Join us for a tree walk in Glen Providence Park, in the 80th anniversary year for this Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum! We will be led by Dr. David Hewitt, who led our first tree walk in January 2012. He is a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, a research associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and works on developing education and outreach programs on agriculture and the environment, “and other sciencey things.”

Tree Walk with David Hewitt

Sunday, June 7
1:00-3:00 pm
Main entrance, State Street, Media
Rain or shine

We’ll walk part of the trail from the 1941 Nature Guide and compare the park’s current trees to those described in the guide, including a “nature oddity” that is still there! We may also have tree i.d. questions for David from our 2015 citizen science project, tree mapping! 

Logistics:

• Estimated distance: 1.5 miles
• Estimated time: 2 hours
• Free!
• Be prepared for stream crossings, steep hills, and uneven, possibly muddy terrain: wear sturdy walking shoes, and bring a hiking pole if you use one.
• Bring a tree book if you’d like, and you never know when you’ll want binoculars!
• If the weather is truly inclement, we will post on facebook and our website by 11:00 am whether we will cancel.

Throughout November, we have been counting down to Thanksgiving by posting daily thanks on Facebook. There is some overlap with our list from Thanksgiving 2012, and so much more to add – it is amazing how much there is to be grateful for! Here are those daily posts – these were in no particular order, and it is by no means a complete list!

27 Days of Thanks in Glen Providence Park
We are thankful for…

Day 1: … the local schools who use Glen Providence Park as an outdoor classroom, teaching their students a love of nature, science, art and more. Thank you Media Elementary School, Springton Lake Middle School, Media Providence Friends School, Penncrest High School – and homeschoolers!

Day 2: … Clifford Butler Lewis, the grandson of park donors George and Eleanor Butler – for his generosity in sharing his grandparents’ photo albums with us and donating their golf clubs to Springhaven Country Club (which they founded!), and for sharing his recollections from his childhood in Glen Providence Park.

Day 3: … Delaware County Parks & Recreation, for repairing the concert stage (damaged in July from a fallen 110-year-old tree) in time for our August concert this summer, for their support of our events and activities, and for their many years of caretaking and managing their 11 parks with over 600 acres(!) of open space for the public.

Day 4: … Taylor Memorial Arboretum in Wallingford, for generously growing and donating 75 native trees and shrubs this year for habitat restoration plantings by Friends of Heinz Refuge, CRC Watersheds, and Friends of Glen Providence Park.

Day 5: … our wonderfully generous Concert Sponsors: Media Recreation Board, Media Rotary Foundation, Diego’s Cantina, Seven Stones Café, and Shere-e-Punjab Indian Restaurant, who made it possible for us to revive the decades-long tradition of free summer concerts in Glen Providence Park!

Day 6: … Samuel L. Smedley, who with great foresight and wisdom in 1927 urged regional planning for open space, and spearheaded the creation of Delaware County Parks & Recreation, which was used as a model nationally for its excellent planning. He personally helped create and plan Glen Providence Park.

Day 7: … all that Chester-Ridley-Crum Watersheds Association has done for 44 years to protect, conserve, and restore the watersheds throughout its 132 square mile stewardship area! Its initiatives include annual streams cleanups, riparian reforestation, advocacy, education, and stream monitoring.

Day 8: … our Nature Walk guides who volunteered their time to lead our walks this year: the ever-helpful Al Guarente of the Birding Club of Delaware County, John Wenderoth, Ted Cavey, Stephanie Gaboriault, Marcia Tate, Aura Lester, Kyle Loucks, Holly Hoffmann, Chris McNichol, and Charles Randall.

Day 9: … our donors, whose generous support enables us to continue our work to improve the park and plan future concerts, events, and activities!

Day 10: … the Delaware County Conservation District for their guidance, mini-grants, donations, and support for our native plantings over the past 3 years – helping us to combat streamside erosion, restore habitat, provide food for wildlife, and  beautify the park.

Day 11: … the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts for their years of involvement in Glen Providence Park going back to at least 1939 – with hikes, cookouts, award ceremonies, meetings, and community service. In the last 2 years, Brownie Troop #5248 and Minquas District Boy Scouts have volunteered in the park!

Day 12: … the wonderful bands who have performed at our Summer Concert Series the past 3 years: Philadelphia Brass, Springfield Clarinet Quartet, the Obsoleets, Me3, Ken Delmar & the Cheers Big Band, Perseverance Jazz Band, Sonoma Sound, and ViVaCe Strings!

