Yonkers, NY

Crestwood is a nondescript stop on Metro North's Harlem line, 39 minutes north of Grand Central.  There's a small downtown on one side of the tracks and the Bronx River on the other.

Between the tracks and the river and adjacent to the train station is a small park with lawns, a bike path and lots of Canada geese.  Walking down this path, gingerly avoiding the finger-sized goose droppings, I despaired of seeing anything wild, much less finding anything to write about.

Down in Texas, we say "Ya dance with them that brung ya", meaning you accept your destiny and enjoy it.  Dancing along, I came upon this pretty little patch of flowers growing along the river bank in a wooded section north of the bike paths and picnic tables.  The yellow flowers are fig buttercup (Ranunculus ficaria), an extremely invasive import from Europe.  The low red stuff mixed in (best seen in center of photo) is purple keman (Corydalis incisa), only recently discovered growing in the northeastern US outside of cultivation.  You are looking at the first sighting feral plants in Westchester County.  It's originally from eastern Asia, was promoted as a garden ornamental and has now escaped into the wild.  Is it the next fig buttercup?  In a month or so, when the plant come into bloom, I will make a specimen and write up the results to be published in a scientific journal.  So.... I did find something to write about.  Loyalty and patience are always rewarded.

Although it's not wild because it's dammed in several places, the Bronx River is New York City's only true, fresh-water river.  The Hudson River (around New York City) is actually a fjord, which means it's a glacially carved estuary, with a mix of fresh and salt water and subject to the ebb and flow of the tides.

Beginning at the Kensico Reservior, north of White Plains, the Bronx River flows 24 miles through lower Westchester County past White Plains, Edgemont, Tuckahoe, Eastchester and Bronxville and the boro of the Bronx, through The New York Botanical Garden, the Wildlife Conservation Society (Bronx Zoo), under the Cross Bronx Expressway (I-95) and through the south Bronx.  It empties into the East River through the ignominiously named Concrete Plant Park at the western end of Long Island Sound.  The portion through the Botanical Garden is by far the most pristine and beautiful part of the River and is the reason "Americas's Botanical Garden" was sited there in the first place.

This country was built on the banks of its rivers.  And while it's no Mississippi or Columbia, the Bronx River saw its share of mills, factories, sewage disposal and industrial waste.

Don't you despair though. The Bronx River is alive and well, and even a little bit wild.  In 2007, the last towns stopped dumping raw sewage into the river and a $14.6 million grant was awarded to restore the river to its pre-industrial glory.  The Bronx River Watershed Coalition, including the Bronx River Alliance is working with government and citizen's groups to clear trash, restore the banks, re-introduce wildlife and maintain water quality.  But there's still a ways to go.

Attractive aren't they?  This grove of trees looks so natural here lining the river bank. They may not be exactly "natural", but they are wild-- in this case a little too wild.  These are black alder (Alnus glutinosa), another import from Europe.  They're a handsome tree, but like teenagers everywhere, let 'em out of the house and they misbehave and run amok, crowding together in unruly masses, wrecking a place and making it unfit for habitation.

In the plant world, under "natural" conditions (absent human influence), this rarely, if ever, happens.  Mother nature just doesn't work that way.  In all but the harshest or most extreme environments (and these are usually ephemeral), you will always find a mosaic of species, each occupying a particular niche or strata, however small, each having his or her 15 minutes of fame (or flower).

Look at Durer's "Great Piece of Turf" painted in 1503.  These may look like "weeds" to us because here in North America they are exotic and rampant.  But in Nuremberg, these are all native and well-behaved.  There are at least nine species depicted in this tiny patch of meadow, crowded together, their roots entangled, some over-topping the others, but none completely dominating.

