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As you walk the Arboretum grounds in February, you will find an abundance of flora and fauna that are inspiring subjects for sketching. The native trees, grasses, and perennials continue to quietly take in nutrients, gather their forces and fatten their buds. It's an exciting time in the late winter woods, as the first wildflowers of the year appear. Let's go find them!
But first, let's visit a bald cypress tree (Taxodium distichum) to see its developing catkins. From the parking lot, walk toward the Visitor's Center and take the path to the service bridge (left of the main bridge). Before the bridge, look to the right near the heron sculpture. Along the water's edge are a grouping of bumpy brown stalagmite-like growths. These "knees" are part of the root system of the bald cypress. A deciduous conifer with needle-like leaves resembling fern fronds, this stately tree drops its foliage in the fall after it turns a warm burnt orange. Flowering occurs in early spring before the new needles emerge. This tree is monoecious (male and female on the same tree). Look for male catkins dangling from the branch tips. In March–April they will open to pollinate the nearby purplish green female cones about one inch in diameter, which then mature in the fall. As a host plant to the bald cypress sphinx moth (Isoparce cupressi), whose larvae eat only bald cypress needles, this tree also offers nesting sites for a variety of birds, and its seeds are eaten by squirrels, wild turkeys, evening grosbeaks, waterfowl, and wading birds.
Continue across the bridge and turn right. Walk past the Visitor's Center on your right and continue on the South Meadow Loop. Veer right at the Native Bee House and walk into the woods. As you descend to the first bridge over Blockston Branch, look around and enjoy the view. The small hills and dales carpeted in fallen leaves and studded with bare tree trunks are a stark, subtle study in grays and browns, with occasional accents of bright green mosses.
Young American beech trees (Fagus grandifolia) create a lacy pattern through the wooded understory with last year's leaves, still hanging on and bleaching from tan to pale ivory. Their brittle whisper in the winter wind is a lovely soft rattle. In another month or two, these old leaves will finally fall when new leaves come forth from their slender pointed buds.
Stop on the first bridge over Blockston Branch and look down at the floodplain. One of Maryland’s earliest spring wildflowers, Eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), is coming to life. This plant has the ability to produce heat even if the ground is frozen, which allows it to melt surrounding snow as it emerges and blooms. The blossom rises from the damp muck and leaf litter and takes on a sensuous form reminiscent of a Georgia O'Keeffe painting. Look for a pointy green and purple mottled hood (spathe) about six inches tall, with an opening on one side revealing a mass of tiny petal-less true flowers on a knob (spadix). The flowers emit a fetid odor that attracts pollinators like flies and carrion beetles. As the flower fades in March–April, large bright green leaves unfurl and create a lush tropical look. By early summer the spadix has become a two-inch round fruit head with compartments containing pea-sized seeds. As the leaves fade in August, the fruit head falls apart, and the seeds germinate to start new plants, or are eaten. Skunk cabbage has a very large root system with roots that contract and pull the plant deeper into the soil each year. This plant is named after the skunk-like odor emitted when a leaf is crushed, as well as the scent of its blossom.
Also observe here the evergreen low growing heart shaped leaves which are golden groundsel (Packera aurea). This groundcover spreads by rhizomes and will form rosettes of leaves around the single leaves you see now. In April and May, one-and-a-half-foot flower stalks emerge from the rosettes and bloom with rayed flowers which, en masse, create breathtaking clouds of yellow floating above the moist woodland floor.
As you walk, keep looking and observing. What else can you find to sketch?
Words and sketch of skunk cabbage by
Diane DuBois Mullaly, artist and Maryland Master Naturalist
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