Tag Archives: C&O Canal NHP

Right Under My Nose

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One of my favorite places in C&O Canal NHP is the area known as Widewater, the part of the canal that lies between the Gold Mine Tract and Bear Island/Billy Goat A Trail. It’s incredibly peaceful and beautiful, with nifty rock formations and a wonderful variety of plants.

 

I grew up in Montgomery County, went to Great Falls often as a child, made my way there whenever I could as a teenager, always found time to hike there when back from college on short breaks… and I don’t know how many times in the past 9 years, since I started seriously hunting for wildflowers, I’ve been on that stretch of the canal. Close to a hundred, maybe? And yet it wasn’t until last year that I saw red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) there, blooming right under my nose on the banks of the canal.

Red Columbine is by far the most widespread of the twenty-two Aquilegia species native to the US and Canada, and the only one found east of the Mississippi River.  Its range includes New England, the mid-Atlantic, the upper South, the Midwest, and parts of the prairie states.  The plants like moist, rocky outcroppings or slopes in woodlands, or more open areas if they get enough water.  Obviously they love the combination of shade and water they get from growing on the steep southern bank of the canal at Widewater.

 

Aquilegia canadensis is in the Ranunculaceae, a family that includes many of our beloved native flowers (anemone, hepatica, meadow rue), and one spectacular flower that I saw in the wild for the first time last Friday. It’ll be the subject of my next post – come back soon!

Palmata, Pedata

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Viola pedata

Last spring my friend B discovered a small population of bird’s foot violet (Viola pedata) near Great Falls.  This was exciting because it was the first reported sighting of the species in Montgomery County since the mid-20th century*.

Viola palmata

I went to the location a few days later and took some pictures. A few days after that, in a nearby but different location, I found a patch of similar-looking plants, but they had finished blooming. I had to wait a year to follow up…

…which I did last week. That second patch was good news/bad news: it was in full bloom, but it wasn’t bird’s foot violet. It was Viola palmata, aka early blue violet or wood violet.

Violet identification can be tricky, but V. palmata and V. pedata are pretty easy to tell apart. Here’s a quick primer.

Viola pedata

Have a look at the leaves: in both species they are dissected. V. pedata leaves will have anywhere from 5 to 11 narrow lobes.

Viola palmata

The leaves of Viola palmata are more variable. Two leaf types are shown here, one with lobes somewhat wider than V. pedata‘s, and the other with fewer, broader lobes.

Viola palmata

Viola palmata

a small colony of V. palmata in bloom.

Typically it’s better to ID species from flowers rather than leaves, so let’s look at those:

Viola pedata is on the left.  Note that it has an orange center, while Viola palmata, on the right, has hairs in the center (click on the pictures to zoom in).  V. pedata typically has two darker upper petals, but not always.

Viola pedata

In my (rather limited) experience, V. palmata is much more common than V. pedata in the Maryland piedmont.  Both species are found in dry, rocky woodlands, but V. palmata likes moister soils, too.  The stand that B found is on a sandy rock outcropping in the Gold Mine Tract.  If you find bird’s foot violet anywhere in the Maryland Piedmont, please leave a comment here!

*per Maryland Biodiversity Project