Portland Parks

All of our investigations indicated that native species are present in Portland Parks; however, two of our observations showed strong evidence of invasive species and one has an unidentified species. We all found it difficult to conclude that the invasives were a dire threat to the native species, although the strong presence of invasives at both sites could prove to be a concern if those plants are not kept in check by consumers or other factors.

Ideally, we would continue to return to the sites and continue to gather data. There are different levels of human traffic at our sites which varies the vector factor as well.

My daughter and I visited the site with the hope of finding milkweed, both because it is native and because we hope to find some Monarch butterfly eggs or larvae this summer. We did find milkweed in our quadrat space, along with at least four snails and another plant for which I did not have a plant identification card with me. The other plant had leaves in groups of three and was a vine, but was not poison ivy, because there were thorns on the vine and the leaves were grooved and toothed and came to a point. I took many photos of the plant and will try to check the vital signs library of ID sheets to see if it is present. It is of interest to me because that plant was very prevalent at the site and surrounded the milkweed.

I just wanted to add to my observations that I did some general looking about and did not see any prevalence of invasive species over native species. Both were present, but on a very limited scale (not remotely exhaustive) I have concluded that there are not an overwhelming amount of invasive plants... I will continue to explore that question though and will hopefully be more aware of the species around the area.