Local Cedar Glade

Today I visited a local cedar glade for the first time.  I was expecting to find many of the important prairie grasses and associated forbs at this site since it appeared to be in an ideal location, surrounded by forest on a difficult to access slope.  I assumed that such isolation would would ensure unsual or rare native plants would abound.   Unfortunately this was not the case.  The glade habitat appeared depauperate from past land use.  The glade was surrounded by barbed wire and had been used as pasture many decades ago.  Exotic grasses such as, timothy, canada bluegrass, kentukey bluegrass, Bromus tectorum and orchard grass have invaded and persisted since this area was pastured.  Simalarly exotic forbs like oxeye daisy, viper's bugloss, spotted knapweed were detected.

Poverty oatgrass, a native grass was by far the most abundant graminoid.  Dichanthlium acuminatum, D. linearifolium, Andropogon virginicus and Tridens flavus were also present. 

These pleasant woodlands developed atop the slope.  The grass cover here is a mixture of virginia wildrye, orchardgrass and bottlebrush (listed in decreasing abundance).  Tree species included black walnut, eastern redcedar and honey locust.

In areas of sparse vegetation reindeer moss (Cladonia sp.) thrives.  The blue flowered plant is viper's bugloss (Echium vulgare) a exotic weed that seems particularly suited to these dry, sunny, limestone sites.

Monarda fistulosa was the most abundant native forb at this site.  None of these plants seemed to exhibit the densely hairy leaves and petioles found on the big hollow plants.