By, Susan Sprout

The family Marchantiaceae contains a single genus and a single species which in turn has diverged into three sub-species. Marchantia polymorpha is the one I’d like to share with you – another cool and unusual plant growing in PA! Marchantia is a member of a whole group of plants known as Bryophytes which include mosses, hornworts, and liverworts. All are non-vascular land plants because they don’t have veins or tubes like xylem and phloem to carry water and minerals around their bodies. Consequently they are not able to grow as tall as most vascular plants. Marchantia is a liverwort. Someone somewhere probably thought it resembled the lobes of a green liver creeping along the ground. It has been growing on earth since the Cretaceous Era – going back about 252 million years. Because of its age and sustainability, it has been used for over 200 years as a model organism in the investigation of land plant evolution and the development of basic cell mechanisms. Its use has been revived as a modern model plant in order to study plant genetics and evolutionary processes using its DNA. 

Marchantia’s thallus, or body, is held tight to the soil by single-celled, root-like structures called rhizoids which absorb water and nutrients. In fact, the whole thallus is like a thirsty sponge that pulls in water flowing over it and dust settling on it right into its body by the process of osmosis. That would be like you, putting your hand on a plate full of food and absorbing all of its nourishment through your skin into your body! The plant then uses the chlorophyll in its body to make food from the water and mineral nutrients.

Another amazing characteristic of Marchantia are the little cups, or gemmae, scattered across its upper surface. Sections of the plant having them can break off, usually at a fork, and start growing a new thallus. Marchantia can also reproduce sexually with the development of male and female plant parts. Here’s where it got a common name of Umbrella Liverwort – the male reproductive structures look like tiny, scalloped umbrellas! The female reproductive structures resemble very small palm trees. Water is then required, in drips, drops, and splashes from rain or nearby waterfalls, or streams. It is needed to wash the male and female gametes formed inside the umbrellas and palm trees together for the creation of new plants. (Is this too much like “the stork delivering a baby” story?)

Marchantia is a cosmopolitan species, occurring from tropical forests to the Arctic tundra. It seems to have a tolerance for lead and  may be an indicator of high lead concentrations where it grows. Mats of liverworts growing on land after forest fires can help fight soil erosion. I guess the name “Palm Tree Liverwort” would make this short plant seem too tall. Hmm?

By Susan Sprout

I just had to write about this particular plant, especially now, because it has started to set seed. Having often heard references to it on TV nature shows and personally, “Holy Cow! That’s the biggest dandelion I’ve ever seen”, I thought the plant should be correctly identified, given its due, so to speak. That big beige fluff ball of seeds was not made by a dandelion at all, but rather by a plant with the common names of Salsify, Oyster Plant, or Yellow Goatsfoot.  Three common names, three different plants, all found living in PA, and sharing some or all of those common names. They are non-natives, probably brought here from Europe as food plants. The long, narrow, grass-like leaves are edible in salads or cooked. Their long, white roots grow straight down like carrots, and when boiled or baked and eaten, taste somewhat like oysters.

These three plants belong to the Aster Family for they all have composite flowers made up of tubular disc florets bunched in the middle with flatter, petal-like ray florets surrounding them on the outside. All are classified in the genus Tragopogan which is Greek for “goat’s foot”. The reason for that name may be because the thin, green bracts that grow beneath each single flower head are longer than the ray florets and stick out past them like a skinny triangle- shaped goat’s beard! Or it could be the fluffy, scruffy seed head.

How do you identify them? By the color of their flowers – yellow or pink. I have had trouble getting a decent photo of their flowers because they all close up by noon. The closed flowers may show a small flash of color at their tops. So, the yellow-flowered ones would be T. dubius and T. praetensis which flower from May to August. Both have similar height (2 – 2 1/2 feet tall) and flower width of two inches. They can grow for ten years before blooming and will then die off after. If you find a pink or purplish flowered one, it is the biennial T. porrifolius. They are taller than the yellow ones – up to four feet! Their two inch wide flowers bloom from May to July.

So, when you see some really big seed heads – up to four inches across – in fields, roadsides, waste places or in someone’s garden and they look like dandelions on steroids, REMEMBER  – “Holy Cow! It’s Salsify (pronounced sal-sa-fee by our English ancestors)!

It’s the Fourth of July and according to legend the Fair Play Men read a declaration of Independence on the Banks of Pine Creek under an elm tree on July 4, 1776 unaware that THE Declaration of Independence was being read and debated in Philadelphia, PA.

The site where this event is reported to have taken place is now part of the Tiadaghton State Forest thanks to the members of the Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy and a former owner of the property.

NPC owned the property for a short time in the early 2000s before transferring the property to the Bureau of Forestry. The Bureau of Forestry owns it because of its use accessing Pine Creek. I will warn you the bank to get to the Creek is steep and due to the historic nature of the site any development that would require digging or moving dirt is cost prohibitive.

