Category Archives: botany

author - Scallen, birding, botany, Call to action

A Letter to Forks of the Credit Provincial Park Seeking Preservation of Meadows 2016

Leave a comment

Attention: Jill Van Niekerk, Superintendent of Forks of the Credit Provincial Park

Forks of the Credit Provincial Park contains many hectares of old field habitat, resulting from the abandonment of agricultural land. These expansive meadows provide habitat to a diversity of flora and fauna including a number of species at risk.

Meadowlarks (threatened) nest here. Bobolinks (threatened) use the extensive old field habitat for foraging before fall migration. Bank Swallows (threatened), nest in adjacent quarry operations and forage over the meadows. Monarch butterflies (special concern) lay eggs on the abundant milkweed and nectar on the profusion of asters, goldenrods and other old field wildflowers.

Beyond these species at risk are a number of plants and birds at FCPP that are locally uncommon. Among the plants are Hoary Vervain (Verbena stricta), Foxglove Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) and Amethyst Aster (Symphyotrichum x amethystinus). Locally uncommon birds, supported by the old field habitat, include clay-colored sparrow and orchard oriole.

According to Biodiversity in Ontario’s Greenbelt, a document released by The David Suzuki Foundation and Ontario Nature in November 2011, “only 441 hectares of the Greenbelt is covered by grasslands – far less than one per cent of the entire plan area.” The Nature Conservancy of Canada states that “Grassland bird species have shown steeper, more geographically widespread and more consistent decline than any other category of North American species.”

According to the Bobolink and Meadowlark Recovery Strategy prepared by the Government of Ontario in 2013 “Over the most recent ten year period, it is estimated that the Bobolink population has declined by an annual average rate of 4% which corresponds to a cumulative loss of 33%. Over the same period Eastern Meadowlark populations have declined at an average annual rate of 2.9% (cumulative loss of 25%).”

Although various factors are responsible for these declines, the loss of old field and grassland habitat in Ontario is widely acknowledged to be one of the major drivers.

FCPP is gradually reverting to woodland. Over three decades of observation by HNPN club members, this transition has been very evident. Without human intervention, the ecologically valuable old field habitat and the diverse flora and fauna that it supports, will eventually be lost.

Our club recognizes that species diversity depends in large part on habitat diversity. We are supportive of the maintenance of a mosaic of habitats at FCPP. Extensive forest in the valley of the Credit River should clearly be protected. The current meadowlands merit protection as well, which will necessarily entail some measure of active landscape management. Areas of shrubby growth – also very important habitat – should be maintained as well.

The Forks of the Credit Provincial Park Management Plan published in 1990 by the then Ministry of Natural Resources (Now Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry) appears aligned with the concerns of the Halton/North Peel Naturalist Club. Article 3.0 reads: The goal of Forks of the Credit Provincial Park is to protect the park’s outstanding natural, cultural and recreational environments and to provide a variety of outdoor recreation opportunities. The existing old field habitat has both natural and cultural value.

A specific protection objective of the FCPP management plan (Article 4.1) is to protect the park’s six species of vascular plants which are regionally rare. Only one of these plants – Aster pilosus – is listed in the management plan, but the other five may include other plants that depend on open meadow habitat to grow.

The Forks of the Credit Management Plan also includes a commitment for managing a portion of the upland meadow complex as open landscape. An entry under Vegetation Management (Article 7.2) reads: The vegetation of the field in the Natural Environment Zone in the eastern plateau will be managed (i.e., periodic mowing and/or burning) to maintain the open character of this rolling landscape. Care must be taken to protect a representative portion of the old field succession, for interpretive purposes as well as to maintain the regionally rare plant, Aster pilosus.

As cited earlier there are several other significant species of plants, birds and insects, also dependent on the old field habitat of FCPP, that merit protection. The Halton/North Peel Naturalist Club calls on Ontario Parks to act on the provisions of article 7.2. to maintain this old field habitat.

