Seeking Spring in the Ozarks
The Western Front of America's
Eastern Temperate Forest
Essay & Ozark Photos by Chris
Williams
In 1998, I moved from Ohio to the Ozarks, abandoning the forest heartland to find refuge in its farthest western fringe. Being a forest creature by nature, it was difficult to leave Ohio’s rich mesic woods, but instinctively I sought wilder, less populated lands. The Ozarks, on the farthest edge of America’s great eastern temperate forest, still has places one can get lost in. Here sparkling clean rivers carve magical gorges out of the remnants of the nation’s oldest mountain range. Glades, replete with prairie grasses and forbs, lie on the upland heads of damp hollows, which in turn harbor lush ferns and the shadowed entrances to uncounted numbers of wild caves. My home in the Ozarks lays claim to one of the largest forest wilderness areas left in the East, as well as a zone of transition between two biomes. Shaped by fire and drought, here is a place where the temperate forest reluctantly shifts feet with its eternal dance partner, the prairie of the Midwest.
In the Ozarks, spring arrives earlier than in southern Ohio; sometimes, as this article demonstrates, much earlier. Come back with me in time to a mid-winter day -- January 10, 2009 to be exact -- as I search the Ozark forests for its very first signs of spring.
As I descend the boulder-strewn hollow that leads me towards the Jacks Fork, I inhale its fragrance, wafting up from the river corridor. In this land of arid ridges, cloaked with oak and short leaf pines, the odor of the river is distinctive -- fecund and promising. An hour ago I traversed a glade that sat high on a dry, wind-exposed bluff. But I am near the river now. Mosses darken the rocks that lie in a tumble around me, and here the chill winter breezes are thankfully stilled.
I exit the hollow, and at once the canyon floor opens up before me. Sturdy hackberry trees tower above my head– tall trees indeed for this dry part of the world. A few months from now, on this very spot, there will be the riotous hues of carpets of bluebells. I picture this scene earnestly in my mind, using inner vision to nurture my winter-weary soul. Alas, it is mere fancy, for today the woods are clearly clothed in brown, drab dull colors punctuated only by the white of sycamore trees and the green of pine. I sniff the air again and take note. Woven into the fragrance of the river I detect a second smell. Something sweeter, but at the same time cloying and rich. Like a magnet, it draws me closer.
The floor of the gorge is loamy, improbably dark and rich in this otherwise ancient nutrient-deficient land. No glacier ever rode these rocks, rejuvenating the soils as it did in my Ohio home. Hundreds of millions of years of weathering and erosion have written the entire geologic story that stands before me. Not one chapter lies buried out of view. The total tale – at least what is left to see of it -- is fully revealed on the surface. The vertical cliffs lining the river and every side hollow have made their contributions to the soils accumulating on this canyon floor, the labors of a million years of dying and decaying trees summed up in the few inches of loam beneath my feet. For miles around me the dry upland forests, with their powdery thin soils, are nearly empty of understory shrubs and tender wildflowers. Thus this rich moist canyon soil and the verdant growth it will soon support provides a refreshing and welcoming respite to someone like myself, who was raised in richer climes.
Now I hear it… the Jacks Fork! Singing in her ancient bed of dolomite! Clear cool water burbles over bedrock in straight chutes, connecting deep pools of water, hued aquamarine by the quantities of dissolved lime. Much of the river’s bed is choked with nodules of chert washed out from the hills, the aftermath of the extensive timbering operations that occurred here in the previous century. The river now braids through the gravel, arranging and rearranging the stones, carrying the entire load slowly, slowly down the stream. Perhaps with enough time this river will once again flow freely, as it did in days of old.
As I approach one of the gravel shoals, I catch the fragrance that beckoned me earlier… pure sweetness , heavy and redolent. Though this is mild winter day, the scent seems out of place with the calendar and the snows of last week. When I first moved to the Ozarks a decade ago, I encountered this same aroma in the winter, and wondered what in heaven it might be. I noticed subzero temperatures would arrest the perfume, but the next 50-degree day would bring its return. Now of course, I know the source. Although it stumped me initially, I now seek it out as the Ozarks' very first sign of spring.
This seductive winter scent belongs to the Ozark Witch Hazel, Hamamelis vernalis, a woody plant that ranges from Missouri to Texas. Notably, it blooms as early as January and as late as March. The Ozark Witch Hazel usually grows in shrub-sized proportions, rarely becoming a small tree, and reaches a maximum height of nine feet. It is most commonly found growing on gravelly streambeds, such as the one in which I am standing by on Jacks Fork.
Ozark Witch Hazel - Hamamelis vernalis.
The more common American Witch Hazel, Hamamelis virginiana, has a much broader range across the Eastern third of the continent and is often admired for the strap-like yellow blossoms that open in the last gasp of autumn, frequently found in bloom as late as Thanksgiving. In contrast, the flowers of the Ozark Witch Hazel commonly range in hues from dull yellow to dark red, and bloom on the other side of winter! These two species are the only members of the genus Hamamelis in the entire world, making Witch Hazel a truly Eastern North American phenomenon. When tramping the Ohio forests of my childhood, the flowers of the American witch hazel seemed singularly out of place in the November woods, and they were always a precious find. But here in the Ozarks, H. vernalis pushes the margin of believability even further, especially when I see them blossoming between late January snows!
Long ago, the pleasant aroma arising from the bruised bark of both witch hazel species was recognized as having value, and witch hazel extract has been used historically for a number of medicinal purposes. Its ingredients -- tannic acid, volatile oils, and a few unidentified principles -- seem a rather unimpressive list when compared to its long standing reputation as a high-quality healer. As with many other folk remedies, however, the medicinal application of witch hazel may yet find its wisdom redeemed by science. Researchers are now discovering antioxidants and other properties in witch hazel extract which may help explain its positive effect on the human body. How much more we might have learned of the healing properties of our native plants had my European ancestors been more interested in the hard won herbal traditions of our land’s indigenous cultures.
Glowing flowers of the American Witch Hazel in
the Rocky Fork Gorge, Ohio.
In the Appalachians, American Witch Hazel goes by several common names including “Winter-bloom” and “Snapping-Alder.” These terms could describe the Ozark witch hazel equally well. The colloquialisms refer to the odd habits of the shrub. “Snapping-Alder” describes the unique seed dispersal system of both species, in which the fruit pods shoot their shiny black seeds up to 20 feet away from the mother tree. These seeds, as well as witch hazel’s twigs and buds, nourish rabbits, deer, grouse, and quail throughout the winter months.
As all across the Eastern Forest, spring in the Ozarks is an ebb and flow -- a day of warmth, a day of snow, interrupted by wild rides of transition. Generally, southern Missouri is several weeks to a full month ahead of an Ohio spring. Sometimes the spring peepers begin in February, and I have heard American toads singing even before the vernal equinox! On the other hand, wood frogs (a disjunct population from their Eastern brethren) sing clacking choruses from limestone sinkholes in early March, in perfect synchrony with their counterparts in Ohio. Likewise close in calendar, Virginia bluebells flood the riparian corridor of Jacks Fork in early April, no more than a week before their cousins open their flower buds in Ohio’s verdant floodplains.
This particular group of bluebells covered ten acres.
All across the greater Eastern Forest, spring is tugging itself ever northward across the continent. Some folks may have to wait a bit longer than others, but the season always arrives, and it is sweet, no matter what the date.
Chris Williams, author and photographer of this article, organized and lead a weeklong fieldtrip into the wilds of the Ozarks as part of the Appalachian Forest School in 2009. The trip may be repeated in future years.
More About the Appalachian Forest School