Ramble Report June 27 2019

Today’s Ramble was led by Don Hunter.

Here’s the link to Don’s Facebook album for
today’s Ramble. (All the photos in this post are compliments of Don, unless
otherwise credited.)

Today’s post is the edited “bullet list” compiled by Don
Hunter.

Today’s Focus:

25 Ramblers met today.

Today’s
emphasis:  
Dunson Native Flora
Garden, ROW, Orange Trail and White Trail

Announcements: Linda made the following request: “please
put a link to this new Georgia
Trees website
. It’s newly posted by Richard and Teresa Ware, who have
been studying and photographing trees for decades. The photos are wonderful!
And the text is too. They plan to create webpages for shrubs, ferns,
wildflowers, etc. as they get to it.”

Today’s reading: Eugenia brought a reading from
the New York Times: ”Truck and Tree” by Laura Lim.

Truck and Tree

Dear
Diary,

I
was walking along Henry Street in Brooklyn. 
A blind man with a white cane was walking toward me.  To my right, a truck was backing into a
parking spot

Just
as the man with the cane passed me on my left, I heard a bang.  I turned and saw a young man poke his head
out of the truck to assess the damage to the tree that had just been hit.

The
man with the cane stopped and turned his head.

“What
was that?” he asked.

I
took a couple of steps back.

“A
truck was just backing up and hit a tree” I said.  “Don’t worry. 
Nobody’s hurt.”

“So
it’s O.K.?” he said.

“Yeah,
the truck looks fine.  I don’t see any
damage.”

He
cracked a grin.

“Not
the truck,” he said.  “The tree.”

Show and Tell:

Sicklepod
(click to enlarge)

1.     
Kathy brought a large clump of Sicklepod (Senna
obtusifolia) from her yard, curious about whether it was a native or invasive
and wondering if it was a host plant for any butterflies.  She learned it is a fairly cosmopolitan plant
and is likely to show up anytime a garden plot is tilled and planted.  She will keep a few in her yard for the
butterflies. [Senna is the host plant for the Cloudless Sulfur.]

Firefly (Lightning Bug)
(click to enlarge)

2.     
Betsy’s grandson, Clay, caught a lightning bug
to share with the early arrivers.

Today’s
Route:
   We left the plaza, taking the walkway from
the arbor down to the mulched path to the Dunson Native Flora Garden where we through
the gate just above the Passionflower vines on the deer fence.  From the vines we walked down to the river on
the ROW path, then turned left onto the Orange Trail, following it downstream
to the spur trail on the left, which we took to the White Trail, going up to
the Children’s Garden and then to the Visitor Center.  We enjoyed refreshments and conversation at
the Café Botanica.

LIST OF
OBSERVATIONS:

Lower
Shade Garden Mulched Path:

Sweet Betsy Trillium
(click to enlarge)
Chattachoochee Trillium
(click to enlarge)

Chattahoochee
Trillium, still looking as if it were April or May.

Poison
Ivy growing along the mulched path.

Wood Ear mushroom
(click to enlarge)

Cut
tree sections, supporting many bracket fungi, most likely old, bleached
Violet-toothed Polypores and some Wood Ear fungus.

A large Jack-in-the-Pulpit with fruits
(click to enlarge)
Cluster of Jack-in-the-Pulpit fruits
(click to enlarge)

A
large, five-leaved Jack-in-the-Pulpit, with a cluster of green fruits located at the
junction of the two leaf stalks.  This
plant is definitely female (it has fruits).

Dunson Native Flora Garden:

Black Cohosh inflorescences
(click to enlarge)

The flowers of Black Cohosh begin opening at the
bottom of the inflorescence. The bloom then progresses to the top, but it takes
several weeks for a plant to finish blooming. The delicate, airy whiteness of
the bloom is produced by the stamens because the flowers lack sepals and
petals. When a flower finishes blooming the stamens fall off.

Bush Katydid nymph; note the position of the jumping legs.
(click to enlarge)

 A Bush
Katydid nymph, with an unusual leg posture, on the Cohosh. [The extended legs resemble
the long antennae at the other end of the insect. My first reaction to Don’s
photo was that it might be attracting attention away from the head. Most
katydids and grasshoppers will easily drop a leg if they are attacked by a
predator – they escape while the predator thinks it has a mouthful of food. DH]

Northern Horsebalm
(click to enlarge)

Northern Horsebalm is big and healthy and should be
flowering before too long.  We enjoyed
the lemony smell of the foliage.

