Final visit to the shale barrens

My internship has concluded and it was a very good experience.  I had to leave earlier than I expected, which meant I didn’t get to visit every place in the park I wanted to, but things happen.  Perhaps I will visit again.  I found over 20 new populations of state-listed plants in the canal including 4 entirely new rare species.  I also found a population of Ptilimnium nodosum (Harperella) which is a federally-endangered plant.  Check out my previous entry for more details on that find.

I learned a lot about managing a large database of rare plants.  The amount of rare plant records for this park meant that I couldn’t possibly survey for all of them in one field season.  One challenge was prioritizing which plants to survey for.  I gravitated towards the shale barren habitats within the park.  I found these to be the most interesting to survey.

My last trip into the field was to survey a shale barren habitat.  I found a new population of the globally-vulnerable (G3) Trifolium virginicum.  This is one of the discoveries I was most excited about.  I can’t quite explain it but I really enjoy seeing this plant.  On this field trip I found a population with newly established clumps and one clump that had seedlings sprouting.  I was pretty excited when I saw this and considered it a fitting end to my internship experience at the Chesapeake and Ohio National Historical Park.

img_9293

Trifolium virginicum. One clump of a new population I found on my last day of field surveying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

img_9294

This picture shows the habit of the seed heads to hang down around the base of the plants. They blend in very well with the shale talus.

 

img_9296

This is a closer view of the seed heads. If you look closely you can see the seedlings sprouting.

 

Coleman Minney

Field Botany Intern

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.