 Hi, I'm Tony Romano. I'm a botanist with the office of Kentucky Nature Preserves and today it is a warm day in the first Week of April and I am hiking through a dry forest on my way to see a very special habitat in Hardin County Called a limestone slope glade So I hope you'll tag along with me and we'll take some time to look at some plants along the way Okay, as you can see, I've just hiked through sort of a dry ridgetop dominated by oaks And as we turn around I'm approaching the edge of the woodland and to see that a bunch of eastern red seeders have started to appear That kind of signals the habitat transition that we'll be walking through Okay, so we're now just on the edge of this glade habitat Looks like we have a few wildflowers here on the sides We'll stop to take a look at those in just a moment But again, as you can see that eastern red seeders are much more common They kind of mark the boundary between these two habitat types And we're gonna kind of walk through this transition in just a minute so that you can see the really stark difference between our Dry oak dominated woodland behind us and then what we'll be coming into which is a limestone slope glade Before we get there we're gonna take a stop and look at some of the first wildflowers we've seen Again, it's the first weekend in April. So it's very early. We're really only seeing Some of our earliest flowering spring species, but the first one that grabs our attention here So that's the bird foot violet comes up very early it's fairly common across Kentucky occurs in dry woods old fields road sides Has very large flowers that can appear in a variety of colors purples whites even sometimes a combination of the two colors and It's usually pretty easy to identify by it's a basil leaves that are very highly dissected and low and The other flower we have growing right with it is a really tiny bluette. So this is Houstonia carilla And it's a member of the ruby ACA. So that's the matter family. It has four petals in a salver form Corolla So that's a tube that sort of flares at the end of it Usually it has this species has sort of a yellow dot in the center They're very delicate solitary flowers on these long individual peduncles a lot of other species of Houstonia We'll have multiple flowers on the same stem And you can see it has these really tiny opposite leaves. It's very small basil rosette So that's Houstonia carilla Okay, so now we're gonna walk into the the opening of the glaze So I'm just gonna let the scenery do the talking for a moment but one thing you'll probably notice right away is that Canopy is suddenly much more open than it was just a minute ago. And again, we have dense red cedars Kind of signaling this habitat transition into a drier environment up ahead we see a Blooming red bud, so that's one that is probably common to a lot of a lot of people watching this the bright pink flowers Of this species are really easy to notice along roadways and things like that the species likes limestone soils and as you can see there's an abundance Limestone out how to outcropping here And so we're gonna walk a little bit further and I'm gonna talk a little bit more about limestone openings in just a minute Here we can see now. We're in the glade habitat and if I turn to my left, we can see this big grassland opening That continues along this south-facing slope We move up a few steps to another opening And here we go you can see the big difference in the habitat Between the forested slopes north-facing slopes across from us and then this really dry grass-dominated south-facing slope That's underlain by limestone And it looks like our tours interrupted by a black rat snake who just hid under a rock As we look around this glade we can see that there are some seedlings of Eastern red cedar coming in most of the time Trees and shrubs are sort of discouraged from growing in here just by the edific conditions so that's sort of the Characteristics of the soil the chemistry the moisture And the substrate all kind of combined to make a harsh environment for a lot of our native woody species But red cedar is one of the exceptions and so in many cases Fire also can play a role in maintaining this open grassland habitat Over time So as I said earlier, there's a lot of exposed limestone boulders in this type of habitat and so I just wanted to point out a Cool fern that grows out of this type of limestone crevice. This is Palaea atropropaurea So there's two species of Palaea in Kentucky. This one is identifiable by its hairy rachis and it's really striking has a kind of unique shape to it and Very striking black rachis that you can kind of see from a distance So I just wanted to point this out. We're actually gonna hike our way back through the dry oak woods to Another grassland opening and see what else is going on over there Okay, so I've stopped in the woods on the way to the next glade opening to take a look at a tooth wart, so this is dentaria heterophoa also Weekly goes by cardamony Angostata and you can see that it has large basil leaves that are trifoliate That are present while the plant is still flowering has kind of our classic mustard flowers of four petals with six stamens Usually in a light like light purple or white coloration and the Sort of size difference between the basil leaves and the upper pair of stem leaves is part of what points us in the direction of dentaria heterophoa aka cardamony Angostata Okay, so after a short hike through the woods I've arrived at the Next glade opening this one is a smaller opening, but again, you can see behind me It's grass dominated. We have eastern red cedars around us There's lots of exposed Rock shale gravel and boulders and things like that that again create the conditions that enable this habitat to persist So I've stopped briefly at this little rosette of an agave plant So this is agave virginica or manfrida virginica is another name the botanists have called it Is the only member of the agave si a so the agave family in Kentucky That is native to Kentucky. You'll also occasionally see yuccas, but the only yucca species here are introduced So this time of year this plan is still easily identifiable because it'll form this tight little rosette That of these thick Waxy fleshy leaves so it's a succulent. We don't have that many succulents in the bluegrass state so this is one to keep an eye out for and this is often an indicator of High-quality native grasslands, which are increasingly rare in Kentucky All right, folks. We did it. We found another plant in bloom today at the beginning of April so this is Hori cocoon That would be lithospermum kinesins it is a member of the barrage in ACA so the borage family and most members of this family are pretty easy to recognize because They will have five petals As you can see in this example here, and then they have very hairy Stems and leaves They also will produce four nutlets, but obviously since we're in flower I don't have an example to show you there, but this species is relatively common in dry woodlands In limestone glades in other remnant prairies and also along dry roadsides where there is some Sometimes some remnant native vegetation occurring The next plant we're looking at here is a blue eyed grass. So this is Sea rinkium albidum So it has a white flower. It's a member of the iris family And it's kind of an easily overlooked plant when it's not flowering because it has these Very narrow grass-like stems That that really can blend in amongst the other vegetation. We're really lucky to have caught it in flower today This species is really the only since he rinkium that will occur in this type of dry grassland habitat That's all I have for today, I hope you've enjoyed this little hiking tour of this beautiful limestone slope Glade that's behind me Again, I just want to stress this is a really rare habitat in Kentucky I know we were a little early to see see a little more showy flowers and things like that but the uniqueness of this habitat with its soil geology and unique fire history really Helps support a number of rare plant species Regionally rare species as well as in some cases globally rare species So it is really important that we continue to conserve this type of habitat and again. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you