Current goings on in the Fells

2019

There is suddenly a lot of interest in the invasive plants in the Fells. Yes, it's serious, and we have 25 invasive species in our woods. But the big question is how to deal with them.  I have put together a powerpoint presentation with photographs of what they look like and where in the Fells they are.  I also have copies of the state published booklet describing all invasives statewide. 

   

Finally, on January 20th, after a record winter period without snow, the Fells got a covering of a few inches.  Those forest floor wintergreen plants shown below and photographed this winter will be fine. They're built for it.

Then as January moved into February we saw deep cold.  The Cascade in the eastern Fells is well worth a visit at this time.

Photo by Laura Costello

December was so mild native Witch Hazel  - Hamamelis virginiana  was seen on several occasions still in bloom , not that the flower is that pretty :-)

                                                              

     

                                                                             Map of the Fells showing the 8 different sectors                                                  If we find a species in just one or two sectors we call it 'rare'; if in 3 or 4 - 'occasional'; 5 or 6 - 'frequent'; and if in 7 or all 8 sectors then it is deemed 'common'.                                                  

However, the first week of May was unusually cold.  This delayed the blooming of Pink Lady Slipper orchids into late May and early June. After that it was a very hot and dry summer with reservoirs and ponds in the Fells shrinking considerably.

In early August I came across a patch of Heliopsis helianthoides var. scabra; and in the Fall Walter Kittredge found one bush of an unusual Crabapple Malus sargentii. Sadly both these taxa are non-native.

    
Heliopsis helianthoides var. scabra                                    

Meanwhile, I have found a few of what we term 'sector finds' - see map further down this page showing the Fells divied into 8 sectors. This means an increase in frequency - a rough measure of abundance in the reservation. Seven are natives - good news; six non-natives - not so good news. 

Further discoveries in 2013

In 2013 we had a further 11 new finds, four of which were native.  These findings resulted in a further small paper in Rhodora, published in 2014.

In the 2012 season we found 19 additional plant species not included in the main published survey (Hamlin et al. 2012). This was reported in a New England Note in the Spring 2013 issue of Rhodora. Fourteen were non-native some of which therefore probably represent new arrivals; but five of the new finds were native species. In the spring of 2012 we were excited to stumble upon a small patch of the three-lobed violet – Viola palmata. It was reported in 1854 in an area that later became part of the Fells.  It is possible that these native species have been in the Fells all the while and have been overlooked. 

Viola palmata   File photo by  Hamlin

As a result of these new findings in 2012 a five-page Update note was published in Rhodora in June 2013 covering these new findings in 2012.  Hamlin, B. T. & W. T. Kittredge. 2013. An update on the Middlesex fells Flora. Rhodora, Vol. 115: 191-196.

Sector finds

The basic map image is reproduced with permission of the Friends of the Fells and the Department of Conservation and Recreation.   To zoom in: right click, choose 'view image', and click again. 

If a species was found in only one or two sectors it was deemed Rare, if in three or four then Occasional, five or six - Frequent, and if in seven or all eight sectors then we called it Common.

A History of plant surveys of the Fells

Upon creation of the Middlesex Fells as a reservation in 1894 a floral survey was conducted by Walter Deane and Warren Manning and others, and published in 1896. We owe a great debt to these pioneers for providing us with this base-line of what plant species existed in the Fells over a century ago. Here is the map of the Fells that accompanied Deane's Flora. 

       reproduced by permission from the archives of the  Gray Herbarium, Harvard University

Much has happened to the Fells since then. New, wider roads have been created carrying a lot of traffic, in particular I-93 forming an almost solid barrier between an east and west Fells. An electric railway line has come and gone (1946), and the soap-box derby track at Sheepfold is still in evidence. Although land has been lost to the road widenings,  the creation of Stoneham Zoo and, to some extent, Wright's Park, there have been a few gains as well, most significantly the addition of Lawrence Woods in the southwest. General Samuel C. Lawrence, the first mayor of the City of Medford, owned a huge estate part of which was wooded. The public were welcome into these woods so that they served as an unofficial annexe to the Fells in the early years. General Lawrence died in 1911 and in 1925 this wooded part, now known as Lawrence Woods, was officially added to the Fells.

For more details on the first forty years of the Fells I recommend Round About the Middlesex Fells published by the Medford Historical Society in 1935. Compared with the original condition, where there were more fields and open spaces, the Fells has been allowed to go back to a reasonably natural state with re-growth of forest as well as much tree planting in the early part of the 20th century. But in the first decade or so of the 20th century the trees of the Fells were hit very badly with gypsy moth infestations. Human usage is on the increase and invasive species have made their encroachments. All these things have brought, and will continue to bring, changes to the flora of the Fells. Between 1920 -1922, Nathaniel Kidder collected many plant samples in the Fells which are now held at the Harvard Herbarium. He did not publish a report. 

As the centenary of the reservation approached, a survey of flowering plants was made by Brian Drayton through three growing seasons between 1990 and 1992 (Drayton and Primack, 1996).  Drayton compares what he found to what Deane had found a century earlier, noting in what location he found particular plants. Most interesting are the lists of those plants found by Deane but not found by Drayton, and vice versa. Sadly, but not too surprisingly, the former is the longer list.  It should be noted however that Drayton confined his area of survey to west of I-93 and north of South Border Road, therefore only about 40% of the present total. Not all subsequent reporting on Drayton's work has taken sufficient note of this. Because of a difference in the underlying geology between West and East Fells, there are quite a few species only found, and still found, in the eastern part. This meant that there had been no published survey east of I-93 since the original Deane survey, and never any published survey of Lawrence Woods, shown as sector 1 on the Fells map above.

Deane, W. ed. 1896. Flora of the Blue Hills, Middlesex Fells, Stony Brook and Beaver Brook Reservations of the Metropolitan Parks Commission, Massachusetts.  C. M. Barrows  & Co.  Boston, MA.