Trees That Won’t Give Up

TREES THAT WON’T GIVE UP

Wednesday, May 16, 2007 (Napanee Beaver)

Friday, May 18, 2007 (Picton Gazette)

The weather report I download every morning from the Internet, indicated that we once had five centimetres of snow on May 7^th. However, this year I also found snow on May 7^th, and there was more than five centimetres. The sugary snow and ice was found deep in a rocky crevice along the Moira River. No, it wasn’t at the river’s headwaters far north of Highway 7, but actually south of Roslin, during an evening that hovered at 16 degrees and black flies were biting.

The location was an amazing property we walked that evening as part of Quinte Conservation’s program of interpretive evening hikes. There was a record crowd of 47 in attendance and there were plenty of oos and ahs from the hikers as we gingerly inched our way along through an old growth forest. What made this forest so different from most, was its location, many of the trees clinging tenanciously to enormous slabs of limestone rock, moss covered and almost carpet like underfoot. Huge roots disappeared through the cracks as they searched for moisture and nutrients. There was evidence that the river may have passed this way once, perhaps thousands of years ago, leaving behind deep ravines and crevices, then inexplicably taking a different route for reasons best known to the whims of Nature. In the river’s indecision, ravines, gullies, deep cracks and crevices were left behind. It is not far from here where the famous Moira Caves exists, an extensive underground mosaic of navigable tunnels well known to professional caving groups. And in them, stalactites and stalagmites, curious calcium carbonate formations produced through slow precipitation. Some species of bats, we were told, hibernate here.

In one area, closer to the river, a huge bur oak, estimated to be about 400 years old, clings to bare rock, its roots branching out like tentacles and clutching whatever toehold they can find. Behind it, evidence that the river floods this area every spring, numerous kettles deep into the limestone rock, polished smooth by stones caught in the spring current. A sobering thought that this tree, when barely a sapling, had to survive drought conditions in the summer, and total submersion in the spring as torrents of water bent the small sapling unmercifully in the direction of the current. Still, it survived the odds, and grew to the enormous size that it is today, so huge that two girls with their arms wrapped around the tree trunk, were unable to join hands.

There were other mysteries too on this walk. There was an unexplained number of Carolinian species present – shagbark hickory with its flaking bark, the smooth bark of bitternut hickory, and black maple, and elsewhere on the same property, rows and rows of hackberry. How did these Carolinian species get here, and in such numbers? An amazing diversity of trees which extended into butternut, and elms, and black cherry, and both species of birch.

If the trees were spectacular, then the wildflowers were even more so as both white and red trilliums vied for our attention. Trout lilies were just coming into bloom and both hepaticas and spring beauties were doing their best to put on a good show for the hikers. We were a bit too early for more than just a few isolated patches of Dutchman’s breeches, but their ferny foliage suggested the forest floor would soon be white with them. At one spot, a small limestone moss-covered rock contained a sprinkling of early saxifrage, delicate hairy stems and white rosettes, standing to attention like soldiers in salute as we passed by.

I descended into a deep ravine to point out a walking fern to the hikers, rare in Ontario. Only at Deroche Lake, a large property owned by Quinte Conservation near Thomasburg, have I ever seen this unusual plant before, although I did come across a large patch of it a year or so ago at the famous Hell Holes in the Centreville area. One would be hard pressed to see any resemblance to the fern family, as their pointed arching leaves look no different than any other plant that might be growing innocuously in similar habitat. We find them growing atop moss covered limestone rocks, a plant that gets its name from its habit of slowly migrating to new habitat, much like the runners of a strawberry, only doing so by sending out new plants whenever a leaf tip touches the mossy surface of the rock, thereby walking up the rock.

Sharp eyes found the brilliant red concave interiors of scarlet cup fungi, in two places, peeking out from last fall’s leaf litter. Others managed to find the curious deep rufous flower of wild ginger among the many patches we located that evening, a very difficult flower to photograph because of its location, timidly blooming in the V between the two leaf stalks. In other areas, the moist woods produced several patches of wild leeks, and some of us ventured a taste as we strolled by, the air suddenly becoming rank with the sharp odour of garlic.

To see 47 turn up for what was advertised as an extremely rugged hike was an inspiring sight. Properties like this on which we rambled are rare, and it is encouraging to see property owners choose to become stewards, preserving these special areas and sharing them with others. Quinte Conservation wishes to thank Clifford and Heather Maclean of Moira Ridge Farms for the keen interest in their property, and their untiring efforts at enhancement and protecting it as they have done. Clifford is the vice-chair of the Hastings Stewardship Council, and a founding member of the Upper Canada Woods Cooperative for private woodlot owners, and a member of the Ontario Woodlot Association.

This week’s column was prepared on behalf of Quinte Conservation