Spring Creek Cleanup at Lumberton

-- email from Judy Norcross:

with rick, and a scout leader in a canoe and my friend karen and i in 2 kayaks, we inspected the local waterways and marshes for any trouble spots and were amazed at how well last year's cleanup has lasted.  i think i will need to revisit this in the fall to keep the waterways open. beavers are very happy in the rancocas and we saw about 6 lodges in a 2 mile area.  we also saw a beaver swimming into the marsh. the damage is quite minimal and should not cause worry. we are so fortunate to have this lovely resource.

Finally Spring.  

After two postponements the first wildflower walk of the season was April 6.
 In 2012 we saw  Bloodroot and Skunk Cabbage  a month earlier
http://medfordleasarboretum.blogspot.com/2012/03/march-17-wildflower-walk.html

This  year March was a  bust.  Only the Lesser Celendine came early.    There were five of us:  Anita Solomon, Karin Sanwald, Barbara Trought, Mary Chisholm-Zook and me (Maggie Heineman).    We started down the ramp near the theater, passed by the bridge to the "Island"  -- which wasn't an island - quite dry in fact.   Skunk Cabbage was starting, but not as abundant as it will become. It was young.  Later in the walk we did see some with the emerging dark red spathes which surround  the spherical flower heads, the spadix.   As expected we saw plenty of Lesser Celendine which are especially attractive in the stream bed of Pebble Run.  Bloodroot was in bloom.  Anita identified the bushes coming into bloom as Spice Bush, Lindera benzoin. It seems that we saw quite a bit of Trout Lily coming up-- not in bloom. Karin said it was Trout Lily and  I was skeptical because it was so abundant.  However,  looking at photos of Trout Lily leaves, Karin was  right.   Barbara spotted some Trillium - not in bloom. Mayflower was coming up, only about 4 inches high today. We saw a lot of something  with chrysanthemum-like leaves.  Not mugwort, I'm guessing that it was  Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum) which is another early invasive.  See photos in that March 17, 2012 post that is linked above. Not sure because there were no flowers.

 I didn't  take photos of the plants which we all could recognize.  Instead what follows are  the photos of plants-  not yet in bloom - which we were curious about,  These pictures are for Jane Bourquin and for anyone else who can tell us what we saw.  We followed the Red Trail and then took  the cut-off that leads to Meditation Garden where the Hellebore is in bloom (it's also in bloom at the Atrium.
Two lovely Magnolia Trees were in bloom in Court 2.  Neither Anita nor Mary had seen Court 7, so we stopped by there, and then again at Court 4 where Betsy Snope took the photo of our group.

With Spring Beauty coming into bloom soon, and maybe Trout Lilies, plus our various mystery plants, we decided we really must have another Wildflower walk this month.   It's not on the monthly calendar  but it will be on the weekly calendar.   Tuesday,  April 23 at 9:00.  Dog show at 11:00.

Barbara, Maggie, Anita, Mary, Karin and Taco

Internet photo of the  Skunk Cabbage's spherical spadix  with flowers, inside the leaf-like bract called a spathe
this is my favorite page about skunk cabbage:
http://natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic4/skunkcabbage.htm

Lots of Trout Lilies?  Note the mottled leaves 

Internet photo of Trout Lily - mottled leaves 

Mystery bulbs - leaves flat like Iris, snowdrops leaves are different. 

Red mystery plant

Spice Bush starting to bloom.  A nice page about spicebush
http://www.radfordpl.org/wildwood/today/Plant_Spp_pp/Spicebush.htm

Scouring Rush -- see the comment below this post.