The woodland at Battelle Darby is a high pH forest filled with lyme-loving plants. The over-story consists of sugar maple and shagbark hickory, hackberry and sumac in the shrub layer and white snakeroot and wild ginger as ground cover.
One calciphile found at Battelle Darby is Celtis occidentalis or American Hackberry. It has long pointed toothed leaves and bark with dark warty knobs and ridges.
Another lyme-loving plant is fragrant sumac with large, toothed leaves that are fragrant when crushed.
A special lime-loving plant we saw at Battelle Darby was blue ash, with opposite pinnately compound leaves, in sets of 7-11 leaflets. It also has characteristically square twigs.
Another calciphile is Ulmus rubra or slippery elm, with double toothed, rough leaves and a slimy inner bark, hence the name.
Another plant in Battelle Darby that is helpful to identify is bush honeysuckle. Bush honeysuckle is an aggressive non-native plant that spreads through the brush layer of forests. It is identifiable by its opposite simple leaves similar to dogwood, red berries and white flowers, and a hollow pith.