A botanical reminisce: Gall-of-the-earth (Prenanthes trifoliolata)

About this time of year - early winter - I begin to internally lament the lack of flowering plants. We recently had about five inches of snow, and nighttime temperatures are dipping into the low to md-20's F, with teens soon to come. For the botanically inclined, such as your narrator, this means a few months of a floral dry spell, which occasionally makes me pine for warmer seasons (much as I love winter, snow, cold, diving ducks, raptors, etc.).

I've been spending scads of time with the photographic files, catching up on labeling and archiving a backlog of unprocessed material, and digging out material for a few new projects. In the course of that, I often run across old stuff that brings back good memories, and this post features one of those subjects - one that I never got around to blogging about (I did have a blog in 1997 - the year the word "blog" was coined, although I didn't know to call my site that, then).

On August 26, 1997, I was botanizing a high, dry ridge deep in Shawnee State Forest. This is Ohio's largest contiguous forest at around 71,000 acres, and it is a hotbed of biodiversity, both floral and faunal. Shawnee is truly a state and national gem, and enormously significant to the conservation of scores of species. Many state-listed endangered and threatened species occur here.

WAY back in 1997, the forest was not as well explored botanically as it now is and wasn't as much on the radar screen. Nonetheless, I am sure that rarities remain to be discovered.

Anyway, at that time, I was keen on discovering a plant species that I figured surely must occur in Ohio and constantly kept my eyes open for it. And it was on this date, at the exact spot in the photo above, that I finally discovered it. While the plant in question is quite tall, with some specimens towering to six feet or more, it is a spindly species that can be passed by. Several flowering specimens are in my photo, but good luck spotting them. To compound matters, the plant in question closely resembles another species in the same genus and could easily be dismissed as its commoner brethren.

Here's the USDA Plants Database map of the species in question (click to enlarge, if so desired), which is known as Gall-of-the-earth (Nabalus trifoliolatus). Field botanists pore over maps such as this, seeking likely new native plants to discover in their state. In this case, it seemed that there was a high likelihood that Gall-of-the-earth (weird common name; "gall" means bold or impudent) should be in extreme southern or eastern Ohio, as it ranges right up to our borders in those regions.

I should note that there are two errors on this map, in regard to Ohio. The Ashtabula County record (farthest NE county) is apparently in error, based on a mention in Gray's Manual of Botany. No documenting specimen can be located, so that record must be regarded as hypothetical. The southern county highlighted in green is Adams County. It should be Scioto County, the county immediately to the east. That's apparently an error by the USDA Plants Database.

Anyway, back to the find. As I walked the road banks in the first photo, I saw a number of towering specimens of "wild lettuces" (as members of the genus Nabalus [at the time of this discovery, Prenanthes] are sometimes known. The rub with an easy identification is White Rattlesnake-root (Nabalus alba). It resembles Gall-of-the earth to a great degree and is locally common in Ohio with records from at least 35 counties.

A flower and buds of Gall-of-the-earth. The smoking gun for identification of this species, which is easily enough seen in the field, is the color of the pappus hairs, which subtend the flowers and fruit. I located some mature flowers, mostly past, pulled some of the pappus for inspection, and Voila! The pappus was pale white - quite unlike the cinnamon-brown coloration of the look-alike White Rattlesnake-root. I finally had found Gall-of-the earth in Ohio.

Here's my original specimen of Gall-of-the-earth, collected on August 26, 1997 - the same day I made the above photos. This one is housed at the Ohio State University herbarium. A duplicate specimen is at the Miami University herbarium.

Twenty-eight years have now passed since this find, and no other populations of Gall-of-the-earth have been found. In a good year, the tiny area where it occurs in Shawnee State Forest might host 80-100 plants - a true endangered species, which is how it is listed by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. You can see that list RIGHT HERE. It'd be awesome if someone could find more Gall-of-the-earth, ideally in another county (or two, or three...).

Finding a new native plant species for Ohio is always a thrill, and the experiences remain etched in my mind. To date, I've discovered or co-discovered a dozen new ones and rediscovered nine extirpated plants - species that no one has seen in at least 20 years, and in most cases, it's been far longer than that.