River Oats seed heads are plumping up.
(click to enlarge)

Leaf mine in Golden Ragwort; the mine starts on the right and gets wider as it progresses over to the left side.
(click to enlarge)

Leafminers, as they do every year, have created
feeding trails inside the Golden Ragwort leaves. The mine, either a caterpillar
or a fly maggot, starts at the point where the egg is laid on/in the leaf. The
larva eats its way between the upper and lower epidermis of the leaf, leaving
winding trail of consumed leaf. The trail grows in width as the larva grows
and, at the very end, you can see the brown pupal case from which the adult
insect will emerge. (In some leafminers the larva leaves the leaf and pupates
in the leaf litter below the plant.

Royal Fern
(click to enlarge)

Royal Fern is growing in the Upper Bog (just below
the Doghobble).

We looked for Gulf Fritillary eggs or caterpillars
on the Purple Passionflower vines but found none.  Several Gulf Fritillary butterflies have been
seen in the Garden so it’s just a matter of time before we start seeing the
caterpillars.

Carpenter Bee on yesterday’s Passionflower
(click to enlarge)

A Carpenter Bee and a shield bug/stinkbug nymph were
seen on the vines and flowers of the Purple Passionflower vines.

Two boys in front of a Longleaf Pine (for scale)
(click to enlarge)

Don took Nathan and Clay into the Dunson Garden to
get them to pose next to the Longleaf Pine, which really seems to have taken
off this past year. Longleaf pines spend several years in the “grass” stage where
they look like a clump of grass. In that stage they are establishing their root
system. Then they shoot up over the next few years, growing eight feet or more,
which gets the growing tip of the tree out of range of mile ground fires.

Mayberries/Juneberries
(click to enlarge)

The Mayberry/Juneberry bushes along the split rail
fence have nice, plump berries.

ROW:

Wild Petunia
(click to enlarge)

Wild Petunia continues to be seen along the edges of
the mown paths in the ROW.

Virginia Buttonweed
(click to enlarge)

Virginia Buttonweed, also growing in the closely
mown paths of the ROW.

Wingstem
(click to enlarge)

Wingstem is now in bloom, the first of the flowers
of the summer.

Rough Daisy Fleabane
(click to enlarge)

Rough Daisy Fleabane also grows along the edges of
the mown paths in the ROW.

Orange Trail, along river:

Deer tracks are seen on the sandy path.

Nymph of Leaf-footed bug (Acanthocephala sp.?)
(click to enlarge)
A plant hopper nymph
(click to enlarge)
A predaceous Stink Bug
(click to enlarge)

A coreid nymph (Leaf-footed bug family), a predaceous
pentatomid Stinkbug and several early instar planthopper nymphs were seen on
the vegetation.

Orange Trail, spur back to White
Trail:

False Turkeytail
(click to enlarge)
Mustard Yellow Polypore
(click to enlarge)

False Turkeytail and Mustard Yellow Polypore bracket
fungi growing on a fallen dead tree trunk.

Laughing Cap mushroom
(click to enlarge)

Bright orange examples of Laughing Cap or
Spectacular Rustgill fleshy cap mushrooms

White Avens
(click to enlarge)

White Avens were seen along the trail before the
intersection with the White Trail.

A black, spiny caterpillar, species unknown,
possibly a moth.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES

Sweet
Betsy Trillium

Trillium cuneatum

Chattahoochee
Trillium

Trillium decipiens

Poison
Ivy

Toxicodendron radicans

Violet-toothed
Polypore

Trichaptum biforme

Wood
Ear fungus

Auricularia auricula-judae

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Arisaema triphyllum

Black
Cohosh

Actaea racemosa

Bush
Katydid (nymph)

Scudderia sp.

Northern
Horsebalm

Collinsonia canadensis

River
Oats

Chasmanthium latifolium

Golden
Ragwort

Packera aurea

Royal
Fern

Osmunda regalis

Purple
Passionflower

Passiflora incarnata

Carpenter
Bee

Xylocopa virginica

Shield-backed
Bug (nymph)

Hemiptera:
Scutellaridae

Longleaf
Pine

Pinus palustris

Mayberry/Juneberry

Vaccinium corymbosum

Wild
Petunia

Ruellia caroliniensis

Virginia
Buttonweed

Diodia virginiana

Wingstem

Verbesina alternifolia

Rough
Daisy Fleabane

Erigeron strigosus

American
Whitetail Deer (tracks)

Odocoileus virginianus

Florida(?)
Leaf-footed Bug

Acanthocephala sp.

predaceous
Stink Bug

Hemiptera:
Pentatomidae

Planthopper
(nymph)

Order
Hemiptera, superfamily Fulgoroidea

False
Turkeytail Mushroom

Stereum ostrea

Mustard
Yellow Polypore

Fuscoporia gilva

Spectacular
Rustgill

Gymnopilus junonius

White
Avens

Geum canadense

Ramble Report June 20 2019

Today’s Ramble was led by
Linda Chafin.

