Leader for today’s Ramble: Linda
Link to Don’s Facebook album for this Ramble
Number of Ramblers today: 28
Today’s emphasis & Route: Flowering plants in Elaine Nash Prairie Project/Georgia Power right-of-way, via the Lower Shade Garden and White Trail Spur.

Reading: Emily read the entry on Pawpaw from A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America by Donald Culross Peattie.

   The first reference to this curious species of an otherwise notably tropical family occurs in the chronicles of Desoto’s expedition in the Mississippi valley in 1541, for naturally an edible fruit of such size was important to a host of conquistadores always near starvation. But, after that, for two centuries the Pawpaw flourished unknown save by wild animals and red men, until Mark Catesby delineated it in his Natural History of Carolina, that master work whose plates are fresh with wilderness still.
   Once abundant in the Mississippi valley, where it formed dense thickets of wide extent, the Pawpaw is today in the northeastern stages only a scattered understory tree, though to the south it may become 30 to 40 feet tall, with a straight trunk more than a foot in diameter. Everything about it is odd and unforgettable. The leaves are among the largest in our sylva, and in autumn, when they turn a butter yellow, they are the mellowest of the season’s tones. The flowers, with their exotic look borrowed from tropical relatives, hardly seem to belong to the cool vernal world on which they open. At first green the petals soon turn brown, and then they become a dark winy color, with an odor to match, a remembrance of fermenting purple grapes. As to the fruit, the better it grows, the uglier, for it is only when it is thoroughly mature, in late fall, that it is edible. At first the skin is greenish yellow; gradually it darkens, and when it is nearly black. wrinkled, and looks unappetizing – in October or November – at last the yellow or orange flesh is soft, custardy, and palatable.
   Pawpaws have had their enthusiasts from the days of the Creeks. Cheraws, and Catawbas, who often planted them, to the present. Such wood-wise people know that there are good and bad trees, as to flavor, and have long insisted that selection would soon result in marked improvement of the fruit; in general, the orange· fleshed variety is considered much more tasty. Pawpaws were made into a jelly by the early settlers, and still in southern towns sometimes appear in the markets. The seeds contain a powerful alkaloid which, it has been noted, has a stupefying effect on the brains of animals, yet opossums are great Pawpaw eaters, and raccoons and gray squirrels also appreciate the fruit.
   For the wood there are no uses, but the inner bark was woven into fiber cloth by the Louisiana Indians, and the pioneers employed it for stringing fish. In its range a characteristic part of American country life, the Pawpaw, for all its exotic kinship, seems an intensely native tree, above all in the frosty autumn, when the leaves droop witherIng on the stem and the great plashy fruits hang preposterously heavy on the twigs.

Show and Tell: 

Pawpaw fruits showing variation in size. Contrary to Peattie’s description, these were ripe when the skin was turning yellow and the fruit felt soft.

Largest Pawpaw sliced open showing the yellow flesh and black seeds. The seeds are each surrounded by an aril, similar to persimmon seeds.

Over twenty years ago Emily and Dale planted three Pawpaws in their backyard. It took them fifteen years before that produced the first fruit, which disappeard before it could be harvested. The three trees have suckered profusely and they now have a real Pawpaw patch. It’s produced a lot of fruit and Emily brought samples for the Ramblers to taste. Dale didn’t think they were as delicious as the one he ate 62 years ago.

 

Dangerous eating

One of the Ramblers was interested in using Dog Fennel to spice up their salad because it smelled like Dill. DON’T DO IT. Dog Fennel is covered wtth a dangerous substance called a pyrrolizidine alkaloid. It can cause fatal liver damage if eaten. Cattle and horses have been killed by inadvertently eating Dog Fennel that was mixed with hay.
 

Announcements/Interesting Things to Note:
”       Sean Cameron, Education Coordinator at the Garden, talked to us about the joint State Botanical Garden-U.S. Forest Service iNaturalist native plant project to document native plants and their habitats on U. S. Forest Service lands in the piedmont and north Georgia.  The project is geared towards documenting existing pollinator habitat and identifying areas that can be developed with pollinators in mind. See this website for more information:
iNaturalist:    https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/georgia-grasslands-initiative-ggi

”       Roger mentioned that Sandy Creek Nature Center is still in need of trail guides.  Contact Kate Mowbray at 706/613/3615 or Katemobray@accgov.com

”       Several people asked about access to the new Porcelain Arts Museum. Sign up for a free tour with a docent here:  https://botgarden.uga.edu/porcelain-and-decorative-arts-museum-timed-access-now-available/

LIST OF OBSERVATIONS:

Lower Shade Garden:

