PA Plantings

We have received a report on the Purple Fringeless Orchids at Laurel Hill State Park and it looks like they will be done blooming before our scheduled trip. So on August 6th we are going to have a walk to the Muhlenberg Meadow in Lancaster Central Park instead. We will be meeting by the Meadow sign along Golf Rd. at 10 am. This will be a joint walk with the Lancaster Entomological and Butterfly Club. Muhlenberg Meadow, Lancaster County central Park 10 am  to (approx.) 12 noon A walk for meadow flowers and butterflies (co-sponsored but the Lancaster Butterfly and Entomological Club) Co-Leaders: Fred Habegger and Mike Slater Started in 1991, this restoration project spearheaded by Tim Draude and the Muhlenberg Botanical Society has expanded to five acres.. In the last year some major work at removing invasive plants by our recording Secretary John Ambler with some help from other Muhlenberg volunteers. Come and view the wide array of field flowers...

Last year I began to work with Linda Ingram of the Union Township Recreation Board on the possibility of putting in native plants for wildlife on some of the property which the township owns near Birdsboro. (in the former desilting basin new where the new township building will be located ) So with the help of my wife Jan and a number of volunteers I began a program of native meadow/prairie plant seed collection (with permission) from a a number of public and private meadow areas. We were especially interested in seed sources of plants native to the mid-Atlantic area from nearby areas. With an area which has been growing corn and soybeans for many years, we planned to start with an approx. 1/4 acre site we would be a demonstration area and seed increase plot. We planted the seed in one morning in late march, with the help of volunteers from the Union Township Rec. Board, Master Gardeners and a few other interested people. We mixed the relatively well purified seed of many different ...

Arnoglossum cacalifolium (syn. Cacalia atriplicifolia ) Arnoglossum cacalifolium (syn. Cacalia atriplicifolia ), called Pale Indian Plantain, is a great native plant. (most books still list it as Cacalia atriplicifolia ) In PA it is reported from the southern 5/6ths of the state , but I have never seen it in it's native condition. It is planted at the Muhlenberg Meadow in Lancaster county Central Park and that is where I first saw it. We acquired several bare root plants at the Muhlenberg Botanic Club plant exchange two years ago. They grew some last summer but they were rather a disappointment at about 4 feet tall and one broke halfway and fell over. This year they have really settled in and they are stupendous. The plants are rigid and 7 to 8 feet tall with a dramatic combination of purple stem, nice scalloped leaves that are blue-green above and glaucous below, and dramatic funnel-shaped inflorescences of many small cream-colored tubular flowers. These are wonderful,...