Despite the
drizzle and threat of thunderstorms fifteen Ramblers met this morning, equipped
with umbrellas or other rain gear. It wasn’t a real rain although it was
persistently moist. But that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm — there was still a
lot to see.
Today
26 people met by the arbor in the lower parking lot to begin our ramble. Today’s report was written by Hugh Nourse.
Hugh brought today’s reading from Ann Haymond Zwinger, Downcanyon: A Naturalist
Explores the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, page 93.:
The
highlights of today’s Ramble were a handsome Black Ratsnake, a mysterious ball
at the end of a Christmas Fern frond and an uncommon plant, Yellow Star Grass.
The “fern ball” is a structure found at the end of a Christmas fern frond. It is made of the terminal leaflets (pinnae) that have been rolled up and tacked together by silk.
 |
|
| A mysterious “Fern ball” |
A blogger in
India(?) discovered a very similar “fern ball” that contained a
caterpillar.
Over at BugGuide there is
a single photograph of a fern ball posted in their
“unidentified leaf shelter” category.
 |
||
| Caterpillar frass inside fern ball |
We collected three fern balls today and all contained quantities of frass, but not
caterpillars. The caterpillar occupant had left the house.
I
consulted an online database of lepidopteran food plants and found only a
single species recorded as having fed on the Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), namely, a moth, Herpetograma aeglealis. Googling this name led, indirectly, to a
recent paper describing a new species of Herpetogramma,
H. sphingealis.*
The following quotation from that paper reveals a University of Georgia connection:
Larvae
of a species of Herpetogramma were reared on Christmas fern in Athens,
Georgia (Ruehlman et al. 1988)**; the species was identified as H. aeglealis,
but through the courtesy of Dr Matthews, one male specimen was loaned to the
CNC, and a complete dissection including the vesica was prepared by Don
Lafontaine, and it proved to be a specimen of the new species. All specimens
for that study were determined to be a single species, due to their larvae,
habits, host plant, and appearance of the adults, we believe they all belong to
Herpetogramma sphingealis and not to H. aeglealis. According to
these authors, the larvae are solitary leaf rollers and live on the terminal
leaflets of young fronds, passing the winter as eggs, emerging at the beginning
of the spring and eating the fronds within a silk shelter for around a month,
and then pupate to emerge about 12 days later.
The
reference to Dr. Matthews is to Dr. Robert Matthews, now a Professor Emeritus in UGA’s
Entomology department.
So the caterpillar we never saw is
likely to be the newly described moth species Herpetogramma sphingealis (there is no common name).
* Handfield L, Handfield D (2011) A new species of Herpetogramma (Lepidoptera, Crambidae,
Spilomelinae) from eastern North America. In: Schmidt BC, Lafontaine JD (Eds)
Contributions to the systematics of New World macro-moths III. ZooKeys 149:
5–15. doi:10.3897/zookeys.149.2344
** Ruehlmann
TE, Matthews RW, Matthews JR (1988) Roles for structural and temporal
shelter-changing by fern-feeding lepidopteran larvae. Oecologia (Berlin) 75:
228–232. doi:10.1007/BF00378603]
After the early
spring ephemerals have bloomed Jack in the Pulpit emerges, typically in moist
situations. In the SBG they can be found alongside the trail
 |
||
| Jack peeking out over the pulpit edge |
that leads from
the formal garden to the bridge over the creek that runs beside the Orange trail . This unusual plant is in the Arum
family (Araceae; pronounced: ah-Ray-see-e).
All the Arums have the same reproductive structure: a central column,
called a spadix, that bears flowers and is partially or completely surrounded
by a spathe. In Jack in the Pulpit the spathe forms the “pulpit” and the
“preacher” inside is the “Jack.” But it’s a little sexist
to call every such plant Jack-in-the-Pulpit because the sexes occur in separate
plants. A spadix usually bears either all male flowers or all female flowers.
So some of the “jacks” are really “jills.”
Telling males from females
How do you
tell them apart? There are two ways. The jills are larger plants with two
leaves, while the jacks have only a single leaf. (What looks like three leaves
is really a single leaf with three leaflets.) So if all the pulpits are growing
from single leaved plants they are truly jacks, i.e., male.
The second
way to sex a Jack-in-the-Pulpit is to carefully open the spathe. By gently
pulling apart the overlapping edges of the spathe you can see the flowers on
the lower part of the spadix. These flowers have no petals or sepals. If they
are plump and green with white centers you are looking at a jill. The jack
spadix has numerous small, non-plump flowers with dark anthers and pink pollen.
