Completing Crystal Valley

 Cathy and I went out and hiked the rest of the trails at Crystal Valley today. Not surprisingly, it looked a lot different with everything green. The first part is flat, but not most of it!

I found Frangrant Bedstraw, Galium triflorum. This time you can tell why it has the triflorum name. The flowers are in little clusters of three. You can just barely see a couple of sets.

This is fairly common, but it's still a fun find. Squawroot, Conopholis americana. It's parasitic on oak and beech, both of which grow at Crystal Valley

But the best find is two more fruiting chestnut trees. One had LOTS of seed pods on the ground.

We hunted around for the trees. I think we found one of them. The leaves are w...a...y up there, and this was the best picture I got even with the zoom on my camera. Not definitive. They should be a little narrower for American, but they are definitely not pure Chinese.

The bark is, well..., not very helpful. I did find pictures on line that look like this, but it usually breaks into more separated vertical straps by the time it gets this size. However, this does look consistent with some of the pictures.

So here's the eternal question. Are these American Chestnut, Chinese Chestnut, or a hybrid. They are not Chinese, but they could be a hybrid. This issue for me on this question is that this tree is big and old. It's probably at least 75 years old. The fact that it's tall and straight says American.

Although there were experiments being done with hybrids as early as 1925, one has to wonder why there would be 3 hybrid chestnuts randomly growing out there. But... it is Forest Service property, so I suppose there could have been some kind of experiment going on.

I think it's quite a mystery, and I don't understand why the FS doesn't seem more excited about my reports. Maybe they already know about these and know they are hybrids? If so, I don't know why they wouldn't just tell me that.

We hiked 5.2 miles. Anyway. I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm passing out early tonight.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 264.5.

Crystal Valley, MI. Parts of loops, 1, 3, 4. 5.3 miles

See Bedstraw Bonanza See

Crystal Valley Outer Loop

 I had not been out to Crystal Valley for a long time. But I'm wanting to ramp up the miles I can hike in a day, and the outer loop of their ski trails is about 7.5. Cathy went with me. She didn't want to go that far, but with multiple loops, she could cut back to the car earlier.

It was a nice day to be out. No green yet except for moss and conifers, but that's OK.

Except for the bottom loop, the rest of the area is pretty hilly. This is out on Loop 5, the most difficult. I'd never even walked that because it was still in development the last time I hiked there. My favorite piece today was a connecting trail between Loops 4 and 5 that follows the top of a ridge.

My former adventure buddy, Ellen, is really involved with the group that maintains these trails, OCCSA (Oceana Cross Country Ski Association). Here's one serious piece of work they did.

I found a few little goodies. This is a jelly fungus, probably Exidia recisa, which can be black, brown or amber colored. It's sometimes called witches butter. I've showed you this in the past. It's really common.

This one is common too, but I may have an ID on it now. I think it's coral spot, Nectria cinnabarina. That said, I am NOT a fungus expert.

There are a few glacial erratic boulders out there. This was the biggest one I saw.

There are brand new ski trail blazes! I've never seen this style before. Pretty classy.

But the very best find of all was a bunch of these scattered on the trail. These are chestnuts! Now, I want to get really excited, but I can't tell if they are American (which would be a phenomenal find), or a hybrid (but how would one have gotten out there in the forest?). I don't know how to tell the seed pods apart, or if you even can tell them apart on the outside. I looked around for the tree, but didn't spot any bark that looked right. Later, I realized the tree might have been farther uphill and the "balls" had rolled down the trail. I also looked for leaves on the ground, but I think what I found were just large beech leaves. They didn't have pronounced enough spines. Anyway, I think I'm going to try to let someone know about this. The area is within the Manistee National Forest.

So, I pushed myself to do longer mileage. The loop was 7.9 miles, but I did extra and got 9.2 miles. I feel OK, just tired, and I did bang up a toe. I'll live.

Not much else got done. I decided that was OK for today.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 151.8 of which 45.4 is North Country Trail (none of today is NCT).

See Skiing at Crystal Valley

Chestnut Farm

I've been keeping my eye on this field for a lot of years. The trees were planted in 2002. I know that because there is a sign that was eventually put up telling the year. For a lot of years, without really looking as I drove past, I assumed it was a cherry orchard. The young trees were sticks of about the right size with the trunks wrapped to prevent rodent and rabbit damage.

But at some point that sign was put up explaining that this is a chestnut orchard! There is a website on the sign, but the address doesn't work. I tried to look up the farm, and it has a website, but it doesn't mention the chestnuts.

Anyway, I am seriously guessing these are blight-resistant hybrids. The leaves are long and slender with prominent teeth like American Chestnut.

But the backs are light colored where American Chestnut backs are dark green like the fronts, and the bud is shaped like Chinese Chestnut.

This is not very far from me at all. I need to visit at different times of the year to get pictures of them in bloom, and then when they fruit.

I learned today that Michigan is #1 in the country for commercial production of Chestnuts.

In other news: I got the snowblower out of jail- it has been at the repair shop awaiting a backordered part for way too long. I should have mowed some grass, but I didn't.

