This specimen was growing under some pine, aspen, and black locust trees that separated the southern shoulder of Fisk St., Red Hook, form a meadow. the ground slopes down to the trees, and large puddles can develop in the meadow, which also sits in a natural depression. The Japanese knotweed does not extend south past the canopy of the border trees into the meadow, and the side of the road is mown. These knotweed specimens seem thinner than others I have seen, perhaps because of the shade.

This mulberry trees grows in the partial shade of a catalpa tree about 15 meters to the north and a white maple 20 meters to the south at the edge of a southern sloped parking lot, midway down the slope. There are a couple of larger mulberry trees at the edges of old farm fields about 800m away. This mulberry tree is probably ten or eleven meters tall. I think it is a red mulberry, rather than a white mulberry, because the leaves have rough little hairs covering both faces. I read that white mulberries are smooth except for the undersides of the leaf veins. According to the U.S. Forest Service's Southern Research Station article on mulberry trees (https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/misc/ag_654/volume_2/morus/rubra.htm), white and red mulberries can hybridize. It seems that white mulberries (imported from China) are more successful at growing outside of moist forests, which are the native habitat of red mulberries.

This patch of nettles grows about 7 feet on the west side of Benner Rd, which runs north south. The nettle patch grows at the bottom of a rock face which is forested on top. Just north of the nettle patch is a stream running east to west under Benner Rd. North of the stream is a wetland populated with skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), red maple (Acer rubrum), and some sort of fern. The land slopes down toward the nettle patch from the west, south , and north. The are between the road and the rock face is occassionally mown, but in the last several years rose bushes (Rosa multiflora, black locust saplings (Robinia pseudoacacia), garlic mustard (Aliaria petiolata have overtaken the grass. The soil seems to be well-drained with at least a couple of inches of loam. I do not know how much winter road salt reaches the nettle patch; it might wash into the stream instead.