Deciding to be jack or jill.
Jack in the
Pulpit is a perennial plant, so you might think that a single plant would
remain the same sex from year to year. But nature is full of surprises. Jack
in the Pulpit can change sex from one year to the next. Whether it develops as
a male or female apparently depends on how much food it has stored during the
previous years growth. If there is sufficient food stored in the corm then a
female will emerge the following spring. If not, then the plant will develop as
a male, or may not even produce an inflorescence if its stored energy is too little. Now you can understand the reason
for the two leaves in female plants. After pollen has been delivered to the
ovules the plant must have enough energy to develop its seeds, a process that
takes all summer. Having two leaves increases the amount of sunlight captured
to feed the growing seeds. Typically, if a plant has assumed the female role in
one year, then the energy consumed in producing seeds will be so large that the
plant reverts to being male in the next year.
You can find more details about the interesting life history of Jack-in-the-Pulpit in the book by Carol Gracie: Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast: A Natural History, 2012, Princeton University Press.
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES (April 24, 2014):
|
Common Name |
Scientific Name |
Comment |
|
International |
||
|
Lyre |
Salvia lyrata |
Flowering |
|
Arkansas |
Amsonia hubrichtii |
Flowering |
|
Coreopsis |
Coreopsis sp. |
Flowering |
|
Carolina Silverbell |
Halesia carolina |
Flowering |
|
Wild |
Rhododendron austrinum |
Flowering |
|
Wild |
Rhododendron ‘Coccinea Speciosa |
Flowering |
|
Endangered Plants |
||
|
Orange |
Rhododendron prunifolia |
Flowering |
|
Yellow |
Rhododendron flammeum |
Flowering |
|
Georgia |
Arabis georgiana |
Flowering |
|
Columbine |
Aquilegia canadensis |
Flowering |
|
Hairy |
Tradescantia hirsuticaulis |
Flowering |
|
Blue |
Nuttallanthus canadensis |
Flowering |
|
Hairy |
Baptisia arachnifera |
Flowering |
|
Blue |
Baptisia australis |
Flowering |
|
False |
Conradina canescens, syn. Calamintha canescens |
|
|
Physic Garden |
||
|
Spanish |
Hyacinthoides hispanica |
Flowering |
|
Wild |
Camassia sp. |
|
|
Sweet |
Galium odoratum |
|
|
Lily |
Convallaria majali |
Flowering |
|
Heritage Garden |
||
|
Yellow |
Calycanthus floridus |
‘Athens’ Cultivar |
|
Paw |
Asimina triloba |
Few |
|
Red |
Aesculus pavia |
Flowering |
|
Flower Garden |
||
|
American |
Wisteria frutescens |
Prominent flower buds |
|
Dwarf |
Iris cristata |
Flowering |
|
Oak |
||
|
Green |
Chrysogonum virginianum |
Flowering |
|
Orange Trail |
||
|
Wild |
Dioscorea villosa |
|
|
Wild |
Geranium maculatum |
Flowering |
|
Jack-in-the-pulpit |
Arisaema triphyllum |
Flowering |
|
Blue-eyed |
Sisyrinchium sp. |
Flowering |
|
Yellow |
Viola tripartita |
Few |
|
Spotted |
Chimaphila maculate |
|
|
Rue |
Thalictrum thalictroides |
Flowers |
|
Yellowroot |
Xanthorhiza simplicissima |
No |
|
Broad |
Phegopteris hexagonoptera |
|
|
Mayapples |
Podophyllum peltatum |
Fruit |
|
Rattlesnake |
Botrypus virginianus |
Fertile |
|
Little |
Hexastylis arifolia |
Flowering |
|
Atamasco |
Zephyranthes atamasco |
Flowering |
|
Wild |
Rubus sp. |
Flowering |
|
Spinyfruit |
Ranunculus muricatus |
Flowering |
|
Blue |
Amsonia tabernaemontana |
Flowering |
|
Rain |
Zephyranthes atamasco |
Flowering |
|
Sparkleberry |
Vaccinium arboretum |
|
Today’s report was written by Hugh Nourse, with
photos by Don Hunter. You can find all of Don’s photos of
today’s ramble here.
