A Walk in the Woods: Naming ferns and wildflowers at Bartholomew’s Cobble

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A thick yellow spear on a thick, soft green stalk is Mullain. It is an exotic brought from Europe as a medicinal plant. A third of the plants at Bartholomew’s Cobble are not native, but they are century-old guests by now. Sarah Robotham, Property Manager at Bartholomew’s Cobble in Ashley Falls, said she thinks they add to the landscape, and do no harm. She said the cobble is thick with wildflowers from April to autumn. Herb Robert lines a loop trail along the Housatonic now. It is “a sprawling plant with half-inch pinkish purple flowers” that likes “weepy area on rock ledges,” according to Joseph Strauch Jr.’s Wildflowers of the Berkshire & Taconic Hills, Berkshire House Publishers © 1995. The guide often points to the cobble. Avens grow there, and pale pink Tick trefoil, Agrimony — another medicinal plant — and a white spray of Enchanter’s nightshade. They are delicate woodland flowers, even to the naked eye. Robotham suggests looking inside them with a ten times magnifying glass. The cobble is a national natural historical landmark, designated in the 1970s. It has a remarkable amount of diversity in plants and animals concentrated in a very small space, she explained, because of its limestone cobbles — boulders twice man-height or more. The bedrock is a mix of marble and quartzite, and erodes very slowly. The limey deposits act as a slow-release plant fertilizer. A limestone ridge runs from northwest Connecticut to Vermont, she said. The next range over, in Becket, is granite and creates acidic soil. Many things that grow in acid soil will still grow at the cobble, but most plants that like basic soil will not grow in other environments. There are few orchids at the cobble, though, and no Lady’s slipper. They like acid soil, and would prefer Pleasant Valley Sanctuaries or Pine Cobble. Many lime-loving plants grow on the cobbles themselves. Marble is soft and quartzite hard, Robotham said. The quartzite keeps the cobbles together. The marble dissolves in wind and water to form rocks, pockets, crannies. Soil washes in. Ferns, flowers, even hemlock seedlings root in it. It is not unusual to find a hemlock hugging the rock, even twisted around it. It is more unusual that hemlocks are still going strong on the cobble. The woody edelgid has been killing the trees in other parts of New England. Robotham said foresters can introduce a ladybird beetle to combat the edelgid. The trustees of resevations have not done that at the cobble, but she has heard that it has been successful in New York and Connecticut. Flowers Deep purple hairbells cling in a cleft of the rock. Beside the trial, the Virginia lopseed is about halfway through blooming. Pink blossoms run along the tip of the stem. After each flower blooms, the pods lies down along the stem, until they form a long spike. Something walking by triggers the spike to pop off, Robotham said; that is the way the plant spreads. A Canada lily stands alone in a field. The cobble’s fields host spiked lobelia too, and flowering dogbane, which Robotham said is something like milkweed. A little later in the summer, 17 species of goldenrod will come into bloom. Now, the fields are yellow with cow parsnip, dish-shaped heads of many yellow flowers. They resemble Queen Anne’s lace, another European plant, whose white heads are just curling open. The jewel weed is blooming, yellow or orange on juicy stalks. Children know jewel weed for the seed pods that explode in the hand and leaves that turn silver under water. Robotham said the plant is also supposed to be a remedy for poison ivy, and often grows near it, but she could not vouch for its effectiveness. The Bergamot buds were just getting set to pop. Bergamot has peppery leaves that are edible. It is a Monarda: it has a light lavender blossom, like bee-balm. Strauch also calls it Horsemint: “a ragged, dense crown of lavender flowers.” It has “grey-green leaves . . . often tinged with purple . . . and a spicy, minty odor. . . It can be dried to make a fragrant tea.” In a week or so, Robotham said, she would have a whole field of Bergamot. The dragonflies flew there already among the Black-eyed Susan and Daisy flea-bane. Robotham said Tall meadow rue also grew in many places, a tasseled plant that bloomed feather-white. Bouncing bet sent up tall clusters of blunt, five-petaled white flowers, over the meadow grass. Some consider it an invasive, Robotham said. She thinks there are more important things to worry about. Heal-all or Self-heal, another European medicinal plant, opened an imperfect cluster of purple and white flowers: “short cylinders of purple, two-lipped flowers (the upper lip forming a hood over the fringed lower one) on sprawling stems, with square