Cardinal Flowers

It comes as no surprise that Cardinal Flower –  with its bright red tubular blooms – is pollinated by Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, drawn to the copious nectar produced by glands on the inside of the tube. The flowers open from the bottom of the flower cluster up – this is obvious in Don’s photo where withered flowers are hanging on to the lower portion of the cluster while fresh flowers are open at the top. Each flower goes through two phases. First, the stamens, tipped with brush-like anthers, emerge from the tube and present their pollen (“male phase”), as you can see in the close-up photo below. Then, as that flower matures, the stamens wither and are replaced by the style and stigma in the same position (“female phase”). Meanwhile, freshly opened “male phase” flowers higher up in the cluster are beginning to present their pollen. Since hummingbirds work a flower cluster from the bottom up, they visit the lower “female phase” flowers first on a particular plant, ideally contacting the stigmas and leaving behind pollen picked up from the topmost “male phase” flowers of a previously visited plant. As you can see in Jen Goellnitz’s photo, the hummingbird’s head brushes nicely up against the upper part of the flower, either depositing or picking up pollen, depending on whether the flower is in its “female” or “male” phase.

Close-up of single Cardinal flower photo by Helen Lowe Metzman, public domain, https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/lobelia-cardinalis-3-cardinal-flower-howard-county-md

Image of Hummingbird hovering over a Cardinal Flower bloom, photo by Jen Goellnitz, https://www.flickr.com/photos/goellnitz/36414685015

Swallowtail butterflies are also attracted by the bright color of Cardinal flowers. Even though there is no landing platform for them to rest on while they sip nectar, they grasp the petals and insert their proboscis down the floral tube. However, their shape is not as perfectly fitted for the Cardinal flower as are hummingbirds and they are less effective as pollinators.

Virginia Jumpseed Style branches, with curled stigmas, protrude from the tips of the flowers

Variegated Virginia Jumpseed is a cultivar of the native Virginia Jumpseed (or Knotweed), horticulturally selected for its colorful leaves and flowers. Typical of all species in the Smartweed Family, there is a sleeve of tissue at the base of each leaf that wraps around the stem; this sleeve is called an ocrea. Although tiny, these inconspicuous flowers attract a variety of bees and wasps.

Surprise Lily aka Hurricane Lily, Red Spider Lily, and Naked Ladies is in the Amaryllis Family.

Bristly fruits of the Canada Black Snakeroot.

The exotic invasive, Sweet Autumn Clematis, has grown into the canopy of trees along the White Trail. As of this writing, Gary has treated the stout basal stem of this plant with herbicide. (photo by Gary Crider)

Sensitive Partridge Pea The leaflets fold up when touched, a reaction believed to discourage browsing.

Trailing Lespedeza is a mat-forming member of the Bean Family.

Arrowhead Orbweaver at rest on web.

Tom and Halley found this Arrowhead Orbweaver wrapping its prey in silk (multiple strands of silk emerging from spinnerets)

Elaine Nash Prairie Project/ROW:

Spotted Bee-balm (or Horsemint) flowers are yellow with maroon spots, but they are upstaged by the pink bracts that surround the base of each whorl of flowers.

 

 

Avis pointed out mud tunnels made by termites on the sides and top of a wooden stake in the edge of the ROW

If you ever see mud tunnels on the side of your house’s foundation you probably should call a Pest Control Service.

Seed heads of Big Top Lovegrass, one of the earlier warm-season grasses to flower.

Cone-headed Katydid The antennae are longer than the body and the head is cone-shaped.

Flowering Spurge flowers lack petals. The white structures are actually appendages of nectar glands.

A Grasshopper nymph; notice how short the antennae are, compared to the Katydid, above.

Rose-pink or Bitterbloom, an atypical member of the Gentian Family.

St. Andrew’s Cross, a member of the St. John’s-wort genus, Hypericum

Yellow Star-grass – not a grass but a close relative of the irises.

 
Introduction to the Aster Family

Late summer, early fall is the season of the Aster Family, also known as the Composite Family. The latter name refers to the flower heads that are typical of this family, each head being a composite of two types of flowers that, together, superficially resembles a single flower. The classic composite flower head has a central disk of many tiny flowers, surrounded by a showy whorl of ray flowers, the whole thing held together by a cup-shaped structure called an involucre (in-voe-loo-ker). The involucre is made up of few to many tiny bracts. Though small these bracts are important for identifying members of this family. Are they solid green in color or marked with white diamonds or red edging? Are they hairy or smooth? Do they have long, tapering points or blunt triangular points or no points at all? Do they cling tightly to the base of the head or curl outwards? These involucre features are important for separating the many look-alike members of this family.

Red-margined involucral bracts

The eponymous members of this family are the asters: Georgia Aster, New England Aster, Heath Aster, and many (many) more in our region. In the New World, the genus Aster is now split up and scattered across several genera; in Georgia, we have seven genera of plants that were once in the single genus Aster. The Europeans got to keep their Asters; us New World plant lovers get to learn a lot of new Latin names. Sigh.

