not a bog)

Sedge Meadow and Swamp Forest

Cedar Bog in Ohio, despite its name, is a fen, not a true bog. Characterized by a unique landscape that blends swamp forest and sedge meadow habitats, the physical environment of this fen is shaped by constant groundwater seepage, which is rich in calcium and other minerals from the underlying limestone. Shaped by glaciation in the last Ice Age, presence of unique plants, such as boreal species like the northern white cedar and various orchids are abundant here, yet rare in the rest of Ohio as the seed bank deposited a unique array of plants that thrive in the fens cool temperature. This alkaline, nutrient-rich, and water-saturated landscape, supports a diverse array of plant species amongst its sedge meadow and swamp forest. The overstory in the swamp forest consists of trees like northern white cedar, black cherry, tulip tree, black ash and Chinquapin oaks. In the shrub layer, species such as spice bush, poison sumac, common-prickly-ash, and hop tree create a dense understory. The grass cover in the sedge meadow is dominated by a mix of goldenrods, prairie dock, lobelia species, and many other unique grasses and forbs.

Swamp Thistle – Cirsium muticum

Swamp Thistle: A fairly unique plant to the Cedar Bog, this plant’s coefficient of conservatism is 8!

Shrubby Cinquefoil – Dasiphora fruticosa

Shrubby Cinquefoil – HOLY SMOKES! This one has a coefficient of conservatism of 10! Super exciting to see!

Black Ash – Fraxinus Nigra

Black Ash: Neato! Black-Ash has a coefficient of conservatism of 7. So not totally rare, but still a fun find! One interesting thing to note, you can tell black ash apart from the other ashes because its leaflets are sessile!

Brook Lobelia – Lobelia kalmii

Brook Lobelia: This dainty little forb has a coefficient of conservatism of 9!

Natural History Note: The Cedar Bog (Fen) was home to some unique woody vine species. In the Swamp Forest we were able to spot some beautiful native moonseed, named for its crescent shaped seeds. In the Sedge Meadow, a large presence of Virgin’s Bauer was seen, and although a fun and fuzzy looking plant, it is actually invasive and crowding out some of the important native species.

Ohio State nav bar