stems and ovate leaves,” in Strauch’s guide. Beyond the field, Robotham mentioned the floodplain briefly. Swamp milkweed grows there, a deep lavender. “The flowers are about a quarter of an inch long . . . the leaves are opposite . . . and up to four inches long. The stems are erect, frequently branched, and up to five feet tall. This species has a milky juice,” Strauch writes. Among them, purple Lustrife, an aggressive invasive species, advances its magenta spikes. With a Depford pink, a harmless exotic, Robotham returned to the woods again. The Depford pink has five serrated petals, with delicate white striping. It has been so dry this summer, things are shriveling. Some flowers are late in blooming. Some have naturally finished their season. Robotham pointed out the dried stems of Red columbine that had gone by. A deep red balloon of folded petals marked the tail end of a Red trillium. The hillsides are brilliant with them in April, she said, along with Toothwart and Dutchmans’ breeches. Wild ginger has just finished blooming: a tiny maroon blossom close against the stem, among wide, dark green heart-shaped leaves. Ferns Among the shaded woodland flowers, the cobble is home to more than 50 varieties of ferns. July is a good season to identify ferns, Robotham said, because they have developed fruit dots or spore cases, the sori, on the backs of their fronds. Each species has its own formation of sori. The Christmas fern has solid leaflets lying perpendicular to its stem. Each leaf, or pinna, has a bulge at the wider end, like the toe of a Christmas stocking. The backs are plastered with sori, forming mats of rust-brown dimples. Maidenhair spleenwort grows in the rock faces, a whorl of thin, curving fronds with roundish pinni. The sori form dashes on the backs of the leaves. “You want to look at the whole shape of the fronds,” Robotham said. “Some are like a Christmas tree. Some are elongated.” The New York fern tapers in at the base, and out again near the tip. It has chevron-shaped sori, a pattern of parallel diagonal lines. The Marginal wood fern has a wider, leathery leaf, almost like vinyl. Fruit dots form on the margins of the pinni. The Interrupted fern’s spores dangle from the central stem. The fern stalk begins with pairs of leaflets, is interrupted by a stretch of brown spore sacks, and then has leaves again. The ostrich fern is a stately creature. Fronds grow in an orderly circle. They can be large, more than knee-high often, and resemble plumes: rounded at the tips. A long, drooping frond in the rock with feathery pinni has peas or bulblets growing along the back of the stalk. This is a Bulblet fern. The Bulblet fern and Maidenhair spleenwort only grow in limey places, Robotham said. She searched out a silvery plant, like long blades of grass hanging down the rock: a walking fern. The blade droops to touch rock below it, she explained, and the drooping tip re-roots. The fern travels down the rock, head over heels, like a slinky. Sori form dashes on the back. The walking fern has a solid frond: uncut. The Common polypody has solid pini; it is once cut. Many ferns are twice or thrice cut: once cut forms pinna, branching out from the center stem. Twice cut divides the pinna into smaller lobes. Thrice cut feathers the lobes with still smaller divisions. The pinni of polypody are offset against the center stalk, like a centipede’s feet, Robotham said. That is what the name means: many feet. Wet or dry, the midsummer woods and fields burgeon. The black raspberries are ripening. In the ornamental but not edible category, the baneberries are red and the blue cohosh berries are turning bright blue. True Solomon’ seal is underhung with large greenish berries, and False Solomon’s seal berries cluster at the end of the stem. The Dolls’ eyes are green, but will turn white too, with black buttons. Robotham warned walkers away from the Wood nettle, broad heart-shaped leaves with a small, pale tassel where they join the stalk. Wood nettles are native, unlike the stinging nettle; both sting. Yesterday, she saw a swarm of bees. It must have been six feet in diameter, she said; had heard about such swarms but never seen one. The cobble has “tons of different species” of bees, to pollinate its wealth of plants.
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Berkshire Food Project Closed for Power Issues

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Berkshire Food Project is closed Monday because of a power outage early in the morning. 
 
"We are unable to get proper electricity and heat to the building," according to Executive Director Matthew Alcombright. "We hope that this can be resolved and be open tomorrow."
 
The project does have some sandwiches and frozen meals that will be distributed at the entry. 
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