Flowering Rush

At first glance, the individual flowers resemble lilies, and that wouldn't be too far off. Lilies and Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus) are both monocots, meaning that their seeds sprout with one initial "seed-leaf" and not two like dicots. The flower heads of Flowering Rush resemble those of chives and onions which makes perfect sense because onions are really lilies. The clusters are in arrangements called umbels (think "umbrella"); all of the flower stems radiate fom a single point at the top of the main, cylindrical stalk. Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot) flowers also grow in umbels, but that plant is a dicot with deeply-dissected, feather-veined leaves.

The leaves of Flowering Rush are narrow, long-pointed and sword-like with parallel leaf veins, again similar to chives and other dicots, but it's somewhat misleading because Flowering Rush is in a plant family of its own. (In fact it's the only genus and species in that family.) It's capable of growing to a height of five feet, under the right conditions, with leaves up to 40 inches long. Most of the time it grows more in the one to four-foot height range.

Flowering Rush is an alien growing on muddy shores along the St. Lawrence Seaway and it has spread to Lake Champlain and the Great Lakes and beyond. It's a Eurasian species brought here as an ornamental in the early 1900's, and it continues to spread from Vermont to Washington and adjacent Canada.

The flowers are rather attractive with three pink and white petals alternating with three smaller pink sepals. In the center are nine pink-and-white male stamens in a radial pattern around six magenta female pistils.

Like all invasive species, it competes with desirable native wetland species, and once started, Flowering Rush is hard to irradicate because the trailing rhizomes spread under the mud and pea-sized bulbils detach, disperse in the water and quickly germinate into new plants. Varieties of this plant growing in the east also produce seeds that can spread on water currents.

There are many desirable native substitutes for Flowering Rush, including Sweet-flag, Northern Blue-flag, Pickerelweed, Giant Bur-reed, Lake Sedge, and Hardstem Bulrush. Blue-flag and Pickerelweed are attractive personal favorites.

Corrections, comments and questions are always welcome at northeastnaturalist@yahoo.com or you can connect through my Facebook page at Dave Spier (photographic naturalist) or my personal page, Dave Spier with the profile photo of me birding through a spotting scope. There's a new Fb page for The Northeast Naturalist.

Letchworth Thanksgiving -- © Dave & Donna Spier

Trees on the canyon rim at Letchworth State Park, NY_© Donna Mason-Spier

This year’s Thanksgiving weather was pretty decent by western New York standards.  In fact, it's been the fifth warmest November on record.  Where we were, the weather didn’t live up to predictions, but we did get some sunny breaks in the afternoon between the morning cumulus clouds (probably coming off Lake Erie) and the evening cirrus coming in from the west that gave us a beautiful sunset to end the day.

Donna and I renewed our tradition of spending Thanksgiving in Letchworth State Park about midway between Rochester, NY and the Pennsylvania state line. After entering the park at the Mt. Morris [north] end, we drove the roughly 15 miles to the waterfalls near the south end. First stop was Inspiration Point which has heated restrooms open year round. There is a handicap-accessible interpretive trail along part of the rim and starting from the parking lot.

View from Inspiration Point -- © Donna Mason-Spier

At the end of the last Ice Age, glacial fill [clay, silt, sand and gravel that's part of the Valley Heads Moraine] blocked the return of the Genesee River to its ancestral valley just northeast of Portageville at the south end of the park. The river was forced west to the lowest divide and there it cut a new channel and began carving canyons through solid rock. A series of three waterfalls continues to deepen the gorge as they erode upstream [southward]. At Inspiration Point a short walk takes you to an overlook with a distant view of the Middle and Upper Falls.

From there we backtracked slightly to a side road and a short drive to Trailside Lodge for a picnic lunch.  Some years we have a little company; this year we had it all to ourselves. There are lots of tables inside, the building is heated and it turns out there are heated restrooms there too.  Our more-regular Thanksgiving dinner would be later at home.

Fireplace inside Trailside Lodge where we ate a picnic lunch -- © Dave Spier

District #2 schoolhouse beside the road to the trout pond -- © Donna Mason-Spier

Cross-bedded sedimentary rock layers on a natural joint plane
[roadcut beside main park road] -- © Donna Mason-Spier

After lunch, we continued south with a brief stop at the old schoolhouse near the Trout Pond and then down the hill past Glen Iris to a one-way drive descending to the old flood plain and a choice of parking areas. Our first direction was a short walk south to the Upper Falls which was nearly obscured by spray and mist rising from the plunge pool. It’s difficult to see, but the caprock is 28 feet of Nunda sandstone supported by weaker Gardeau sandstones and shales. Both formations are part of the late-Devonian West Falls group which in turn is part of the larger Catskill Delta underlying the Finger Lakes and Genesee regions.
 

Trail to Upper Falls -- © Donna Mason-Spier

Deh-ge-wa-nus Creek descends to the river above Upper Falls -- © Donna Mason-Spier

At Letchworth Park, you can walk uphill past the crest of the Upper Falls and look back to see a rainbow in the mist when conditions are right. The rainbow is highest in late fall and early winter when the sun is near its lowest angle of the year. In the afternoon, the rainbow is downstream from the west side trail.  If you go, you might want to also take some pictures of the historic 234-foot high steel railroad bridge. They're talking about replacing it with a modern arch bridge.

Rainbow in the mist below Upper Falls -- © Donna Mason-Spier

From the Upper Falls it’s an easy half-mile walk north along the Genesee River toward the Middle Falls, probably the most spectacular of the three falls and the main attraction in the park.  Along the way we stopped to take a few pictures of the river which was unusually high and muddy for this time of year due to recent heavy rains.

Ripples on the Genesee River above Middle Falls -- © Donna Mason-Spier

Outcrop in the Genesee River above Middle Falls -- © Donna Mason-Spier

First hint of rainbow in the mist below crest of Middle Falls -- © Donna Mason-Spier

 If you continue north on the trail past the crest you’ll reach clearer views of the falls itself. Watch for another rainbow in the mist along the way. William Pryor Letchworth built his Glen Iris mansion overlooking this falls. It descends 107’ over rocks of the Gardeau formation.

Middle Falls, 107’ high, seen from below William Pryor Letchworth's mansion at Glen Iris -- © Donna Mason-Spier

Rainbow in the mist below Middle Falls -- © Donna Mason-Spier

Letchworth Park blog to be continued...

(In the meantime, you might want to check the Genesee River Wilds Project working to develop a series of parks and trails along the river from Letchworth south to Potter County, PA.)