On Wednesday June 13th, Walter Kittredge and I met at Gate #8 and started down the trail in search of some mosses and lichens. Long Hill was our main destination, but we also got a chance to look around Bradford Pond with it’s the old beaver dam seepage areas, and along the outlet stream.
On top of Long Hill I was excited to see Lasallia papulosa ,a lichen that grows on rocks with a central holdfast, looking almost like a ruffled bumpy circle on the rocks. This was definitely a fun find and I was excited to see what other lichens we would see along the way. On the down slope of Long Hill we found some Andreaea rothii, an uncommon New England moss that has special reproductive structures that open up like a chinese lantern. A. rothii is very small, and almost black in color so it can be hard to spot if you don’t know what you are looking for.
After we stopped at the stream to collect an aquatic moss (Fontinalis), we made our way over to the pond where we found some sundew plants growing in an Aulacomnium moss. I had never seen a sundew in person before (being from Oregon), so I was very excited to see it growing within the moss. I’m sure that the sundew would not be there without the moss to grow in! It was a great field day in Parker and we are both looking forward to more days to come and new mosses and lichens to find!
-Giovanna Bishop
Sundew and Aulacomnium moss