Surveying local forests this week for a college class I'm teaching has been a soul-crushing experience. This once familiar forest of my own undergraduate years many decades ago is no longer. Instead it is a tangle of invasive vines, dead standing snags, and little to no understory except for acres and acres of multiflora rose. Where glades of oak once stood are now solid stands of Tulip Poplar underlaid with impassable thickets of privet and bush honeysuckle. The look and function of the present forest is greatly diminished and while we can point to an overabundance of White Tail Deer as the root of this decline, it is made worse over time by human neglect and management.
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| Solid stands of Tulip Poplar above invasive understory |
When I was studying in the early 1980s at MICA in landscape drawing and botanical illustration, our professor would set us loose on Bosley Point to select, identify, and draw Quercus (oak) species as exemplar specimens of their kind. I remember being very proud of my side-by-side illustration of a Black and Red Oak, massive specimens under which grew moss banks, lowbush blueberry, and pink ladies slippers (Cypripedium acuale). I searched for the two trees and only found one, the Red Oak still living but in decline.
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| Canopy collapse |
Professor Whitaker knew we couldn't get lost; we were on a point of land surrounded by water. The point was big enough, however, to hold a dozen students spread out across old fields and hardwood/pine stands working independently for hours. One of my favorite places to work was in the hollow of an old quarry where a wetland plant community grew in the shelter of a weathered outcrop of Cockeysville marble. The outcrop is smothered by banks of privet today.
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| Marble outcrop and privet |
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| Bosley Farm Road at the quarry |
As with many old roads that are no longer active, they may still exist as hiking or equestrian trails. On Bosley Pont, the road is used by fisherfolk to connect many side paths to the shoreline. I descended into the abandoned quarry hollow and it became clear that even a very determined fisherperson could no longer follow the old road as it continued over the rise. Over the bank, it simply stopped at a impenetrable wall of privet, bush honeysuckle, multiflora, and greenbrier.
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| Bosley Farm Road beyond the quarry |
Landscape change was happening long before the Loch Raven Reservoir was created in the early 1900s, however. Farm abandonment and the collapse of the the Ridgely Plantation complex allowed much of the watershed to reforest on its own by the late 1800s. By the time the dam was built across the Gunpowder River to capture water for Baltimore in 1912, successional forests had already reclaimed large sections of the watershed with Oak and Hickory. Missing was American Chestnut. Much of this forest was salvage-logged when the waters were planned to rise. Deserted villages, ruins of mills, an iron furnace, and the rural road system were submerged. Remaining forests were found on the high ground gathered out on the points, along ridges, and on hilltops now islands.
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| Impounded waters |
Woodlands that may have stood a chance to thrive succumbed instead to neglect. As the City of Baltimore, the owners of the watershed properties, allowed no hunting on the land huge herds of deer browsed away replacement generations of trees and the shrub layer. The failing forest is thus in perfect condition perfect for an invasive plant take-over. In a 2004 botanical report (See Notes) it is noted that at the time of the survey, invasive plants accounted for a whopping 33% of the total plant profile. "There is no program currently in place to manage exotic species in the watershed," it states. (pg. 89)
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| Virginia Pine |
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| Red Cedar (juniper) |
There's a lot to unpack here: The lack of a fire regime is matched by the lack of conservation management. Restricted hunting ensures a large population of deer. Ideas of what counts as invasive, native, and non-native are loaded socio-ecological terms that overlay understandings of ecological functionality. The legacy of neglect couples with an uncertain future involving state, local, and community forest health planning. As I stood in the quarry hollow I observed a half dozen tree tubes that protected sapling trees planted here within the last few years. Not enough, I thought, as multiflora rose thorns pierced my brush pants. Even though comprehensive plans for conservation management do now exist, is it too little too late? Should we content ourselves with the idea of ecological sacrifice through poor or slow stewardship efforts?
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| Recent beaver activity on Tulip Poplar |
As I pushed my way down overgrown trails I was happy to find White Pine, Virginia Pine, and Red Cedar as well as a few American Holly growing in open glades. Many of these trees were surrounded by very young saplings, tiny pines and red cedars that encircled their parent trees. None was over two feet high, however, before showing signs of deer browse. Missing completely were saplings older than five years or higher than five feet. The exception were several young American Holly growing in thickets seemingly protected from browsing, encapsulated by thick underbrush. I tried to push my way to the end of the point but I wasn't able to make it through. Discouraged I turned back and tried to parallel the old road which, in its sunken track, was completely inaccessible.
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| Virginia Pine |
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| American Holly pushing through |
Back on campus we discussed the poor health of the college woodlands. We stood on the edge of a mowed field to study the architecture of invasive vines as they grew like heavy drapery hiding the supporting trees on the edge of the woods. "I wonder how many people coming to campus, students and teachers, look at these as 'natural woodlands' and have no idea of what is happening here?" one student asked. With that, we picked up our loppers and began to rescue a nearby American Walnut.
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| Rescue and release. |
Notes:
Redman, D. Earl (2004) Vascular Flora of the Loch Raven Watershed, Baltimore County, Maryland https://www.mdflora.org/Resources/Documents/Vascular%20Flora%20of%20Loch%20Raven%20Watershed.pdf
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