Notes from a Guided Nature Walks at Sands Point Preserve
Turkey Tail Fungus (Trametes versicolor) collected by children found growing abundantly on trailside fallen logs
The article is an exposé on guided nature walks and the natural world at Sands point preserve. This long article with three images contains very detailed information about our previous nature walk last month, and limited information about our upcoming nature walk on Saturday, 11 December. It is our hope that we will draw a large audience for the walk.
To those who have joined us in November, thank you for accompanying us to explore “Indigenous and Ancestral Practices in Preparation for Winter.” Dr. Palsdottir and I hope to see you next month on Saturday, December 11th at 10 a.m. in front of Castle Gould for a winter woodland tree-and-animal-themed walk entitled “Flora, Fauna, and the Once and Future Forest.” We will be walking in the spirit of discovery for people of all backgrounds and ages. This article provides a detailed description of our findings and stories from our November 11 nature walk, as well as a preview of what we are likely to find and discover in our December nature walk on the preserve.
On the sunny 60-degree day of November 11, our group of nineteen adults and six children embarked on an exploration and discovery walk on the road directly south from Castle Gould. Castle Gould itself, where we always begin leading our walks, has an interesting history and a fascinating geology—it was built in 1904 by the Gould family and sold in 1908 to the Guggenheim family. The massive limestone rocks were brought down block by block from upstate New York. Since limestone is a rock that dissolves in water, the castle is undergoing chemical weathering, it looks like it’s “melting,” as ice does, and “stalactites” hang down from the castle dome like icicles. The length of these “icicles” betrays the 100 years of this slow geological process since the castle was built. But the limestone rocks themselves were formed at the bottom of a shallow sea more than 300 million years ago—and were thrust upward during a massive mountain-building event shortly thereafter. These ancient limestone rocks are made of calcium carbonate and were formed by microscopic organisms falling down to the bottom of a shallow sea like snowflakes and then cementing together over millions of years.
We started out, as we always do, from the entrance to the castle gate, where the sea’s primordial animals have been preserved in stone. No one in our group or any group we’ve led has ever noticed the cryptic forms of different fossilized animals embedded in the stone, animals which provide an absolute date for the stones—hundreds of millions of years ago! The fossils include crinoids and honeycomb corals, the crinoids resembling trumpets or horns, and the aptly-named honeycomb corals resembling honeycombs indicate their geologic age and location of origin. Even the siliceous ooze floating above the sea floor is preserved in the castle walls as the dark mineral called chert, identifiable by its conchoidal fracture pattern that is the same as flint. Chert and Flint were minerals used to make tools and weapons in the Stone Age. Even older than the castle walls, by a wet corner near the castle entryway, we identified an ancient plant, liverworts (Marchantia sp.). Liverworts were among the first plants to cover the earth over 470 million years ago!
Adjacent to the castle is a surprising diversity of edible and useful plants that are commonly found in micro-habitats adjacent to or within several feet from light-colored stones walls that receive direct sunlight. We found dandelion, a potent medicinal plant and wild edible. In fact, each part of the dandelion is edible during a different part of the year; the young greens are a delicacy during early spring, the April-blooming flowers are a great addition to salads or cooked or for making wine, and the roots can be cooked like turnips or roasted to make a coffee substitute. The French named the dandelion after the serrated leaves which resemble the lion’s tooth or “Dent de Lion.” The Latin name for dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, means “disturber of the medicine healers,” which refers to the plant’s potent medicinal properties. The dandelion’s flowerheads bear winged seeds that children can blow into the breeze as a good luck charm as they disseminate and spread this wonderful plant. Chickweed is another choice edible salad plant that can be found any time of the year and persists and even flowers underneath the snow. There’s also the Hairy Bittercress, a second-rate salad green from the mustard family. One of the children found an Indian Strawberry with yellow flowers and bearing a small red fruit that resembles its cousin, the Wild Strawberry, but disappointingly, it has no flavor. The last herb that we observed was Common Plantain, an old-world species that is found on almost any lawn in New York. This edible plant is most remarkable for its healing powers; it has been applied to heal deep flesh wounds for hundreds of years. (In my own family, my Ukranian Grandmother applied this old-world plant to my grandfather’s partially severed thumb—and healed it! On the walk, another Ukranian family were able to identify with the healing powers of this plant.) It’s also a useful plant to rub against and soothe mosquito bites, abrasions, and small cuts.
