Alvars and Lakeside Daisy

I've been surveying the Alvars, an extremely rare habitat type here in Ohio, for the Lakeside Daisy. Here's a rundown of this incredible habitat. An alvar is a very shallow soil system over limestone, dominated by red cedar and containing all kinds of extremely rare plants. In North America, Alvar communities are only know from a handful of locations near the Great Lakes shores of the U.S. and Canada.





Fossils from the Columbus Limestone, which is the top layer of limestone in the pictures above.

Killfawns to Be

Never heard of a killfawn? Well, simply put, what would a baby killdeer be? Certainly nothing other than a killfawn. One of the birds present in the gravel quarries of Marblehead are killdeer, and this mom was nesting right on the bare gravel, with only a few sprigs of spiked blazing star near her nest. Aren't those eggs precious?

They'll soon hatch, and the quarries of Marblehead will be filled with killfawns.

I'll be up on Ohio's north coast three more days this upcoming week, again censusing the Lakeside Daisy. I'm starting to see them everywhere I go, today, for example, in Huron County. But they're not Lakeside Daisies, they are only dandelions. That's what happens when the image of a plant gets burned into my brain.

Tom

Endangered Species Day- Lakeside Daisy

Have you seen Ohio's rarest wildflower? The Lakeside Daisy, Tetraneuris herbacea, a federally threatened species that we have right here in Ohio, has occupied quite a bit of my time lately. I'm part of a team that is censusing this rare wildflowers population in abandoned and active quarries in Marblehead, Ohio. I'll be heading up north early tomorrow morning once again. It is quite a plant, and if you can make it to Lakeside Daisy State Nature Preserve this weekend, it should still be blooming.

For more about endangered species day, visit the National Wildlife Federation.