Bernie did 30 miles today, and is sleeping here one more night. His mouth is feeling better than it has for a long time, and he's pretty happy about that.

See American Chestnut in Michigan

Huckleberry Bog - Day 2

  If you were wondering what happened to day 1 in Huckleberry Bog, it was swallowed up in the day we also stopped at Evageline Shelter. This is an approximately 2 mile stretch of the Bristol Branch which also has a return loop so it can be hiked as a round trip. My friend Irene (where I am now staying), and a high school teacher and class, and the naturalist from Letchworth State Park worked together a number of years ago to develop an interpretive booklet and numbered stations. What they produced is quite extensive, and a real resource for teaching. Or, it can be enjoyed more casually by anyone. However, plants have a nasty little habit of changing over time. It's perfectly natural. The light changes, or the water table, and plants decide then don't like where they have been growing and die or go dormant. Plants die and others take their place. They grow and shade out other species. It's only nasty if the humans have done a significant amount of work to try to tell other people where they are by means of a booklet.

Irene was pretty unhappy to hear how much the plant communities have changed since the booklet was developed. She was wondering where she was going to now find someone who knows enough of the plants to check everything. Then we realized that I was wanting a project to do after Marie and I finished hiking, and I have the knowledge to be able to do this. There you go... it's what I'm doing now. So, today I spent a lot of time checking the text of the booklet against what plants are still around each number tag. I added some markers to others, such as this one for Sarsaparilla. I won't bore you with a five-hour botany lesson (how long I spent on about one mile of trail). But I do have some cool pictures. This is a fungal pattern on Yellow Birch bark This golden fungus adorned the base of a tree. Not sure what it is. This is an American Chestnut. There were hundreds of sprouts in this woods, trying hard to make a comeback. Maybe one of them will succeed, and be the forerunner of the genetic winner that will allow the species to overcome the Chestnut Blight. They usually only get a little larger than this one before they die.

Finally, I'll leave you with a little red eft. He wasn't as bright orange as some, but they always make me smile. I got half of the sites checked today. I'll need to spend one more day to complete the semi-inventory. (Not a scientifically conducted inventory, but a better-than-casual attempt.) And it will also take about 2 days to get the data collected so Irene can use it to have the booklets remade.

So, you'll see more of this area. It's where the "hugging trees" are located. They are a man-helped anomaly, but it's always a treat to find a small area with such diverse plant populations. Really a nifty place. 

Miles walked? Not too many, except there was a lot of back and forth, and wandering around. At any rate, I'm beat for today. 

See American Chestnut in Michigan See Bristol Branch - Evangeline

American Chestnut in Michigan

 
A few years ago, I was pretty excited to show you that I found a mature American Chestnut on the Finger Lakes Trail in New York. It even produced fruit.

The inner loop of the Dry Hill Trail that I hiked last weekend is called the Chestnut Loop because there are many sprouts of Chestnut Trees. These are all offspring of native American Chestnut trees that were planted by early settlers. The natural range of the tree does not extend this far north. Almost all the American Chestnut trees were killed by a fungal blight in the early part of the 20th Century. The trees still try to sprout from old stumps and roots, but rarely live more than a few years. Here's one that it giving it the old college try.



Sadly, this is what happens. Instead of growing into tall trees, they turn into weedy clumps that die before they are ten years old.



Supposedly, before the big die-off, the Chestnut accounted for about a quarter of all trees in the eastern forests, with the natural range being on the west and north edges of the Appalachian Mountains. The nuts were the main food source for many animals, the way acorns are today. Between 3 and 4 billion trees died. It's hard to imagine how different the forests must have been back then. Or how different they will become. In another 50 years, the Ash will all be gone from today's forests, and the Beech will be well on their way out too, thanks to the emerald ash borer and beech bark fungus.

But Chestnut trees are really showy when in flower. They would have made the woods look quite different.

There are 600-800 mature Chestnuts that have survived in Missaukee County, Michigan (just east of Cadillac), and some on Beaver Island. The blight does not like the colder climate of the north, and most living mature trees are in areas with cold winters. That said, a few remaining trees have been found in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Georgia, Wisconsin, Alabama, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and planted ones in Oregon, Nova Scotia and Ontario.

There are several foundations working to crossbreed resistant trees or make trees more genetically resistant to the fungus.

So, where I'm going with this is that while driving home I saw a whole row of chestnut trees in bloom. They aren't huge, but they are larger than the shrubby messes above. I assumed they were Chinese Chestnut, but I stopped to take some pictures. Now I think they could be American Chestnuts or possibly a hybrid. Chestnuts are promiscuous.



Looking at the pictures, the leaves seem to be broad with large coarse teeth like the American trees. Castanea dentata: "teeth." Chinese Chestnut has narrow leaves and finer teeth.



That said, if they are a hybrid, I really wouldn't know how to tell. In fact, genetic testing might be required.

But, they were in bloom. You can see how showy they are! Both sexes are found on the same tree, but they do need more than one tree to pollinate. The long "feathers" are the male catkins, and the small female flowers are close to the stem.



Pretty cool! Wouldn't it be neat if the chestnut came back just in time to take over for the ash or beech?

	See American Chestnut
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