Winter snowstorm

As always, click the photo to enlarge

I awoke to a winter wonderland. About five inches of powdery snow fell overnight (for us, that is a snowstorm), encasing everything in a blanket of snow. The aftermath of such snowstorms is often ephemeral, so I headed out before daybreak to bask in some real winter, one of my favorite seasons. This is the Olentangy River in Worthington, Franklin County, Ohio.

Scioto Brush Creek earns Scenic River status

Scioto Brush Creek earns Scenic River status

NATURE

The Columbus Dispatch
November 30, 2025

Scioto Brush Creek in Scioto County, Ohio

Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Mary Mertz announced recently that Scioto Brush Creek had been designated as Ohio’s 17th State Scenic River. They did so in the shadow of the beautiful Otway covered bridge in rural Scioto County.

Scenic river status allows the DNR to commit expertise and funding to ensure best management practices along the stream. Rivers receiving this designation are the best of the best, and ODNR wants to ensure that they remain that way. Local officially designated scenic rivers include the Big and Little Darby Creeks, and the Olentangy River. Nearly 1,000 river miles have been enrolled in the state’s Scenic River Program.

Scioto Brush Creek has its headwaters near the Adams-Scioto county line, near the village of Peebles in Adams County. It flows 41 miles in a southeasterly direction, confluencing with the Scioto River at Rushtown in Scioto County.

I’ve been familiar with the beautiful blue-green waters of this biologically rich stream for nearly 40 years. In the infancy of my career with the ODNR (early 1980s), I was fortunate to serve as grunt labor for two of the most knowledgeable ichthyologists in Ohio: Ted Cavender of Ohio State University, and Dan Rice, former zoologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

“Fishing” the Cavender-Rice way is hard work, involving a clunky john boat, a heavy gas-powered generator, fish-shocking gear and large seines. The scaled crowd can’t hide from the “shocker,” which sends a mild electric current into the water, stunning fish to the surface. They soon recover, but each is identified and tallied before release.

Both men were researching the as-then poorly known fisheries of Scioto Brush Creek and producing amazing finds. The popeye shiner, thought to be extirpated from Ohio (known only from 1893 specimens from the Maumee River and not seen since) had been discovered in Scioto Brush Creek in 1985 by a crew of Ohio EPA biologists, and Cavender and Rice were expanding fish surveys of the stream.

The state-endangered popeye shiner occurs only in Scioto Brush Creek, in Ohio

In all, 86 fish species have thus far been documented – over half of all the species found in the entire state. Scioto Brush Creek remains the only known Ohio location for the state-endangered popeye shiner, which is common in the stream’s lower reaches. Far more conspicuous than the shiner are amazing numbers of longnose gars. The big, primitive fish often float at the surface, looking like sticks scattered in the water. I have seen dozens loafing in pools.

Far rarer is the endangered shortnose gar, which occurs at least occasionally in the stream’s lower reaches. Both gar are ecologically important in that they serve as hosts for the glochidia (larvae) of various freshwater mussels. Three species of endangered mussels call Scioto Brush Creek home.

In 1991, botanist Stan Stine discovered a population of the federally threatened Virginia spiraea on a remote gravel bar in the stream. It has since been found on five other gravel bars, all along Scioto Brush Creek.

On a hot August day in 1993, Stine and I were wading up Scioto Brush Creek – easiest way to explore the stream – when we spotted a glimmer of purple on a steep, muddy bank. Sloshing over for a better look, we quickly realized that we had found the first Ohio record of southern monkshood in Ohio. This site and a few others along the stream are the only Ohio populations of this gorgeous buttercup family member. Numerous other rare plant species are found along the stream.

The endangered hellbender – a gigantic aquatic salamander – occurs in the creek, along with many other amphibian species. Nearly 100 bird species breed along the Scioto Brush Creek corridor, whose riparian forests are largely intact. Their ranks include many Louisiana waterthrushes and cerulean warblers, the fourth and fifth rarest warbler species in eastern North America.

Thanks to the Friends of Scioto Brush Creek for petitioning for designation of their namesake stream as a State Scenic River. Founded in 1998, the organization has labored tirelessly to promote stream conservation. Kudos too to ODNR’s Scenic Rivers Program within the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves. Launched in 1968, that successful program has made Ohio a frontrunner in stream conservation. We are fortunate to have such groups working hard to protect our waterways.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Rufous Hummingbird and other vagrant hummingbirds

 

An adult female Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) perches atop her favorite perch. This species, a rare visitor to Ohio, was visiting a feeder at a home only 10-15 minutes from my house. On November 23, Shauna and I ran down to have a gander at the little beauty.

The hosts, Dan and Sally Carlstrom, were exceptionally gracious in allowing visitors. Probably 150 or more birders visited, and nearly all saw the bird.

Ohio's first record of Rufous Hummingbird dates to August 15, 1985, when a male appeared at the feeders of Midge and Perry Van Sickle in Westerville. It remained for three days and was seen by over 100 people, your narrator included. As is the case with all first state records, the hummingbird generated great excitement, but at that time, none of us knew what was in store.

Since that inaugural Rufous Hummingbird, dozens of other records have been documented. While still a rarity, one or two appear most years. An exceptional year was 2003, when over a dozen birds were reported. Many Ohio extralimital hummingbirds have been banded and thoroughly documented by hummingbird bander Allen Chartier of Michigan, the bird in the photo included. Right now in Ohio, there is a Ruby-throated type (possibly Black-chinned, banding should resolve that tricky identification), another Rufous Hummingbird (or Allen's, also hopefully to be resolved by banding), and our second state record Mexican Violetear (visitation by the public is not possible for this one).

The 1985 Rufous Hummingbird was the first non-Ruby-throated Hummingbird (our only breeding species) recorded in Ohio. Since then, five other species have turned up, making for seven hummingbird species for the state, and there will likely be more additions to the list.

While the advent of hummingbird feeders is often implicated in this increase, I don't think that we know with certainty that that's the cause. It may be that there have always been out-of-range hummingbirds, and their propensity for visiting feeders just brought them to light. Also, the horticultural industry has managed to produce many plants with flowers that produce blooms late into the year, and this may be a contributing factor in the eastward wandering of western hummingbird species - which all of our vagrants (with one exception) are. The exception is the Mexican Violetear (Colibri thalassinus), a species of southern Mexico and Central and South America.

Wayward birds such as these are often termed vagrants. That's not a good word for them, in my opinion. "Vagrant" means someone/something without a home, that idly wanders about. That's not the case with these hummingbirds. They have well-defined breeding and wintering grounds, and their seasonality in both is also well-defined, as is their migration. Furthermore, a number of so-called vagrant birds, including some hummingbirds, have returned to their "vagrant" haunts year after year. While no one knows exactly where they go for the breeding season (most extralimital hummingbirds turn up in late fall/early winter), for all we know they return to the breeding grounds, find a mate, and nest.

I wonder if they might be better termed "scouts". Virtually all populations of animals, especially highly mobile birds, are constantly expanding/contracting their ranges for a variety of reasons. And the former - expansion - can only occur if scouts are exploring beyond the normal range, in search of new inhabitable lands.

Two cool plants: Creeping Phlox and Twisted Sedge

As I may have mentioned in previous posts, I've been laboring away to eliminate a backlog of un-curated photos. Some date back to 2016. Most come from the spring/summer seasons, when sometimes I would return from trips with scads of images, but immediately get sucked into all manner of activities upon return. So, some folders would go into a to-be-archived folder. Fortunately, there's only about 50-60 such folders, but it's still a lot of work. I do keep current on archival of most photos, fortunately. I'm particular about how images are labeled and archived. All of mine are tagged with metadata that at a minimum includes species name, scientific name, county, state, date, and often more specific site names. Sometimes other short notes as well.