Georgia Aster, with white and purple disk flowers and purple ray flowers, blooms in October and early November. It is now in the genus Symphyotrichum.

Some of the most common and conspicuous of the late summer composites are sunflowers, in the genus Helianthus. They are typical composites, with flower heads composed of a central disk of maroon or yellow flowers and a whorl of golden ray flowers.

Woodland Sunflower – both disk and ray flowers are yellow.

Once you’ve accepted the fact that Composite Family “flowers” are actually flower heads made up of many disk flowers and ray flowers, it is time to face another fact – that some members of this family are black sheep, flouting the rules that define this family. One group of these scofflaws discarded its rays and has only disk flowers while another group of species dispensed with disk flowers and has only rays.

Disk-only flower heads are especially common in late summer and fall bloomers. Think of the ironweeds, thistles, blazing stars, and Joe-Pye-weeds that light up roadsides, rights-of-way, ditches, and gardens in late August. These disk flowers are relatively large and most have long, colorful style branches that raise the sticky stigma surfaces up into wind-blown currents of pollen grains. These showy features play the role that ray flowers typically do: they attract pollinators.

Tall Thistle

Blazing Star

Elephant’s Foot

Ray-only flowers seem to predominate in the spring and early summer – think Dandelion, Green-and-Gold, Carolina Desert-chicory, Hawkweeds, and Chicory – though they are found in the fall too.

Both types of flower heads have the all-important involucre and both types are the result of the same evolutionary pressures: to make available to pollinators multiple flowers in a small space. In a single visit, a pollinator is able to probe and pollinate several (or many, depending on the species) flowers. This pollination efficiency has allowed the composite family to diversify into the highest number of species (32,000+) of all the plant families and to spread across all the continents but Antarctica.

 SUMMARY OF OBSERVED
SPECIES:

Passionflower     Passiflora incarnata

Cardinal flower     Lobelia cardinalis

Variegated Jumpseed     Persicaria virginiana

Sanicle/Black
Snakeroot     Sanicula
sp.

Surprise/Hurricane
Lily     Lycoris radiata

Sweet Autumn
Clematis     Clematis terniflora

Sensitive
Partridge Pea     Chamaecrista nictitans

Creeping-bush
Clover     Lespedeza
repens

Arrowhead
Orbweaver     Verrucosa arenata

Two-lined
Spittlebug     Prosapia bicincta

Spotted Horsemint     Monarda punctata

Elephant’s
Foot     Elephantopus tomentosus

Dog Fennel     Eupatorium capillifolium

White
Crownbeard     Verbesina virginica

Big Top
Lovegrass     Eragrostis hirsuta

Cone-headed
Katydid     Neoconocephalus
sp.

Virginia
Buttonweed     Diodia virginiana

Purple-top/Grease
Grass    Tridens flavus

Flowering
Spurge     Euphorbia corollata

Late
Flowering Thoroughwort     Eupatorium
serotinum

Rabbit
Tobacco     Pseudognaphalium
obtusifolium

Grasshopper          Orthoptera: Acrididae

Autumn Olive     Elaeagnus umbellata

Rose Pink    Sabatia angularis

St. Andrew’s
Cross     Hypericum
hypericoides

Yellow Star
Grass     Hypoxis hirsuta

Mountain Mint     Pycnanthemum pycnanthemoides

Blazing Star
Liatris     Liatris
sp.

Tall Thistle     Cirsium altissimum

Keeled
Treehopper (nymph)     Entylia
carinata

Leader for today’s Ramble: Linda
Link to Don’s Facebook album for this Ramble.
Number of Ramblers today: 26
Today’s emphasis:  Looking for pollinators in the Flower Garden, via the American South, China and Asia, Native and Endangered Plants and Native American Southeastern Tribes sections and the Herb and Physic Garden.  This was one last refresher on identifying basic types of pollinators in advance of the upcoming Great Georgia Pollinator Census, August 20-21, 2021.
Reading: Bob Ambrose treated us to a recitation of one of his poems: Jurassic Dreams and Katydids.
Show and Tell: Bob found a dead annual cicada on the walk down from the parking lot.  Dale thinks it succumbed to a cicada fungus disease/infection. There are 17 species of annual cicadas in Georgia, though not all occur in the Athens area. 

Announcements:
Emily reminded us that it is Dale’s birthday.  We sang Happy Birthday to him, much to his chagrin. 

Today’s Route:   From the pergola (arbor) to the Flower Bridge and through the China and Asia Section, stopping  at the Threatened and Endangered Plants bed, then through the Native American Southeastern Tribes Section, continuing on the shaded woodland trail from the Herb and Physic Garden down to the Flower Garden.  We wandered the Flower Garden paths looking for pollinators before heading back to the Visitor Center.
LIST OF OBSERVATIONS:

Fragile Dapperling mushroom, cap fully expanded.

