Category Archives: Plants and Planting

SALTMARSH FLEABANE

   We’ve noticed this plant starting to bloom in a fewImg_0549 places in the Meadowlands — such as Secaucus High School Marsh and the Marsh Discovery Trail in Lyndhurst.

   We asked one of our experts at the Meadowlands Commission, Dr. Ross Feltes, and he identified it as saltmarsh fleabane — a.k.a. sweetscent or Pluchea odorata.

  Feltes, a naturalist, reports that "it commonly colonizes disturbed brackish wetlands."

   He adds: "In past years it has grown on top of the cedar stumps in the impoundments at Mill Creek Marsh, making for an unusual, but pretty, feature."

   We saw it there this week (below).

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WHAT”S THAT: DeKorte Park, Lyndhurst

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    As you enter the Marsh Discovery Trail at DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst, you’ll see a tree with large leaves and strange green pods. And you may well wonder what it is.
   "This is a Paulownia tomentosa: princesstree or Royal empress tree," says NJMC horticulturist Ian McDermott.  "This tree has purple sweet smelling flowers in late May and June. Sticky seed pods."