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Floristic Study of Highland Heights Community Park, Cuyahoga County, Ohio

Posted on: Sunday, 24 July 2005, 03:01 CDT

ABSTRACT

We undertook a floristic study of Highland Heights Community Park and undeveloped adjacent property, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, locating 403 taxa of vascular plants belonging to 249 genera and 87 families. The study site is a large suburban park containing a mixture of wetland and non-wetland communities. A wet meadow within the site supports a diverse flora and is currently the only known locality in Ohio for Solidago puberula. Also this meadow represents the sole location in Cuyahoga County for Rhynchospora capitellata and Hypericum gentianoides.

INTRODUCTION

This paper documents species of vascular plants growing within Highland Heights Community Park and undeveloped adjacent property. This study site includes undeveloped natural communities and variously disturbed lands within a heavily suburbanized area. The site exhibits a relatively large assemblage of species, despite its small area and isolation within a large suburban landscape.

Despite the large number of botanical studies in Ohio, there is still need for floristic studies. While checklists for a county or region provide an important baseline for those regions, they typically are not helpful when assessing the biotic integrity and health of plant communities in smaller areas of special interest. In managed parklands, where ecosystem threats consist of both loss of native plants and invasion by weedy exotics, it is important to have inventories of the plant communities to assess disturbance effects and restoration efforts.

We undertook a floristic survey of the park and peripheral undeveloped area for several reasons: 1) the site has not been characterized floristically, and appeared interesting because of the suspected presence of rare and unusual species, 2) a floristic survey at this time was opportune as it could facilitate management decisions that would maximize the preservation and education objectives of city managers, 3) the study could provide useful information for habitat evaluation and functional capacity assessment, 4) it could serve as a baseline study for future monitoring efforts within the park and, 5) it is complementary to other regional floristic efforts to characterize the plant floras of the urban and green space patchwork in Cuyahoga County.

Site Description

Highland Heights Community Park is located within the City of Highland Heights (Mayfield Quadrangle, Cuyahoga County), in northeastern Ohio, and within the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau Region of the Appalachian Plateau Province (Andreas 1989). The study site lies between 4133'09'' and 4132'22''N latitude and 8128'42''and 8127'30''W longitude.

Included within the study site is Highland Heights Community Park (a public park) and undeveloped adjacent property, which together occupy ca. 42.09 hectares. This adjacent property is divided into several parcels of land under the ownership of various private landowners and the Mayfield Heights school district. Adjacent territory was also considered because it is contiguious with park property and forms an island of greenspace amidst housing developments. The study site lies between Bishop Road to the west, Lander Road to the east and Wilson Mills Road to the south. The site is south of Ashley Circle, by Williamsburg Drive. Much of the site is dedicated park property. The site is divided into 12 parcels belonging to the City of Highland Heights, the Mayfield School District, and several private owners, collectively. It lies within the Euclid Creek watershed. The Park itself has a large wetland complex containing three streams that meet Euclid Creek, which eventually empties into Lake Erie.

The surficial bedrock consists of Bedford Shale and its Euclid Sandstone Member of Mississippian origin (Ford 1987). Bedford Shale is soft clay shale that ranges from blue-gray to maroon or black, depending on the locality. Lavery Till is the uppermost glacial deposit over Highland Heights, and is considered Pleistocene (Wisconsinan) in age and ca. 19,000 years old. It is overlain by surficial silt loam. Lavery Till II is the most extensive of Lavery Tills and occurs in Highland Heights.

The hydrogeologic setting for most of the study site is glacial till over shale. This shale is not very permeable and does not serve as a source of ground water. In the southeastern corner of the site there exists low topography; here varying thicknesses of glacial till cover relatively flat-lying, fractured sandstones. In this case the bedrock is the principal aquifer and the glacial till is the source of recharge to the bedrock.

Much of the research area has Mitiwanga silt loam (MtA) with a slope of 0 to 2% in (Musgrave and Holloran 1980); this is a nonhydric soil with hydric inclusions. It is an aerie ochraqualf with inclusions that are poorly drained and is moderately deep and nearly level. Soil inclusions in this area contain deep Darien soils occupying about 15% of the area. Mitiwanga silt loam has a perched seasonal high water table in winter, spring, and during prolonged wet periods. The surface layer is strongly acidic to medium-acidic, whereas, the subsoil is more acidic (Musgrave and Holloran 1980).

