You worked hard turning some of your property into wildlife habitat. You planted nectar and host plants for butterflies and pollinators. Trees and bushes offer shelter and habitat for birds, squirrels, and other small creatures. Perhaps this summer, a box turtle took up residence in your back yard or you heard tree frogs singing in your own trees! Now, after all your hard work, why would you destroy that wonderful ecosystem by cleaning it up for winter?
This time of year, experts encourage us to clean up and cut down. That is the right way to manage a manicured golf-course landscape; but it’s the wrong way to treat the property you’ve cultivated as wildlife habitat. Think about it; does Mother Nature rake leaves and cut down dried seed heads? No. Dying plant matter provides food and shelter for insects and animals throughout the winter, and to complete the lifecycle, decaying matter amends the soil—free fertilizer!
First, let’s talk about not raking leaves. Leaf litter is a microecosystem all its own. It’s full of eggs, larvae, pupae, and thriving insects. Bag up the leaves and they’re gone—an entire little ecosystem is gone. You invited all those beneficial insects into your yard. If you want to keep them there, don’t destroy their home and kill their offspring! Instead, allow leaves to lay where they fall. Only remove leaves from areas you must. A foot of leaves can be as detrimental to that thriving community as no leaves at all. In addition, wet slippery leaves are hazardous. Find balance between being a responsible homeowner and supporting the living community underneath those leaves.
Next up is your wildflowers. They’re looking shabby this time of year, but fight the urge to cut them back. Birds and other creatures depend on seeds and dried leaves for food. Many insects overwinter in dried stems. And honestly, what looks a tad shabby right now will look spectacular surrounded by a blanket of snow. I plant river oats because those glistening seeds bowing over a blanket of bright snow are beautiful. If you want to clean up your front yard a bit, that’s understandable, but don’t throw out the debris. Pile it up in an out-of-the way corner and let nature take care of it while it provides shelter throughout the winter.
Experts tell us that a messy winter garden encourages disease, and they’re right. Please don’t apply this messy strategy to your vegetable garden plots or your precious cultivars, such as roses. Some of your landscape will always require special care. However, in those areas that you purposely turned over to nature, continue to let nature take the lead.
Butterflies, native bees and pollinators, and other beneficial insects need a safe place to hibernate over winter. Birds and other small creatures need shelter and food. Truly wild places are in decline, so your yard matters. Every yard matters. Leave your wildlife habitat messy, and let nature do what it does best in a healthy balanced system.
This article was originally published in the Franklin County Horticulture newsletter.
Please join us for the 2021 KNPS Fall Meeting on October 23, from 4PM to 5:30PM EDT. We will be meeting virtually again this year on Zoom (hopefully our last virtual Fall Meeting). Our fall meetings are open to members and non-members alike. The meeting will review what the Society has done in the past year and discuss activities for the rest of 2021 and for 2022. As the meeting is on Zoom, please register by following the link at the bottom of this article. If you want to learn more about your Society the KNPS Fall Meeting is for you. If you have any questions, email us at KYPlants@knps.org.
Meeting Agenda
4:00PM to 4:25PM – Welcome and Review of 2021
Welcome – Tara Littlefield
Wildflower Week 2021 – Heidi Braunreiter
2021 Field Trips – Tara Littlefield
The Lady Slipper – Susan Harkins
Student Grants – David Taylor
Financial Report – Steele McFadden
Membership Report – Jeff Nelson
KNPS Board Secretary – Tara Littlefield
4:25PM to 4:40PM – Botanical Symposia – Tara Littlefield
5:00PM to 5:30PM – Standing Committees & Member Engagement – Jeff Nelson
Registration
As the meeting will be virtual, registration is required. Complete the registration form at this link and you will receive a link to the virtual meeting.
KNPS is hosting a virtual botanical symposium on Wednesday, December 8th from 9AM-12PM EST. For several years, KNPS has organized a botanical symposium in the fall/winter with a goal of bringing together professionals, citizen scientists, academics, gardeners and students in order to learn about what’s going on in the world of Kentucky Botany. Please join us to learn about all things botanical in Kentucky and the surrounding region.
Topics that will be covered will include, but will not be limited to, KNPS updates, plant conservation alliance updates, conservation horticulture and native plant propagation; monitoring and managing native and rare plants and natural communities,; native plant research; plant biodiversity in Kentucky and the surrounding regions and exciting new botanical discoveries.
