Yesterday, I went with a couple friends out to survey what native aquatic plants are growing along some portions of the Patuxent River in Maryland. I like to do this every once in awhile because each time you go, you’re likely to find something different. In addition, from year to year, certain plants may exist in huge patches, while the next year, they’ll be quite sparse. Finally, if I ever get around to setting up a tank to mimic my local habitat, it’s good to know what the local habitat consists of.

Lake off the Patuxent River

We visited a lake that is part of the Patuxent watershed. The lake itself is covered with tons of lily pads, which during this time of year were flowering quite nicely. This trip, we saw both white and pink flowers. I didn’t know that the pink flowered lilies were native — perhaps they’re not?

Lily pad, with flower

All along the banks, hairgrass, likely Eleocharis parvulus, carpeted the lake bed. Of course, there was also several giant hairgrass species as well.

Hairgrass, probably Eleocharis parvulus

In several places, amoungst the hairgrass we found a flowering bladderwort, which could be Utricularia gibba. Although the yellow flower is pretty, this is definitely a native plant that I would not want to keep in my tanks. Often found as a contaminate on plants that you buy, this carnivorous plant is much like hair algae in its invasiveness of your aquarium.

Utricularia sp. flower

All throughout the area, Ludwigia palustris could be found. This is one of the nicer local native plants that is an excellent stem plant for any type of tank. We were talking yesterday about how surprising it is that Ludwigia repens is the most widely sold plant from its genus, but that L. palustris is smaller leaved, and thus probably more suitable for a wider variety of aquariums.

Ludwigia palustris

One of the other surprises that we saw yesterday was this patch of Brasenia schreberi. Everywhere else throughout the lake this plant sent small 2-3″ pads to the surface. Within the cracks of the boat ramp it looked like this, staying completely submersed. That brings up the question as to why? My theory is that due to being on the boat ramp, it is occasionally trampled, and thus is being trained to stay short, like a Red Tiger Lotus can be trained in our aquarium. It’s also possible that it’s just stunted due to the limitations of living in a crack between the boat ramp’s cement tiles.

Brasenia schreberi

Another plant that could potentially be suitable for aquarium use is Lindernia dubia. Currently, I don’t think it is being produced by any of the large aquatic plant nurseries, but this is a nice stem plant. We found it growing both submersed, and emersed with flowers, as shown below. (I like the dragonfly too!)

Lindernia dubia

One of the more interesting plants that we have locally is Proserpinaca palustris, or Mermaid Weed. Emersed, the stems look like a Rotala with serrated edges, but submersed, the leaves become quite tooth-like and bright red. I’ve never kept this plant myself before, but I understand it’s a fairly difficult plant to grow in the aquarium. This is probably why it’s available, but not commonly traded among aquarists.

Proserpinaca palustris (Mermaid Weed) with Brasenia schreberi

We saw a few plants that we couldn’t identify, with the most interesting being this plant below. At first glance, we thought it might be an Eriocaulon sp., but the bulbs on this grass are wrong for that. It’s probably just a stunted giant hairgrass, but wouldn’t it be fantastic to find a grass plant that stayed this size underwater? (Updated: a reader identifies this as Xyris caroliniana.)

Probably Xyris caroliniana, unsuitable for aquarium use

Now that I’ve mentioned what we did find, we were surprised that we didn’t find any Lysimachia (Creeping Jenny) or Rotala ramosior. Both of these plants are excellent aquarium plants, and usually present in some quantity locally. Additionally, there were a number of Polygonum species around, but I didn’t get any pictures of those. Despite incredibly hot and humid weather, we had a really good time, geeking it up, exploring our local waterway. Lastly, I need to stress that whenever you go out in your local habitat, do not collect plants from protected areas. If you are in an area where it is legal to collect, only take a stem or two, and grow it out in your aquarium. Never take a plant if it is the only one in the area. Be responsible!

Last weekend, my family took our annual trip across the state for a long weekend at Ocean City, MD. Along the way, my wife and I tried to get in as many nature-related things that we could because, well, we love the outdoors!

On the way over, we detoured near Salisbury, MD to do some hiking and biking at Pocomoke River State Park. I’ve never been to this park before, but as soon as we pulled up we knew we found a great place to spend an afternoon. The river itself was covered with lily pads, a few of them just starting to send up yellow flower buds.

In addition, the parks contains some of the northern most bald cyrus trees on the east coast. I know that there are ones a tad further north in Delaware, but the sign said this is their northern limit. Nevertheless, I always enjoy checking out the various knees that pop up from the water.

The only downside of our trip there were more mosquitoes and deer ticks than we would have cared for. I suppose that would explain why we saw so many lizards and toads on the trails.