Today was one of the few days we had
shirtsleeve weather for a ramble, and over twenty showed up for many readings
plus recipes, and a wonderful spring ramble.
We rambled through the International, Endangered Plant, Physic,
Heritage, and Flower Gardens to the Orange trail spur, then down to the Orange
Trail and up to its end in the Upper Parking Lot.
Emily, Kittie, Rosemary and
Hugh all brought readings and Martha shared some recipes. Click here to see these readings and recipes.
Four Ramblers brought
readings this week: Emily Carr, Kittie Everett, Rosemary Woodel and Hugh
Nourse.
Martha Walker shared some
interesting recipes that she found on the internet; these feature Locust
blossoms and Sweet Woodruff.
Emily’s reading is from from Jane Yolen’s Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young People, pp. 8-9.
Green
Whichever angel had the task
of naming greens, squatting
on the hard new ground,
robe guttering at his perfect feet,
did not do his work well.
He gave us chartreuse, olive, leek,
emerald, ivy, beryl.
But they are not nearly enough
when the world is so much green.
Ferns, trees, grass, stems,
petals, limbs, leaves,
the soft mallow inside
each piece of greenware
deserve separate names.
Perhaps the world needed
a poet, not an angel,
because poets know
all the secret words,
some of which they make up,
all of which are
green.
Kittie’s reading is from The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen,
who died this past week. (This is the only book to have won two National Book
Awards.)
Wind brings swift, soft clouds from the south that cast shadows
on the snow. Close at hand, a redstart comes to forage
in the lichens, followed soon by a flock of fat rose finches.
I do not stir, yet suddenly all whir away in a gray gust, and minutely I turn to see what might have scared them. On a
rock not thirty feet away, an acipitrine (ak-sipitrin) hawk sits in silhouette
against the mountains, and here it hunches while the sun goes down, nape
feathers lifting in the wind, before diving after unseen prey over the rim of
the ravine.
Then the great Lammergeier (Iam-mer-gei-er) (a vulture) comes, gold-headed and black-collared, a nine-foot blade sweeping down
out of the north it passes in the shadows between cliffs. Where the river
turns, in a corner of the walls,
the late sun shines on a
green meadow, as if a lost world lay in that impenetrable ravine, so far below.
The great bird arcs round the wall, light glances from its mantle. Then it is gone,
and the sun goes, the
meadow vanishes, and the cold falls with the night shadow.
Rosemary brought a seasonal quote
from Red Skelton:
Spring
is sprung, the grass is riz. I wonder where the birdies is.
Hugh’s reading is from A Thousand
Mile Walk to the Gulf, by John Muir, whose birthday was April 21.
I think
that most of the antipathies which haunt and terrify are morbid productions of
ignorance and weakness. I have better thoughts of those alligators now that I
have seen them at home. Honorable representatives of the great saurians of an
older creation, may you long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be blessed now
and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man by way of dainty!
Black Locust is either blooming
or about to do so and Martha found this Locust Blossom Celebration
that tells you how to enjoy the flowers as either food or drink.
Martha also located a recipe
for May Wine with Sweet Woodruff. Those of you who have access to this herb
will enjoy this.
Today’s Ramble Report is the joint effort
of Hugh Nourse and Don Hunter. Don’s
photos can be found here.
Twenty-three ramblers met at the arbor
today for a ramble through the Garden to the Orange Trail, up the Orange Trail
to the Upper Parking Lot, onto the White Trail spur to the Dunson Native Flora
Garden and back..
Don Hunter read a wonderful discussion of
weeds from The Nature Connection, an
Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families, and Classrooms by Clare Walker Leslie,
Naturalist, Artist and Educator:
“What
about weeds?
“Weed”
is not a botanical term, as weeds are really wildflowers. We call them weeds because they grow happily
even though we don’t plant them and often show up in places where we don’t want
them! Humans are weeds, too, in the
sense that we can live just about anywhere, we can survive under all kinds of
conditions, and we are hard to get rid of!
“Many
so called weeds are just as beautiful as any cultivated plant (that’s what we
call plants we grow on purpose), as well as being tough, adaptable, and often
quite useful. When I look at “A Garden
Guide to Weeds” or “The Peterson Field Guide to Wildflowers”, I discover that
most of the plants I know are weeds.”
Hugh read a short quote from Edwin Way
Teale, collected in Environmental Writing
Since Thoreau, American Earth, edited by Bill McKibben, p. 313
“The
difference between utility and utility plus beauty is the difference between
telephone wires and the spider’s web.”