Fragile Dapperling mushroom; cap starting to open.;

Don spotted these
lovely Fragile Dapperling mushrooms on his way to the arbor and said: “I
would have to rate the common name for this one as one of my favorites
among all living things.”

American South Section: 

Common Eastern Bumblebee on Downy Sweet Pepperbush

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Downy Sweet Pepperbush

Red Bristle Fly on Downy Sweet Pepperbush

The three insects above were visiting the spikes of fragrant flowers on Downy Sweet Pepperbush. This is one of our best native shrubs for attracting pollinators including butterflies, hummingbirds, honey bees, bumblebees, and other native bees. Sweet Pepperbush flowers abundantly even in the shade, so makes a great addition to native plant and pollinator gardens.

Elephant’s Foot

Gary’s mother, Minnie Crider, calls Elephant’s Foot “Soldiers Plantain” because soldiers ate it for survival during the Civil War. This article reports that it also has anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties: 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2005290109600698

Joro spider, enlarged view, not yet full adult size.

Joro spider capture web. The sticky strands are in groups of four or five and separated from other similar strand groups by a slightly larger space. In addition, one of the outer sticky strands sometime joins a strand group next to it. You’ll have to click on the photo to enlarge it enough to see this.

A Joro Spider orb and ancillary webs forming a three dimensional aerial structure.  Several other Joro webs were seen in the same shrub. These smaller webs are occupied by smaller spiders, possibly immature males hoping they will get lucky when the larger female matures. The Joros are related to the Banana spiders found along the coast and into Florida. 

Joros were first noticed in Georgia only 8 years ago, Joro Spiders have spread far and wide and their numbers appear to be increasing rapidly; the impact on native spider populations is unknown. More information is here: https://news.uga.edu/joro-spiders-are-here-to-stay/

Turtlehead

Turtleheads are in flower in the Bartram section of the International Garden. Both their common name and scientific name, Chelone, refer to the shape of the flower when viewed in profile. Chelone is the genus of sea turtles that includes Loggerhead, Kemp’s Ridley, and others.

Creeping Cucumber Note the tiny flowers

Fruit of Creeping Cucumber (photo credit: Bob Peterson, Creative Commons)

Creeping Cucumber or Melonette is a native member of the Cucumber Family. Its tiny yellow flowers produce inch-long melons that look like miniature watermelons.

Mulberry Weed

Mulberry Weed is a rapidly spreading exotic first seen in the U.S. in Louisiana in the 1950s, now spread throughout the eastern U.S. and along the Pacific coast. It is one many nemeses of gardeners in our region.

White Surprise Lily

White Surprise Lily, native to Japan, is in flower along the trail to the Threatened and Endangered Species Garden.

Threatened and Endangered Plant Bed

Ovate Catchfly

Oval-leaved Campion is thriving in the Threatened and Endangered garden. The flowers appear to have many, very narrow petals but in fact there are only five, each deeply dissected into eight fringe-like sections. Only 16 populations of this species are known in Georgia from 11 counties, including Clarke, where it grows near the Middle Oconee River.

Royal Catchfly

Another member of the genus Silene is also in flower today, the scarlet-flowered Royal Catchfly. There are only 4 populations of this gorgeous prairie species in Georgia where it is at the edge of its range.

Native American Southeastern Tribes Section

Asiatic Dayflower

Asiatic Dayflower was introduced from East Asia to the U.S. as a garden plant and has spread to disturbed (and some natural) areas throughout most of the country.

Living Roof

The “living roof” of the equipment shed is thriving in this wet summer.

Trail from the Herb and Physic Garden to the Flower Garden

Late-flowering Thoroughwort

Late-flowering Boneset or Thoroughwort, so named for its many medicinal uses in pioneer days, including treating broken bones.

Sweet Autumn Clematis

Sweet Autumn Clematis, native to east Asia, is blooming as it continues to climb high into a tree along the edge of the trail spur below the Heritage Garden. Its leaflets have entire margins – maybe a little wavy but not at all toothed. That’s the most reliable way to distinguish it from native Virgin’s Bower (Clematis virginiana), another high-climbing vine with sweetly fragrant flowers. Virgin Bower’s leaflets are sharply toothed. Both species’ flowers lack petals; along with the fragrance, it is the showy white sepals that draw in pollinators, including bees, wasps, butterflies, and moths.

Green-eyed Susan with a Double-banded scoliid wasp

Green-eyed Susan with Common European Greenbottle fly and thread-wasted wasp.

Green-eyed Susan/Cut-leaf Coneflower hosting a Double-banded Scoliid Wasp, Common European Greenbottle Fly, and an unidentified thread-waisted wasp.

Chamber Bitters

Chamber Bitters is a low, sprawling, annual weed, native to tropical Southeast Asia and now spread globally in tropical and temperate climates. It forms tiny yellow flowers – on the underside of stems at the base of each leaf – that develop into small round fruits. Its closely spaced, alternate leaves resemble the compound leaves of Mimosa and earn it an alternative common name, Mimosa Weed. Another garden nemesis!
 

