A Website about Urban Environmental Restoration in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia
Today I saw the first bloom of the Mayapple here in West Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, near the Recycling Center on the bike trail leading to the Strawberry Mansion Bridge.
It is a bit later this year than years in the recent past. The Trout Lilies that were in full bloom last week on the Boxers Trail? Just like that in a flash: Boom! Totally not blooming anymore. Spring is moving along at a fast clip!
In a ravine alongside a stream just north of the Horticultural Center, Wednesday February 21st 2024. Oddly mimicking the Skunk Cabbage flower in the picture above is a piece of a crashed and burned automobile which had scorched the other side of the stream, filled with burned seats and melted metal. A typical scene in Fairmount Park and all over Philly I hardly noticed the carnage.
For at least millennia this stream flowed into the Schuylkill River until the mid twentieth century when the Schuylkill Expressway was built over it filling in a vast portion of the ravine and sending the stream into an often blocked up tunnel. Yet the upper portion of the ravine is intact and has many of the long time flora surviving, including this population of skunk cabbage as well as Mayapple, Redbud and Spring beauty to name just a few.
I will call for it again and will continue to make my demand: The Schuylkill Expressway must be dismantled! It is not inevitable that it will last forever.
From an evolutionary point of view, what advantage does the expressway have over the Skunk Cabbage?
This is THE Mayapple post of 2023! They have been appearing in previous posts and will most likely make an appearance In future posts this year, but this is the banner post for Mayapples. By the time these Spring Ephemerals are blooming, the season of the Spring Ephemerals is just about over. It’s the grande finale of them.
Podophyllum peltatum
