Sedges Flowering
Often it’s the spring ephemerals – Trout Lily, Red Trillium, Dutchman’s Breeches – that catch our eye as we walk through the woods this time of year. But there are other, more modest flowering plants which shouldn’t be overlooked.
Sedges, often found growing near wetlands but also in woods, are one of these inconspicuous plants. Related to grasses and rushes, they are wind-pollinated, and have no need for large, showy petals in order to attract insects. As a result, it’s fairly easy to miss their flowers, some of which are in full bloom right now.
Male and female sedge flowers are typically found on the same plant. The arrangement of the flowers, or inflorescence, usually consists of a cluster of male flowers on the end of a spike (see photo) with female flowers located on separate spikes. A dissecting scope is necessary in order to identify most species of sedges, but an easy way to know it’s a sedge is to feel the shape of the plant’s stem – sedge stems are three-sided — triangular in cross-section (unlike rushes which are round, and grass stems which are hollow). Hence, the saying “Sedges have edges, rushes are round.”
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Beavers Eating & Grooming
This photograph conveys the essence of a beaver’s summer – eating and grooming… more eating, more grooming. During the summer months, beavers feed on non-woody vegetation (grasses, ferns, aquatic plants, etc.) 90% or more of the time. (During March/April and October/November, their diet switches to 60%-90% tree bark, and during the winter, bark from trees stored under water composes 100% of their diet.)
When beavers are not eating, much of their time during the warmer months is spent grooming, both themselves as well as each other. Combing debris out of their coat (with the help of a split nail on both hind feet) and applying oily material from their anal glands to waterproof their fur consume much of their waking hours, both at night as well as at both ends of the day. (Castoreum, produced in castor sacs, differs from anal gland secretion, and is used primarily to mark territory.) (Thanks to Roger and Eleanor Shepard, and Sara and Warren Demont for photo op.)
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Beavers Consuming Herbaceous Plants
One associates Beavers with a fairly strict diet of bark and twigs. While their winter diet consists primarily of woody plants, they consume a variety of herbaceous and aquatic plants (as well as woody) during the spring, summer and fall months. Shrubs and trees make up roughly half the spring and autumn requirements, but as little as 10% of the summer diet when herbaceous plants such as sedges and aquatic plants become available.
Recent observation of a local active Beaver pond revealed that Interrupted Fern (Osmunda claytoniana), Jewelweed/Touch-Me-Not (Impatiens capensis) and grasses are high on the list of preferred foods of one Beaver family during the summer, although woody plants such as poplars (Populus spp.) and Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera) have also been consumed in fairly large quantities. All too soon Beavers in the Northeast will be limited to the bark of branches they’ve stored under the ice. Until this time, they take advantage of the accessibility of more easily digested herbaceous plants. (Thanks to the Shepards and Demonts for photo op.)
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