I scoped out Beaver Valley today. It is another one of the remnants from the Little Patuxent River. It is further south from the Little Patuxent River than Shangri La, and is much older. There is a stream that flows through it, and is more filled in than other stream remnants. At least on the south side, the valley is clearly demarcated by a slope that leads to an upland forest area. Beaver activity is evident. While, most of the valley is covered grass, cattails, and various other plants, there are fairly good sized areas of sphagnum moss growing on the edges. Most of these areas form hummocks upon which trees and shrubs may be found, but there were some areas where the moss is growing up top of the water forming bogs. A stream flows through Beaver Valley is clear and was about 1 foot deep. Its gravelly bottom made it easy to walk on with my waders.

Botanically, I saw a lot of interesting things. The most significant finding was the collection of the Blue Marsh Violet (Viola cucullata Aiton). It was growing next to a stream and in one place it was growing on a log which straddled the steam. This species is distinguished from the others on the North Tract by the club-like hairs which grow in the side petals. This little guy has been collected in the other tracts of the refuge, but this is the first collection for the North Tract project.

Also spotted were small populations of a plant with a single leaf which was coming out of the moss. It was not blooming, so identification is impossible at this point, but I suspect it is an orchid of some kind. I will be keeping an an eye on the progress of these guys this season.  (NOTE: This ended up being the small green wood orchid (Platanthera clavellata))

Also spotted were some orange fruiting bodies which were growing out of some oak leaves which had fallen into the water. It was kind of cool looking at the water and seeing all of the little orange dots poking through.

Earlier in the day, spotted some Bulbous Blue Grass (Poa bulbosa L.) which was growing in the lawn next to the Hunting Control Station just inside the gate. This is a new record for the refuge. It normally does not produce seeds but produces little bulbils which fall off and growing to plants. It was a good thing I spotted this population when I did because on the way out of the refuge, I noticed that someone had mowed the lawn around the Hunting Control Station, including this patch.

It was a great day!

Today, I ventured into a part of the North Tract that I had not been to yet – Neverland Swamp. It is located south of the Old Forge Bridge along the Little Patuxent River. I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw. There are remnants of old river channels which have filled with water and lots of wet ground in between. There is one area where is several feet higher than these channels and it sports numerous species of plants one would find in upland areas of the North Tract. Some of the flowers spotted include the Violet Woodsorrel (Oxalis violaea), Round-fruit Hedge Hyssop (Gratiola virginiana), and Greater Bladder Sedge (Carex intumescens). I will be going back to be sure.

Mistletoe Bog

This afternoon, Barb Dyko and I scouted out some boggy areas near the Wood Duck Pond. There are several slow flowing streams throughout this area and the layout of these streams are such that boggy areas can form. The first area were visited is of particular interest. Sometime ago FWS interns built a boardwalk across this bog to make it easier for them to transverse the bog on their way to Shangri La (more on this below) to check on wood duck nesting boxes.

We did not see a large open area as would be found in the classic magnolia bog, but we did see numerous sphagnum moss covered hummocks with open water in-between.

An extensive list of plants is obviously not yet available, but we noticed red maple, blueberries/huckleberries, sweet bay magnolia, poison sumac, various sedges, skunk cabbage among others. I am considering naming this area, “Mistletoe Bog” because there are four clumps of mistletoe up a nearby tree. The area appears to be at least 3 or 4 acres.

Shangri La

We continued down the trail crossing a couple of sloughs and arrived at Shangri La. Shangri La is a pond and swamp complex that was formed from an ancient river channel. We spotted at least 2 wood duck nesting boxes (there may be more). These nesting boxes are found throughout the refuge and are surveyed for nesting activity.

This will be an interesting area to botanically survey. Spadderdock was already blooming. Time constraints forced us to turn around before we could make a good survey of the area. You can bet that we will be back.

Besides waterfowl surveys and some hunting, there has been no significant human activity in the area between Wood Duck Pond and Bailey Bridge Pond and Borrow Pit Complex in many years. This area is the most remote and pristine area of the North Tract and the area has the potential of yielding some interesting and rare plants.