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JW: all right. (walking away)
RM: This place is almost beginning to feel like a cathedral.
JW: A natural resource study had 320 plants in the area.
RM: Great diversity - some of 'em getting to be fairly large. Here's one of the trees
that usually
does get to be a big tree - just getting started now. Hackberry is one of the names for it
or
sugarberry is really the more proper name for this species. Leaves identify it there.
Looks a lot like
that American Beech, uh, bark-wise, once it gets to be a little bit bigger. What's this
stuff now that
dominates here . . . this . . .
JW: Cane . . . looks like cane . . .
RM: Uh-huh, Switch-Cane is the common name for it. It can be used to make uh switches
of
course to correct children. But it really does dominate here sometimes even in large
amounts
called uh canebrakes. And talking about a large amount of one plant - my gracious! - just
look up
the side of that dead oak tree! What is that Jim?
JW: That's a healthy ivy, that's for sure . . .
RM: (together) - Poison Ivy - from the bottom to the top tree, long- since dead, it's doing
very, very
well. Three parts to the leaf - three leaflets, and there's recent fruit on it. Green now,
turn white a
little bit later. Spectacular the way vines do here - not only is this the land of giant
trees, also giant
vines.
JW: Pretty to look at, but leave it alone.
RM: Mmm-hmm. Green plants are always struggling for a little bit of sunlight. So vines, you
see,
have to climb up to get the energy they need to make food. Here's something else now that's
climbing, but it's just getting started here. I love this tree. It's a young one - bald
cypress is the
common name. Look at those new leaves . . .
JW: So pretty!
RM: Frilly leaves - its one of the conifers that actually sheds all of its leaves at one
time. Gets to
be of course a great deal larger than that but starting out on really a drier area. Usually
when you
see that you think of water nearby though. And then probably the most common understory
tree in
this place, never getting up into the canopy, is the one with the large, green leaves over
there. . .
JW: And what is that?
RM: Pawpaw is the common name for it - it flowers early in the spring; the fruit is
edible - it's
banana-like when you eat it, that appears late summer, early fall. But look at the leaves
on that
tree! And when you begin to look out there you see a lot of those young pawpaws just
getting
started here and and doing really well in the shade. See there are some plants here
that really do
well in the shade. Let's just keep walking.