Our first stop was noting that the
Florida Azalea (Rhododendron austrinum)
on which we had observed lichens several
weeks ago, looked dead. The adjacent
plant was in full and glorious bloom.
The lichen covered one looked dead.
We wondered which came first, plant stress, lichens, and death.
In the Endangered Plant Garden we noted
that the golden ragwort (Packera aurea)
had invaded the plot.
In the Indian Garden we noted the rue
anemone and remarked on how long it lasts.
Blooming were lily of the valley (Convallaria
majalis), and a wild hyacinth or Quamash hyacinth (Camasia leichtlinii). The
latter was like the one in the northwest that the Lewis and Clark expedition
learned from the Indians. Also present
was a leaf from the deciduous wild ginger (Asarum
arifolium) along with Mayapples (Podophyllum
peltatum), the first of many we were to see. Above the Indian Garden a shrub was showing
new leaves, and someone thought it was a bloom.
Wanted to know what it was. She
read the label, Kalmia latifolia,
which is Mountain Laurel. There were
also a lot of leaves from a number of plants that were black cohosh (Actea racemosa) that will not bloom
until summer.
As we entered the Physic Garden we noted
the high bush blueberry (Vaccinium
corymbosum), but the sign below said it was a Gaylusachia procumbens, but it was not procumbent and did not have
the leaves of tea berry. The Gaylusachia genus have gold glands on
the underside of the leaf that can be seen with a hand lens. We could not see the gold glands on these
leaves.
Once again we stopped to admire the
PawPaw (Asimina triloba) patch.
Our next stop was at the cultivar, white
Loropetalum. Crossing a bridge to the
Thinking Lady statue, or is it the one with a headache, we admired the blooming
black cherry (Prunus serotina). There was some discussion as to whether it
was Cherry Laurel. Black cherry is a
deciduous tree, whereas Cherry Laurel (Prunus
caroliniana) is evergreen.
On the path through the deer fence gate
and down to the creek along the Orange Trail there were new leaves of Solomon
Seal (Polygonatum biflorum) and wild
ginger (Hexastylis arifolia). Yellow Three parted violets (Viola tripartita) were in bloom, and
bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
had gone to seed. The seed was
beautifully cradled by the leaf, which was continuing to get bigger to absorb
energy for next year. Mayapple (Podophyllum
peltatum) requires two joined leaves to have a blossom, and we did indeed
find one just opened. It was so
beautiful! Fresh hepatica (Anemone americana) leaves were very
attractive. We have been following the beech trees (Fagus grandifolia) to see when their leaves drop and the new ones
appear. Today at this point we found a
tree still with leaves on it, but the new lovely brown sharp leaf buds were
also bursting with new leaves. The
leaves of poison ivy (Toxicodendron
radicans) have started to appear.
Crossing the bridge at the river edge a
vine climbing a muscle wood tree (Carpinus
caroliniana) was leafing out, revealing by its paired leaves that it was
climbing hydrangea (Decumaria barbara). Along the creek were lots of wildflowers: rue anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides), blue
violet (Viola sororia), the leaves of
violet wood sorrel (Oxalis violacea)
with their purple margins, leaves of river cane (Arundinaria sp), leaves of yellow root (Xanthorhiza simplicissima), and blooms of wild geraniums (Geranium maculatum). Another bloom was perfoliate bellwort (Uvularia perfoliata). Hugh discussed how to tell it from the other
perfoliate bellwort (U. grandiflora).
The inner surface of the tepals in P.
perfoliata have orange granular surfaces, which P. grandiflora does not have.
A sweet shrub (Calycanthus
floridus) was just budding. Someone
asked about a sprout with just a whorl of fresh leaves, which turned out to be
wild yam (Dioscorea villas). Several
ferns have now popped out: broad beech
fern (Phegopteris hexagonoptera),
Southern Lady Fern (Athyrium asplenioides)
and ebony spleenwort (Asplenium
platyneuron). As was conjectured by
ramblers, the name Asplenium was
given because it was thought the plant was supposed to cure diseases of the
spleen. Another find was blue star (Amsonia tabernaemontana). It was actually in two place: once early along the creek, and once by a
nice patch of rue anemone. On the slope heading away from the creek another
fern appeared. Just the three basic
leaves of the rattlesnake fern (Botrypus
virginianus) appeared. Its fertile
frond has yet to come up. All along the
trail the leaves of Christmas fern (Polystichum
acrostichoides) was unfurling, the beautiful fiddleheads. Rounding a tree
that hid it from view, the Kidney leaf
buttercup (Ranunculus abortivus)
was quite robust. Hugh had the
scientific name right, but the common name was not early buttercup (Thank you
Don).
