Fall Colors, Flagging invasive species

 If the recent rains haven't knocked all your fall leaves to the forest floor, this weekend may be your last chance to take in a color tour. Or if you have travel in mind, here is a link to a fall color travel map.

An Ohio forest in full Fall display.

 Here in Ohio we are lucky to be a part of that small percentage of the world which experiences these beautiful colors of leaves changing from green to yellow, orange and reds in response to cooler weather.  An experienced color watcher can develop a feeling for the composition of a woods by its colors.  Yellow is expressed by Hickories, Eastern Hop-hornbeam, and Hackberry.  Beech leaves turn to the warm color of copper.  Sassafras trees are total show-offs,  likely to range through color expressions of red, yellow and orange! University of Tennessee  offers a nice fall color chart, you can download here.

Fall is also a good time to identify invasive plants in your landscape.

 This photo documenting stunning pinks and reds dominating the fall forest, makes me wish I were just a little less forest-wise.  While most people enjoy this as a lovely display of color, land managers see this as a brewing problem in our natural areas.  The pink and red coloration is the tell-tale sign of a nasty invasive, non-native plant: Winged Burning Bush, Euonymus alatus.  It comes out the landscape plantings and spreads into natural areas. Unfortunately, for all its beauty, it becomes an aggressive colony which can quickly out-compete the woodland flowers and native shrubs.

Michael Woogerd attacks non-natives.

Since non-native plants get their competitive edge over native plants by holding their leaves longer in the fall and greening up first in the spring, those are ideal times to assess your natural areas and plantings at home.  If something appears excessively robust this late in the fall, that maybe a good indicator to take a second look!  Michael Woogerd, land manager for North Central Ohio Land Conservancy, attacks all of the Burning Bush which has crept onto land trust properties with great prejudice.  It can't hide its true colors in the fall!

Winter Creeper, a menace in green.

Some invasives are not so showy; they calmly head into winter in their glorious green. Winter Creeper, another euonymus, Euonymus fortunei is a particular problem at my own home.  It was the legacy of the previous owner who planted it as a "nice ground cover." Too bad it doesn't stay on the the ground!  It is given to climbing up trees and throwing seed to the wind. It is probably on every invasive list in the U.S.

Winter Creeper over-runs a natural area at Lakeside, Ohio.

Given a little room and some time, Winter creeper will gobble up any and all ground vegetation.  It has even strangled my Hosta specimens at home!  Ohio's delicate ephemeral flowers of the forest, like Trilliums and Spring Beauties, don't stand a chance against this "creep"!  Since this photo was taken, we have removed a portion of the Winter Creeper from this flagged transect. I plan to monitor which spring flowers will respond and reestablish themselves when given the opportunity.

Spring flowers will be a great reward for the little bit of work it took to remove a section of that nasty Winter Creeper!

Fernwood: a forest out of balance

The previous post featured the West Virginia White butterfly, a charming and altogether unexpected find at Fernwood State Forest. Unfortunately, an isolated rock dome named Little Round Top may be a last outpost in this "forest". Unlike the Ravens we sought, West Virginia Whites are weak fliers, doomed by habitat disturbance. Forest fragmentation and invasive plants are the primary causes for their decline.


Marginal Woodfern, Dryopteris marginalis was one of the few native species hanging on for dear life. If this was once a "Fernwood," the name has long outlived the reputation.

Many non-native species have taken hold, like Coltsfoot, Tussilago farfara, shown here eking out a living along a creek.

The creek color, tinged with Yellow Boy, tells the whole story: coal mining was here. If you are ever told the tale of "clean coal" you need look no further. Much of southern Ohio bleeds the orange of acid mine runoff. While student teaching in Athens' elementary schools, my daughter noted the children color the creeks orange in their artwork; the only color of water they have ever known.

Fernwood was strip-mined before the days of Federal standards for reclamation (i.e. The Wilds). Left to recover by its own devices, invasive species rule. The Armageddon of nature, Ailantus altissima or Tree-of-heaven, must come straight from hell, as it can endure anything. Honeysuckle, buckthorn, garlic mustard- looking for a noxious weed? Look no further. Once stripped of native soil, the non-natives move in.

And if it wasn't bad enough, the Forestry service helped them along with Russian Olive, another noxious and invasive weed. Too often these invasive plants provide attractive but non-nurturing fruit to birds but do not provide host material for our native insects, including lepidoptera. Caterpillars, the bio-mass most preferred by nesting birds, are a vitally important link in the food chain.

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So, we Weedpickers go on-and-on about invasive species and non-natives... it is not just a preference for our natural world. It is actually the life-line that holds our natural world together. Botany drives the wildlife, and geology drives botany. And strip-mined areas, become biological deserts filled with invasives. Coal has a long-term cost we haven't begun to measure.

Raining Iguanas

The recent cool temps in the Miami area had the locals in a tizzy. Most homes and apartments have no heat, what-so-ever. Normally the tropical climate makes it nearly impossible to live without an air-conditioner, but several days last week with highs in the 40's and 50's set all kinds of new cool-weather records.

And this is where the iguana comes in. Behold the non-native reptile common in the pet trade, and food source to some South American peoples. Like other invasive species, they have escaped captivity and found the local area rather hospitable. Their populations have swelled to numbers which negatively impact the flora and fauna of southern Florida and the Keys. It seems the iguanas have really taken a liking to Florida.

Only iguanas don't like the cold. In fact, they go into a torpor when the temps drop into the 30's. And as the lizard-like tree inhabitants chill out, they drift off to sleep, which in turn cause them to lose their grip on limbs. Hence, raining iguanas. Recently media covered this cold snap on the national news, and the iguanas found lying on the ground.

So what happens when someone collects a car-full of frozen iguanas, and then they all thaw? Yeah, follow that news link above to find out!

JJ Soski discovered this iguana flat-out beneath some shrubs on Biscayne Key. Was it in total torpor, or had this one passed on to death? It showed no signs of rigor mortise, but JJ protested that rigor mortis reaches maximum stiffness after 12 hours, and gradually dissipates after that. Yes, JJ is full of these bizarre and unusual scientific facts, it seems to be her specialty.

We decided to place the guy back under his tree in case he did survive the big sleep. But, interestingly enough, several birding groups were advising folks to kill the iguanas if they were found. What? Does that seem a bit harsh?

Iguanas are an invasive species, one that many parks do try to control. Some say they crawl about eating the eggs and young of native birds. Others claim iguanas eat the Yellow Nickerbean, Caesalpinia major the host plant to the federally endangered Miami Blue butterfly. Since they are mostly herbivores, there may be some fiction mixed in with the facts. Either way, it does seem strange to go about saving invasive species, and yet I could not bring myself to do it harm.

Our policy was not to interfere and let Mother Nature take her course; she is a whole lot smarter than me.