Now look at the black alders again.  Nearly every plant you see in the photo is alien and rampant.  And there are only about three species in this whole visible landscape!  But wait.  Turn off the bulldozer, put away the roundup.  Is it right to blame the plants?  Or the teenagers?  I think not.  Rather than engineer a solution (we've done enough of that already), I suggest gently coaxing Nature to reclaim her rightful  stewardship over this patch of Earth.  Walk in there (don't drive-- soil compaction is one of the worst of our insults), saw down the alders, plant native trees, shrubs and herbs, control the geese and walk away.  Mother nature will take care of the rest, with maybe an occasional return to cut the alder sprouts till the roots die.  Low-tech, gentle, cheap, clean and sustainable.  That's what was done at Mill Basin in Brooklyn (see post of 11 March).

Not exactly Durer's meadow, but.....  That's a sedge in the Acrocystis group (prob. Carex pensylvanica).  It's a native species growing exactly where it evolved to grow best: dry wooded slopes with oak, hickory and beech.

And here they are:  red oaks (Quercus rubra) and beech trees (Fagus grandifolia)-- both native and neither completely dominating.  On the opposite bank are the black alders.  The slope here is too steep for any type of vehicle, probably its saving grace.

Here's another place I'm certain vehicles have never been.

These are Dutchman's breeches or squirrel corn (Dicentra cucularia), growing on the same slope as the ramps.  Their roots are covered with globular, yellow tubercules-- hence the latter name.  Carol Gracie's wonderful new book on the natural history of northeastern wildflowers (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9668.html) has spectacular photos and first-hand observations detailing the fascinating structure of these flowers, how they're pollinated and how ants disperse the seeds.

Red oaks, beech and moss smiling down on the Bronx River, safe from the cars on the Bronx River Parkway (through the trees and across the river).  Begun in 1907, "[t]he Bronx River Parkway was the first highway to utilize a median strip to separate the opposing lanes, the first highway constructed through a park, and the first highway where intersecting streets crossed over bridges." (Source: Wikipedia).

Like the river itself, the road passes through some of New York City's most beautiful natural habitats and has long, graceful curves, beautiful stone buttresses and flat straightaways.  It was never going to be a superhighway or a Columbia or a Mississippi.

Considering that this is how our highways began, I'd say it's been downhill ever since!

Mill Basin, Brooklyn

At the end of Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, there's a place called Kings Plaza.  It's a shopping mall with a Sears, a Macy's, Toys R Us and all the other chain stores found in shopping malls across America.  But it wasn't always so.  Those monstrous concrete boxes are actually sitting in Jamaica Bay!  According to The Encyclopedia of New York City, the local Canarsee Indians called this place Equandito (broken lands) and  until the industrial revolution, the area supported a thriving economy based on the abundant crabs, oysters and clams.  Then dikes, dams and causeways were built to support the tidal mills, lead smelters and refineries that located here and Equandito became Mill Basin.  After WWII, the lead smelters left, more of the marsh was filled, brick bungalows were built and Mill Basin became Kings Plaza.
 

But back there, past Avenue U, past the Mill Basin Golf Course, behind the Toys R Us, there's still a little Mill Basin left.

And back there, behind the wreckage of the industrial revolution, Equandito lives.

The sign informs us that this patch of forest and the marsh behind it were restored with funds from the 1996 Clean Air/Clean Water Bond Act.

That's panicum grass and goldenrod in the foreground and behind them are wax myrtle bushes, juniper, black locust and American elm, all but the locust native to this very site. 

Those are red maple trees with a dock species carpeting the ground.  Later in the year the dock will produce abundant seed kernels relished by numerous animals, especially water fowl. 

Now that's broken land!  Thank you Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and everyone who pays taxes.

Because it could have looked like this!  Alien vines like bitttersweet, multiflora rose and Japanese honey suckle climb the trees, shade the canopy and eventually pull down entire woodlands, creating impenetrable thickets of downed trees and thorny, tangled masses of vines. This photo was taken a few hundreds yards from the previous one.  I guess the money ran out.  Shame. 

Meet George.  Born in Belize on 7 September 1948, he's been living here between Equandito, Mill Basin and Kings Plaza for the past year.  When he told me he's homeless, I said "Homeless!", "You have one of the most beautiful homes in all of New York!" He smiled and said in a gentle, slightly accented English, "Thank you for saying so."  