Flower Garden

Fiery Skipper

Silver-spotted Skipper

Horace’s Duskywing

Three species of skippers (Fiery Skipper, Horace’s Duskywing and Silver-spotted Skipper) were visiting Lantana in the Flower Garden.

Common Buckeye

A Common Buckeye was seen busily visiting a number of different garden plants.

The pollen baskets of this Bumblebee are packed with red-colored pollen.

Bumblebees and Honey Bees were busily working at large bed of flowering Basil. The pollen baskets – corbiculae – of all these bees were packed with red pollen, source unknown.

Redwing flowers

Redwing fruits

Jim, the Flower Garden curator, showed us a shrubby vine called Redwing bearing five-petaled,  yellow flowers and pinkish-red fruits resembling those of maples, each with two- or three-winged seeds that are wind-borne.  This type of dry, winged fruit is called a samara. Redwing is native to South America.

Hibiscus flower with column bearing the anthers below the five stigmatic surfaces at the end. The nectaries are at the base of the column.

“Hibiscus Row” near the eastern edge of the Flower Garden features several large-flowered species and cultivars of Hibiscus bearing red, pink, or white flowers. Our native Scarlet Rose-mallow, with its petals distinctively narrowed at the base, is included. Hibiscus flowers have quite distinctive reproductive parts. The stalks (filaments) of its numerous stamens are fused into a hollow tube, with the pollen-bearing anthers separating and curving away from the sides of the column. Growing up through and out the tip of the tube is the style topped with five stigmas that capture pollen and provide the moisture for it to germinate. This structure – many fused stamens enclosing the pistil – is called a “androgynophore,” literally male-female-bearing. Below the petals is a cup-shaped, 5-parted calyx, and below that is a whorl of numerous narrow bracts called the epicalyx. This combination of androgynophore and epicalyx is unique to the Mallow family and is found in all Hibiscus species.

Honey Bee at the bottom of a Hibiscus flower.

We saw numerous insects and one or more hummingbirds visiting these enticing flowers. They are drawn by the bright colors and the promise of nectar that is produced at the base of the flower. It is not clear as of this writing how a bee or other smallish insect crawling around the base of the flower manages to transfer pollen to the stigmas, several inches away, if at all. Perhaps all the pollination is carried out by the flapping of hummingbird wings, similar to swallowtails and wild azaleas? Stay tuned.

Hibiscus flowers are open for only one day. To prevent self-pollination, the stigma and the pollen-bearing anthers in a given flower will “ripen” at different times of the day. However, if cross-pollination does not occur by the end of the day, the styles will curl downwards, bringing the stigmas into contact with the anthers and effecting self-pollination. Even though self-pollination usually results in offspring with less genetic diversity (called inbreeding depression) than the offspring of cross-pollination, evolution has apparently “decided” that depressed offspring are better than no offspring at all.

Sumac galls (photo by Bob Ambrose)

At the bottom of the Flower Garden some of us discovered numerous pouch-like swellings on the Sumac leaves and midvein. These are the work of an aphid, called the Suman Gall Aphid. In the spring, as the sumac is producing leaves, it is visited by an aphid that lays a single egg, usually on the mid-veine. The plant reacts by enveloping the egg with a growth of tissue that begins as a small, spherical swelling. The egg hatches and the aphid nymph begins feeding by sucking plant juices. When the nymph becomes sexually mature it starts to produce more aphids parthenogenetically; i.e., without benefit of a male. Those aphids, in turn, produce more aphids and the number within a single gall grows exponentially. Ultimately the aphids leave the gall and migrate to mosses that may be growing nearby. There they over-winter and in the spring male and female aphids are produced, mate, and the females fly off to find more sumac, completing the life cycle. Visit this website for a lot of excellent photographs of the galls and the aphids.
We opened several of the thin-walled galls and found them filled with white fuzz. It didn’t dawn on me what this was until much latter: the cast off exoskeletons of hundreds in not thousands of aphids. Each aphid molts five times before reaching reproductive age. Given the exponential rate of increase of the aphids and multiplying by five and you get a gall filled with white fluff.