On the white trail spur two more black
cherry trees were blooming. Five fingers, Cinquefoil (Potentilla canadensis) with its bright yellow flower made this walk
to the Dunson Native Flora Garden more interesting. We talked about the two species of
Cinquefoil: P. canadensis and P. simplex. The difference is that in P. canadensis the first flower is in the
axis of the first well-developed stem leaf, whereas in P. simplex the first flower is in the axis of the second
well-developed stem leaf. The appearance
of dogwood (Cornus florida) in bloom in the forest is different than what you
see in yards. It is a more delicate
wafting scene of the white flowers, a truly wonderful sight in Spring. I can still remember the beauty of seeing it
for the first time in the woods of North Carolina on a trip from the airport to
UNC to give a paper. All along this trail were the leaves of muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia) Amazingly, trilliums
were popping up along this spur.
Just before entering the Dunson Native
Flora Garden the Piedmont Azalea (Rhododendron
canescens) was in bloom with its pinkish flowers. below it the leaves of
Black Cohosh were up. but Dwarf crested iris (Iris crostata) was hidden in vegetation. But the flowers of columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) were not hidden.
In the Dunson Native Flora Garden
trilliums were everywhere, as were Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginiana). More
dwarf crested iris, green and gold (Chrysogonum
virginianum) were blooming. The
wonderful shooting stars were in full bloom.
The sign called them Dodecatheon
meadia, but they have just been moved to Primula meadia. Some botanists have told me that they do not
agree or like this change at all. Across
from the mass of blooming decumbent trilliums (Trilllium decumbent), a lone but quite beautiful yellow trillium (Trillium lutea) was blooming. The
tiny trillium (Trillium pusillum) had
turned red. The medicinal plant with its
very small flower, goldenseal (Hydrastis
canadensis) was also in bloom.
But the joy of the day was to walk up the
rocky dry stream behind the golden ragwort to see two amazing trilliums. One was Catesby’s trillium (Trillium catesbaei) and Wateree trillium
(Trillium oostingii) that has only
been named by Chick Gaddy in 2008. Its
distribution is limited to South Carolina.
It grows under a canopy of deciduous trees, such as butternut hickory,
black walnut, slippery elm, box elder,
in rich floodplain soils forming large colonies alongside mayapples. It
has three broadly rounded, mottled leaves and its flowers have three
green-yellow petals and three green to maroon sepals. Cliff, a new assistant in the Dunson Native
Flora Garden planted it.
Blue phlox (Phlox divaricata), wood poppy (Stylophorum
diphyllum), and halberd leaf yellow violet (Viola hastata) were in full bloom.
But at the end of the lower circle we showed everyone the Cherry laurel
(Prunus caroliniana) and how
different it was from the black cherry.
Two other flowers to comment on are foam
flower (Tiarella cordifolia) and the
fact that the petals of Edna’s trillium (Trillium
persistence) had turned red with age. We do not think the PawPaw tree along the
trail is Asimina triloba), as the sign reads. Ellen Honeycutt, who was on our Bot Soc
ramble alerted us to the characteristics of the plant that would suggest it
should be dwarf pawpaw (Asimina
parviflora). We have pointed this
out to the curator.
It was time to retire to Donderos for
coffee and snacks.
Hugh Nourse
Twenty Ramblers assembled on this chilly morning – what
happened to spring?
Don
Hunter’s facebook album for today’s ramble can be found here.
First up was an important announcement: Hugh and Carol are
this year’s recipients of the Alec Little Environmental Award, to be presented
this evening (April 17) at the Athens GreenFest Awards Ceremony.
Today’s reading was a short piece pertinent to the season:
Gazing
in the distance you will now see a long-awaited green mist, the stirring of
tree leaves emerging from their buds. Soon we will be able to hear them
rustling in the wind and this soft sound signals a change in the short life of
the ephemeral flowers on the ground below. The closing of the canopy deprives
them of sunlight and they must rush to produce their fruits and seeds and the
n
retire until next spring.
Dale Hoyt, April, 2014