A happy visitor.

And a happy host.

Inwood, Manhattan

There are not many wild places left in Manhattan, especially south of 96 St.  Little by little they're being cleaned up, landscaped and made family-friendly.

Don't get me wrong, who can't love the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park?  After all, these new parks are beautiful and packed with amenities for everyone.  I especially like how the mostly-native plants are the main architectural element (or seem to be) and how their sensitive and "natural" placement creates a sense of awe and reverence in the visitor. The good people designing (and funding) these parks are brilliant and I applaud their work.

But.....Why are we gushing over them?  I submit it's because they mimic the wild, unruly and often stunningly beautiful places that were there before; places that created themselves, or if you prefer, created by God.  They came to be despite our neglect and abuse.  This is nothing new.  Vaux and Olmstead did the same thing with Central Park 150 years ago.

Strange how we humans grow to love what we once tried to destroy.  We cut down whole forests, we depleted the soil growing corn and tobacco and we built factories on some of the most beautiful, productive and biologically rich land on earth.  We parked cars on the meadows, piped toxic chemicals into the marshes and filled the valleys with waste and rubble.

After these activities were no longer profitable, we put up a fence and walked away.

Eventually the buildings crumbled, the pavement cracked and the waste piles grew rounder and softer with the passing seasons.

The lowly weeds came first: dandelion, purslane, plantago, common burdock (Arctium minus, pictured above), Queen Anne's lace, thistles and many others.

Along with the rain from above, came a rain from next door-- a seed rain. Robins, starlings and sparrows deposited black cherry and sassafras seeds; the latter, like aspens, waiting for a fire to clear the way for their massed ascent.  Grasses grew up in the openings, especially where the soil was too thin or too polluted.

An apple tree grew where a worker ate his lunch.

Nearby aspen sent their airborne progeny by the millions in the off chance one would land in a suitably wet patch of calcareous gravel.  These plant pioneers helped hold and cleanse the soil and they provided food and shelter for pollution eating bacteria, fungi, spiders, mice, squirrels and eventually deer, turkeys and eagles.

Yes, the High Line is beautiful and it is popular.  But it's not wild.  Not anymore.

Can't we just leave some places as they are?  Why haul the old boat away and replace it with some store-bought, playground version meant to stimulate children's creativity and imagination?  Keep the real thing!!  Please!

The Arthur Kill, Staten Island

Late Sunday morning, my roommate Yuichi and I took the Lexington Ave Subway from Bedford Park in the Bronx to Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan. We then rode the Staten Island Ferry across New York Harbor to St. Georges Terminal on Staten Island and boarded the Staten Island Railway for Tottenville at the southern end of the island, arriving about 2:15.

This photo is from the pedestrian walkway over the railroad tracks at Nassau Station-- the second-to-the-last stop on the SIR.  Our destination is the salt-marsh (middle foreground in photo), woods and abandoned industrial area along Mill Creek (line of trees before bridge in photo) which flows west from Richmond Valley and empties into the Arthur Kill (left), the narrow waterway between Staten Island and New Jersey.  In the distance is the Outerbridge Crossing joining Tottenville, New York and Perth Amboy, New Jersey.  The real estate company offering the land in the left foreground suggests it's a prime site for a medical facility or warehouse.  It's also a prime site for plants and animals.

This is the salt-marsh of the Arthur Kill.  Whew.  Away from the road and "civilization".  The brown stuff laying down is mostly smooth cord grass (Spartina alterniflora), a native plant that can live in or near sea water.  Its roots stabilize shorelines and provide shelter for mussels and many other creatures.  The mussels in turn provide food for wading birds, like great egrets, snowy egrets, black-crowned night-herons, and glossy ibis who make their rookeries in these marshes, sheltered by the grass. Blue crabs, diamondbacked terrapins, and several species of shrimp also live here.

