Spring 1999

[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: SPRING 1999.]

An Evening with Garlic Mustard

By Joe Neumann

Thursday at 6 p.m. we meet in the parking lot of McClaughry Springs in the Palos area in southwest Cook County. Jackie, Deb, Phyllis, Bob, and I comprise this evening's crew. Jackie is the steward here. A steward is a volunteer officially appointed by the Forest Preserve District as a caretaker of a site. A school teacher by profession, Jackie is still a student both formally and informally. She is currently conducting a study of small mammals for her master's thesis.

Jackie passes out volunteer identification badges, rubber gloves, and bags. We all sign in. Deb Petro simply signs "Petro." She is the Garbo of our group.

Formalities complete, we head into the woods. We know the way and what we will be doing. If it's May, then we will be pulling garlic mustard.

Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is an aggressive European plant seemingly bent on displacing our native woodland plants. Its stalk can rise to your waist, or more usually your knee. Despite its innocuous appearance, it can dominate the ground layer vegetation within 10 years of its initial invasion.

Just north of the parking lot, we head west and quickly come to a bridge spanning Mill Creek. This creek is chock-full of rocks. When it is low, you can cross by hopping from rock to rock. The creek flows swiftly today, invigorated by yesterday's rain.

Beyond this bridge, the terrain steps up and then rises rapidly. A sheer bluff runs away to the north and south. This ascent is steep and high enough that by the time you reach the top, you will be winded. But we do not scale this rise. Instead, we step off the trail and head north. A hundred feet ahead the garlic mustard begins.

This lowland is musty and mossy. It has a North Woods feel. A rich variety of woodland plants dwell here. Many emerge early in the spring, blooming before the trees leaf out while ample sunlight is available, and already their flowers are fading. Other species more fully adapted to low light levels are emerging only now. Particularly abundant and attractive are the lady ferns. Clusters of their unfolding fronds arc toward each other, forming miniature Shinto temples.

Garlic mustard uproots with ease. It is not married to the soil like the deeply rooted native plants. Just pull it (and pull it and pull it) and eventually you can remove enough from a site to give the native plants a fighting chance. Usually, you start to see results in three years. This is because garlic mustard is a biennial. During its first year, it remains a few leaves in a rosette on the ground. Only in its second spring does it shoot up and produce inconspicuous white flowers. By the onset of July, it dries and dies, scattering seeds as it does so. Thus the important work is between May and July, to remove as many plants as possible before they set seed.

While the others work in the bottomland, I make my way up the slope. Jackie calls me "billy goat." As I pull, I pause to examine some Dutchman's-breeches. This small plant gets its name from the pants-like shape of its flower. A group of these plants flowering look like Lilliputian laundry hung out to dry.

Whenever you are off-trail, you try to step with care, but this bluff is a particularly sensitive area. Erosion is a serious problem on such a steep incline. Near the Dutchman's-breeches, soil has piled up behind a fallen log that slipped sideways.

The official trail running right up the face of the bluff is maintained by the Forest Preserve District only with difficulty. Gravel placed on the trail repeatedly washes away. Culverts have been constructed to redirect water. This trail provides the full panorama from the height of the high ground to the lowland and its creek, but it is not enough to satisfy some.

Wayward mountain bikers and horseriders have cut their own trails. Mountain bikers love the challenge of charging up the bluff and the hoot of rocketing down. They have sliced a track into the bluff south of the official trail. Another gouge lies near where I work. Legally, horseriders must stay on the official trails; but some have carved new trails along the top of the bluff and in more than one place through the lowland. A horse is a large animal. When one goes off trail, it does a lot of damage. A few years ago the Forest Preserve District began placing orange signs where unofficial trails split off from the official one, but these signs are regularly torn out or broken off.

A pair of birders join us now. They yank out some garlic mustard while they trade the latest nature news with us. They are here to see this site's avian stars, a pair of barred owls. These owls have returned to this area year after year, obstinately producing owlets despite the increasing human traffic.

Last year, we feared they had finally been driven out. The bottomland along the creek that is their chosen nesting habitat is no longer secluded enough. Yet instead of abandoning the site, they shifted up the slope to a quieter spot.

One of these owls once perched in a tree 50 feet above and watched us work. Most owls have yellow eyes, but the barred owl's eyes are dark moist marbles. Our overseer was about the size of a crow, but stouter. Its feathers were a smattering of white among a wet-bark brown.

We are losing the light now, but we work on a while longer, snatching wads of garlic mustard and stuffing them into our already stuffed bags. We gab among ourselves. Somehow the topic always turns to garlic mustard. It will be out of flower soon and harder to locate. Petro surveys the garlic mustard spread throughout the lowland. "Jackie," she declares, "you have job security." We are quiet now, absorbed in our work. Below us the sounds of the creek rise.