 

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Fragile Dapperling      Leucocoprinus fragilissimus
Downy Sweet Pepperbush Clethra tomentosa (syn.Clethra tomentosa var. pubescens)
Common Eastern Bumblebee     Bombus impatiens
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly     Papilio glaucus
Bristle (Tachinid) Fly     Juriniopsis adusta
Elephant’s Foot     Elephantopus tomentosus
White Wood Aster     Eurybia divaricata
Joro Spider     Trichonephila clavata
Turtleheads     Chelone sp.
Bottlebrush Buckeye     Aesculus parviflora
Camelia     Camelia sp.
Melonette     Melothria pendula
Mulberry Weed     Fatoua villosa
White Surprise Lily     Lycoris albiflora
Oval-leaved Campion     Silene ovata
Royal Catchfly     Silene regia
Japanese Stilt Grass     Microstegium vimineum
Asiatic Dayflower     Commelina communis
Goldenrod     Solidago sp.
Black Cohosh     Actaea racemosa
Late-flowering Thoroughwort/Boneset     Eupatorium serotinum
Sweet Autumn Clematis     Clematis terniflora
Green-eyed Susan/Cut-leaf Coneflower     Rudbeckia laciniata
Double-banded Scoliid Wasp     Scolia bincincta
Common European Greenbottle Fly [     Lucilla sericata
Thread-waisted Wasp     Family Sphecidae
Chamber Bitters Phyllanthus urinaria
Lantana     Lantana camara
Fiery Skipper     Hylephila phyleus
Horace’s Duskywing Skipper     Erynnis horatius
Silver-spotted Skipper     Epargyreus clarus
Common Buckeye butterfly     Junonia coenia
Redwing     Heteropterys glabra
Hibiscus cultivars   Hibiscus sp.
Scarlet Rose-mallow Hibiscus coccinea
Sumac Gall Aphid    Melaphis rhois

 

Leader for today’s Ramble: Dale

Authors of today’s Report: Linda (plants), Dale (animals)
Link to Don’s Facebook album for this Ramble. All photographs in this post were taken by Don Hunter unless otherwise credited.
Number of Ramblers today: 30
Today’s emphasis:  Looking for pollinators in the flower beds at the Porcelain and Decorative Arts Museum, the Herb and Physic Garden, the Heritage Garden and the Flower Garden.  This was a refresher on identifying basic types of pollinators in advance of the upcoming Great Georgia Pollinator Census, August 20-21, 2021
Reading:  Dale read an excerpt from the August 12 entry in An Almanac for Moderns, by Donald Culross Peattie.

One can never look long In the August sky without beholding a shooting star, for the trail of the Perseids is spun fine at each end; only last night and tonight we pass through the thick node of them. If we ask ourselves what is a meteor – fragment of the lost planet between Mars and Jupiter, messenger from the farthest stars, or bit of a vanished comet – there seems no certain answer. The Perseids are thought to be traveling in the same orbit as that of Tuttle’s comet of 1862, and to be a part of it. But what, after all, is a comet? Nothing more ghostly exists in time or space; it rushes at us out of a black hole of space, trails a fire that does not burn, a light that is no light, and looping close to the sun, vanishes again into space – to return at the appointed time when the sea of darkness again gives up its dead; or, more terrible still, never to return from its Avernus.
Note: Avernus is a volcano located near Naples, Italy

Show & Tell:

Carla brought some Purple Coneflower suffering from yellow asters disease. For more information about the yellow asters disease read this data sheet. Announcements:
”       Emily made a plea for considering use of masks while we are rambling in close quarters.
”       Don mentioned the Slime Mold experiment to be conducted on the International Space Station.
”       Gary “apologized” for his misinformation about snail sex last week.
 

Today’s Route: The Porcelain and Decorative Arts center garden beds, then to the Physic Garden, Freedom Plaza and the Heritage Garden.
 

OBSERVATIONS:

 

Three-nerved Joe-Pye-Weed flower heads.

The new beds around the Porcelain Museum feature a cultivar of Three-nerved Joe-Pye-Weed called “Little Joe.” Three-nerved Joe-Pye-Weed is found primarily in the Coastal Plain and is uncommon in Georgia. It has a narrow, hard, solid stem. The Joe-Pye-Weed we north Georgia folks are most familiar with is Hollow-stem Joe-Pye-Weed; its stem is wider and, since it is hollow, gives under pressure. The north Georgia species can reach 11 feet in height, while “Little Joe” is typically 3-4 feet tall. Both of these species are pollinator magnets and are good candidates for the Great Georgia Pollinator Census coming up on August 20-21. Joe Pye is believed to have been a Native American herbalist. Leaves and roots of these species have been used to treat a wide variety of illnesses from rheumatism to impotence.

 

Swamp Milkweed plants

Hundreds of Swamp Milkweed were planted in the garden area behind the Porcelain Museum to attract Monarch butterflies. We saw several adults and caterpillars. There are two varieties of Swamp Milkweed; ours is variety pulchra, with the common name of Eastern Swamp Milkweed. Since this bed was planted only recently, few of the plants flowered this summer. In coming years, this bed will be a sea of dark pink flower heads earning the name “pulchra” –  Latin for “beautiful.”