Day 13: … T. Chalkley Palmer, 1860-1934, for writing in loving detail about Scroggie Valley in 1889, enabling us all these years later to read about the geology, landscape, flora, and fauna of Glen Providence Park as it was in the 1800′s! He also had remarkable environmental insights for his time. What a gift!

Day 14: … our Invasive Plant Removal volunteers, who meet most weeks to work in the park. In the past 2 years, they have cleared 179 packed contractor bags (and counting!) of invasive plants – keeping trails clear, liberating native plants from strangling vines, improving habitat, and beautifying the park.

Day 15: … the Delaware County Institute of Science, an amazing organization that has been all volunteer since 1833!  Its members have been studying Glen Providence Park since long before it was a park – a 1928 Chester Times article about the valley indicated that “Naturalists, from all over the country, attending the Delaware County Institute of Science, make a study of it.”

Day 16: … Delaware County Planning for their thoughtful work on the Delaware County Open Space, Recreation & Greenway Plan, and on our neighboring Mineral Hill Area Master Plan. Glen Providence Park and future generations will be better for it!

Day 17: … Transition Town Media, for all they do to build community and resilience, from their FreeStore, to workshops, to their lovely Annual Candlelight Gratitude Banquet for local nonprofits.

Day 18: … long-time park supervisor James Stokes, Jr. for his years of care for the park. He started work on October 31, 1935 and continued for at least 25 years, and by all accounts really loved Glen Providence Park. He served as park guard, care taker, supervisor, and park ranger – personally building picnic tables, preparing for concerts, planting trees & flowers, teaching visitors about the plants & wildlife, and creating the 1941 Nature Guide to Glen Providence Park!

Day 19:  … all of the volunteers who have spent their free time working for Glen Providence Park through the years – our dedicated committee members, the dozens of people who have helped at our 11 volunteer days, and all those who volunteered in the park before us!

Day 20: … those who have made our historical research possible, including the Media Historic Archives, the Delaware County Historical Society, and the Newspaper Archives of Delaware County Library – and Delaware County, PA History for sharing our history-related facebook posts.

Day 21: … the American Chestnut Foundation, for their work to restore this majestic native tree! Chestnuts were called the Sequoias of the east, and they were once the dominant tree species in Glen Providence Park. We have found two surviving trees so far!

Day 22: … the Pennsylvania Amphibian & Reptile Survey (PARS), for their work to gather data for the study and conservation of our amphibians and reptiles! We are glad to have chosen PARS for our 2014 citizen science project.

Day 23: … Media Lions Club and McCarrin Chiropractic, for continuing Glen Providence Park’s longest-running tradition – the Great Media Easter Egg Hunt started in 1954! The Lions have worked since 1917 to fight blindness, and on many other community projects.

Day 24: … the Academy of Natural Sciences, for preserving and researching a wondrous amount of natural history, including early 1900’s microscope slides from Scroggie Run (now Broomall’s Run), and for their generosity and hospitality in showing us those slides.

Day 25: … the array of wildlife, native plants, and other living things in the park, which with the changing seasons provide something new to discover on every walk in Glen Providence Park!

Day 26: … all of those who appreciate our efforts to preserve and enhance Glen Providence Park – our Facebook fans, those who read our newsletter and website, and those who have attended our concerts and history & nature walks!

Thanksgiving Day: We are so thankful for George and Eleanor Butler, who with great generosity and foresight in 1935 donated most of the land for Glen Providence Park as a Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum, to be preserved for future generations.  There would be no park without them – we are incredibly grateful!

Happy Thanksgiving!

In another intriguing piece of Glen Providence Park history, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia has a collection of early 1900’s microscope slides – of diatom samples collected from Scroggie Run by T. Chalkley Palmer! Diatoms are single-celled algae (with silica shells!) that are useful in environmental monitoring, potentially in nanotechnology and forensics, and in art(!) – and the wondrously-useful diatomaceous earth is diatoms’ fossilized remains.
 

T. Chalkley Palmer

T. Chalkley Palmer was the President of the Delaware County Institute of Science (DCIS) 1894-1934, and the President of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP) 1926-1928. According to an 1889 essay by Palmer, he grew up exploring “Scroggie Valley,” which is now Glen Providence Park. He wrote at length about the valley’s geology, plants, and wildlife. In my park research, I found several listings for Palmer’s diatom slides from Scroggie Run (now called Broomall’s Run) on the Diatom Herbarium Database of ANSP!

