Trees in Delaware River floodplain near Frenchtown NJ

I wrote a few days about my walk along the Delaware River south of Frenchtown NJ along the Delaware and Raritan Canal Towpath. Now I am not a Forester or otherwise an expert at tree identification, I am an amateur at this. And I have books that I use to help me. In particular, I found this book in our home library a few days ago:

Collins, Reryl Robichaud and Karl H. Anderson. 1994. Plant Communities of New Jersey: A study in Diversity. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.

They have a chapter on freshwater wetlands in northern New Jersey. While not specifically describing the Delaware River floodplains, perhaps because it forms the western border of NJ and PA, they do describe the floodplains of a river that is in the same physiographic region of NJ. Broadly speaking there are four physiographic regions in New Jersey, the portion of the Delaware River that I visit and the town I live in are in the piedmont region.

Collins and Anderson describe the plants located in the floodplain of the Raritan River in the piedmont regions. Two of the trees that they say are found in these floodplains are the River Birch, and the Sycamore. The links that I have provided are from a wetlands plants database from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They have a web interface that allows you to narrow your search of wetlands plants to your specific state and by plant type. If you are so inclined, check out the information provided on each of the links I provided for River Birches and Sycamores.

Speaking of Sycamores, I got to know Sycamores because they were numerous Sycamore trees located in the Hundson County town where we used to live. They line many of the residential streets in this town, and are also located in the parks, including the green area along the Passaic River.

I wrote about these two trees, because these were the common trees located in the region between the towpath that we were walking on and the Delaware River. Other trees that we saw were species of Maple and Oak, Hickory and/or Ash and Sweet Gum.

A word about Hickory and Ash. Both have what are known as compound leaflets (5 to 9 leaves). For more information on leaf terminology, see this webpage. There is an important but perhaps subtle difference between the leaf structure of Hickories and Ashes. I'm not sure that I can explain this in any way that will make sense. You will have to trust me that this difference can make it sometimes difficult to distinguish between Ash and Hickories, at least for me. Any tree guide, I have several tree guides including some very good guides put out by the Audubon Society, will have a chapter where they discuss various leaf types and other basic terminology used to identify trees.

Anyway, it was hard for me to distinguish between Ash and Hickory because the foiliage was too high for me to distinguish between the leaf structures of Ashes v Hickories. As for identifying trees by their bark, I am getting better, but it is still hard, sometimes requiring more study. Having read up on Ash and Hickories on my tree guides, when we go back, I may be better able to distinguish between the two.

Walking along the Delaware River

We are frequent visitors to the Delaware River in Hunterdon County, NJ. Usually someowhere between Frenchtown and Washington's Crossing. We pick a spot, park our car and walk for an hour or more usually along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. We share the path with bicyclists and the occasional jogger.

Given how much I love trees, I have been bothered that I have not been paying much mind to the trees that we pass. So, this week I paid attention to the trees as we walked. Given that this area is in a floodplain along a major river in the Piedmont section of northern New Jersey, I had an idea of what to find. And later ran through my list cross checking it with my Audubon tree guides and a book I have on NJ Plant Communities.

I would not call myself an expert at tree identification. When most of the tree is tall and most of the foliage is upwards of twenty feet or more high, it is sometimes hard for me to identify a tree off of the leaf structure. But between my friend and I, we at least have a good idea of some of the major trees that we saw on this walk. I'll write about these later, with links to pictures and the like.

I wish I was brave enough to wonder through the undergrowth between the canal path and the River to poke and get a closer look at the trees. However, the thick undergrowth of poison ivy discouraged me. And I was wearing shorts.

So, stay tuned . . .

Ballons

I'm taking a short break from my writings on the Pine Barrens, in part because I need to finish up another writing project. So, I thought I'd take this opportunity to post some photographs that I took at the 2006 and 2008 Quick Check Festival of Ballooning at Solberg Airport in New Jersey.

Brendan T. Byrne State Forest

In recent years almost every day trip we have made to the Pine Barrens involves a visit to the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest (formerly Lebanon State Forest). We first visited this forest sometime in the late 1980s during our annual late summer visits to relatives with a summer home in a nearby town. I expect that it was during this time that we were first introduced to the 49.5 mile Batona Trail.

The Baton Trail goes through the Byrne State Forest and its terminus is in nearby Ongs Hat, a short drive from the forest office. In addition to this trail, there are a couple of other trails in the forest. The trails go through a pine/oak forest, along side a pond known as pakim pond and an atlantic white cedar swamp. We have hiked in all these areas but I only have digital photos of the pine/oak forest within two miles of the forest office.

I don’t have pictures of Pakim Pond, but I did find this set of photos of pakim pond on the flikr site. These photos are incredible, of much better quality then anything I could do with my little digital camera. These photos are almost as good as being there in person, if not better.

In my recent wonderings on the internet, I found that the NJ Forest Service has an initiative to restore Atlantic White Cedars. Information on this initiative can be found here, and here is a related site, a paper on restoring the Atlantic Whites.

fort dix fire contained

The small fire in a remote section of Fort Dix that was burning last Thursday while we were in the Pine Barrens was contained either last Thursday night (Aug. 28) or early on Friday morning (Aug. 29).

See this news account.