July is a wonderful time to take a walk and glory in the outbursting of flowering plants.
Do you recognize this flower? It’s bloodroot, a member of the plant group called spring ephemerals (e.g., trillium, blue cohosh, hepatica, trout lily), which as the name implies, finished flowering over a month ago. Join Cathy Keddy, naturalist and ecologist, for a wildflower walk where we may see these plants, but now they will be in fruit.
The Mississippi Madawaska Land Trust is holding the third event in its “Discover the Wild” series— Sunday, July 14th, at the Poole Family Nature Sanctuary, 10 am to 12 pm. The Poole property is mostly forested (sugar maple and hemlock forests), it has some swamps and marshes that are part of the Scotch Corners Provincially Significant Wetland Complex, and it has tremendous habitat diversity for a 110 ac. property; it typifies much of the landscape of Lanark County. The day is presented by Scotiabank, Carleton Place.
In July the flowering plants are at their peak and as you walk the trail with Cathy you will see and learn much about the botanical world at your feet.
Among the many things to experience this time of year are wetland/aquatic plants like joe-pye-weed, boneset, beggarticks, cattails, water lilies, arrowhead, pickerelweed (beautiful stalks of purple flowers).
In the forest, in particular, several groups of plants will be flowering. Parasitic plants, for example, have no chlorophyll, are not green, and cannot make their own food from sunlight. They get their food from other living organisms. An example is Beech drops which grow only under the canopy of beech trees and gets its nutrition directly from the tree’s roots. Then there are the Mycotrophs—fungus feeding plants that also cannot make their own food. They get their food from mycorrhizal fungi attached to the roots of green plants. The ghostly white Indian pipe and many orchids are Mycotrophs. The third group is the shade tolerant green plants which includes Jack-in-the-pulpit, some goldenrods, bottlebrush grass and wood ferns. Finally, the non-shade tolerant plant group will be found in gaps in the forest canopy where the sunshine streams in mullein, fireweed, thistles, blackberry, raspberry, and groundsel.
Bring your camera and take a Sunday walk with the wildflowers.
To register call 613- 253-2722 or email: admin@mmlt.ca
Directions: Approximately 8 km west of Carleton Place on Highway #7, turn south on Scotch Corners Rd. and travel 5.2 km. Turn right on the 11th Line Beckwith which soon becomes Drummond Con. 11 and travel 1.3 km. The trailhead is opposite #317.
