Volume 71 — Issue 4 (Dec 2006)

Three-birds orchid, Triphora trianthophora, is among the more enigmatic species of orchids in eastern North America. A rediscovery of the species in Greene County, Ohio in 1997, was followed by an opportunistic survey conducted during a tremendous bloom in 1998, wherein 2,426 flowering stalks were recorded during three survey dates. The species was found to occur in cluster-type populations and atypically did not occur within deep humus or mature forest habitat. Subsequent visits in 1999-2005 did not observe a similar large bloom. With the possible exception of two known sites in West Virginia, the population at Glen Helen Nature Preserve is the largest known in the upper Midwestern states.

Based on surveys of the literature and herbaria, including internet-available herbarium databases (“virtual herbaria”), plus recent collections, the lichen flora of the Piedmont of North Carolina, USA, consists of 338 taxa representing 110 genera in 41 families including three taxa of uncertain position. Broken down by habit, the flora is 32% crustose, 47% foliose, and 21% fruticose. This report presents the first lichen checklist for the North Carolina Piedmont. Twenty-two taxa are reported as new for the state, including the genera Gyalecta, Lichinia and Sarcogyne.

Huggins Island, a Significant Natural Heritage Area in Onslow County, North Carolina, was incorporated into Hammocks Beach State Park in 1999. The 60 ha island has a long history of human activity, exemplified by shell middens, a Civil War earthen fortification, and farm clearings. An inventory of the flora from 2001-2005 found 192 species of vascular plants in 148 genera and 75 families. Thirteen species were new county records, and five species were Significantly Rare in North Carolina. Thirteen species of exotics occurred, 10 of which are invasive in the Southeast. Eleven major plant communities were recognized, including previously recognized, globally rare, maritime swamp forest. The largest community was maritime evergreen forest, and the most species rich was shell midden community. Few signs of human habitation and farming were visible, but most of the upland had storm damage, likely resulting from a series of hurricanes from the mid-1990s.

The Fringed Catchfly (or Fringed Campion) is a rare perennial herb of mesic woodlands, found in a few locations in west-central and southwest Georgia and central panhandle Florida. Though known in recent decades as Silene polypetala (Walter) Fernald & Schubert (Caryophyllaceae), examination of the original publication, as well as a presumed type, shows the plant to be misnamed, with its correct name to be Silene catesbaei Walter.

Presently Acer saccharum (sugar maple) dominates the overstory of Baber Woods Nature Preserve with an importance value (IV) of 75.4 (possible 200), more than half the total density (148.4 of 289.4 stems/ ha), and numerous individuals in the smaller diameter classes. Second is Quercus alba (white oak) with an IV of 45.9, one-third of the basal area (9.28 of 26.95 m2/ha), which dominates the larger diameter classes, and averages 56.9 cm dbh. Total IV for all oaks combined was 64, and 30 for all hickories combined. Since Baber Woods was first surveyed in 1965, sugar maple has continued to increase in importance, with a corresponding decrease in the importance of oaks and hickories. Data suggest that this woodlot was an open white oak savanna in presettlement time. Fire suppression has resulted in canopy closure and an increase in shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive mesic species like sugar maple.

As part of a mitigation plan, we transplanted a clone of the endangered Michaux’s sumac (Rhus michauxii) from an imperiled site to two lightly-forested sites. Using hand trowels, we removed 96 aboveground shoots with adjacent roots and 120 m of connecting root material. We wanted to determine whether Michaux’s sumac can be successfully transplanted both from above-ground shoots with roots and from roots only, whether direct out-planting or recovery in a greenhouse prior to out-planting provided higher survivorship, and whether transplanting is viable for mitigation. Planting above-ground shoots with roots and roots-only gave similar first-year survivorship both in the forest and in the greenhouse. Allowing plants to recover in a greenhouse prior to out-planting gave higher survivorship after one year. After 7-8 years, the number of above-ground shoots at the two sites increased to 203 and 262, an increase of 37 and 219% respectively, indicating that transplanting is a viable option for mitigation.

Seventeen seasonal ponds in Pennsylvania containing the federally endangered northeastern bulrush, Scirpus ancistrochaetus, were sampled for water chemistry, hydrology, and plant population area. [Na], [Mg], [Ca], [NN₃-N] and pH increased with decreased water level. [Mg], [Ca], [NH3-N], [PO₄] and [K] were correlated with [Na], suggesting that they were controlled primarily by physical factors. Both surface and subsurface water contribute to water supply with five ponds dominated by surface water and four others dominated by subsurface water. Eight ponds show fairly equal inputs of surface and subsurface water during spring and fall, with subsurface water input becoming more important in midsummer. The difference between inputs of surface versus subsurface water was significantly negatively related to the percent change in population area during dry years and showed a positive trend in these two variables during wet years, indicating the sensitivity of this species to changes in surface water inputs.

Noteworthy Collections: Florida and Tennessee

Chicone Creek Woods (98 ha, Dorchester County) was acquired in 1990 by the State of Maryland, with assistance from The Nature Conservancy, for protection of the only statewide occurrence of a State Endangered (G2S1) legume, Desmodium ochroleucum M. A. Curtis (Cream-flowered tick-trefoil), other rare plant taxa, and a “rich woods” herbaceous flora. Desmodium ochroleucum is a sprawling, perennial, herbaceous legume with trifoliate leathery leaves on two or more 1-2 m branches arising from a caudex (Gleason and Cronquist 1991, Schotz 2003). In Maryland, plant emergence is usually in early May, flowering in August and September, and leaf dehiscence in late October or early November. Prior to this project, D. ochroleucum only occurred along the banks of the sandy road bisecting this forest where periodic cutting of woody plants for roadside maintenance prevented its extirpation.

I began writing this presidential message to the members of the SABS while sitting in my room at the eclectic, historical landmark hotel, the Mission Inn, in Riverside, California. I was there in one of the most polluted parts of the country, attending an international conference on the effects of air pollution on forests. Now it may strike you a bit odd to have been writing then about the southeast from the southwest, but in fact, being removed from the local geography was perhaps the opportunity I needed to sit back and gain a new perspective on the state of our society and its scientific journal, Castanea.