Stress-Loving Plants and At-Risk Flora in Harpers Ferry
Riversides scoured by constant flooding. Thin soils on top of rock beds. Some habitats are so stressful, only a few species have adapted to them and can survive. But in adapting to these tough conditions, these specialized plants (some are “edaphic” and are restricted to certain soil conditions) don’t compete well in the relatively cushy conditions found elsewhere. They are very few in number and paradoxically, some of these rugged plants are considered vulnerable.
A project to document vulnerable plants in some of these “extreme” places at Harpers Ferry (originally presented in the Fall 2019 issue of the National Park Service’s Natural Resources Quarterly newsletter) recently released a preliminary summary of their results.
A team from Frostburg State University led by Clara Thiel revisited spots where rare, threatened, and endangered plants had been recorded before, to see if the plants were still around and in what numbers, and to document conditions at each site.
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