If you are going to be passing through MA I'd suggest checking out the Montague Sandplains. The Sandplains is an inland natural community that has similar characteristics to pitch-pin/scrub oak dominated beach dunes. It's particularly interesting since it is nestled in the Connecticut River Valley and is this anomaly community allowed to persist due to the glacial outwash soils. From what I understand there are prescribed fires set there every so often. There are at least 10 rare plants and invertebrate species known to occur there, vesper & grasshopper sparrows are known to breed there, you'll likely find cool uncommon reptiles such as hognose snakes and box turtles which are regionally rare. If you're interested in rare moths such as frosted elfin, pink sallow moth, pine barrens zale and pine barrens zanclognathas) this is the place for you~
http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/habitat/maps/wma/valleywma/montagueplainswma.pdf Christin McDonough Wildlife Biologist ________________________________ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Martin Meiss Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 1:38 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Know any great plant places for our botanical/ecology-focused roadtrip? Here are two places you could consider: 1. Fire Island National Seashore, which is on a barrier island south of Long Island, New York. It has a unique habitat call the Sunken Forest. This forest is composed of a very odd mixture of tree species: Tupelo, sassafras, holly, and service berry, with an understory rich in cat briar. I don't know of any other place in the world with this species make up. The forest is sheltered from salt spray by sand dunes, which determines the height of the canopy height of the forest. The soil is leached beach sand, so a major part of the nutrient input also comes from the salt spray. The very spray that trims back the topmost twigs also keeps the forest alive. 2. The pine barrens of South Jersey. Here the forest is a fire-maintained climax consisting mostly of pitch pine and various oaks. This is a white-sands/black-water ecosystem, where the nutrient-poor soil and acidic water provide a habitat where insectivorous species like pitcher plant and sundew are found, as well as orchids, blueberries, and cranberries. The latter two are important agriculturally in the region. Where blueberries do well, the soil is a strange, powdery gray, and many of the small streams are dammed to make bogs for cranberries. The water flowing over the dam spillways is transilluminated under the right sun conditions, and it looks just like root beer, even down to the tan foam that froths up at the bottom of the plunge. There are swamps dominated by Atlantic white cedar, whose trunks don't decompose when when they fall into the muck. In the past, sub-fossil trunks were hauled out of the swamps and used to make fence rails, shingles, and pencils. There is a large area where the pine/oak forest is dwarf, with mature trees hardly higher than a person's head. As far as I know, the causes of the dwarfing are not well understood. In some areas the groundwater is iron rich, and the iron precipitates into so-called bog-iron deposits. In colonial times this iron was "harvested" on a sustainable basis. The forest was cleared to make charcoal to smelt the iron, and by the time the forest had grown back sufficiently to make more charcoal, the iron had replenished in the soil. Try that in you Mesabi range! I hope you guys have a great trip, and I hope this contribution helps. Martin M. Meiss 2011/6/27 Cory Teshera-Sterne <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]>> > My friend and I, a couple of post-undergrad ecologists, are heading out > this > summer on the Great American Roadtrip. We've gotten some great suggestions > of campsites, hikes, etc - but have realized something important is > missing: > neat plants. We're both fascinated by interesting/endangered ecosystems, > plant/animal mutualisms, and just plain strange plant species; I'm also > interested in broadly "useful" plants (wild species used as food/medicine, > feral crop species, etc). > > So, we thought we'd send an inquiry out to ecolog, and would be incredibly > grateful if any of ecologists/botanists along our route might be willing to > share your favorite places/species! > > Especially looking for: remnant grasslands/prairies/pre-agricultural > pockets, endangered ecosystems, unusual agricultural areas, unusual/rare > plant species. Examples are the Lost 40 pines in Chippewa Nat'l Forest > (MN), > and the "pocket deserts" of the Okanogan Valley (WA/BC). > > Our route: I-90/94 from Boston to Seattle, through MA, NY, northern Great > Lakes region, North Dakota, Montana/Idaho/WA. > > We're also doing the requisite travel blog, and I do some freelance science > writing, so we're also interested in places that don't get as much > protection/conservation-focused attention as they might deserve (or that, > contrarily, shouldn't be visited in order to protect them). > > Thanks so much! > -Cory Teshera-Sterne > > -- > Cory Teshera-Sterne > Programmer, Web Developer, > Natural Sciences Research Assistant > www.linkedin.com/in/corytesherasterne > ________________________________
