Another Newton Walk! :)
From my last walk through the woods behind Newton, I knew that there was a lot of biodiversity in the plant species that were present throughout the area, so I knew that this would be a good place to take the nature walk! The weather was slightly chilly and mostly sunny, but it was perfect weather for walking through the hilly trails and exploring along the river. There was a high relative abundance of flowering plants in this area based on what my friend and I noticed on the walk, as most of the plants that I observed on this walk were flowering plants or angiosperms (ex: nightshade, spindles, oriental bittersweet, goldenrods, hawkweeds). This high relative abundance reminded me about the order in which these plants evolved and dominated the land habitats, specifically how angiosperms were the most recent plant group to evolve and are currently the dominant group. There were fewer polypodiosida in the area than I expected, as I was only able to find a few ferns compared to the overwhelming variety of angiosperms that I encountered. As for the bryophyta and the gymnosperms, they were not overly abundant nor rare in this area, as I was able to find a few different species for each plant group. Compared to my past nature walks I definitely saw fewer bright flowers or elaborately colored plants, due to the decreases in temperature and the approaching winter weather, and this was honestly kind of a bummer since I really liked the variety of cool plants that I would see when walking around campus on a normal day. However, it is nice to see which plants are adapted to survive in these colder temperatures and withstand this near-winter weather that we're going to have, especially those angiosperms that are continuing to flower and produce fruit! I hope to explore a few other areas on and near campus before it gets too cold, since there are still so many unique plants and other organisms thriving in the area!
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