Fern Glen Essays
Mural Life
by Joe Warner, IES Administrator

I walk to work on most days. Having this choice is an increasingly rare privilege, the more so for me because most of my walk is on a path through the woods with much to see, hear and smell. The recent news report that the average traffic delay for commuters to U.S. cities increased to 47 hours in 2003 reminded me that I too encounter delays. But they are for a different reason and, instead of growing frustrated, I am invariably drawn to something that caught my attention. My awareness of mural life was such a distraction and the following paragraphs share the experience.

The last section of my commute includes a paved roadway and solid bridge over the East Branch of the Wappingers Creek. Laid up nearly a century ago by the skilled hands of R.W. Ciferri to provide access for Mary and Melbert Cary, the bridge offers stone, mortar, verticals, horizontals, sun, shade, upstream and downstream faces – all with textures, nooks and crannies. I am struck by the variety of life that has taken up residence since the Ciferri masons put their trowels away, life that could only emerge from airborne or water borne seeds and spores. In addition to those on the walls, linear ecosystems have established in the knife-edge cracks running the length of the bridge where road pavement meets vertical masonry. Needing an education, I turned to Native Plant Gardener, Judy Sullivan and Display Garden Manager, Brad Roeller.

Judy is a Swiss army knife of a person – versatile, handy, able to extend for one need and fold compactly for another – all the while providing narrative about what she sees through field lens or naked eye. A look somewhere between anxiety and disbelief swept briefly across the faces of Judy and Brad when I asked for a list of the mosses and lichens that had staked claims on more surface area than "higher order plants". I learned that only those who call themselves bryologists or lichenologists are comfortable in identifying these unique ecosystems - and even they advance carefully, the lichenologists, especially, using taste, chemicals and decades of experience to name what they see. Still, there were counted 22 species of mosses on one side of the wall and several different lichens.

The Swiss Army knife in action. Wait'll you see the corkscrew...
So, below are what my notes reveal we found.
Jack-in-the-pulpit finds a moist niche.	We prefer the musical form of Kentucky bluegrass. Despite the moniker, this species is not native to North America.
A birch seedling with great aspirations, but few prospects.	Invasive ground ivy is a member of the mint family, displaying the exuberance of its better known cousins.
The familiar dandelion and chickweed are both edible exotics.
Daisy fleabane and dwarf enchanter's nightshade are often overlooked.
Blunt lobed woodsia fern seeks the limestone that leaches from the cement.
	Thuidium (fern moss), Dicranum (broom moss) and Fissidens are 3 of the 22 species of moss found on the wall.
Lichens begin the process of turning mountains into molehills.
Beneath the bridge, we witness the formation of stalactites as the bridge leaches lime.

Each of these plants has a secure foothold where wind or water carried a seed. Natives and immigrants share the bridge, each simply getting on with life as long as scarce nutrients allow. A half a millennium ago the white pine might have aspired at maturity to become a mainmast on a vessel in the British Navy or young American fleet. Instead, this slender seedling will likely succumb in a prolonged dry spell and drop into the water below to play a role in stream life.

Perhaps the moss and lichen folks will be challenged by this piece to spend some time on the Fern Glen bridge – taste buds, chemicals and hand lens at the ready – to fill in the gaps of this mural life. It was after all, the variety and beauty of these "lower order" plants that first prompted me to stop and look.

My thanks to Judy and Brad for their help with the plants, and to Judy for allowing me to share this space.

 

Questions, comments, or other feedback to Judy Sullivan.