Visit to a Hemlock Ravine

I only discovered the Wescott Nature Preserve, one of the preserves managed by the Hunterdon County Dept. of Parks and Recreation a couple of months ago. The preserve is bisected by the Locatong Creek. And includes one of the few stands of Hemlocks in the County.

I took a walk down into the Hemlock ravine yesterday. In the mud. And I loved every minute of it. The photos were taken in early November, but it looks about the same in mid-February. Walking in the mud along the Creek amongst the Hemlocks, I felt rejuvenated and peaceful. As I write about this place, I am going traveling back to the ravine, and again feel peace.

I needed the shot of peace after spending much of the afternoon trying to learn about airtanker contracts.

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.

Dwarf Pitch Pines

I have already mentioned that what makes the pine plains unique are the dwarf pitch pines (pinus rigida Mill.) that stand about five feet tall. Also present in the pine plains are blackjack oak (Quercu marilandica Muenchh.) and scrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia Wang.). The pine plains ecosystem is specially adapted to fire.

The authors of the first chapter in Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands (B. R. Collins, N.F. Good, and R. E. Good) provide a good explanation of the relationship between the dwarf pitch pines and fire. In the pine plains, the dwarf or pigmy pitch pine has adapted to fire in that the seed bearing cones are closed or serotinous. These “serotinous” cones open only in high heat of the sort that occurs during a fire.

The distinctive character of this dwarf forest is probably the result of very frequent fires over hundreds or even thousands of years. Under such conditions the tree oaks, which are not found in the dwarf forest, would not have been able to maintain themselves, because they bear viable seed only on stems twenty years or more in age. The pitch pines present in this forest are genetically differentiated from other populations of the species. They are less upright, of shorter growth form, and produce cones at an earlier age. Unlike other pitch pines, whose cones open top disperse seed normalyy at maturity, the pitch pines growing in the dwarf forest have closed (or serotinous) cones that open to dispers seed only at high temperatures, such as those occurring during a fire (B. R. Collins, N.F. Good, and R. E. Good “The Landscape of the Pine Barrens”, p.15, in Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands: A New Direction in Land-Use Management edited by B.R. Collins and W.B. Russell, New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press. 1988).

See this link for images of the pine plains taken just after a fire, along with images of growth after the fire.

A more detailed description of the pitch pine, including sections on fire ecology, is found on this usda webpage.