Once in Ocean City, one of my favorite pasttimes is crabbing for Maryland Blue Crabs using twine and chicken necks. The crabs are definitely down in recent years, so while the crabbing wasn’t fantastic, the sunset definitely was!

Walking along the beach, we came across another kind of crab, scurrying quite invisibly across the sand. This guy (above) was no more than 2-3 inches across, but ran like lightning. I’m glad I got him to standstill long enough for a photo.

Finally, we spent another day clamming on Assateague Island, and came home with our legal limit of clams for quite the feast of fresh steamed clams, fried clamstrips, and New England clam chowder. One of the unique things about Assateague Island is that it is home to a wild colony of horses leftover of several shipwrecks a few centuries ago. (This story is disputed, saying that the horses came from early barrier island settlers, but shipwrecks sound more exciting.) The horses have adapted to the harsh environment of the island and thrive, having to be thinned down to 150 during the famous channel swim to Chincoteague every year.

We had a great little excursion, but I’m now ready to get back to focusing on my aquariums at home.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day outside, as slowly but surely, spring is pushing winter on its way. To take advantage of the favorable weather, we decided to take a day trip to Cunningham Falls State Park, near Thurmont, MD.

It just so happens that this weekend, the park was having a maple-syrup festival, where they gave live demonstrations of how they tap maple trees for their sweet sap and boil it down into pancake syrup. We stayed around a little while, listening to the demonstration, but soon found ourselves out on the trails, for which we came.

The forest in this park is very rocky, with rock outcroppings all over the place. Even most of the trails are littered with rocks, large and small, and of course, moss is decorating nearly all of the rocks.

I couldn’t have attached the moss on the rock below any better than nature itself. Beautiful, with the full covering, and yet enough gaps exposing the rock underneath. In fact, now I’m going to have to try and actually duplicate this kind of wonderful moss/rock work in my aquarium one of these days.

To start out, we took the trails that everyone takes to get to the park’s main attraction — the falls. Being a series of cascading falls, descending what is probably 4-5 stories, they are pretty impressive. Below is a picture of the bottom two sections of the falls.

Finally, we headed off to some more difficult and less frequented trails so that we could take in the forest, believing we were the only humans around. (For the most of the hike, that was the reality.) While the forest was still bare from winter, many of the trees had buds, ensuring that if we came back in a couple months, the woods would be entirely new.

Today, with the day off work for President’s Day, and the 70 degree weather outside, my wife and I decided to hike back to the falls at Patapsco Valley State Park. You may remember that the last time we visited them in autumn, that the falls were reduced to nothing more than a trickle. Fueled by some recent precipitation, I was very pleased to see that they have been restored.

I was also surprised to see how green many of the ferns and mosses were, despite some really frigid temperatures last week. I guess these particular plants are native, and thus well adapted to the temperature zone. If you happen to be local to the Maryland area, Patapsco Valley State Park is a wonderful way to walk away an afternoon.

With many more miles of trails than you can possibly traverse in a day, it’s a great place to visit over and over again. After viewing the waterfall, we continued our hike, seeing a number of types of mosses, birds, and even a whole flock of 10-15 deer. A couple of them stuck around to let me take their picture. They were not very interested in me moving any closer than this, however.

Our area finally got some snow yesterday for only the second time this winter. The temperature barely stayed below freezing, but it allowed for 2-4″ of snow. I got home from work with just enough daylight to spend about 45 minutes photographing spots along the Little Patuxent River near my home.

I’ve been waiting all season for a good snowfall so that I could come out and take pictures of the river with snow-covered banks, rocks, and vegetation. I figured that I’d be the only one out on the trails, as it was sleeting when I was out there, but surprisingly, I saw joggers, dog walkers, and even a cross-country skier.

This was a very wet snow, so it stuck to anything and everything. Tree trunks were painted quite nicely with snow like the one below.

When first looking through these pictures, I was taken by how they look like black+white prints. I really didn’t desaturate any of them. The lack of green from the seasonal leaf drop, combined with the contrast of the bright snow to the darker tree limbs yields little color.

In many places the water seemed to be moving slower than usual, even though it wasn’t frozen hard. I’d like to say that it was like a moving slurpy, but I’d be lying. It’s more like a glass lake.

That said, some parts still kept their usual ripples and rapids. But, of course, the white precipitation made them even prettier than usual.

I’ve always enjoyed the first few hours after a good snow because the tree branches are completely coated with white. Then, as squirrels and wind breaks through the limbs, the original luster is lost.

I imagine this snow won’t stick around very long, as it’s supposed to get a bit above freezing this weekend. It’s the snow covered rocks in this picture that I really like.

Here’s a zoomed in shot from the same vantage point. I think I like this one better.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures, and hopefully if you got snow yesterday, you were able to enjoy it like I did, instead of being frustrated by the inconveniences it can cause.