Here is the link to Don’s Facebook album for today’s Ramble. (All the photos in this post are
compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.)

Today’s post was compiled by
Dale Hoyt; Linda Chafin is the author of the fern guides (links below).

Today’s Focus:
Ferns

28 Ramblers met today.


Announcements: Linda made the following request: “please put a link
to this new Georgia Trees
website
. It’s newly posted by Richard and Teresa Ware, who have been
studying and photographing trees for decades. The photos are wonderful! And the
text is too. They plan to create webpages for shrubs, ferns, wildflowers, etc.
as they get to it.”


Today’s reading:
Bob Ambrose read an excerpt from Walden, by Henry David Thoreau:

“We
need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and
the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering
sedge where only the wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the
mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are
earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be
mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed
and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.
We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic
features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its
decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and
produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some
life pasturing freely where we never wander.”


Today’s route:
Past the Children’s Garden and through the Shade Garden on the sidewalk. Then
through the Dunson Garden.


Observations:

Ferns: Here is the link to Linda’s Guide to Ferns of the
State Botanical Garden
. These files
cover everything Linda said about ferns today and then some.

A sight for sori

Don created a nifty little
poster for the sori of several ferns. (Remember that the sori (singular: sorus)
are clusters of spore-producing structures. Their color, shape and arrangement
are often useful in fern identification.

 

Don’s sori poster
(click to enlarge)

Comments on Animals Observed:


Hammerhead planarian, a terrestrial flatworm
(click to enlarge)

Hammerhead Planarian. A planarian is a free-living
flatworm (Phylum Platyhelminthes). Most people have never encountered one,
except in biology courses. Those planarians are aquatic, dark in color and have
two eyespots in their head end. They have the ability to regenerate complete
worms when cut in half, either transversely or longitudinally. When cut
lengthwise the right and left halves regenerate the missing side. If cut the
other way, the head end grows a new tail and the tail end grows a new head.

Flatworms lack a body cavity and a circulatory system.
The free-living species have a mouth in the center of the body (not the head!)
that leads to a  complexly branched
digestive tract. Its many branches and projections allow the products of
digestion to diffuse directly into the surrounding tissue, a function provided
by the circulatory system of other kinds of animals. This is probably why
flatworms are flat – all their cells are a short distance from as source of
oxygen and food.

Other kinds of flatworms are parasitic; you may have
heard of liver flukes, tape worms or schistosomes, all of which are parasitic
flatworms. These flatworms live in the digestive tract or circulatory system of
their host animal, places where they are immersed in fluids containing food
that can be directly absorbed.

The Hammerhead planaria is a free-living, terrestrial
predator of earthworms. There are many species that are found all over the
world. The commonest species in the USA was probably accidentally introduced
via the soil in pots containing plants. They are commonly seen in and around
greenhouses. On a ramble a few years ago we found one attacking an earthworm on
the sidewalk in the Shade Garden. A UGA professor found a number of them on the
greenway while riding his bicycle in the rain. Emily found one on the porch
near some potted plants after a heavy rainfall.

The Hammerhead produces an very sticky adhesive secretion.
If you pick it up, it will stick to your fingers and be very difficult to
remove. This enables the Hammerhead to hold tight to its prey, an earthworm.

One more thing – the Hammerhead is the only terrestrial
invertebrate known to posses tetrodotoxin, a nasty neural poison. By attacking
the nervous system tetrodotoxin causes paralysis. That makes it useful in
subduing earthworms. The only other terrestrial organisms known to produce
tetrodotoxin are some salamanders and tropical frogs (the poison dart frogs.)

Click for more  information
and references on Hammerhead planarians
.


Florida Fern caterpillar
(click to enlarge)

Florida Fern
caterpillar
:

Found feeding on
Widespread Maiden Fern.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/een.12724

Ferns seldom show any
signs of insect damage, probably because they are so heavily defended,
chemically. Any insect that feeds on a fern has to deal with those defenses in
some way. In previous years we have seen a moth caterpillar that feeds on the
terminal pinnae of Christmas fern by rolling them into a ball and feeding on
them from the inside.


Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly
(click to enlarge)

Ebony Jewelwing
Damselfly
: This lovely, metallic blue-green
damselfly with black wings is related to dragonflies in the insect order
Odonata. The female has a white spot on the tip of the wings and is a browner
color. Like their dragonfly cousins, the damselflies are predators, feeding on
flying insects like mosquitoes, that they capture while flying.


Mantis nymph; note the grasping front legs.
(click to enlarge)

Mantis: The mantids we find this time of year are not yet
adults. You can tell this by the absence of functional wings. A young mantis
has a pair of wing buds behind the second and third walking legs, on the top
side of the thorax. As a mantis nymph grows it periodically molts (sheds its
skin). With each molt the wing buds get larger. Finally, with the final molt,
the wings become functional and the mantis doesn’t have to walk to work to find
food.

The first pair of legs are
modified for grasping and holding its prey while it is being eaten. At rest the
mantis folds its forelegs so they appear to be “praying,” hence, the common
name “praying mantis,” not “preying mantis.”


Gray Hairstreak on Rattlesnake Master
(click to enlarge)

Gray Hairstreak: There are over a dozen kinds of Hairstreak
butterflies in the state of Georgia. All share one feature: one or two
hair-like projections from their hind wings and, where these hairs emerge, a
colored spot that resembles an eye.

When an hairstreak lands
its wings are folded vertically above its body and the two hind wings are
rubbed together. To understand this motion hold your hands In front of your
body with your thumbs up and your fingers together and pointed forward. Next,
place the palms of your hands together. Then rub your hands together, up and
down so your fingers slip over the fingers of the opposite hand.

Next, imagine that each of
your little fingers has a small, dark hair projecting straight out, away from
your body. That hair will wiggle up and down as you rub your hands together.
The motion of the hair on each little finger will resemble a butterfly antenna
wiggling up and down. Add a dark eyespot to each little finger nail and you
have an imitation butterfly head.

When the hairstreak
butterfly performs this motion, it may attract the attention of a predator and
cause it to attack the hind wings, thinking that this is the head of the
butterfly. At least that’s the theory.


Eyed Elator
(click to enlarge)

Eyed Click Beetle (Eyed
Elator)
:

This handsome beetle has
two large “eyespots” on its first thoracic segment. I have heard several times
that the light colored borders of the eyespots can glow like a firefly, but
I’ve been unable to find confirmation for this. There is a related species that
has two spots on its prothorax that can glow, but not the Eyed Elator.

Click beetles have the
ability to flip into the air when they are lying on their back. This is made
possible by a spine on the thorax that fits into a groove on another segment.
When on its back the beetle tilts its thorax toward its abdomen and engages the
spine with a groove. Thoracic muscles contract, increasing tension. When the
tension reaches a certain point the spine snaps out of the groove and the thorax
snaps back against the substrate with enough force to hurl the beetle into the
air, head over heels, so to speak. If the beetle lands on its feet it will
trundle off. On its back, it gets to try again. The smaller the beetle the
higher it can jump.

The larvae of the Eyed
Elator are predators of wood-boring beetles. They inhabit rotting wood and seek
out beetles in the family Cerambycidae (Long horn beetles or Sawyer beetles). 

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED
SPECIES

Rattlesnake Master

Eryngium yuccifolium

Small black “sweat” bee

Family Halictidae

Decumbent Trillium

Trillium decumbens

Chattahoochee Trillium

Trillium decipiens

Southern Lady Fern

Athyrium filix-femina

Bottlebrush Buckeye

Aesculus parviflorum

Widespread Maiden Fern

Thelypteris kunthii

Florida Fern Moth (caterpillar)

Callopistria floridensis

Planarian Worm

Bipalium kewense

New York Fern

Thelypteris noveboracensis

Christmas Fern

Polystichum acrostichoides

Southern Maidenhair Fern

Adianthum capillus-veneris

Ebony Spleenwort Fern

Asplenium platyneuron

Sensitive Fern

Onoclea sensibilis

Oyster Mushroom

Pleurotus ostreatus

Broad Beech Fern

Phegopteris hexagonoptera

Northern Maidenhair Fern

Adiantum pedatum

Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly

Calopteryx maculate

Goldie’s Wood Fern

Dryopteris
goldieana

American Sycamore (bark plates)

Platanus occidentalis

Cinnamon Fern

Osmunda cinnamomea

Goldenseal

Hydrastis canadensis

Marginal Wood Fern

Dryopteris marginalis

Praying Mantis

Order Mantodea

Netted Chain Fern

Woodwardia areolata

Ostrich Fern

Matteuccia struthiopteris

Common Silverbell

Halesia tetraptera

Running Ground Cedar/Fan Clubmoss

Diphasiastrum digitatum

Rattlesnake Fern

Botrychium virginianum

Gray Hairstreak

Strymon melinus

Eyed Click Beetle

Alaus oculatus


Ferns of the State Botanical Garden

Here are two links to illustrated guides to the ferns and fern allies found in the State Botanical Garden of Georgia. Click on the links to download each guide to your computer. (Each guide is a .pdf file.)