If you visit the site now, you’ll see a large tree (not the tree the Fair Play Men would have stood under) and a Pennsylvania Historic Museum Commission blue and yellow marker.

Thanks again to NPC’s members for keeping this property along Pine Creek accessible and a little piece of local legend alive.

NPC members gathered at Pier 87 along Loyalsock Creek on June 15, 2022 for the Annual Membership Meeting.

The Nominating Committee recommended Dennis Ringling and Amie Penfield be elected to a first 3-year term. Both had been appointed to fill positions on the Board created when other Board members resigned from the Board.

Jonathan Bastian and Jonathan Nichols are both completing 2 consecutive 3-year terms and are rotating off the Board. Roy Siefert was elected to fill one of the seats.

The elections take effect at the June 28, 2022 Board meeting.

Pier 87 was chosen as the location in part as a nod to the Bar Bottom project in 2020 and all the work at State Game Lands 134 along Plunketts Creek (a tributary to Loyalsock Creek).

Here are some photos from the meeting:

Paddle Happy West Branch was organized and orchestrated by Bad Adventures, a guiding service for paddling and hiking trips. The trip benefitted the Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy’s Coal Creek project with Bad Adventures matching donations made by the adventurists.

NPC purchased 216 acres along Coal Creek in Blossburg Borough to provide access to the largest Abandoned Mine Drainage discharge in the Tioga River Watershed. A treatment plant is being designed now to address the Coal Creek discharge and several others. The funds raised during this paddling trip will help offset the costs of the project.

The 2-day paddling trip had participants paddle from Montoursville to Montgomery on day 1 with a lunch stop at the Muncy Heritage Park and Montgomery to Milton on day 2 with lunch at the park in Watsontown.

While most participants stuck to their kayaks there was a rather large canoe on the trip. Built by Aaron Myers, the wooden canoe weighs around 450 pounds and holds 10 paddlers. Saturday they were a few short of 10, but Sunday they had 10 people paddling and they flew down the West Branch Susquehanna!

Riverside Campground in Montgomery was “home base” for the trip and where about half the group camped Friday and Saturday nights.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner was provided each day along with folk music at lunch and dinner. In addition each stop has water and Gatorade as well as the snacklebox (okay they just call it the snack box, but I think snacklebox is way more fun to say).

The trip is a great way to “show-off” the West Branch Susquehanna to out of town guests, or maybe see it for yourself for the first time. The 2023 dates will be coming out later this year. Start planning your staycation or vacation to join other adventurists, Bad Adventures, and the Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy in exploring and supporting conservation!

By Susan Sprout

You may think of Spiderwort as just a plain, old, garden plant. But, it has quite a story. Spiderwort, or Tradescantia virginiana, is a plant for all continents! It is native to the Americas from southern Canada to Northern Argentina and the West Indies and has become naturalized in regions of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Its genus name Tradescantia was given to the plant in honor of father and son, John Tradescant the Elder (born c.1570) and John Tradescant the Younger (born 1608). They were both plant-loving naturalists, gardeners, collectors of seeds and bulbs and oddities, and travellers to three of the four continents known during their lifetimes. They were not above asking friends from the American colonies, like John Smith, to gather and send back to England plant specimens for their own personal use as well as to use in their jobs as head gardeners on properties owned by King Charles I. John the Younger, who grew twice as many species as his father, made at least two collecting trips to Virginia for plants. Their combined books and collections of rarities have become part of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

The “wort” part of Spiderwort’s common name comes from an Old English or Anglo-Saxon word spelled “wyrt” or “weart” which means plant. The “spider” part is a bit more interesting! Some writers refer to the spidery quality as coming from the long, pointed, opposite leaves hanging from tubular sheathes that hug the stems. Their weight bends them over, giving them a leg-like appearance. But, if you look closely at one of the three-petaled flowers (I used a magnifier) you can see the real reason. There, in the center, are six pollen-bearing, yellow stamens nestled in a delicate spider web of filaments surrounding them. How neat is that? 

As it grows, this plant forms terminal clusters of hair-covered buds which open to become flowers ranging from blue to purple. Another identifying characteristic of Spiderwort are the two pointed, opposite leaves extending out from directly beneath the bunches of flowers and buds. Seed capsules formed after pollination will split open to dispense two or more seeds. Spiderwort is a perennial that also spreads by underground stems creating clumps. They can appear in the wild near stream banks, in woodlands, on hills. They grow well in partly shaded borders along roadsides, too. 

There are eighty-four different species of Spiderworts besides ours in the world. Their plant parts have been used in salads and made into tea. Flowers, once dried and powdered, were used to treat bleeding noses by snuffing it in. Their most surprising use that I discovered while reading  has to do with those spider-webby blue hairs in the flower. Their cells are sensitive to sources of high energy ultraviolet radiation like gamma rays and will mutate and turn pink! They can also detect pollutants like sulfur dioxide. Amazing and not just your plain, old, ordinary garden plant!