This is the forest behind the marsh.  Most of the trees are native species.  And every one has some useful product or service.  Too bad about the trash :(  When we come back, we'll begin piling it up by the road.

Yuichi going for twigs of gray birch (Betula populifolia).  A tea made from the twigs has a mild and satisfying aroma; like breathing mountain air on a warm day.

The seeds are important winter food for wildlife.  Aren't they cute?  The papery wings help the seeds float on the wind.  They're easy to spot when they fall on snow. (image courtesy of the USDA Plants Database).

Collecting bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta).  We ate some right out of the ground and I had it for lunch the next day.  It's not bitter, but does have a little kick to it.  Like very, very mild wasabi, to which it is related.

This is a fairly large sassafras (Sassafras albidum) tree in the laurel family. The wood is aromatic and used for all sorts of things, including moth repellent. Blocks, panels or chips were used in closets and chests before man discovered napthalene (moth balls).  The roots make a delicious tea and was the original "root" in root beer.  Then some researchers used alcohol to extract the chemicals in sassafras roots and fed large quantities to rats.  Not surprisingly, the rats developed cancer and predictably, the USDA banned the commercial sale of sassafras.  Well...... the compounds extracted in water are not the same as those extracted by alcohol and I try not to consume large quantities of anything!!  Maybe it has something to do with it's purported efficacy in treating STDs, back then known as "social diseases", which, heaven forbid, might encourage more intimacy.  The leaves are used to make filé gumbo.  They're a thickening agent and they add flavor of bay leaves with a hint of citrus.  Williams-Sonoma sells 1.3 oz of the powder for $5.95.

Digging greenbriar or catbriar (Smilax rotundifolia) rhizomes.  The underground stems (rhizomes) can be  bulbous and can weigh up to 20 pounds (in tropical species).  Note the clump of trees just above Yuichi's head.

The middle trunk has the bark worn off it.  Young bucks use certain species and certain sizes of trees as scratching posts for their growing, itchy antlers.  This one was probably used by that poor buck murdered by a careless motorist.

This is probably the guy with itchy antlers.  Motor vehicles kill.  Slow down people.  Please!

This is the catbriar rhizome.  Every indigenous people has developed herbal aphrodisiacs, either as stimulants, depressants or mood enhancers. The best aphrodisiac in my opinion is regular exercise, a healthy diet and restful sleep.  Can't manage those?  Greenbriars grow nearly worldwide and just about every culture where it is native used it as an aphrodisiac-- as well as medicine for host of other problems including exzema.  I have not yet researched specific medicinal uses for our native species, but for what it's worth, we tried the rhizome pictured above and it tasted like medicine.  The young shoots are one of my favorite trail nibbles and are also good cooked like asparagus.  They even look like asparagus spears.  I compete with the deer for the tenderest, fattest shoots.

A deer and raccoon walked this way before we did.

Mud flats and brushy woods of the Arthur Kill.

An engine manifold that is no longer making an awful racket and spewing poison into the air.

Old lobster traps in the shadow of the Outerbridge Crossing.  The little trees on the left are false indigo  (Amorpha fruticosa).  It contains indigo in small concentrations and the leaves contain amorpha, used as an insecticide and repellent.

Under the Outer Bridge Crossing.  It was built in 1928 and named for Eugenius H. Outerbridge, the first chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.  I think it's beautiful in its simplicity and strength.

Meadow and salt marsh.

This is little blue stem (Schizacaryum scoparium), an icon of the North American prairie.  Deer, bison, elk and antelope love it.  Along with the rarer indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans), blue stem is a good indicator of a healthy, functioning, native ecosystem.

We found this coconut (Cocos nucifera) washed up on the mud flat.  There was a cup's worth of slightly sour milk inside.  I liked it, but Yuichi did not.  The meat was really oily and delicious, almost like that stuff they put in cannoli, only way better and better than any coconut I've ever eaten.  Maybe all those months (or years) spent in the sun and salt were good.   The little green plant is the bittercress we collected in the woods.

We'll be back in spring when things green up.  Want to join us?