Capturing the Essence, Visit #3 – 6/30/24 – Red Rocks Burlington City Park

I visited the gap around 10:00 when the sky was clear and sunny, the temperature was 75F, and there was moderate humidity. It was my first visit to the gap when everything wasn’t still releasing latent raindrops.

Today I felt myself drawn to the plants filling up the gap – plants that are crowding the once empty space and appearing to live in harmony with one another. As I looked closer at the tangled mess of young trees and shrubby species, I noticed it was more of a battle scene than a peaceful community. I first saw that the elderberry bushes which were recently filled with red, ripe berries were not stripped of their fruit. It seems as though the wildlife of the park had accepted their offering sometime in the past week. Next, I saw that the pin cherry which was growing upwards in the center of the gap was competing with a strangling vine – i believe some bittersweet nightshade – and it took a lot of restraint to keep from pulling it off of the innocent sapling. I had to remind myself that my opinion and bias are not part of this ecosystem.

Below the pin cherry and bittersweet entanglement, raspberries, elderberry, white ash and striped maple were competing for space – their leaves and branches all trying to occupy the same sunlit space. It occurred to me then the difference in growth form of the plants in the gap. Specifically, i saw that a red maple sapling growing in the gap was already taller than me and was rocketing upwards with a strong and straight, central leader. Just a few feet away from this towering sapling was another of the same species with a completely different shape. Under the shade of the canopy, this other red maple sapling was just a few feet tall and had an umbrella-like shape with a central stem that reached upwards to a flat and wide arrangement of branches. It was likely that these two plants were around the same age but their environment and the microclimate that existed therein drastically changed their appearance and existence – one destined to be a tall and dominant canopy tree while the other a mid-story component always searching for more sunlight.

A mystery I wanted to investigate after this visit was concerned with the timing of things, specifically how long coarse woody debris stuck around on the forest floor and how long it takes for moss to colonize recently exposed sapwood. I was hoping the answer to the second of these questions could help me estimate how long ago the hemlock had fallen down and therefore the age of the gap.

From a few quick searches, I found that in eastern forests it can take anywhere from 57 to 124 years for conifer DWD to decompose and depends on climatic factors (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-014-9757-5). I wasn’t able to find much about mosses and their colonization of dead wood but I did find an article from the New York Times in 1992 which talks about the five classes of dead wood. Based on the lack of decomposition and the fact that the hemlock stump still has all of its bark, I believe it is still in the first class of decomposition and can’t be more than a few years old (https://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/lter/pubs/pdf/pub3306.pdf). Some more dominant timber species often have associated growth rate curves from years of research but no such research has been done on pin cherry so its difficult to determine how old the sapling in the gap is. It would make sense that its consistent with the estimation of the hemlock coming down which is a few years.

Below are some pictures I took at the gap and decided were the most intriguing:

These polypody’s are the dominant ground cover at the site outside of the direct influence of the gap. They have an intimate relationship with the bedrock at the site as they often grow directly out of the cracks and cling to the rocks with tenacity. I liked the lines of this scene and how it shows that even rock is ever changing, sometimes under the influence of a mere soft-bodied plant.

Another example of how the rock polypody’s are masters of the bedrock landscape. This polypody is growing maybe 2ft above the ground but it must feel much higher to a plant with its proportions. I struggled when deciding how much of the rock to include in the picture but i think it helps show the scale of this micro-environment. I also like the lichens growing on the rock and i think that the shallow depth of field helps to draw attention to the polypody with such a blurred background.

I had a hard time deciding if I liked this picture or not because I didn’t really know if it had a subject or not. Nothing it really in focus and there aren’t many colors going on. However, after looking at it longer, i realized that *the* *gap* is the subject – this glorious hole in the canopy that has changed the ground beneath so much and will continue to have influence for decades. In the picture you can see the stump of the hemlock that once filled this space and the leaves of the elderberry and pin cherry reclaiming the newly enriched ground.

In many regards, this is the absolute central subject of the gap – where it all started and is starting again. This is the stump of the hemlock with a micro-ecosystem already starting to appear. Most of the exposed sapwood is covered with moss and organic material has begun to accumulate on the flat surface. Among many dead and decaying things, there is also life – a hemlock seedling staking its claim in the sunlight on the back of its great aunt or uncle. If things go right, this small seedling could turn into an over story tree in many decades as it feeds on the stump and expands its root system down the decaying matter to the more stable ground 5ft below.

I have to admit, I did influence this scene as I placed the acorn in this spot but I think it tells a good story and is most importantly completely plausible. Just feet from the polypody outcrops and barren forest floor, this is a picture taken from beneath the dense understory growing in the gap. I love how this scene makes it look like another mini forest is growing beneath the forest that has its own players and dynamics. It’s also incredible to see how the sunlight being let down by the hole in the canopy is already being captured and taken up by plants so much so that the actual forest floor is beginning to be shaded once again. I love how this scene shows the multitude of scales that forest dynamics are playing out on a day to day basis.

It did feel a little limiting to only have my phone to take pictures. With such a green and complex matrix of plants in the background, i found it difficult to show a subject in a more landscape composition and kept falling back to close-up photography. This macro-style of portrait taking is done very well with the 0.5x lens on my phone which is why I used it so often (pictures 3 and 5).

I’ve always had an interesting relationship with photography. Similar to how we heard in class, i think it can so often take away from the actual experience of being in the place and feeling centered there. On the other hand, if done well, it can tell incredible stories and convey deep emotions. Because I have more experience with photography than sketching, and it’s so difficult to sketch things perfectly, I think I like using photography to capture scenes and information more than sketching. Especially in the age of cell phones, it is very easy to just keep pressing the shutter and gather lots of information in the form of pictures. Additionally, the ease with which pictures are taken means experimenting with each photo to formulate your preferred message is relatively easy. On the flip side, its much easier to look past the details and every part of a scene when taking a picture. When sketching, it is up to me to look and understand each shape and form and relate that to the page.

I think taking pictures will always be my preferred method of capturing a visual of my site but i’m glad to have gotten experience with both sketching and photographing. I’d love to hear how these pictures convey information and emotion about the gap to anyone who reads this blog.

A UVM blog Red Rocks Burlington City Park