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!