The Legacy- The Story of Ohio's Division of Natural Areas and Preserves

This tells the story of the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves here in Ohio- Unfortunately, much has changed. The Division created a fantastic system of state nature preserves over the past 35 plus years, but the future of that preserve system today is cloudy.

Please go to Facebook and "Like" the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves to show your support for Ohio's natural areas.

Tom

Ending Where I Began

Driving back from northeast Ohio today, I had one of those "ah-ha" moments, and it was all sparked by one little pink flower that grows in a fen in Portage County.

Exactly eleven years ago right now, I was preparing to start my conservation career with State of Ohio.  I had just been hired by Preserve Manager Emliss Ricks as a college intern.  I'd be assisting with the care of a system of State Nature Preserves across northeast Ohio.  I would come to learn that the preserves in this system harbored some of the rarest plants and animals in the state, and after a week on the job or so, I was hooked, and knew what I wanted to do the rest of my life.

The very first day in the field, Emliss brought me to a wonderful place called a fen.  And in this fen grew an orchid that grew nowhere else in Ohio. An orchid so rare that sometimes only one or two individual flowers are seen each year.  I knew this orchid was special, because people came drove two and half hours from Columbus just to see it.

Fast forward eleven years and I'm that person driving from Columbus.  Two years as a summer worker, two years of graduate school, and seven years working in the central office of the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves has flashed by like a lightning bolt.  I've had the fantastic opportunity to explore Ohio's most interesting natural areas.  And today I returned to where it all started.  And this day was my last day in the field as an employee of the Division of Natural Areas & Preserves.  Tomorrow, I move my office to the Olentangy Wildlife Research Station, where I'll begin a new page in my career with the Division of Wildlife.

The purpose of today's field outing, which I had scheduled long before I had figured out my moving date, was to document two other rare species- one called lesser panicled sedge and another called bog bluegrass. We needed updated information on these populations, and I chose late May to catch them when they were both easily viewable.  The orchid wouldn't be ready yet, or so I thought- I'd be about 10 days too early.

But as you can see, the orchid was blooming- everything is early this year and the Arethusa bulbosa was holding true to that pattern. And then it hit me on the drive back to Columbus.  I had ended my career in the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves exactly where it started 11 years ago...standing in a fen in portage county, admiring the beauty of the dragon's mouth orchid. 

Tom

Johnson Woods State Nature Preserve

Today I visited Johnson Woods State Nature Preserve in Wayne County. Here grows one of the largest concentrations of the largest trees in all of Ohio. I don't have a ton of time this evening, but I did wanted to share some photos of this nature preserve. The one thing that struck me today was all of the different types of fungi growing throughout the preserve. I don't know fungi very well, but they are really interesting, and I need to start learning about these interesting organisms.

Here is one of the large white oaks at Johnson Woods. My yellow notebook is about four inches wide, and this tree continues to go straight up for what seemed like forever. I measured the diameter of this tree at 117 centimeters, which is almost four feet. What a tree.



Next up, I saw a few outbreaks of the beech aphid. These aphids like to eat the leaves of beech trees, and form large colonies that look like masses of white wool clinging to the the branches. When disturbed the individual aphids wave back and forth and they look like one super organism. A weird sight indeed.



Another interesting creature was this salt and pepper colored slug. I have no idea what species it is, but I saw two of them on a fallen log. They were each about two inches long.



And now its time for the mushrooms and fungus. Since Johnson Woods is an old growth forest, there is plenty of what scientists call "coarse woody debris" on the floor of the forest, and much of it is inhabited by fungi. I don't know what these species are, but feel free to chime in if you recognize something familiar.













Tom