Fall foliage of the Norway Maple Tree (Acer platanoides)
Walking the well-worn path, we entered into an upland forest habitat, noticing first the invasive species lining the road—Honeysuckle, English Ivy, Winged Eounymous, and Norway Maples standing out most prominently. Invasive species are plants that displace existing native plant communities and take over their land. Almost every human-built trail and road in Port Washington is a potential vector for invasive species to spread. Norway maple trees poison the soil, killing nearby plants. The tree is slowly encroaching upon most of our region’s intact native woodlands, displacing native species and fragmenting native habitats. However majestic, the tree has little value to wildlife. What the poet William Butler Yeats once called “a terrible beauty” is a quality of the leaves of the Norway Maple. This maple’s leaves resemble those of the Canadian flag, and their vibrant yellow color in autumn shines vividly from across the partially denuded forest. (More than 50% of the trees in Port Washington are invasive Norway Maple, originally planted as street trees.) Similarly, Honeysuckle (Spp.) is a genus of tall shrubs with beautiful aromatic flowers and, at this time of the year, it has red berries that birds disperse. Honeysuckles creates a beautiful tall canopy covering a large portion of the Preserve. English Ivy, also quickly-spreading, is an evergreen groundcover that has taken over vast swaths of the Preserve. Small patches of this ivy, formed in 2012, have grown exponentially and become the predominant groundcover for acres of intact native forest habitats, in which it has displaced all woodland wildflowers, ferns, and saplings. The English Ivy vine also burdens and kills mature trees around the Preserve, and its seeds, usually upon the tops of trees (the “canopy”), are carried far and wide by birds. This one species foretells a possibly grim future forest, but the Preserve is currently taking strong measures to keep the forest intact.
When one walks past certain points along the trail—everything changes, the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, and fungi. We noticed that the forms, colors, and textures of the leaves become strikingly more diverse, and more of the forest ground is strewn with variegated leaves. Underneath the leaves we found worms, snails, centipedes, and pill bugs! Young native saplings are widespread and indicate the growth of a healthy forest. Hundreds of species of birds and plants are found across the preserve’s diverse upland forests. One looks up at the canopy of old mother trees and their offspring; one sees the understory, and groundcover with their ephemeral flowering plants, vines, fall asters, and diverse fungi (more below on these fungi). The Preserve’s famous White-Oak Tulip Tree Forest, one of its great native plant communities, is a cornerstone for both wildlife and human enjoyment. White oaks support over 400 species of invertebrates that provide food for birds and bats! Poison Ivy, which we taught our nature walkers—young and old—to identify, is an abundant native species that provides fatty, calorie-dense berries that can be eaten by birds and turtles.
Walking further down the woodland trail, the children collected a cornucopia—a basket of acorns, walnuts, and hickory nuts as well as fungi, lichens, sticks, colored leaves and quartz crystals. The White Oak acorns were already sprouting seed leaves, getting an early start for next year. These acorns were a daily staple to the diets of Native Americans throughout the fall and stored throughout the winter, typically made into a type of porridge. Squirrels bury many of the acorns for future consumption and fortuitously forget to locate about a quarter of the seeds that they bury, planting new oaks in their place. Walnut trees are the first trees to lose their leaves in the winter and the last trees to regain them in the spring, and at this time of the year they are conspicuously naked. The husks of the nuts are used for paint and traditionally ingested to dispel worms and other gut parasites. The nuts themselves are very similar to those found in supermarkets.
Aromatic and useful plants we identified included Black Birch, Sassafras, Red Maple, Spicebush, Black Cherry, White Pine, and Royal Paulownia. Both the minty-smelling Black Birch and the Red Maple can be tapped for syrup in late winter. The twigs of the Black Birch can also be used to brush teeth. The Black Birch and Sassafras have been used to make root beer. The Spicebush can make a great seasoning for stews. Royal Paulownia, with its gigantic velvety leaves, are “nature’s napkins.“
Entering around the Boy Scouts’ forest fire that is across the road from Trail 2, we observed turkey tail fungus and gill fungus on decaying logs and worms and anthills underneath the logs. All these organisms take part in the process of decomposition that turns organic matter into soil for new generations. Underneath intact native forests at the Preserve is a vast, spreading system of mycorrhizal fungus that connects the web trees, similar to the form of synapses in the brain. The fungus has many functions: it works with tree roots to absorb water and nutrients; it serves as a network for trees to share information about important events or disease; and it even provides pathways for old mother trees to share nutrients with their offspring and kin. There is still much to be learned about fungus! Bordering the Boy Scout Camp are some Tulip Trees and some of the largest trees at the Preserve; they are remarkable for both their tall size and straight trunks. The structure of these tremendous trunks has made the Tulip Tree perfect for creating dugout canoes as much as 50 feet long for extended fishing journeys.
Around the forest fire, the children and adults shared the treasures from the cornucopia and observations and stories on the walk! At the end of the walk, when it was time to return back to the castle, the children decided to return the artifacts that they had collected back to the forest from which they were found in the spirit of preservation.