Mountain lover (Paxistima canbyi) in Carter County, Kentucky (Photo by T. Littlefield)
Limestone outcrops/Mountain Lover habitat overlooking the Cumberland River in Pulaski County, Kentucky (Photo by T. Littlefield)
Mountain Lover (Paxistima canbyi) is a globally rare (G2), small evergreen shrub in the bittersweet family (Celastraceae). This shrub is occurs in Kentucky (S2), Maryland (S1), Ohio (S1), Pennsylvania (S2), Tennessee (S1), Virginia (S2), and West Virginia (S2), and is listed as state threatened or endangered throughout its range. This interesting shrub grows clonally and can form dense patches with stems reaching 6-12 inches. Fruit development and seed production are reportedly quite rare in the wild and there may be fewer than sixty genetically distinct plants throughout its entire range due to its clonal nature, further compounding its rarity.
One interesting note about the mountain lover is that it is thought to be an ancient glacial relict species, a remnant from a long lost ecosystem that occurred in this region prior to the last glaciation some 20,000 years ago. The late Dr. E. Lucy Braun, the esteemed plant ecologist from Cincinnati, had an interest in this plant and speculated that the mountain lover was an ancient glacial relict species that occurred along a pre glacial river system called the Teays River. I wonder how long these remnant populations have been clinging to the limestone cliffs and how old the root systems are of these clonal shrubs, perhaps thousands, even tens of thousands of years old?
Mountain lover has very small green/marron flowers with four sepals and four petals arising from upper leaf axils. While I occasionally see it flower, i have never found any fruits (photo by: T. Littlefield)
Global Range of Mountain Lover. http://bonap.net/MapGallery/County/Paxistima%20canbyi.png
Natural regions where mountain lover is found in Kentucky
I have long been fascinated by this plant and the limestone cliff and outcrop habitats where it grows. In Kentucky, It occurs in several sub regions of the interior low and Appalachian plateaus, including the inner bluegrass, the knobs, and the cliff section/intersection of the eastern highland rim and Cumberland Plateau. It is associated with limestone rocky ledges and cliffs, with an overstory/midstory of Chinkapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergia), Blue Ash (Fraxinus quadrandulata), Eastern Red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), and eastern hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana). The herbaceous/shrub layer includes shrubby st. johns wort (Hypericum prolificum), fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica), smooth rockcress (Boechera laevigata), limestone cliff sedge (Carex eburnia), purple cliff break fern (Pellaea atropurpurea), and wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis). The limestone cliffs and outcrops typically occur in deep ravine gorges that form unique microclimates that also provide habitat for other glacial relict disjunct rare species such as Canada yew (Taxus canadensis), walter’s violet (Viola walteri), northern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis), glade phlox (Phlox bifida var. stellaria), purple oat grass (Schizachne purpurscens) and snow trillium (Trillium nivale). The overall community assemblages of the mountain lover sites are unique between the various regions, and we are currently working with NatureServe to classify these plant communities to determine global rarity and classifications.
Walters violet (Viola walteri, S1) grows with mountain lover in Carter county, KY, Photo: T. Littlefield
Canada yew (Taxus canadensis, S1), glacial relict disjunct rare plant grows with mountain lover in Carter county, KY, Photo: T. Littlefield
Gnarly Eastern red cedars (Juniperus virginiana) grow on the limestone cliffs/mountain lover habitat in Estill county, KY, Photo: T. Littlefield
Overlook at a mountain lover site in Estill county, KY, Photo: T. Littlefield
Northern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis, S1), a glacial relict disjunct rare tree, grows with mountain lover in Wayne county, KY, Photo: T. Littlefield
View from below the limestone cliffs at a mountain lover site in Madison county, KY, Photo: T. Littlefield
Another common name of this plant is the “rat stripper” due to its relationship with eastern wood rats (Neotoma magister) that co-occur in the limestone outcrop habitats. These animals have been known to sever the woody stems to utilize in nests building along the cliffs. I have personally observed this phenomena at one of our Kentucky sites in Estill County, where I came upon a population with hundreds of freshly severed stems, wood rat tracks and nesting signs. I collected a few of the fresh cut stems and rooted them in potting mix after that trip. Could wood rats also play a role in expanding mountain lover populations along the cliff lines by inadvertently planting some as they drop stems along the cliff lines?
