Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

May-apples ( Podophyllum peltatum ) As summer steadily marches towards us, the countryside reminds us about the wonderful variety of wildflowers that flock the roadsides and dazzle the fields and woods. Flowers are a universal sign of nature and of her wonderful spread of colors, forms, and scents that blanket the landscape in the warmer months of the year. Many of the flowers we see along our roadsides and throughout our woods and fields are transplants brought over from Europe and Asia. Some like purple loosestrife ( Lythrum salicaria ) and garlic mustard ( Alliaria petiolata ) are nuisance species that take over areas of habitat that other native plants once thrived in. According to a report published in Ecological Economics , "an estimated 5000 plant species have escaped and now exist in U.S. natural ecosystems, compared with a total of about 17,000 species of native U.S. plants." (Pimental, Zuniga, and Morrison, 2004) This is damaging to many ecosystems found in ...

As the first week at the Outdoor School* ended and the weekend arrived, I thought about what to write about this week. I had made it a goal to learn some common night-singing insect calls by visiting the Songs of Insects website and while I haven't done that yet, Sunday isn't over either. After returning from Giant to get some milk, I went for a walk to find some subjects for this weeks post. I decided to settle on three invasive plants that have appeared on the property over the summer. We were introduced to the first during orientation while walking from the group challenge field over the Pennypack Creek that runs through the property. The plant's huge leaves were what surprised me the most, as well as seeming so tropically out of place with the mid-Atlantic environment they were now living in. Initially we were stumped as to their identity, but after one of my bosses did some research, he determined that they were Empress or Princess Trees. Their scientific name is Pa...