Making 2016 Plans: Ausable River Valley

Most years at this time, when the snow has settled in and my prospects for local botany are reduced to bark and buds, I get to scheming up lists and trips that I want to make in the year ahead.  In 2016 I've got a few things on the radar, a trip to Costa Rica in a couple of weeks should provide a nice combination of forests, volcanoes and beaches (and probably a good amount of paging through wildlife ID books).

I've been kicking around the idea of doing an informal multi-season inventory of the Ausable River valley near Arkona, hiking a favourite stretch once in the spring, summer and fall and seeing what sort of list I can put together.  It's a great spot largely due to the diversity of habitats including upland and lowland deciduous forest, prairie bluffs, seeps, river shoreline (including neat bedrock pavements), deep shaded ravines and the odd swamp or marsh.  We'll see how things pan out once the work schedule plays into the mix, but here's hoping.

A few years back I was working in the area and spent a few evenings exploring the rich forested slopes.  I was lucky to come across a few patches of American Gromwell (Lithospermum latifolium).  This member of the borage family, also known as Broad-leaved Puccoon or American Stoneseed, is considered vulnerable provincially and is found on forested slopes and floodplains.  It's distribution through the Eastern U.S is widespread but patchy, similar to it's distribution through Ontario's Carolinian Zone.  

It produces small yellowish flowers in the early summer, but is generally inconspicuous among the rich ground cover is tends to be associated with.  I cropped the photo to provide a better shot of the white seeds which give it the name American Stoneseed.  The alternate leaves and 'wiry-looking' stems resemble a plant more common in northern hardwood forests, Rose Twisted Stalk (Streptopus lanceolatus). With a very hard, shiny surface, I'm sure the seeds of American Gromwell require some serious scarification and stratification before they germinate.