{"id":1133,"date":"2013-03-16T18:34:06","date_gmt":"2013-03-16T22:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/?p=1133"},"modified":"2013-03-16T22:09:43","modified_gmt":"2013-03-17T02:09:43","slug":"16-march-2013-foray-to-shrangi-la-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/?p=1133","title":{"rendered":"16 March 2013 – Foray to Shangri La Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AJ<\/a>
AJ standing by a tree in a stream near the Salamander Pond.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, AJ and I ventured out to the Shangri La Forest. It is the area at the center of the Inner Core<\/a> and is located between Shangri La Pond and the Little Patuxent River.\u00a0 It was our first time to the area and we wanted to check out the level of human influence there.\u00a0 We parked the Jeep by the Salamander Pond and walked in from there. (Click on thumbnails for larger views.)<\/p>\n

\"Shangri<\/a>
Shangri La Forest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The level of human influence was relatively low, and appears to be mostly from an occasional hunter.<\/p>\n

There was also evidence of healed scars of old military activity, and even at that, it was not as great as elsewhere on the refuge. We documented by photography a lot of the evidence of the human activity we saw, most of which was on the periphery of the Shangri La Forest.<\/p>\n

\"Barbed<\/a>
Barbed Wire embedded in Beech Tree<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just outside of Shangri La Forest, we spotted several trees with embedded barbed wire.\u00a0 By the looks of the things, the wire has been in the trees for at least 50 years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Orange<\/a>
Orange tape wrapped around a tree<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Near the center of Shangri La Forest, someone, apparently a hunter, wrapped orange tape around at least three trees.\u00a0 Maybe he thought this was a good place to come back to and marked the area this way.<\/p>\n

\"Rails<\/a>
Rails spanning a stream near the Little Patuxent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Someone placed these rails\/I-Beams across a stream near the Little Patuxent River. This location is well outside of the Shangri La Forest, in the bottomland woods next to the river. We have no idea what these rails were used for because obviously they are not strong enough to carry a vehicle of any size. What do you think?<\/p>\n

\"Spring<\/a>
Spring Ephemerals, Virginia Bluebells and Lesser Celadine, poking up in Bottomland Woods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The spring ephemeral plants were not quite in bloom yet, but we could see that they were getting ready to bloom any time.\u00a0 Most notably we saw Virginia Bluebells and the aggressive invasive Lesser Celandine poking through the sandy silt soil.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This area is remote, and will require at least three to four hours at a time per foray to make it worthwhile. It may hold some surprises yet. (Look below for more photographs of our foray.)<\/p>\n

\"AJ<\/a>
AJ standing on the banks of the Little Patuxent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Little<\/a>
Looking Downstream, Little Patuxent River<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Skunk Cabbage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Skunk<\/a>
Skunk Cabbage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rattlesnake<\/a>
Rattlesnake Orchid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, AJ and I ventured out to the Shangri La Forest. It is the area at the center of the Inner Core and is located between Shangri La Pond and the Little Patuxent River.\u00a0 It was our first time to the area and we wanted to check out the level of human influence there.\u00a0 We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journal","category-sites-around-refuge"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1133"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1137,"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133\/revisions\/1137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.botanybill.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}