BMWS Station 3

At the trail junction, notice a grove of tall pepperidge (also known as black gum, sour gum, or tupelo), a member of the dogwood family that often forms pure stands in coastal forests. Pepperidge has a distinctive branching pattern, with horizontal or declining lower branches and numerous short stiff branchlets, giving it an overall twiggy appearance. Lustrous green foliage turns crimson in early fall, advertising tasty blue fruits to passing birds.

Two species of ferns can be seen in this area. The light green, feathery hay-scented fern is so named because its leaves, when crushed, smell like freshly mown hay. A fern of dry open woodlands and former pastures, it is allelopathic, producing a chemical that inhibits the establishment of other plants and allows it to form large monocultures. Hay-scented fern is one of the “thrice-cut” ferns: the frond is cut into leaflets, the leaflets into sub-leaflets, and these are divided into lobes. Examining a frond with a hand lens will help illustrate the leaf form, though the best way to identify ferns is to examine the spore clusters or “dots” on the undersides of the leaves in late summer. Hay-scented fern has cup-shaped leaf dots. This species grows up to a height of 24 inches. It is bright green when first unfurled but tends to become drab and yellowish by late summer.

Another fern growing here is the tall, triangular-shaped, bracken fern. It tolerates drier conditions than other ferns and often grows in poor soil. Compared with the delicate hay-scented fern, bracken leaves are coarse and leathery.

In the surrounding woodland, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are just one of several small migrant birds that nest in the overstory dominated by red maple, red oak, and American beech. Canada mayflower or wild lily-of-the-valley, cinquefoil, starflower, and wild blue violet carpet the forest floor, along with beechdrop, an obligate flowering parasitic plant pollinated by bumblebees. These purplish-colored plants lack chlorophyll and obtain nutrients from the roots of American beech.

In sunny openings, gray birch and understory thickets of roundleaf greenbrier, northern arrowwood, and sumac offer habitat for Eastern Towhee and Brown Thrasher. Both of these shrubland bird species have declined regionally due to habitat loss.