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As up walk the Arboretum grounds in January, you will find an abundance of flora and fauna that are inspiring subjects for sketching. The native trees, grasses and perennials are now in their simplest, least colorful, and most dormant state. Yet underground there is unseen activity as rhizomes and roots soak in the nutrients broken down from last year's leaves in preparation for another growing season.
My focus this month is on the barren beauty of the Arboretum in winter. Andrew Wyeth said, "I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape—the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn't show."
Standing at the back door of the Visitor's Center, face the South Meadow and turn right on the South Meadow Loop. Veer right at the Native Bee House and head into the woods. As we walk down the slight hill to the first bridge crossing the Blockston Branch, take a good look through the trees and across the forest. The view is clear, the understory is mostly leafless, and the bones of the landscape are revealed. This graceful winter landscape of gently rolling hills and dales, carpeted with fallen leaves, studded with bare tree trunks, and laced with creek beds is subtle, beautiful, and poetic. Stop and soak it in. Then, let's go find something to sketch!
In this quietest part of winter, there are still evergreen plants visible on the forest floor. Standing on the first bridge over Blockston Branch, look down at the floodplain. Amid the leaf litter you will find scattered green heart shaped leaves. These are golden groundsel (Packera aurea), also called ragwort. As the weather warms, more leaves will join them and form ground hugging rosettes, from which will grow stems about a foot and a half tall topped with clusters of small yellow daisy-like flowers. Then in April–May, the spring woodlands in the floodplain will simply glow with large swathes of golden groundsel blossoms, sweeping across the bottomland like flowing rivulets of gold.
Look carefully in the sunniest, dampest spots of the floodplain. You may find, poking up through the muck and leaves, pointed green/purple spathe tips—the very tops of flower hoods of sprouting eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). We will revisit this fascinating plant to see it blooming in February.
Continue straight over the bridge on the Upland Walk. As you reach slightly higher ground, look to your right and left in the leaf litter for clusters of oval green puckered leaves with pointed tips, about three inches long, and you will have discovered the cranefly orchid (Tipularia discolor). In the fall and winter, this orchid sends up its leaves, one per corm, to take advantage of the sunlight while there is no leaf canopy and to make chlorophyll to nourish itself. Gently turn over the leaf to see its vibrant purple underside. In the spring, these leaves will fade and disappear, and in July–August, if the corm and leaf have produced enough energy, a single stem will emerge and bloom covered with delicate flowers that resemble crane flies.
As you continue walking, look for two evergreen ferns scattered throughout the upland woods. Ebony spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron) is a narrow arching fern with a dark red-black rachis (stem). Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) is a fuller, leathery clumping fern.
Another evergreen woodland perennial found along the Upland Walk is striped wintergreen or pipsissewa (Chimaphila maculate). Bearing leathery, lance-shaped leaves 1–3 inches long, dark green with a white stripe, these striking little plants stand no more than six inches tall and are easy to find. The leaf edges have widely spaced teeth, and the stems tend to be deep red to burgundy with two pairs of smaller leaves at their base and a whorl of three larger leaves at the top of the plant. In June through August, several 1-inch nodding white, waxy flowers on a tall stem grow from the center of the leaf whorl, are pollinated by insects, then set seeds which are dispersed by the wind.
Even more evergreen plants are just waiting to be discovered in the quiet understory of the winter woods, including partridge berry, ground pine and a variety of bright green mosses. Adding interest along the paths and on the forest floor are abundant acorns, hazelnuts, and sweet gum balls. Lichens and turkey tail mushrooms create lacy textures and ornate patterns on living trees and fallen branches. The winter woods hold treasures.
Keep looking and observing. What else can you find to sketch?
Diane DuBois Mullaly
Maryland Master Naturalist/fine artist
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