Once the images are labeled, they go onto the Cloud (good to have a storage facility completely removed from base camp, I think) and on two hard drives (duplicity is good). Careful labeling helps me find things fast, no matter when they were taken, and I can drum up about any photo I'm looking for quickly. But it isn't just about me. Having detailed metadata associated with images could be useful in the distant future. Who knows how long our digital photos could hang around, but it could be centuries or more. Someone stumbling across my images in the year 2225 could have a treasure trove of well-documented photos at a time when the earth might be very different than it currently is.

Anyway, one of the fun elements of this photo curation is revisiting sites through the images. Here are a few plants from a trip to Hocking County, Ohio on April 28, 2017. I include them here in part because I think that both would make good, interesting plants for home landscaping. While I'd think some nurseries would sell Creeping Phlox, so that one probably is accessible, I doubt if any nurseries carry Twisted Sedge.

This streambank along a small creek in Hocking County, Ohio is covered with a dense stand of Twisted Sedge (Carex torta). The sedge is densely rhizomatous, and its cord-like roots bind the unstable soil. Twisted Sedge is a pioneer species of newly exposed banks and gravel bars in riparian habitats, usually smaller streams like the one in the image.

Sedges in the genus Carex offer quite the potential buffet for the adventurous gardener. In Ohio alone, there are over 180 species, and Carex is probably the most speciose genus in all of the eastern states. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them have not been brought into captivity, and most never will.

As always, click the photo to enlarge

Here's the flowering/fruiting culm of Twisted Sedge. It's quite ornate. The long, skinny terminal spike is comprised of the staminate (male) flowers. The three bristly lower spikelets are the pistillate (female) flowers, now mostly developed into fruit. In Carex-speak, the fruit are known as perigynia. And in this case, the perigynia are exceptionally striking. Their lime-green coloration is punctuated by rich chocolate-brown scales.

Twisted Sedge favors shady environs, which could be a further asset for the landowner having trouble finding interesting natives for such places. I hope to get some of this sedge next year, and experiment with it on my property. My hunch is it'll be pretty easy to successfully grow.

This photo was made in nearly the same spot as the Twisted Sedge above. Indeed, the grassy-looking clumps along the steam banks is that sedge. But this is also habitat for one of our showiest phloxes. And all phloxes are showy.

We move in on some Creeping Phlox (Phlox stolonifera). This image illustrates the common name. The plant sends out stolons (basically small rhizomes on the ground's surface) that creep about. A colony will often have relatively few flowering spikes relative to the number of leafy stolons.

It is no coincidence that this phlox and the Twisted Sedge have similar growth habits. Life along the stream means scouring floods. Because of their anchoring rhizomes and stolons, Creeping Phlox and Twisted Sedge can hold their ground.

The gorgeous flowers of Creeping Phlox, but are not the flowers of ALL phloxes gorgeous?

In addition to providing aesthetic beauty, the flowers lure Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, hummingbird clearwing moths in the genus Hemaris,  swallowtail butterflies, and all manner of other insects.

Creeping Phlox reaches the northern limits of its range in Hocking County, Ohio, where I made these shots. To the east of Ohio, in more mountainous areas, it extends all of the way north to southern Maine.

With its propensity for shady haunts, Creeping Phlox might also make an interesting native plant for tough-to-grow places.

Three special understory warblers

I recently ran across the following images while doing archival and curation of my photos. All of them were made at the same locations and on the same day, May 1, 2022. The site was a remote locale in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia.

A Hooded Warbler (Setophaga citrina) tees up in a fascicle of Great Rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum) leaves. This site was quite warbliferous and I photographed a few species at this very spot. One of them is the second most coveted species of eastern warbler, but it can't hold a candle to the Hooded Warbler in the looks department. Hooded Warblers certainly breed in and around rhododendrons but occur in a variety of woodland understory habitats.

