Area site named wild plant sanctuary

By CHRISTINE HAINES

chaines@yourmvi.com

A portion of a Forward Township farm has been declared one of just 18 wild plant sanctuaries in the state.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation of Natural Resources has bestowed that title on 13 acres owned by Betty Jane Cline. It’s about 10% of the total acreage she owns.

“When mom was a 4-H leader back in the ’70s, she tried to put in nature trails and identify some of the native plants, but we were amateurs,” said her daughter, Amy Cline.

The land, which is zoned conservation, is on a steep hillside and wasn’t conducive to nature hikes, even with trails. Its hilly, forested location above a creek is conducive to the growth of a number of rare species of native Pennsylvania plants, which the Clines learned when gas company surveyors were in the area several years ago.

Amy Cline said she was walking down her driveway one day when a young man doing survey work for Sunoco came toward her and he was very excited, speaking rapidly about some hybrid.

“He said he got some samples he was sending to the Carnegie (Museum of Natural History) for identification,” she recalled. “He said he found a special species. It was the first confirmation there was something special there beyond the normal native species you always see.

“What made this  young man so excited was the nodding red trillium. The nodding trillium is usually white. It was a hybrid of the two species. It takes seven years to bloom. The seed from it has to drop down into an ant hill and the ants eat the seed casing so it can germinate.”

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