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TOPIC: Tornado book (with an assist by Lee Frelich)
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/ef16d890c20d7fd6?hl=en
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== 2 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 4:58 am
From: Lee Frelich
ENTS:
Last weekend I visited the Door Peninsula in Lake Michigan in WI.
Large
flowered trillium are so prolific this year that many maple-beech
forests
looked as if there were snowdrifts on the forest floor. The trillium
have
gotten smaller over the years (they used to be 24-30 inches tall,
and are
now only 12-18 inches), but their flowers are still spectacular,
especially
with a late spring like we have this year that delays tree leaf out
so that
the spring flowers get full sun for a long time. Along Lake
Michigan, sugar
maples were still mostly leafless (due to the impact of 1100 cubic
miles of
42 degree water on air temperatures), although some were starting to
flower. On the relatively warm Green Bay side of the peninsula,
leaves were
just beginning to emerge.
The boreal forest at the Ridges Sanctuary has several areas where
the
forest floor is carpeted with the federally threatened species,
Dwarf lake
iris. This is the smallest iris known, about 2 inches tall at the
time of
flowering, making the dwarf iris in the southern Appalachians look
like a
giant. Their neon purple flowers stand out against the brown spruce
needles
of the forest floor. Trailing arbutus, and birdseye primrose were
also in
bloom amid white cedars several centuries old.
Lee
== 3 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 8:09 am
From: James Parton
Lee,
What would cause the Trillium to become smaller over the years?
James Parton
== 4 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 8:55 am
From: "Edward Frank"
Lee,
Neat about the trilliums. I have not gotten out around here (western
PA) to see if the trilliums are flowering here. Monica, Bob, and I
found a couple different species in flower in Baxter Creek, GSMNP
last month at the ENTS gathering. What species of trillium were
flowering so profusely on the Door Peninsula? When visiting Pictured
Rocks National Lakeshore, MI a couple years ago I remember large
areas of the forest floor in some place were covered by trillium
plants. It was August and they were not flowering then.
Ed Frank
== 9 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 2:58 pm
From: ERNEST.OSTUNO@noaa.gov
Lee,
I visited the Leelanau Peninsula of Michigan on the weekend of May
10th-11th, right across Lake Michigan from the Door. The trillium
were
spectacular there as well. We went up there to look at the cherry
blossoms, which were not quite at peak. While we were wandering
through the woods on top of the Whaleback Nature Area, my wife found
a
morel mushroom, a delicacy which sells for 60 dollars a pound at
road-
side stands. Also that weekend I waded into the frigid waters of
Lake
Michigan to harvest the crop of Petoskey stones that the anchor ice
and high waves had churned up over the course of the winter. I found
several dozen large, beautiful stones, which was almost worth the
loss
of feeling in my legs and feet from being submerged in that ice bath
for several minutes.
Ernie
== 10 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 3:13 pm
From: Lee Frelich
Ed:
These are Trillium grandiflorum, the ones with the biggest flowers,
up to 5
inches across.
Lee
== 11 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 3:18 pm
From: Lee Frelich
James:
Deer populations are increasing, and their grazing can make the
plants
smaller because so much of the plant's stored energy is consumed by
the
deer. Also, the earthworm invasion has made the soils drier and more
nutrient poor.
Lee
== 12 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 6:28 pm
From: Carolyn Summers
How beautiful and fascinating! Do you have a theory as to why the
trilliums
are getting smaller?
--
Carolyn Summers
63 Ferndale Drive
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706
914-478-5712
== 13 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 6:55 pm
From: Josh
My guess is that the energy reserves in the roots of perennial
plants
like trilliums are depleted when they are topped every year by dear
browsing, resulting in a plant that slowly starves to death and gets
smaller in the process.
Josh
== 14 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 7:12 pm
From: Carolyn Summers
I suspected that deer might be partly to blame.........
--
Carolyn Summers
63 Ferndale Drive
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706
914-478-5712
== 15 of 15 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 8:33 pm
From: "Edward Frank"
Josh,
Perhaps an equilibrium will be reached where the trilliums manage to
stay alive perpetually but only at a smaller size as a result of the
foliage loss from deer browse. I am not sure how invasive earthworms
on down the road will impact the trillium populations, but I am
guessing it will not be good.
Ed
== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, May 22 2008 9:21 pm
From:
Trilliums used to exist in woodlots throughout my home town in
southeastern Wisconsin. Deer reduced their sizes and numbers in the
1980's at about the same times that the earthworms were reaching
them. Then, the worms eliminated the duff and the trilliums, as well
as their associates, in many areas by the turn of the century. In my
home town, I used to know of hundreds of acres of white "large
flowered trilliums" trillium grandiflorum, as well as the
prairie or red trilliums, trillium recurvatum. Now, I only know of a
total of a few acres of each in my home town - some in road side
strips and others in local nature center restorations.
Paul Jost
TOPIC: Door Peninsula, WI
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/ef16d890c20d7fd6?hl=en
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== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Fri, May 23 2008 2:36 pm
From: Lee Frelich
Ed et al.:
Yes, after many years of deer browsing, large-flowered trilliums in
Illinois are only about 6 inches tall, and the deer don't pay as
much
attention to plants that small. Roger Anderson published a paper
about it a
while ago (perhaps the 1980s). Its too bad, I like the 30 inch tall
ones
with 5-6 inch flowers.
Lee
== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Fri, May 23 2008 3:28 pm
From: Elisa Campbell
Lee,
are there any photographs available that document the change in
size? it
would be very interesting / useful / educational if we had such
photographs
thanks,
Elisa
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TOPIC: Door Peninsula, WI
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/ef16d890c20d7fd6?hl=en
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== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Sat, May 24 2008 9:14 am
From: Lee Frelich
Elisa:
I am trying to find such pictures myself. I did take some trillium
pictures
30 years ago, and perhaps I can find the same places again, although
its
too late for this year, since the trilliums will be finished
flowering by
the next time I visit the Door Peninsula.
Lee
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