A male Black-throated Blue Warbler (Setophaga caerulescens) peeks from a rhododendron snarl, a favored breeding habitat in the Appalachian Mountains. This one is near the southern limits of the species' breeding range, in southern West Virginia. He little resembles the plain brown female, and early on males and females were considered separate species. Eastern Hemlock trees (Tsuga canadensis) often co-occur with Great Rhododendron, and I think this warbler species is more connected to that tree rather than the rhododendrons. Next photo is of the most coveted warbler in this habitat, even if it is the drabbest.

Here's the third warbler of my Appalachian rhododendron thicket series. And the most coveted, the Swainson's Warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii). By numbers, it's the second rarest eastern warbler. Only the Kirtland's warbler is fewer in number. About 140,000 Swainson's warblers are thought to still exist. As a point of comparison, the most abundant warbler, the yellow-rumped warbler, has around 170 million individuals. The monotypic Swainson's warbler (only species in the genus Limnothlypis) favors two distinct habitat types: rhododendron thickets, and cane breaks (Arundinaria gigantea).

Interestingly, an apparently unmated male spent much of last summer in Shawnee State Forest in Scioto County, Ohio. The site is not too terribly far from West Virginia nesting populations, but breeding has never been documented in Ohio. I made a visit to see it last June and was surprised to find the largest wild stand of giant cane I've seen in Ohio nearby. Coincidence? Maybe, but it'll be interesting to see if Swainson's warblers return to this locale. Note the bird's huge toes. All the better to forage on the ground, in dense leafy detritus.

Red-shouldered Hawk, in autumnal foliage

A gorgeous adult Red-shouldered Hawk hunts from the boughs of a fruit-laden sycamore tree. By moving my position a bit, I was able to get a solid wall of autumnally tinted foliage behind the bird.

Shauna and I made a run up the Olentangy River last Tuesday, November 4, seeking fall colors to photograph, along with anything else that might be reveal itself. Highbanks Metro Park was one of our stops, and I spotted the raptor perched atop a bat house in Highbank's "Big Meadow" down by the river. Eventually some walkers flushed the hawk, and it flew to this much more visually pleasing spot and we set about making photos.

Red-shouldered Hawks are often fairly tame, especially when in regular contact with people. This bird is one of the local breeding pairs, and as Highbanks gets over 1.3 million visitors annually, its sees lots of humanoids. This species ranks high among our showiest raptors, and I'll never miss an opportunity to work with Buteo lineatus.

PHOTO NOTE: Although our primary goal on this relatively brief outing was landscapes and fall color, photographically I was armed for bear. One never knows when something like this hawk might present itself. As always, at least for the past 5+ years, I was armed with the Canon R5, a truly amazing mirrorless camera. It's update, the R5 II, emerged last year, and I'd like to update to that, but that's yet to happen.

Anyways, when I saw the hawk, I parked some distance away, and Shauna moved in with her handheld Nikon Z8 and 150-600 lens. She got some awesome shots. It took me a bit longer to get in position, as I installed the Canon 800mm f/5.6 lens, and Canon's 1.4x teleconverter, making for a focal length of 1120mm. It's almost always better to work as far from animal subjects, especially birds, as possible - or at least stay far enough away to not bother them.

The 800mm can turn in mixed results with a teleconverter attached. It's more glass to shoot through, focus acquisition slows a bit, and achieving tack-sharp images can be difficult. I also have Canon's 2x teleconverter, which makes the 800mm a whopping 1600mm. That sounds good on paper, but in reality, it's very hard to get sharp, crisp images with the 2x, and you lose two stops, so f/11 is the lowest aperture one can shoot at. It's f/8 with the 1.4x. You'll want lots of light to attempt the 2x. But if the subject is close enough, especially larger subjects, the 1.4x/800 combo can produce nice images. I don't know exactly how far I was from this hawk, but it was distant enough that it paid me no mind. I was really hoping it's drop down and grab a gartersnake - it was warm enough for one to be moving about - and return with it to a convenient perch for snake/hawk pics. Red-shoulders eat lots of herps: amphibians and reptiles.

I made this image at f/8, 1/500 shutter speed, and ISO 1250. I used a tripod, of course - handholding the 11.5 pound R5/800 unit is tough, and the keeper rate will plummet without a tripod.