METHODS

Voucher specimens for all species were collected between May 2000 and December 2002. Specimens of vascular plants were pressed, dried, identified, and mounted. Seven specimens are stored in the herbarium at Florida Gulf Coast University (Fort Myers, Florida). All others are stored in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Vascular plant taxa were determined as native or alien to North America, using Gleason and Cronquist (1991) and Kartesz and Meecham (2004). For the most part, nomenclature of vascular plants follows Kartesz and Meacham (2004).

RESULTS

Floristic Study

A total of 403 taxa of vascular plants, including 12 hybrids (Appendix 1) were documented during the course of this study, representing 249 genera and 87 families.

The largest families were: Asteraceae (51), Poaceae (42), Rosaceae (28), Cyperaceae (24), Liliaceae (17), Brassicaceae (15), Lamiaceae (14), Fabaceae (13), Polygonaceae (13), and Scrophulariaceae (11). The largest genus was Carex with 16 species, followed by Polygonum with nine species.

Approximately, 65% (265) of taxa were native to North America. Of the non-native taxa, approximately 7% (31) are considered invasive to Ohio (Windus and Kromer 2001).

Of the 31 invasive taxa, the Ohio Department of Natural Areas and Preserves has listed nine as targeted species, 17 as well- established invasive species, and has included five in the invasive species watch-list (Windus and Kromer 2001). Targeted invasive species include: Alliaria petiolata, Frangula alnus, Lonicera japonica, Lonicera morrowii, Lythrum salicaria, Phalaris arundinacea, Phragmites australis, Polygonum cuspidatum, and Rosa multiflora. Well-established invasive species include: Berberis thunbergii, Calystegia sepium ssp. sepium, Cirsium arvense, Conium maculatum, Coronilla varia, Daucus carota, Dipsacus fullonum, Elymus repens, Epilobium parviflorum, Hemerocallis fulva, Hesperis matronalis, Lysimachia nummularia, Melilotus alba, Melilotus officinalis, Typha angustifolia, Viburnum opulus var. opulus, and Vinca minor. Watch list species are a considered a potential threat in Ohio and include: Centaurea stoebe ssp. micranthos, Ligustrum obtusifolium, Lonicera bella, and Ornithogalum umbellatum (Windus and Kromer 2001).

One species from our site, Solidago puberula, is listed as endangered in the Rare Native Ohio Plants Status List (Ohio Department of Natural Resources 2000).

Two other taxa absent elsewhere in Cuyahoga County grew abundantly within the wet meadow at the study site: Hypericum gentianoides and Rhynchospora capitellata. Additional taxa were observed at the study site, albeit uncommon elsewhere within Cuyahoga County: Bidens vulgata, Dicanthelium dichotomum var. dichotomum, Fraxinus nigra, Hieracium scabrum, Lycopodium tristachyum, Lycopodium xhabereri, Pedicularis lanceolata, Symphyotrichum divarication, Vaccinium corymbosum, Viola blanda, and Viola sagittata.

Figure 1. Location map of the study area showing (A), map of Ohio with location of study area (B), map of Cuyahoga County with location of Highland Heights (C), aerial photograph of study area and (D), map traced from aerial photograph depicting precise boundaries of study site. In (D) - Bold lines indicate existing roads. Light lines indicate paths. Dotted lines indicated community boundaries. Filled areas indicate parking lots or cul-de-sacs. P = Pet Cemetery, SS = Shrub Swamp, F = Forest, WM = Wet Meadow, WS = Wooded Swamp, UO = Urban Open Land, and UR = Urban Recreation.

DISCUSSION

Highland Heights Community Park and adjoining territory exhibit a diverse mixture of vascular plants, a circumstance we attribute to habitat diversity and presence of disturbed land along edges of the study site. Residential land peripheral to the study area may have yielded cultivated alien taxa found within the site.

