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In many ways it is landforms
that define a region—here in New England, the mountains and
the rolling hills, the rugged coast of Maine and the sandy shores
of Cape Cod, the river valleys and the lakes. But except for a few
places like the tips of mountains where the bones of the earth lay
exposed, like those sandy shores, the landforms are covered with
plants—grasses and moss, flowers and ferns, shrubs and trees—and
it is those plants that give a place character, that make New England
different from the Southeast, from the Midwest prairies, from the
Pacific Northwest. But there are some 250,000 species of plants
in the world, 2,000 in New England.
How can we look at this flora, recognize it, learn it? There
are many possibilities... |
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The big picture, the map,
shows ecoregions shaped by climate and geology. Along the northern
band of New England and  continuing
down the spine of its mountains are boreal forests of spruce
and fir, hobblebush and bunchberry. In the valleys of northern
New England and the northern coastal plain grow northern hardwoods—maple
and beech and birch in the canopy, viburnum and trillium below.
The southern reaches of New England and the Hudson River valley
see mixed forests of oak and hickory, hemlock and pine, basswood
and dogwood, blueberry and shadbush, lady’s-slipper and
anemone.
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The
Community Lens
The
big picture, while valuable, does not take into account the specific
conditions of soil and light and microclimate that determine what
plants will grow in a particular place. A narrower perspective
yields communities, those combinations of plants and animals that
cohabit a place. They include the bog with its sphagnum moss and
cranberries and pitcher plants, the swamp with its red maple and
skunk cabbage, the salt marsh with its salt hay and lavender,
the riverbanks with silver maples and blue flags, the pine barrens
with their pitch pines and scrub oaks, the oak-hickory forest
with mountain laurel and jack-in-the-pulpit.
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The
Gardening Lens
From a gardening perspective,
light is key. New England by nature is a shady place, a forested
place. Thus, the gardener turns to the
wintergreen and Solomon’s seal that tolerate forest darkness,
the woodland sunflowers and azaleas that like a shifting pattern
of light and darkness. But even beyond the open fields and yards
created by human beings, sunny swaths do happen in New England.
There are areas like alpine meadows, like marshes too wet for
trees, like the large or small openings in any forest created
by a big wind, or fire, or the natural passing of a big tree.
Here spring up elderberry and roses, spiderwort and fireweed,
cardinal flower and lilies.
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The
Seasonal Lens
The
changing seasons so characteristic of New England yield another
perspective, focusing on spring woodlanders like bloodroot and
twinflower that rush to bloom before the trees leaf in; on the
field roses and summersweet that wait for summer warmth; on asters
and goldenrod and maple leaves that celebrate the fall; at the
bewitching witch hazel, New England’s final bloom before
winter seizes the North, when pine and rhododendron and partridgeberry
flaunt their green in a world turned brown and gray and white.
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The
Historical Lens
A look back 10,000 years shows
a New England scraped bare by glaciers but slowly becoming repopulated
by mosses, grasses, flowers,
and trees. Later there are open fields along rivers in southern
New England and parklike glades within the forests, both created
by Native Americans. A still later look shows a land deforested—not
once but three times—by Europeans and their American descendants.
Today the forest is returning but is paradoxically threatened
again, this time by fragmentation. The historical view also shows
what’s been lost or diminished—the chestnuts that played
so huge a role in Eastern forests, the elms that graced the riverbanks,
the lupine that fed a blue butterfly. And it shows what’s
been added by human intervention, crab grass and dandelions that
probably came accidentally, purple loosestrife and shrubby honeysuckles
deliberately planted for beauty and now become a menace.
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The
Personal Lens
And there’s yet
another perspective, a personal one, that starts with a
simple question—
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What’s that pretty little plant with
flowers that look like pantaloons?
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Why do maple trees and oak trees make
such different kinds of seeds?
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Is there anything good about poison ivy?
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Is Indian cucumber really edible?
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Will that ostrich fern grow in my garden?
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How can I get rid of that Oriental bittersweet
choking my trees?
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Are there any native mints?
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Is this parcel of available land a valuable
one to save for conservation purposes?
Questions like these can lead to a new view
of gardening, a greater awareness of the nature around us,
a deeper commitment to preserving it, an awakening of scientific
inquiry, a lifetime of learning and pleasure and beauty.
The real way to peer through all these lenses,
the real answer to all these questions, lies out there,
among the flora of New England.
But this online guide may help in your search…
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