Snow lined fields, seed catalogs in the mailbox, and Punxsutawney not seeing his shadow bring thoughts of spring. A popular pastime in Vermont is to plan a walk through the woods just after snowmelt, and catch the brilliance of our spring ephemerals (short-lived wildflowers).

Trout lily, Hepatica, Trillium, and many other native plant ephemerals complete their reproductive cycle in early spring, before the leaf out of the upper canopy. The advantages of this strategy include excess light and less competition. An early start is also practiced by several invasive plants that can take foot in Vermont’s forests. Common culprits include bush honeysuckles, buckthorn, and barberry, which all leaf out early, but take the season to complete their reproductive cycles.

A set of “wise eyes” on a spring ephemeral walk can pick out the specks of green poking out of the branches of a honeysuckle, or on the bowing canes of a barberry. We can take advantage of this seemingly dastardly behavior, and start the survey/mapping season early!

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*If you want to train your “wise eyes”, check out the gallery of invaders on the VTInvasives.org website:

http://www.vtinvasives.org/invaders/images/plant_common 

           --click on an individual species for more information 

                           -->invader page includes description and a “fact sheet” with identification tips!

*Invasive plants do not recognize human-created boundaries, and are more than an issue in our backyards; they are also an issue at a landscape scale (landscape= neighborhood, community, state, region). Important first steps in invasive plant management are understanding where and what species are present, the extent of the invasion in the landscape, and which populations might be a priority to treat (e.g.: newly introduced; near something of value- town forest, cultural site, rare species; highly invasive- spreads quickly, hard to control).

           --Here is a resource for decision support tools, from USDA:  

            http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/controldecs.shtml

*iNaturalist is a great resource to find spring ephemerals near you! http://www.inaturalist.org/places/vermont#taxon=47126

            --type in the wildflower you are looking for in the “search for species” search bar

Article Credit: Elizabeth Spinney, VT FPR

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Spinney, VT FPR, “hepatica”