News
Nature flows at 'Canalapalooza'
An inch-long scarlet bug with pokey black legs - as vicious looking as it was beautiful - crawled over the back of Ed Vincent's hand.
"If it stung me, it'd be like getting hit by a lightning bolt," said Vincent, 61, a Columbia park ranger.
"It doesn't sting me because I'm relaxed and warm," said Vincent, an expert in what are called velvet ants or cow killer ants, but are members of the wasp family.
"I see 40 to 50 of these easily down here a year," he said. But they are rare elsewhere in the city.
Vincent was one of more than 15 experts who gushed local nature facts Sunday at Riverfront Park.
The facts were from the supposedly staid subjects known for putting people to sleep in school science classes - flora and fauna and a lot of geological stuff.
But Canalapalooza - as the event spotlighting everything from local poison bugs to tree-killing beavers to Broad River rocks to how Spanish moss is actually a member of the pineapple family was called - was anything but dull.
Complete with information booths and talks by guides passionate about their subjects, the four-hour nature showcase ranged over Riverfront Park, a strip of land flanked by the Broad River on one side and Columbia Canal on the other. A walkway borders the canal.
"We're right next to a concrete jungle, yet we have this jewel of a landscape here," said Carl Asbill, 28, another city park ranger who held forth on local critters. "I could go on and on about how cool this park is."
Asbill held a small crowd's attention as he held forth on alligators - "If you stay on the path, you have absolutely nothing to be afraid of" - and opined on the tree-killing beavers that recently ate the bark completely off five treasured cherry trees in the park's open space. The beavers worked so fast rangers didn't have time to surround surviving trees with chicken wire.
Greg Vandervelde, 49, an amateur naturalist, led tours on canal plants, explaining their uses:
- Wood sorrel. "Sour but edible."
- Winged sumac. "You can make pink lemonade with the berries."
- Smartweed. "Edible when cooked, but raw, it stings your tongue."
People who went on his guided tour were enthralled.
"He was naming plants every time he took two or three steps," said Matt Polkowsky, 32. "It was cool. I didn't know there were so many plants that were actually edible "
His wife, Alisha, 32, said, "He talked about the many different uses of the cattail."
They include using the roots for bread, the pollen for pancakes, the top for a torch, the leaves for twine. Its spring shoots can be eaten completely - just like asparagus.
"It's a heck of a plant," allowed Vandervelde.
The Columbia area and especially Riverfront Park are right on the fall line - where the state's coastal plain meets the first real upland area. Normally, further boat travel upriver becomes impossible at fall lines because such regions are marked by rapids or waterfalls.
"That's one of the things that makes this area so diverse," said U.S. park ranger David Shelley, who came, maps and all, from Congaree National Park to speak on local geology.
Nearby, Columbia's riverkeeper, Alan Mehrzad, answered questions about his job to a grateful resident George Meriwether, 46.
"This is something that we have needed to do for ages - have a riverkeeper. We have these wonderful, underutilized resources that we haven't taken particularly good care of," Meriwether said.
At day's end, Columbia Green board president Susan Hamilton said rangers estimated that up to 500 people visited the program.
Columbia Green, a group that raises and distributes about $40,000 each year for Columbia beautification projects, was the lead sponsor of Sunday's event - its major educational outreach this year. Other sponsors included the State Museum, USC's McKissick Museum, Historic Columbia Foundation and the city of Columbia.
Experts had plenty of advice for the curious.
Plant expert Vandervelde, for example, said the first thing you should do f you want to study edible plants is: "First, study the poisonous plants - so you'll know what not to eat."
The State
By JOHN MONK
jmonk@thestate.com
Reach Monk at (803) 771-8344.
