Club Moss

There is a special deeply shaded damp glade in Saluda Shoals Park where a soft gauzy light barely penetrates the canopy and the heavy air smells ancient. Here, you will find yourself among the remnants of a world from our planet’s distant past that dated from 354 to 290 million years ago – the Carboniferous Period which lasted for about 64 million years. Paleontologists tell us that during this period the vegetation was very different from what we see today. During that time dark humus soil supplied support for giant club mosses that towered 35 meters, tree ferns, great horsetails, and tall trees with strap-shaped leaves. Oxygen levels were much higher than we experience today and our huge coal deposits had their origins at that time. During the Carboniferous Period flowers and grasses did not grow and the Euramerica and Gondwana land masses eventually joined to form the large supercontinent Pangea.

The grandeur of club moss, trees, fern trees and other stately giant plants came to an abrupt end during a great extinction period with only a few families surviving. The remaining plants adapted to new environments in which we live today.

As we walk the sloped forested area we find beautiful club mosses growing in clumps of small plants reaching no more 10 cm tall. Club mosses belong to the plant Division: Lycopodiophyta sometimes called Lycophyta or Lycopods. The genus that grows in the park is Diphasiastrum. Club mosses are tracheophytes. This means that they have true roots, scale – like leaves, water and a nutrient conducting systems, are usually evergreen and reproduce by spores. The spores are clustered in cone like structures resembling clubs, giving the group it’s name. Club Mosses are considered the oldest extant (living) vascular plants on earth.

Uses: Over the years club mosses have been harvested for Christmas decorations. This practice has become illegal in many states because of growing rarity of club mosses and their kin. Common names for Club mosses are groundcedar and fan clubmoss.

Strawberry Bush

Strawberry Bush. Have you ever heard of strawberries in the fall? Saluda Shoals Park is home to strawberry bushes which bloom in the fall. They can be found along the edge of Rawls Creek while walking the Greenway Trail toward the Saluda River.
The American strawberry bush is a thin little shrub with narrow, opposite leaves, and green stems. In the spring, it blooms with tiny inconspicuous flowers. In the fall, the flowers give way to distinct crimson red fruit that looks like strawberries. The bush grows 4 – 6 ft tall and has a loose sprawling structure with thin, wiry spreading branches, an open, airy form and a cluster of several main upright stems. The twigs are distinctive, four-angled and green. The deciduous leaves are 2 – 3 inches long and have fine toothed edges. The springtime flowers are only about a third of an inch across, with five greenish yellow petals. The fruit is a warty red capsule about 1 inch across that looks a little like a strawberry. When ripe, the capsule splits open to reveal four or five orange-red seeds framed by the persistent scarlet husks. White-tailed deer love this plant and will eat the foliage and small twigs every chance they get.

American strawberry bushes occur in the shady understory of moist forests of eastern North America from New York south to Florida and west to Oklahoma and east Texas.

Purple Leaf Basil

Over the summer Saluda Shoals Park rangers have observed the gardens around the Environmental Education Center are flourishing – in spite of the long periods of hot, dry weather. In the Butterfly and Hummingbird garden the curly leaf basil, Ocimum basilicum, commonly known as Purple Ruffles, has returned in profusion. Purple basil, of which there are several varieties, is a hot weather herb cultivated from ordinary basil. Purple basil can be used in the same ways as any other type of basil – for flavor in cooking or as a garnish. You can also use basil in the garden as a companion plant to repel aphids, mites, and tomato hornworms. Once the flowers appear at the end of August/September, the pollinators also arrive. Butterflies and bees are the main pollinators of basil, ensuring fertile seeds for next spring. Hummingbirds are beginning to leave on their migration south, but have had the benefit all through the summer of the other nectar producing flowers in the garden.

We are not sure how this plant’s seeds arrived in the butterfly and hummingbird garden at Saluda Shoals Park last spring, but hundreds of seeds found the garden to be the perfect place for their propagation. Towards the end of last summer, we noticed that when the flowers matured, the petals dried, dropped off and the green carpels that formed pods remained attached to the bloom stalks. Later in the season the carpels turned brown as the seeds inside matured. Once the carpels were dry and brown we stripped some of the pods from the blooms stems and crumbled them between our fingers to release the seeds. Some seeds self released over the winter. When we split a seed pod open, we could see the developing round shaped seeds inside. We noticed that as the seeds coats hardened, they changed color from pale green to brown to black.

This spring the basil reappeared in greater abundance and has grown to about two feet tall during the summer. All too soon, with the arrival of winter’s frost, only dry husks will remain which, in their turn; will assist in the germinating of new life for the coming spring.

American Beautyberries on the Greenway Trail

As Park Rangers, we have the opportunity to observe wildlife and plants that the average park visitor might pass by if not being observant. One such plant that has caught our eye is the, Callicarpa, Americana L., more commonly known as the American Beautyberry or French Mulberry. Native to the southeastern United States, the beauty-berry grows between 3 – 5 ft. tall and usually just as wide. The plant can even reach 9 ft. when growing in favorable soil and moist conditions.
Identifying this tree is fairly easy. It has long arching branches and yellow-green foliage. The bark is smooth with elongated, raised corky areas and is light brown on older wood and reddish brown on younger wood. The leaves grow in pairs or in threes, with the blades half as wide as they are long and up to 9 inches in length. What really make the beautyberry stand out are the berries that grow just below the leaves. These colorful berries in hues of pink and purple become incredibly vivid in September and last long into the winter.

The beautyberry is an attractive plant that attracts wildlife. It provides food for many bird species including robins, cardinals, mockingbirds, brown thrashers, bobwhites, finches and towhees. White-tail deer also enjoy eating enjoy this berry.

It has also been discovered that the American Beautyberry is a natural insect repellent for mosquitoes and ticks. Department of Agriculture research reports that a chemical from the plant – callicarpenal – has been patented as a mosquito repellent.