With Forks of the Credit Provincial Park there is an opportunity to help conserve a significant expanse of old field habitat that is critical to the future of at-risk species. There is an opportunity as well to educate users through interpretive initiatives (signs, display boards, publications) about the critical importance of grasslands and old field habitat for biodiversity.

With respect,

Don Scallen,

President, Halton/North Peel Naturalist Club

RELATED: Grand River Conservation Authority “Grassland for bobolinks in the central Grand”

author - Scallen, botany

Beech trees

Leave a comment

By Don Scallen –

The smooth gray bark of beech trees evokes elephant skin, making beech strikingly unique among the large trees of the forest. This smooth bark sometimes offers signs of mammals that have passed by: claw marks left by climbing bears, or declarations of love etched by romantic humans.

beechbarkBeechnuts nourish wildlife. This bounty, properly referred to as “mast,” once fed legions of passenger pigeons. Where beech trees and black bears co-exist, the bears cling to the trunks and pull branches towards them to feast on the nuts, inadvertently tangling the branches to form structures fancifully referred to as “bear nests”.

Beech trees offer not only food, but also housing to wild creatures. Pileated wood-peckers chisel nesting holes into them. Other tenants, including flying squirrels, move in when the woodpeckers move out.

Woodlands in parts of southern Ontario were once referred to as maple-beech forests. Beech, like sugar maple – but unlike oak and pine – can grow in very shady conditions. This allowed beech, along with sugar maple, to dominate mature deciduous woodlands.
No more. Beech are being destroyed at heart-breaking speed by an introduced pathogen called beech bark disease.

The demise of beech goes largely unnoticed by people who don’t hike in the woods; this because beech trees seldom grow in the open. They require the shade, moisture and shelter of the forest’s embrace.

Beech trees also likely depend on soil-born forest fungi. Many trees, and other woodland plants, have a mutualistic, “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”, relationship with fungi. The fungi take carbohydrates from tree roots and, in return, help the roots absorb water and minerals.

Regardless, the forest disposition of beech trees means you won’t see their bleached bones on the open landscape as you do elm trees. The glorious beech trees with the elephant-skin bark, die largely unmourned as they tilt towards the fate of the passenger pi-eons they once fed.

botany

Wildflowers in the woods

Leave a comment

It’s a wonderful time to get out into the woods around Halton Hills. The spring ephemerals are in full bloom and putting on a beautiful show after a long, hard winter.

White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)
White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)
Red Trillium (Trillium erectum)
Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum)
Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum)
Spring Beauty (Claytonia caroliniana)
author - Wallis, botany

Trilliums of our Watershed

Red Trillium (Photo: Leanne Wallis, CVC)
Red Trillium (Photo: Leanne Wallis, CVC)

It’s a lovely time of year to get outside for a romp through a nearby forest. By braving the mud and puddles, you can often be rewarded by some solitude from the regular summer and fall crowds, and wildflowers in spring are quite a sight.

One of the best-known flowers of spring is the White Trillium (Trillium grandiflora), our provincial flower. In fact, if you encounter any Trillium in our watershed, it is likely to be this one. Its large petals give it an alternate name of Large-flowered Trillium. Its petals are the longest of the four trilliums in our watershed. Its petals are indeed white, but can take on a pinkish hue with age. It is found in rich deciduous woods and often grows so abundantly as to appear to carpet the forest floor.

In addition to White Trillium, three other species are found in our watershed: Red Trillium, Painted Trillium and Nodding Trillium. Red Trillium (Trillium erectum) is the second-most common Trillium species in our watershed. It has brilliant crimson petals and is a thrill to encounter. It is reported to have a bad odour, giving it the alternate name of Stinking Benjamin. It is found in moist woods.

Painted Trillium and Nodding Trillium are quite rare in our watershed. In fact, I’m aware of only one location for Nodding Trillium, which is on private land a few kilometres from Caledon Lake. Painted Trillium is also quite rare in our watershed. It was known from only a historic record (1947) for our watershed until quite recently, but Natural Areas Inventory field work done since 2008 has found this species in three natural areas, one of which is Caledon Lake (NAI field work also made the Nodding Trillium observation). Nodding and Painted Trilliums are species of moist woods.

Trilliums are perennials that grow each spring from underground rhizomes. They are long-lived with White Trillium able to live at least 70 years. White Trillium flowers are primarily pollinated by bumble-bees and their seeds are dispersed by ants.

The Natural Areas Inventory (NAI) carries out vegetation community mapping, and performs flora and fauna inventories throughout the Credit River Watershed and Region of Peel. 2012 will be our 5th field season. If fellow naturalists are aware of any locations of Nodding or Painted Trillium in our coverage area, I’d be happy to hear about it.

Leanne Wallis
Credit Valley Conservation

author - McIlveen, botany

Results of Monitoring Late-flowering Plants in Halton Hills, 2002-2011

The impact of climate on the biota of an area can be manifested in a number of ways. One possible effect of global warming and climate change in general is that the growing season could be extended. We can measure temperature changes easily enough but the effect of the temperature changes may not be immediately apparent. In part, this is because the changes will be gradual and small but changes are obscured by annual and daily variations. One means of assessing the long-term influence of climate changes is to follow the phenological changes in the flora. This could include such things as documenting the dates of first flowers (anthesis) or bud breaks of tree leaves. In the present investigation, we have chosen to record the dates when open or viable flowers are still present on plants in the area late into the season. This can be taken as one measure of a late growing season. It is not possible to know the exact date when an individual flower is no longer viable. In reality, the probability that the late-flowering blooms could be fertilized and go on to produce seed is rather low; however, the monitoring of such flowers over a period of time should provide a measure of the change in growing season dates.

Each autumn from 2002 until 2011, members of the Halton/North Peel Naturalist Club have conducted a survey of the plants still in flower in the latter part of November. The exact dates of the survey are indicated in Table 1. The dates ranged between November 14 and November 26. The exact locations of the survey have changed somewhat each year; however, the Willow Park Ecology Centre and the Lucy Maude Montgomery Garden in Norval have been checked every year. In the earlier years, the woods near the Georgetown Fair Grounds were examined while more recently the survey route included the Dominion Seed House Park. As well, incidental observations of flowering plants in parts of Georgetown have been added to the list.

Table 1. Survey dates and number of plant species in flower in Halton Hills, 2002-2011
Table 1. Survey dates and number of plant species in flower in Halton Hills, 2002-2011

Species observed still flowering on the survey dates are included in Table 2. The number of species in flower observed has fluctuated from year to year (Figure 1) but there is general trend to larger numbers over time. In part, the trend might have been influenced by the choice of sites visited; however, other factors such as site management at Willow Park and natural succession of species within an area likely played a mitigating role as well. Overall, the survey documented as few as 11 species still in bloom in 2003 and as high as 41 in 2009.

The vast majority of the 108 species on the list (Table 2) are cultivated garden species along with several species generally regarded as introduced weeds. The cultivated garden species includes several that are native species that have been purposely planted. Only about 10% of the species on the list are ones that are both native and endemic to the area. Only two species, Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) and Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) were found flowering every year. Other commonly encountered species (6 to 8 years each) were Yellow Chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria), Calendula (Calendula officinalis), Garden Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum hybrid sp.), Wormseed Mustard (Erysimum chieranthoides), Scentless Chamomile (Matricaria perforata), Canker Rose (Rosa canina), Common Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris), Tall White Aster (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum), and New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae- angliae). Interestingly, all of the species on the most common list except for the Wormseed Mustard and the rose are members of the composite family.

Figure 1. Number of plant species observed flowering in late November surveys in Halton Hills, 2002- 2011
Figure 1. Number of plant species observed flowering in late November surveys in Halton Hills, 2002- 2011

A survey of this type on its own cannot be expected to demonstrate that climate change is having a significant impact on the length of the growing season. In combination with many other surveys though, the data set will be more robust in demonstrating that a change is indeed occurring. This effort is a small contribution towards that end.

by W.D. McIlveen
Halton/North Peel Naturalist Club