May apple.I was surprised to find virtually none. Although there were plentiful leeks in the northeast woods, I found no other flowers. And in the southwest I found only May apple - nice to see, but not as nice as a woods carpeted with trilliums. In fact, the southwest woods was carpeted with a green woodland sedge, a plant that looks like a short grass in the forest.
Woodland sedge carpeting the forest.I can only speculate that past grazing has eliminated the wildflowers in Hanlon Creek, and left us with a nice woods to walk through, but one that doesn't have the normal diversity of native species.
In 2012 I met a woman in the wilds of Nevada doing rangeland assessment for Western Watersheds Project. Over the next several years she opened my eyes to the depredation from livestock.
ReplyDeleteIn 2023, my last year of traveling, I was unable to ignore the veritable monoculture that exists in the Amercan southwest; sheep and cattle have reduced the flora to a few species. Despite supposed authority by the Bureau of Land Managent (BLM) and The National Forest Service, the ranchers have control. The result is overgrazing, loss of diversity and habitat. Our "public lands" have been usurped by a favored few.