The wet meadow at the center of the site exhibits three species unknown elsewhere within Cuyahoga County: Solidago puberula, Hypericum gentianoides, and Rhynchospora capitellata. Furthermore, it is currently the only known locality in Ohio for Solidago puberula. This species occurs in eastern North America, north of Mexico from Quebec to Florida (Kartesz and Meecham 2004), but is rare in Ohi\o and Kentucky (states which lie at the northwestern limit of its range). Solidago puberula actually grew in one other location in Cuyahoga County until a few years ago, when that population was extirpated because of habitat destruction (Wilder and McCombs 2002). Solidago puberula is a facultative upland species and yet seems to be well established, within the wet meadow. This meadow is a jurisdictional wetland (Jog unpubl. data, Peabody pers. comm.) with dominant vegetation consisting of wetland indicator species and hydrology and soils fulfilling wetland criteria. The wet meadow might be a rare remnant of habitat in northeastern Ohio that is uniquely favorable for all three species, aforementioned.

Approximately 1.6 hectares in area, the meadow supports 160 taxa of vascular plants. Aristida longispica and Rhynchospora capitellata occupy considerable portions of the meadow. These taxa are highly site specific and tolerate little disturbance (Andreas and Lichvar 1995). Certain taxa present within the meadow are uncommon elsewhere in Cuyahoga County: Hieracium scabrum, Lycopodium clavatum, Lycopodium habereri, Vaccinium corymbosum, and Viola sagittata. Also, unusual for Cuyahoga County, is the presence within the meadow of four Lycopodium taxa.

Aerial photograhs have documented the meadow's existence for at least the last 60 years. As evidenced by the presence of woody seedlings and saplings, ecological succession is taking place and can be expected to continue. The floristic diversity of the meadow can be expected to decline without some form of active management to slow or halt the rate of succession.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the City of Highland Heights, the Mayfield City School District, and private owners of the property studied for permission to undertake research there. We also thank Cleveland State University for its support and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History for housing most of our herbarium specimens. We are grateful to Mayor Francine Hogg for her support, and for the technical help and advice rendered by Dr. George Argus, Mr. James Bissell, Mr. Brian Gilbert, Mr. Dennis Magee, Ms. Martha McCombs, Ms. Trish Mckeigan, and Mr. Charles Tubesing. We also thank Mr. Mike Delong, Mr. Tim Jones, and Dr. Karthik Sivaraman for assisting with field work. We thank the two anonymous reviewrs and especially Landon McKinney for critically reviewing the manuscript.

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LITERATURE CITED

ANDREAS, B.K. 1989. The vascular flora of the glaciated Allegheny Plateau region of Ohio. Ohio Biol. Surv. Bull. New Series 8:1-191.

ANDREAS, B.K. and R.W. LICHVAR. 1995. Floristic index for establishing assessment standards: a case study for northern Ohio. United States Army Corps of Engineers Report.

FORD, J.P. 1987. Glacial and surficial geology of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Report of investigations-No. 134. Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Columbus, Ohio.

GLEASON, H.A. and A. CRONQUIST. 1991. Manual of the vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada, 2nd ed. New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York.

KARTESZ, J.T. and C.A. MEACHAM. 2004. Addition to the synthesis of the North American flora, version 2.0. North Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill, North Carolina (in press).

MUSGRAVE, D.K. and D.M. HOLLORAN. 1980. Soil survey of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Lands and Soil, Columbus, Ohio.

OHIO DIVISION OF NATURAL AREAS AND PRESERVES. 2000. Rare native Ohio plants: 2000-01 status list. Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Columbus, Ohio.

WILDER, G.J. and M.R. MCCOMBS. 2002. New records of vascular plants for Ohio and Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Part II. Rhodora Volume 105. No. 924.

WINDUS, J. and M. KROMER. 2001. Invasive plants of Ohio. Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Columbus, Ohio.

Received December 26, 2003; Accepted July 15, 2004.

SUNEETI K. JOG,1* JOHN T. KARTESZ,2 JEFFREY R. JOHANSEN,3 and GEORGE J. WILDER4

1 Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences, Cleveland State University, 2399 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 44115;

2 9319 Bracken Lane, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27516;

3 Department of Biology, John Carroll University, 20700 North Park Boulevard, University Heights, Ohio 44118;

4 Division of Ecological Studies, Florida Gulf Coast University, 10501 FGCU Boulevard South, Fort Myers, Florida 33965

* Present address: Kansas Biological Survey, 156 Higuchi Hall, 2101 Constant Avenue, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66047. email address: suneeti@ku.edu

Copyright Southern Appalachian Botanical Society Jun 2005

Source: Castanea

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