 

Sweet Bay Magnolia flower

Sweet Bay Magnolia aggregate fruit

Sweet Bay Magnolia ripe fruits

Sweet Bay Magnolia trees behind the Museum are laden with an unusual kind of fruit called an “aggregate,” so called because it develops from many separate pistils held in a single flower. The aggregate starts out as a small, green, lumpy fist; shortly, the lumps (individual pistils) blush pink as they swell into separate, one-seeded fruits, each with a noticeable line where they will eventually open. Finally, at maturity, each fruit opens and a bright red seed emerges. Aggregate fruits are found in the oldest flowering plants such as magnolias and blackberries. It is thought that, over millions of years of evolution, the ovaries of more modern plants, such as apples and blueberries, fused into a single fruit thought to be more attractive to fruit-eating animals.
 

Purple Coneflowers

Purple Coneflowers provide nectar throughout the day, which makes them especially valuable to their pollinators; most other day-flowering plants produce the most nectar in the morning. Insects search for nectar in the tiny, orange flowers found in the central “cone”; the showy, pink ray flowers are just “for looks,” drawing in pollinators. However, the jury is still out on whether cultivars, such as this one, provide pollen and nectar of the same quality and quantity as do the straight species. For a good discussion of this issue, see: https://xerces.org/blog/cultivar-conundrum
 

Cock’s Comb inflorescence

Cock’s Comb Seed producing flowers on stem

Cock’s Comb seeds on stem

Cock’s Comb is such a strange-looking plant. The large inflorescence looks like a brain with none of the features we expect from a typical flower. But its bright color attracts bees that probe for nectar in the inconspicuous, seed-producing flowers that crowd the stems just below the showy crest. Amazingly, it is an important food plant in large parts of the tropical world: “[Related] to amaranth, the cockscomb is…the most widely used leafy vegetable in southern Nigeria, and is also part of the diet in Benin, Congo and Indonesia…Even young stems and flowers are eaten.” (Wikipedia) the shiny black seeds shown in Don’s photo are also eaten.
 

A small area of the new museum garden is dedicated to aquatic and wetland plants such as Venus’s Flytrap, Horse-tails, Spider Lilies, and White-topped Sedge.
 

Flowers of White-topped Sedge, with bright white floral bracts, are the only sedge flowers pollinated by insects. Other members of this family have green flowers that are wind-pollinated.

Blue Sage has the conspicuously two-lipped flowers of the mint family.

Colorful leaves and flowers of a cotton cultivar.

Flowers of the Loofah plant.

Why it’s safe to watch foraging bees and wasps.
 No one wants to be stung, so why should we not be worried about getting stung when we’re close enough to identify the bees?

First, what bees and wasps will sting you? Most stings come from the social bees and wasps. These are the honey bees, bumble bees, paper wasps, yellow jackets and hornets. Among these social insects there is a division of labor among the females in the nest or hive. Some of the workers stay in the hive and take care of the larvae, feeding them and repairing the nest and defending the nest. It is the nest defenders that will rush out and sting if you draw near and/or disturb the nest. The foragers that we see on flowers are intent on their job: gathering pollen and/or nectar. They are focused on that activity and will not be disturbed by your presence. The only way you will be stung by a forager is if you physically restrain them. 

Also, keep in mind that wasps are carnivores. They are hunting for caterpillars or other arthropods. When they visit flowers they are looking for a little nectar to fuel their search for something to eat. While preoccupied in that search they won’t bother you. So don’t hesitate to get your face up close to the flowers to see what is really going on.  

 

Of course, if you have an allergic reaction to bee or wasp stings don’t expose yourself to any risk, no matter how small.

 

Why are bees so good at pollination?

Bees are covered in bristles and those bristles are branched. This makes them much more effective in gathering pollen all over their body. They are so effective that plant breeders often use the thoraxes of dead honey bees to cross polinate their plants. If bee thoraxes aren’t available cotton swabs can be used, but they’re not as good.

 

Fiery Skipper on Vervain Notice how the wings are held a different angles.

Ocola Skipper on Vervain The hind wings are held horizontally, the front wings almost vertically.

Are skippers butterflies?

The short answer to this question is: skippers are a type of butterfly. Butterflies fly diring the day, have club-shaped antennae, generally hold their wings together over their back when at rest, have small bodies in comparison to the size of their wings. 

Skippers fly during the day, have club-shaped antennae, but the club ends with a pointed hook, generally hold their hind wings horizontally and their front wings slightly open, have large, fuzzy bodies in comparison to the size of their wings. The question is really about are they different enough to merit a status equivalent to that of the butterflies. At one time the skippers were classified in the superfamily Hesperiodea and the butterflies in the superfamily Papilionoidea. More redent classification puts the skippers in the superfamily Papilionoidea along with the other butterlies. It really amounts to expanding what was formerly considered a butterfly to include the skippers. Is a compact car a sedan or a SUV?   

 

QUESTIONS ABOUT BUTTERFLIES

How do male Tiger Swallowtails differ from females? 

