This was a rehabilitation hike. For the second July in a row the photographer had contracted Covid. Respiratory infections are her Achilles’ heel so we were looking for an “easy” hike. Sugarcreek has an “all persons” trail that meandered through a prairie, one of our favorite habitats, so that sounded inviting.

It was a warm mid-July Thursday morning when we headed there, somewhat premature for prime prairie season. We pulled into the parking lot and were surprised to find the 100 spaces eighty percent full.

The venue is very centralized with most of the trails arising from this lot. We took a paved pathway down to the common traihead.

Shortly after starting our trail the magic began. Almost immediately we noted a bloom of color. The first was a cluster of Purple Coneflowers in the shade. It was not dramatic as they were a little past their prime and bleached of color, but it was a prelude to what we were to see around the bend.

That was Bergamot, our native Bee Balm,

which occurred in broad swathes. These flower heads are two inches wide.

And then the explosion of yellow began – a collection of yellow flowering species – at first glance they looked similar, but with closer study differences are noted .

Jerusalem Artichoke, Compass Plant, Tickseed, Gray-headed Coneflower, and Black-eyed Susan

As always in prairies, there were many other performers within a few feet of each other:

Liatris – also known as Blazing Star, was just starting to bloom.

Slender Mountain Mint – although we only see one pollinator in the photo, these are usually teaming with insect visitors.

Rattlesnake Master – the leaves are thick, grass like, and have barbs, making them painful to brush against. The flower head is a bland green even when in bloom.

Purple Coneflower – The colorful central dome of the flower head helps differentiate it from the more common Glade Coneflower, whose dome has a browner hue.

One of my highlights for the day was watching birds alight onto the wildflowers, sometimes stopping to eat seeds. These are Field Sparrows on a Compass Plant.

With the photographer doing quite well after the short prairie jaunt we opted to visit the Three Sisters, a grouping of ancient White Oaks, utilizing the Orange Trail. This path borders the prairie itself and offered additional opportunity to see some early prairie flowers. The first one to catch our eye was Royal Catchfly which occurs across the midwest, where it is generally considered threatened or endangered throughout its range. It is one of the few prairie plants that is pollinated by hummingbirds. This was the first time that we had seen it on a Footpaths hike.

Also along that stretch we saw Butterfly Weed, which is a member of the Milkweed family. It is a magnet for pollinators.

The non-native Teasel was covered in butterflies, including this Pipevine Swallowtail.

Teasel can be differentiated from its look alike, Field Thistle, by the barbed, arching appendages that envelope the flower head.

Our collection of prairie flower photos from this hike demonstrates something that is hard to picture when you just glance at a flower. Many “flowers” are in fact not a single flower, but rather a collection of small flowers – hence the term “flower head”. This is demonstrated in the next three photos.

With the Bergamot, each periwinkle colored tube is a flower.

With the Coneflower, botanically each of the orange tubules in the photo below is a flower, and when pollinated will lead to an individual seed. That is why many flowers, like sunflowers, will have a cluster of seeds in their seed heads.

Likewise, this Smooth Oxeye has many small flowers clustered in its “eye”. The yellow petals help attract pollinators and give them somewhere to land.

It was in this area where we saw something thrashing about in the prairie. It was a small female deer who had bedded down for the day. Lying on the ground, she decided that she needed a snack, and was thrusting about grabbing plants to snack on.

After passing the prairie the trail entered a mixed wood. The path was wide and may have been an old farm lane. It was lined by some very large Black Cherry trees, one of which can be seen on the left in the photo below.

Soon the wood became more shady and hosted Sugar Maple, Black Cherry, and Tulip-poplar. I would suspect that this would be a good wood for spring ephemerals.

And suddenly, there she was – the largest of the Three Sisters, a group of large White Oaks felt to be almost 600 years old. A tree-ring boring done in the 1960s indicated that they began growing in the 1440s. Think about that. This one, the largest, had a diameter of about six feet, which is massive for White Oaks. The sunny field below this tree is due to the loss of one of the Three Sisters in 2008. The other survivor is downhill from the large one. The carcass of the fallen tree was found to the right of the field. I am at the base of both trees for size reference.

Interesting plant of the day – This is the seed head for Goatsbeard. This native is a cousin of the Dandelion. The seed head is about the size of a tennis ball and is held two feet above the ground. As their structure suggests, the seeds are wind dispersed but it takes more than a puff from your mouth to launch them.

One of the bonuses of hiking through prairies are the butterflies that you see. The photographer caught these images of a Tiger Swallowtail feeding on Bergamot.

Macro images of the Swallowtail are fascinating. I generally don’t think of butterflies as being furry but you can see the hairs of its body and proximal wings on this photo.

This macro photo shows the textures and pigmentation of the wing.

Lesson of the Day – even an old tree guy like myself has something to learn. The photographer called me over to look at this small tree that had wings on its stem and twigs.

It had pinnately compound leaves that arose in an opposite pattern – that told me it was an Ash. But I had never seen an Ash with wings on the stems and twigs before.

But when I researched it I found out that it can be an occasional finding in Blue Ashes. So over the last forty five years I have looked at thousands of ash seedlings and had never seen this.

In summary, our outing to Sugarcreek Metropark was a terrific success – the photographer did well getting back on the trail, the prairie forbs appeared to be flowering a little ahead of schedule, and we got to visit the two surviving Three Sisters. Seeing living organisms that are almost 600 years old causes one to reflect on the passage of time, and all that has taken place over the course their lives. And so it has begun – Prairie Season – one of the annual ecological events, along with spring ephemeral season and leaf change, that defines my hiking season. The beauty of it is that it will last until after the first frost, with a differing cast of floral performers taking stage every few weeks. Do yourself a favor as we enter late summer, and find yourself a prairie to visit. Take your time as you hike, find a bench, and observe the biologic diversity and activity that the meadow has to offer. You can use the search function on the Footpaths website, entering “prairie”, to find the articles on the many prairies that we have visited in the three years that we have been blogging.

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Photo credits to Peggy Juengling Burns.

Overview:

Location – 4178 Conference Rd, Bellbrook, OH 45305, 45 miles north of Downtown Cincinnati.

Parking – Large asphalt lot.

Facilities – toilet at parking area.

Trail Conditions – the prairie was a mowed trail and the path to the Three Sisters was bare dirt and gravel.

Print Map Link – https://www.metroparks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Sugarcreek-Map-9-18.pdf

Benches – Many noted, including some swinging benches overlooking the prairie along the Orange Trail.

Picnic Tables – At the parking area and trailhead.

Kids – kids 4 and over should do well here and the asphalt trail would be great for strollers.

Dogs – Welcomed on a leash.

Suggested Paired Hikes – There are many other trails in the park, varying in length from 0.5 miles to 3.1 miles. This time of year I would strongly suggest the longer, unpaved Yellow Trail that explores a larger section of the prairie.

Links:

https://www.metroparks.org/places-to-go/sugarcreek/