Both guides are authored by Liinda Chafin.

Clicking on the link will open the guide in your browser. The option to download to your computer will be in the upper right hand corner of the web page, nest to the blue “Sign In” button.

Click
this link for Fern Pinnation
guide.

Click
this link for Ferns and Fern Allies
of the State Botanical Garden.

Ramble Report June 13 2019

Today’s Ramble was led by Dale Hoyt.

Here’s the link
to Don’s Facebook album for today’s Ramble. (All the photos in this post are
compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.)

Today’s post was written by Dale Hoyt.

Today’s Focus:

32 Ramblers met today.

Today’s reading:
Today’s non-inspirational, fact-filled reading about Witch Hazel was from
Donald Culross Peattie’s A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central
North America. (If you are at all interested in trees, this is a book you
should own.)

Continue reading

Ramble Report June 6 2019

Today’s Ramble was led by Dale Hoyt.

Here’s the link
to Don’s Facebook album for today’s Ramble. (All the photos in this post are
compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.)

Today’s post was written by Dale Hoyt.

Announcements:

1.     From Karen Porter: There
is a Tallassee Forest SPLOST2020 information session at the Kenney Ridge
Community Center this coming Sunday. I’m inviting Ramblers to this community
event because most of them have visited the Forest and know its conservation
value as well as the desirability of having public access in an environmentally
protective way.

Continue reading

Ramble Report May 30 2019

Today’s Ramble was led by Linda Chafin.

Here’s the link to Don’s Facebook album for
today’s Ramble. (All the photos in this post are compliments of Don, unless
otherwise credited.)

Today’s post was written by Dale Hoyt.

Today’s Focus:  Herb and Physic Garden, Purple Trail, Purple
Trail Spur to Flower Garden, Flower Garden, Heritage Garden

32 Ramblers met today.

Today’s reading: No reading today.

Show and Tell:

Continue reading

Ramble Report May 23 2019

Today’s Ramble was led by Linda Chafin.

Here’s the link
to Don’s Facebook album for today’s Ramble. (All the photos in this post are
compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.)

Today’s post was written by Dale Hoyt (Added Milkvine text by Linda.)

Today’s Focus:
Power line right of way and Carolina Milkvine.

29 Ramblers met today.

Show and tell:

Luna moth cocoons

(click to enlarge)

1)
Kathy brought two empty Luna Moth cocoons.

Red Mangrove embryo

(click to enlarge)

2)
David brought a Red Mangrove embryo that he
collected on a recent trip to the Florida Keys. He told us the fascinating story of mangrove
reproduction

Blue Gray Gnatcatcher nest

(click to enlarge)

3)
Avis brought a Blue Gray Gnatcatcher nest. It
resembles a gigantic hummingbird nest.

Continue reading

Ramble Report May 16 2019

Today’s Ramble was led by Linda Chafin.

Here’s the link
to Don’s Facebook album for today’s Ramble. (All the photos in this post are
compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.)

Today’s post was written by Linda Chafin.

29 Ramblers met today.

Today’s focus:
 
Cool-season grasses along the White Trail and in the powerline
right-of-way.

Show and
Tell:

Halley brought a section of tree top that recently fell in her yard.  It was a hollow section with a large hole for
a woodpecker nesting cavity.  Eugenia
thinks it may be a Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes
carolinus
) nest.

Announcements: Tomorrow (Saturday, May 18) is Snake Day at Sandy Creek Nature Center (12 to 4 p.m.)  Bring the children or grandchildren!

Continue reading

Ramble Report May 9 2019

Today’s Ramble was led by Linda Chafin.

Here’s the link
to Don’s Facebook album for today’s Ramble. (All the photos in this post are
compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.)

Today’s post was written by Linda Chafin.

29 Ramblers today. We were happy to have Sandra Hoffberg, a former Nature Rambler who left us for a
post-doc at Columbia University, back with us today. She brought a long a
friend named Todd, who is studying salamanders at UGA – read further about his
salamander finds today.

Show and
Tell:

Catawba Rhododendron
(click on photo to enlarge)

Linda brought two flower clusters of Catawba Rhododendron,

Continue reading