Finding All the Plants

It’s spring and so I am in my happy space–there are PLANTS BLOOMING AND MORE TO COME! I’ve been out hiking a lot recently, trying to wrap up what remains of trails for my Big Thicket region hiking guidebook, and so I have been seeing a lot of interesting plants and sights recently. I’ve essentially given up on trying to keep this blog to the detail I used to be able to and so this is what you are going to get from me now (this is a note for future me when I get mad at past me for not writing about such and such thing.).

My favorite place recently has been the Little Thicket Nature Sanctuary near Coldspring. It’s a private conservation tract owned by the Outdoor Nature Club of Houston. Members can visit have attending an orientation day and keeping up with their dues. The good news is that membership is only $8 a person or $15 for a family per year! Forest and I went out two weekends ago to visit and I returned last weekend to hike more. There are a lot of trails there, some that haven’t been maintained, too, and are seemingly lost to nature once again. This is a video of a small waterfall on Mill Creek near the Enchanted Isle trail. Truly a glorious spot on a late afternoon spring day.

Shrub Yellowroot, Xanthorhiza simplicissima, a very rare species in Texas, and one not typically seen this far west in the state. I was familiar with it at Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve and recently bought two plants from Mail Order Natives in Florida for our own garden. It does not grow this close to water at Watson, though; it is in a mesic habitat there.

Common Thelia, Thelia hirtella, a moss growing on a tree. This is fairly common out there, I saw it several places and really loved the patterns it creates. You can also spy some liverworts in the top left. I have misplaced my phone macro lens and have not been doing liverwort photos/IDs lately.

Is this Angelina National Forest? Sabine? The Big Thicket? Nope, it’s a hillside beech grove along a creek in the Little Thicket, adjacent to Sam Houston National Forest. When I say that this property transforms, I mean it. Habitat changes happen in a few hundred feet and you’ll be transported from bottomlands to seeps to beech slopes. It’s astonishing!

On Sunday we altered plans to hike the Woodlands Trail loops in the Big Thicket since my feet were killing me from the hike on Saturday and opted in favor of doing the Birdwatchers Trail in the Menard Creek Unit of the BTNP instead. This trail and section of the unit feels very much like the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge, well, because it has frontage on the Trinity. It’s very much a riverine bottomland habitat and I enjoyed it immensely. I’ve been watching iNat entries from someone I know over on IG and they’ve been posting Midwestern poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans ssp. negundo, rather frequently lately. I believe that is what this poison ivy is, with the really distinct leaf shapes on this particular vine. Oh, it was really great while out here, too, I was stepping on a chopped down piece of poison ivy vine that was in the trail but didn’t notice it, however Forest pointed it out! I was really proud that he could recognize the vine without the leaves! As much as he grumbles about being outside sometimes, things do sink in!

Fuzzy Phacelia, Phacelia hirsuta, was the predominant bloomer in the groundcover layer along with the viridescence of the grasses and sedges in that layer—so striking of a combination.

We jaunted over to the Menard Creek Corridor crossing near Segno after the Birdwatchers Trail to search for a historically known location of a particular plant species but did not end up finding it. It is one of those “It used to be on that creek” but no one has seen it in 40 years type things. And we had Forest with us so we couldn’t really go traipsing through soggy baygalls with him. Someday maybe we’ll do a more thorough search. On the way there I noticed these plants on the side of the road but also saw taller Baptisia species and thought perhaps they were blooming but some were growing more prostrate. We were driving too fast so I didn’t really get a good look. Then we drove back the way we came and I was on the other side of the road so I wasn’t looking out that direction but Chris noticed the yellow again, so we turned around on a dirt road and went back to see what it actually was. It turned out to be a large colony of Canadian Lousewort, Pedicularis canadensis! I have never seen so much of it growing in any location I’ve found it before so this was really cool to see!

Quick detour back to Little Thicket from two weekends ago and the blooming Sabine River wakerobin, Trillium gracile. This was very abundant at the nature sanctuary, probably more plants than I’ve seen elsewhere in SE Texas.

And I stumbled across a lone southern twayblade orchid, Neottia bifolia, in seed, too.

I found this little plant growing out of the slopes of Mill Creek at the LTNS, too, and as best as I can tell it is the fern called blunt woodsia, Woodsia obstusa, which is not really common in this part of the state!

And lastly, in mid-March Chris and I went to look for spring coralroot orchids, Corallorhiza wisteriana, near the Woodlands. At our first location we came up empty handed but with rumbling thunder in the distance and the evening growing later, we managed to find them at the second location! They were much more difficult to see than I was expecting. I’d only seen one once before back in 2010 at the Fort Worth Nature Center.

I have so many trip reports to share and things to write up that I get overwhelmed quickly in deciding what to write about here. Do I dig out some of the old Alaska stuff I never finished from 2019?? I may. I just need to write and stop being paralyzed in indecision.

Tell me what plants and wildlife you are seeing as spring unfolds where you are!