Plants Nature Walk in Edmands Park 10/18
I went on my walk after getting out of two content heavy classes, so it was nice to be able to take some time to decompress on a nature walk. I decided to go to Newton campus and walk around Edmands Park, which is the woods area by Keyes. I walked around for about 40 minutes and it was cloudy and cool out. It had just rained the day before so the ground was still a bit moist and muddy, which was a bit of an inconvenience for me but on my walk I thought about how helpful and useful the water is for the plants ability to grow and also to disperse gametes for those which need water to do so. Speaking of water, bryophyta are most abundant in damp forests and lay low to the ground which was confirmed by the prevalent amounts of moss I saw on my walk. It makes sense that the moss grows on trees and rocks near the ground because it is moist and dark. It was fascinating to look at the different mosses up close and see the differences in morphologies. For example, the tree-skirt moss and haircap moss had distinct differences. I also noted that the leafs of many of the plants visually appeared to have a sort of coating, which I know is the cuticle, which helps creates a watertight teal to prevent water loss for land plants. It was interesting that some plants like wintergreens and fortune's spindle, which are both angiosperms, seemed to have thicker, waxer, shinier cuticle than others. The polypodiopsida or seedless vascular plants that I found were ferns. I tried looking for the sori, however I didn't see it on either of the ferns I found. The gymnosperms I found were pines and yews which are both conifers and it was interesting to see the difference in needles of the two. The pine had more thin, narrow, and "flexible" needles while the yew had thicker, darker, waxier and more structured needles/leafs. Angiosperms are noted to be flowering plants (as opposed to gymnosperms) however many of the angiosperms I saw and found did not have any visible flowers. This could be due to the season and temperatures right now. The wood asters and pokeweeds were the only ones that had flowers or fruits and I found these on the edges of the wooded area where there was more sun, which could be why the angiosperms further in the forest did not have flowers or had flowers that appeared to be dead/stripped away.
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