A chemist by vocation, it turns out that Palmer spent a great deal of his free time studying diatoms. He was fascinated by their locomotion, and he wrote eight papers on diatoms for the “Proceedings of the Delaware County Institute of Science” from 1905 to 1911, and further papers for ANSP. Palmer discovered at least one new diatom species, Pinnularia socialis, near Media – and another species, Surirella palmeri, was named after him!
 

Diatom Herbarium at ANSP

In June, I visited the ANSP Diatom Herbarium (one of the two largest in the world!) with Dr. Walt Cressler – an ANSP research associate, West Chester University professor, and fellow researcher of T. Chalkley Palmer (check out his website of local watersheds history!). We brought records about Palmer to add to ANSP’s collection, including Palmer’s Scroggie Valley essay and DCIS articles.

We met with Diatom Herbarium Assistant Curator Dr. Marina Potapova and Collections Manager Jennifer Beals, who were quite generous with their time! Marina showed us that Media is a frequent collection site in the 1905 book, Diatomaceae of Philadelphia & Vicinity. This may well be due to DCIS drawing scientists to Media: a 1928 Chester Times article describing the land that is now the Glen Providence Park indicates, “Naturalists, from all over the country, attending the Delaware County Institute of Science, make a study of it.” It is interesting to note that Dr. Potapova sometimes goes to Glen Providence Park when she needs pond algae for the classes she teaches at Drexel University!
 

100-year-old slides!

Our search through the historical files for T. Chalkley Palmer’s slides yielded those from Scroggie Run, in addition to slides from Broomall’s Dam and nearby Mineral Hill! It was odd  to view these antique slides on a modern, high-end digital microscope, which displayed on a computer screen. Dr. Potapova was intrigued and impressed with Palmer’s slides – she said that it was unusual to see slides that are monoculture (one species), which is quite difficult to achieve, and further that the slides have no sediment.

We found a slide of the species Palmer discovered, Pinnularia socialis (formerly Navicula socialis), so named because it is found in groups of four. He discovered it in 1905 in “swampy pools near Media, Pa.,” and again in 1909 in swampy pools several miles away – both at Dutton’s Ravine in Middletown and Palmer’s Swamp (which we believe is Scott Park in Upper Providence). In his 1910 paper for ANSP, Palmer said of Navicula socialis: “Near Media it is frequent in boggy places during the summer, and until the pools dry out, though seldom in much abundance.” He may have also found them in the wetlands of Scroggie Valley!

What a thrill it was to see and hold slides made by T. Chalkley Palmer, with samples taken from Scroggie Run in the early 1900’s! It was an exciting afternoon exploring natural history, and more – we learned about amazing microscopic “diatom art” that dates to Victorian times, and diatom sculpture(!) in Portland, Oregon.  

We would like to continue our research of Palmer’s diatom studies at DCIS. You can see photos from our ANSP visit below – click on any for a closer look.

T. Chalkley Palmer was born in Media, Pennsylvania on October 23, 1860 – 154 years ago today. Happy Birthday, T. Chalkley Palmer!

A warm thank you to:

• Dr. Marina Potapova, ANSP Diatom Herbarium Assistant Curator and Jennifer Beals, Collections Manager, for their enthusiasm and generosity with their time. We had a wonderful visit!
• Dr. Don F. Charles, Senior Scientist and Section Leader, ANSP Phycology Section, and Drexel University professor, for making the connection for us with Dr. Potapova after meeting Walt and me at the Ruth Patrick Memorial Symposium at ANSP in April. Walt and I attended the symposium with the CRC Watersheds Association.
• Dr. Walt Cressler, Paleobotanist, Botany Research Associate at ANSP, Professor at West Chester University, and local historian,  for joining me in this research adventure.

Sources:

• “A New Diatom,” T. Chalkley Palmer, Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, May 1910
• “Diatom” Wikipedia entry, retrieved 6-4-2014
• Diatomaceae of Philadelphia, Charles S. Boyer, Philadelphia, 1916
• Diatom Herbarium Database of Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia
• “Embryo Watkins Glen in Media Woodland,” Chester Times, July 14, 1928
• Proceedings of the Delaware County Institute of Science, Volumes I-VI, October 1905-July 1911
• “Scroggie,” T. Chalkley Palmer, The Student, Philadelphia, December 1889-February 1890

What a fun and informative hike this was! It was well worth braving the bitter cold to take a walk through Glen Providence Park on Sunday with Academy of Natural Sciences Research Associate and University of Pennsylvania lecturer Dr. David Hewitt, along with three of his botanist friends from Philadelphia! This enthusiastic, energetic and incredibly knowledgeable group was a delight to host.

We also had a great group of local people, including Academy of Natural Sciences Research Associate, Walt Cressler, and Friends of Glen Providence Park’s native plant specialist, Marcia Tate! We started with an overview of the park’s tree history, including comparing 1939 and 1950 photographs of the park’s trees with today’s view. Then we toured the trails… did I mention it was cold?

Adding to the magic, a Great Blue Heron made a dramatic entrance flying over the pond, and then it perched on a high branch for several minutes before circling the pond again. And the frozen pond was speckled with white– it looked like snowflakes had been frozen in the ice!

Some Glen Providence Park trees we discussed:

Look at how large the sledding hill's White Oak already was in 1950! Posted with permission of the Media Historic Archives

– The large White Oak on the sledding hill was already sizable in 1950. David pointed out that the base of the tree is buttressed on all sides, indicating that it has been exposed to the wind on all sides as it grew- so the sledding hill was already a meadow long before the park was established. We would love to determine the age of that oak!

– We mused about why American Beech is so predominant on the Mountain Laurel Trail– oak trees may have been cleared for lumber at some point. Of course we admired the lovely Mountain Laurel grove and the view!

– How do you tell the difference between a Black Cherry and Black Birch in winter? By tasting the twigs, of course! The cherry tastes bitter, and the birch tastes like wintergreen (it was once used in making birch beer soda- yum!). Alas ours was bitter, so it was a Black Cherry.

– We speculated about when the Norway Spruces were planted on the western hill, which we know from T. Chalkley Palmer was “nearly devoid of trees” in 1889, and photos show the western hill was still mostly clear in 1939 and 1950. We know the White Pines along nearby Ridley Creek Road were planted around 1932 by Boy Scouts- could Boy Scouts have planted the Norway Spruces?

And then there was the “after-party”: we went to Seven Stones Cafe to warm up and continue the conversation, before returning our new city friends to the train! Needless to say they loved the cafe, and were interested to hear about Media’s impressive array of events including 2nd Saturdays, music festivals, and of course Dining Under the Stars! See, you really can take a restorative hike and then hop into town for coffee and entertainment!

This friendly city invasion brought to mind the newspaper articles from the park’s early days about Penn professors, families, naturalists from Germantown, even Penn fraternities taking the train and trolley to visit Glen Providence Park. It’s also fun to think of the Academy of Natural Sciences connection- former Academy president T. Chalkley Palmer grew up exploring the land, then called Scroggie Valley, and wrote extensively about it in 1889… “As for the valley and its hills as they now are, I have known all their nooks since the beauty, the quietness, and the nameless charm of Scroggie drew my steps through the opening, and by degrees toward the far, blue, woody ending thereof more than twenty years ago.” He wrote a few pages specifically about the lovely Mountain Laurel grove.

And looking to the future, David Hewitt plans to return to Glen Providence Park to further study its trees. We look forward to it!

A big thank you to David Hewitt, and everyone who attended our winter tree walk on such a cold day!

Event photos by George Tate.

Love trees?  We sure do… which is why we are excited to welcome Dr. David Hewitt to explore the trees in Glen Providence Park!

Winter Tree Walk in Glen Providence Park

Sunday, January 15
1:00-3:00 pm
Main park entrance on State Street

David Hewitt regularly leads tree walks in Philadelphia.  He is a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, a research associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences,  and does a fair bit of work developing education and outreach programs on agriculture and the environment, “and other sciencey things”.  He also does some work as a microbial geneticist and a consultant on sustainable development.

We think it is natural he would like to check out Glen Providence Park, which was dedicated as an arboretum in 1935, and was appreciated by naturalists long before that!  This will be David’s first visit to the park, so we will start with a 5 minute intro to the park, including some historical photos of its trees.  Then we will explore the park’s trees along some of the trails.

The park has a historical connection with the Academy of Natural Sciences– T. Chalkley Palmer grew up exploring the land, then called Scroggie Valley, and wrote extensively about it in 1889. T.C. Palmer went on to become the president both of the Delaware County Institute of Science 1894-1934, and of the Academy of Natural Sciences 1926-1928!

We are looking forward to this winter tree walk- you are welcome to join us!

Logistics:
Approximate distance: 1.5 miles
Approximate time: 2 hours

Be prepared for steep hills, and uneven (possibly wet) terrain: wear your hiking shoes, and bring a hiking pole if you use one! And binoculars are always a good idea- it is also a bird sanctuary, after all!