Major threats to the mountain lover include invasive plants such as bush honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii), Euonymus scale (Unaspis euonymi, a small non-native aphid-like bug), timber removal, deer browsing and climate change. The majority of populations occur on private lands so development of the cliff tops has impacted a few populations and could be a threat to several more. Perhaps the greatest threat in Kentucky appears to be from the Euonymus scale, with over 50% of our populations experiencing declines due to this nonnative bug. Euonymus scale not only effects populations of mountain lover, but most species in the bittersweet family are affected as well, such as the eastern wahoo (Euonymus americana) and American bittersweet (Celastris americana). Due to the steep, cliff habitat where mountain lover occurs, there could be undiscovered populations that are inaccessible to humans. Additional surveys for new populations could further our understanding of the species and help evaluate its conservation status.
Euonymus scale infestation on Mountain Lover population in Madison County, Kentucky. Photo by T. Littlefield. For more info on Euonymus scale visit https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef428
Medium infestation of Euonymous scale in a mountain lover population in Powell county, note yellowing of leaves, several dead patches were nearby, Photo by T. Littlefield
We know that mountain lover is globally rare, has numerous threats, and occurs primarily on private land. So how can we work together to preserve this unique species? Conservation measures include networking with landowners that harbor mountain lover populations, targeting land acquisition projects to include these priority private sites, manage populations for the euonymus scale, and increase ex situ conservation efforts with horticulturalists. In June of 2021, recent efforts by the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves, Kentucky Plant Conservation Alliance, and the Atlanta Botanical Garden along with partners at the Daniel Boone National Forest, Berea College forest and several private landowners focused on visiting populations in all of the sub regions in Kentucky and collecting living samples to propagate for ex situ conservation and future introductions. Site evaluations, natural community assessments and rare plant updates were also conducted as a part of this collection trip. Having additional sites on public lands would allow researchers and biologists more opportunities for monitoring and managing these populations into the future. Conservation horticulturalist John Evans at the Atlanta Botanical Garden is now currently growing plants from 5 populations in Kentucky for future introductions within OKNP natural areas in the inner Bluegrass, Daniel Boone national Forest lands in the Cumberland Plateau, and Berea college forest sites in the knobs region.
Calab Evans, Atlanta Botanical Garden Horticultural technician, roots cuttings of Mountain lover from recent collection trips
John Evans, conservation horticulturalist at Atlanta Botanical Garden, and Tara Littlefield, OKNP/KPCA botanist hanging out on limestone cliffs on a recent collection trip
If you would like to know more about these efforts or other Kentucky Plant Conservation Alliance efforts to conserve the rare plants and communities in Kentucky, please contact tara.littlefield@ky.gov.
In anticipation of being able to hold in-person meetings again, KNPS would like you to save the date for Wildflower Weekend 2022. The next annual event will be held April 9th -10th 2022 at the Natural Bridge State Resort Park in Slade, Kentucky.
Every year, KNPS hosts a fall membership meeting to discuss yearly updates and upcoming activities. This year, we will be hosting a virtual meeting via Zoom on Saturday, October 23rd at 4pm Eastern time. An agenda and full meeting information will be published in the October Lady Slipper. Please stay tuned if you would like to attend!
By: Heidi Braunreiter, Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves Plant Ecologist
OKNP botanist conducting running buffalo clover survey in 2019 along Boone Creek in Clark County. Photo by Heidi Braunreiter.
Running Buffalo Clover (Trifolium stoloniferum) is a perennial clover with showy white flowers and leaves divided into three leaflets, and was historically native to several eastern and midwestern U.S. states. Based on numerous references to clovers in historical literature, it is believed to have been abundant across its historical range in pre-settlement times, which included the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky (Campbell et al. 1988). However by 1900, its extent had drastically reduced, and only five populations in total remained (Brooks, 1983). Throughout the 20th century, there were numerous fruitless attempts to relocate populations, which lead scientists to believe the species was extirpated from states where it was historically common. Finally, in 1983 populations were relocated in West Virginia and Indiana, as well as in northern Kentucky in 1987 (Campbell et al. 1988). With so few populations known, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) opted to list the species in 1987 as ‘federally endangered,’ because it was at a high risk of extinction (USWFS 2007).
