#calcareous

I finished off a recent jaunt with these little treasures, not full population anthesis; but, here we have a gorgeous plant regardless and a representation of a hillside population of the Great Larkspur enjoying the soil chemistry of the underlying calcareous substrate of Glenwood Gardens.

Delphinium exaltatum

This species seems to be pollinated by a large slew of species, from hummingbirds and hawkmoths to skippers and solitary bees, it produces a fair amount of seed and does well in any calcareous glade or hillside prairie shading out isn’t relevant yet, major disjunction events occur. Ohio is known for it’s well preserved decent examples of calcareous glade systems that exist in the Edge of Appalachia prairie system (Lynx, Cedar Barrens, Falling Prairie ect.) and a few populations in the Darby Plaines Cedar Glade and Hill Prairie systems of Clark and Greene co. Besides those populations in Ohio the next few populations occur in Pennsylvania down to Louisiana. The other super disjunct populations occurs in a calcareous cedar glade in Missouri in the Ozarks Mountain Range as well as a few populations in Tennessee.  There were probably pocket populations occurring at some points during history during the prairie peninsula expansion but it still doesn’t explain why we haven’t seen any examples in WI, IN, IL, or KY which have well known examples of calcareous glades. 

The first set of photographs puts Clifty Falls State Park’s Limestone Stratification in perspective. These layers include a small piece of the Saluda Member of the Whitewater Formation of the Ordovician that is white lime at the base. The next layer is difficult to make out but its Brassfield Limestone that overlies the large boulder like protrusions, The upper most layers start to look more familiar as a specific type of Dolostone, Salamonie Dolomite, which is actually further broken up into the Osgood member and the Laurel Member at the top. 

Not seen is Ordovician Pale Limestone shale and the clay pack shale and chert of the - Dillsboro Formation of which 270 ft can be exposed at a time. The basin is the best location to see this specific strata and it can be observed along the gorge cuts and at the base of the large waterfalls.

With that said, well weathered calcareous rocks give me hope on finding rare ferns. 

Apart from seeing cliff brake ferns and the also rare Bradley’s spleenwort, I almost had another “woah no way” moment at what I thought was Asplenium resiliens, The Black Stemmed Spleen Wort; however, it was not the case and turned out to just be a rather large population of large examples of Asplenium trichomanes, the Maidenhair Spleenwort enjoying the heavily weathered calcareous rock it dwelled on. If you have seen any of my other Clifty Falls State Park fall posts you may have noticed other rock dwelling ferns in the photos. 

The calcareous rock dwelling fern diversity is definitely something to marvel at.and I would highly recommend checking it out if you decide to visit.

Ferns i’ve seen on the rocks so far: Wall-Rue, Mountain Spleenwort, Bradley’s Spleenwort, Walking Fern, Rock Cap Fern, Ebony Spleenwort, Maidenhair Spleenwort, Smooth Cliff Brake, Purple Cliff Brake, and Lobed Spleenwort

Two new OCs that _SherlockPal_ on Sketchers United made for me

First OC:

His name is Calcareous, hes a sponge, Pansexual, 21 years old and is single.

Second OC: