Glades are special places often with plants found no where else. There is a small one near my home, so I went glade exploring.
What Is a Glade?
The ones I have visited have lots of rocks, thin soil and lots of dryness and heat. They are sloped. Chiggers love them as numerous lizards often live there, the preferred host for the minute biters. Before going glad exploring, be sure to spray to discourage these little attackers.
My small one is up on the side of a hill. It would seem unusual in that it is not far from the bottom of a small ravine. Yet it is definitely very dry much of the time with no trees other than some invading red cedars – the enemy of a glade.
What Did I Find?
No real rain has fallen in several weeks so all the plants were wilted to dried up, even the grass. Still, a few plants were still surviving. I was mostly interested in a yellow coneflower and the blazing star blooming among the rocks.
What I hope to find is an Adder’s Tongue, a type of fern. This grows in glades, but, being a fern, likes moisture. When the weather is dry, it withers away.
This fern puts up a single leaf, not a frond. It is usually seen in spring and fall when rain is supposed to fall.
Another Fern
I have found another wet weather fern. It’s called a Resurrection Fern and grows on a large rock outcrop. Whenever it rains during warm weather, this fern unrolls its fronds.
This gives me hope the Adder’s tongue will reappear in this small glade once fall rains decide to come and visit.
Will it rain soon? Actually almost an inch fell the other day and the temperatures dropped into the eighties.
The rain is still on a cloud to cloud basis. This is when a thunderstorm cloud floats by and drops rain in one small area, but leaves nearby areas dry.
That small rain means I will go glade exploring to see if the small area has perked up as much as my pasture.
Find out more about many Ozark plants in Exploring the Ozark Hills.