The decline of running buffalo clover is believed to have been caused by a combination of factors: as land was settled, habitat destruction ensued and competition from non-native invasive species became a problem (Campbell et al. 1988). Another factor was the loss of the American Bison on the landscape. Historical observations noted the clover’s preference for sites where American Bison congregated (Bartgis 1985). Bison likely provided a means of fertilizer, seed scarification, seed dispersal, and the periodic disturbance regime necessary for the running buffalo clover’s life cycle (Campbell et al. 1988). The loss of bison from the landscape would have dramatically affected the species’ propagation.
Running buffalo clover in a cemetery in Boone County, Kentucky. Photo by Heidi Braunreiter.
Today, you will find running buffalo clover in areas that have periodical disturbances mimicking bison; for example, along trails where plants get trampled, in old estate lawns or cemeteries that are regularly mowed, and on stream terraces with occasional flooding events. Running buffalo clover also prefers dappled sunlight in a forested setting. If the forest canopy becomes either too closed or too open, running buffalo clover populations tend to decline in number as it does not tolerate full shade or full sun (USFWS 2021).
Over the past two decades, the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves (OKNP) has conducted monitoring on running buffalo clover populations in Kentucky in order to look at population trends and manage for non-native invasive plants. Over this time, many new county records were discovered through targeted searches of historical estates, cemeteries, and stream restoration efforts in the Bluegrass Region. Several successful propagation and introductions efforts have also occurred over the years, for example, new populations were introduced and are now self-sufficient at Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill in Mercer County and Taylor Fork Ecological Area in Madison County.
In 2019, running buffalo clover was proposed for delisting by the USFWS, as many populations had been discovered since its initial listing over 30 years prior. In response to the 2019 proposed delisting, OKNP conducted a state-wide assessment of our running buffalo clover populations. Despite set-backs from the pandemic, we were able to survey 61 populations, which covered the majority of the known extant populations in Kentucky. Sites not included in the assessment were already determined to be extirpated, or inaccessible. Most populations in Kentucky occur on private lands, and although obtaining access to private lands can be difficult, we have been grateful for the curiosity, interest, and enthusiastic response from many property owners. Overall, population trends in Kentucky show approximately half of the populations as stable or increasing in size while the other half of populations are declining in size or extirpated (Table 1). Figure 1 shows an updated range map of extant running buffalo clover populations in Kentucky.
Table 1. Population trends of running buffalo clover in Kentucky during the 2019-2020 statewide survey.
A huge success that came out of the 2019-2020 statewide survey was the discovery of the largest running buffalo clover population in Kentucky. On the Mt. Folly Farm in Clark County, a population of over 6,000 plants was counted along the Upper Howards Creek. Other large populations of running buffalo clover in the state top out around 1,000 to 2,000 plants. The significance of this population led to the creation of a new Registered Natural Area with OKNP at Mt. Folly Farm. The clover occurs in the floodplain of the creek in cattle pastures and riparian woods. This site holds potential for future research as it has running buffalo clover in areas with and without a cattle-grazing regime.
As of September 2021, running buffalo clover was delisted by USFWS as they believe there are a sufficient number of populations occurring on publicly owned and managed lands to sustain the species’ viability (USWFS 2021). As of 2020, 175 extant populations occur across its range in Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and biologists in these states discover new populations every year. Within Kentucky, many populations occur on Wildlife Management Areas where stream restoration projects are ongoing. The key to the future success of this plant is the continued management of populations to keep invasive plants at bay and the continued implementation of appropriate disturbance regimes, be that mowing, grazing, or trampling.
If you are interested in adopting a running buffalo clover population in Kentucky to do yearly checkups to remove invasive species, please contact me! heidi.braunreiter@ky.gov.
Figure 1. Extant range of running buffalo clover in Kentucky as of February 2021.
Bibliography
Bartgis, R. 1985. Rediscovery of Trifolium stoloniferum Muhl. ex A. Eaton. Rhodora 87:425–429.
Brooks, R. 1983. Trifolium stoloniferum, Running buffalo clover: Description, distribution, and current status. Rhodora 85:343–354.
Campbell, J.J.N., M. Evans, M.E. Medley, and N.L. Taylor. 1988. Buffalo clovers in Kentucky (Trifoliumstoloniferum and Trifolium reflexum) – Historical records, presettlement environment, rediscovery, endangered status, cultivation and chromosome number. Rhodora 90:399–418.
USFWS. 2007. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: Running Buffalo Clover (Trifolium stoloniferum) Recovery Plan: First Revision. Department of the Interior, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Lakes-Big Rivers Region (Region 3), Fort Snelling, MN.
