New York Flora Association Blog

My family and I took a trip to Sam’s Point and the ice caves on Sunday morning. It was a beautiful drive from Ellenville up Route 52 to Cragsmoor Road and then a short drive to the visitor center run by The Nature Conservancy. We hiked the trails northeast to the ice caves but were dismayed by seeing acres of brown pitch pines. The Conservancy is in the process of finding out exactly what is going on. The following were seen in bloom along the trail:

Aralia nudicaulis – wild sarsaparilla
Gaylussacia baccata – black huckleberry
Maianthemum canadense – mayflower
Oxalis stricta – yellow wood sorrel
Photinia melanocarpa – black chokeberry
Potentilla simplex – common cinquefoil
Rhododendron canadense – rhodora
Rhododendron prinophyllum – hoary or mountain azalea
Sisyrinchium sp. – blue-eyed grass
Trientalis borealis – starflower
Trillium undulatum – painted trillium
Vaccinium angustifolium – early lowbush blueberry
Vaccinium corymbosum – highbush blueberry

– Steve Young

While walking along my neighborhood street I spotted a small (about 4 inches tall) member of the Brassicaceae growing in masses in the dirt of a yard.  I had not seen this before and at first glance thought it might be a Draba.  It turns out that is is a European weed called hairy bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta.  The NY Flora Atlas describes its habitat as, “Disturbed soils, waste places, roadsides, railroad edges, thickets, and occasionally rocky summits and bluffs. A common non-native species of thin dry soils it sometimes occurs in native habitats.” It may be common  but it is only vouchered in the Atlas for Long Island, Lower Hudson area, St. Lawrence, Otsego and Allegheny counties.  However, Ted Baim, who wrote the flora of Schenectady County, collected it from “mossy limestone ledges in Wolf Hollow, Glenville.”  He collected a specimen which I assume is at the state museum.  Keep a lookout for this very early-blooming little exotic wildflower. – Steve Young