Females
tend to be larger than males. The upper side of the hind wings has a
black border in both males and females, but in females, this border is
also heavily dusted with blue scales. (see photographs)

Male Tiger Swallowtail The outer edge of the hind wings has a black border.

Female Tiger Swallowtail The black border of the hing wings has prominent blue markings.

Why are some Tiger Swallowtails largely black? 

A Tiger Swallowtail with the yellow regions of the wings replaced by dark melanin pigment. The border of the hind wings has blue markings, so it is a female.

The dark form of the Tiger Swallowtail is due to the production of a pigment called melanin in all the wing scales that would normally be yellow. This pigment is the same as that produced by your own skin cells when exposed to sunlight. The melanistic color pattern is only found in some females. All the males sport the yellow and black tiger pattern, while females can be either melanic or yellow and black. The melanic coloration is controlled by a single gene that is expressed only in females. Males can carry this gene, but it will not be expressed. The percentage of melanistic females in a population varies from zero to > 75%. The highest number of melanic females are found in areas where another dark-colored butterfly, the Pipevine Swallowtail, is also common. In areas where the Pipevine Swallowtail is less common there are fewer melanistic Tiger Swallowtails. In the northern states the Pipevine does not occur and all the Tiger Swallowtails are black and yellow..

How does the presence or absence of Pipevine Swallowtails affect how common melanistic Tiger Swallowtails are? 

Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars feed on plants in the Pipevine family Aristolochiaceae. These plants contain a very toxic substance, aristolochic acid, that the Pipevine caterpillar stores in its body. The toxic substance is transferred to the adult butterfly during metamorphosis, making the adult butterfly both distasteful and toxic. (This is like the Monarch butterfly, but the toxic material is different.) When naïve birds are offered a Pipevine Swallowtail to eat they swallow the butterfly and then immediately retch and vomit it up. This single experience is enough to keep a bird from eating another one, or any butterfly that resembles a Pipevine Swallowtail. (Naive birds will eat a melanic Tiger Swallowtail, but not after first eating a Pipevine Swallowtail. 

 

This similarity is an example of a type of mimicry – where a harmless or edible species gains protection from predators by resembling a distasteful or poisonous species. It is called Batesian mimicry, named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates who discovered it. A Batesian mimic resembles a model species that is either poisonous or distasteful or dangerous. The Batesian mimic is neither poisonous, distasteful, nor dangerous.

There is a second type of mimicry in which two or more species that are poisonous, distasteful  or dangerous resemble each other. For example, many bees are similarly colored black and yellow. This common pattern of stinging insects represent a group of insects that share painful stings and black and yellow markings. A potential predator learns from experience not to mess with an insect that resembles a yellow jacket. This kind of mimicry is named for a German naturalist: Fritz Muller – Mullerian mimicry.

 

The important thing to remember about either Batesian or Mullerian mimicry is that learning is the important factor. The predator must learn to associate a pattern with  an unpleasant outcome and then remember the association. This is especially important in Batesian mimicry. If the model becomes less common than the mimic then predators will encounter the mimic more often and may not learn to avoid species with the warning pattern. With Mullerian mimicry most of the encounters will be negative and more readily learned to avoid.

 

Why aren’t all the female Tiger Swallowtails melanistic? Male Tiger Swallowtails seem to prefer to mate with the yellow and black females. (This was determined by counting the number of sperm packages in the female reproductive tract. The yellow and black females contain more sperm packages than melanistic females.) If male mating preference were the only factor, the melanistic form would eventually disappear. This is seen in the northern areas of the United States and Canada where there are no Pipevine Swallowtails. There the females are all yellow and black. But, as you move further south, in areas where Pipevine Swallowtails live, the melanistic form becomes more common. This suggests that the darker female picks up a survival advantage that compensates for her lower frequency of mating. 

 

Why don’t other butterflies mimic the Pipevine Swallowtail? The short answer is that they do! In the southern US there is a mimicry complex in which a half dozen species of butterflies, including non-swallowtails, mimic the Pipevine Swallowtail. 

 

What does it take to mimic the Pipevine Swallowtail? 

Viewed from above, the Pipevine Swallowtail is black with metallic blue hind wings. The actual color of the hind wings depends on your viewing angle. The color is structural, like the colors on a DVD or CD, rather than due to a pigment. From some angles the hind wings will appear metallic green; from others, they are blue and, from still others, black. Metallic bluish green is probably the best description. The pattern of the proposed mimics is: black or dark brown front and hind wings, hind wing margin with prominent blue color. Look at the following photos and see if you would be fooled! Remember, you don’t get to study the pictures, just glance at them.

Pipevine Swallowtail The metallic blue color is structural, not a pigment. (By Renee from Las Vegas, USA (Pipevine Swallowtail) [CC BY 2.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

 

The proposed mimics of the Pipevine Swallowtail found in our area are:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Melanistic female

1)     Eastern Tiger Swallowtail melanistic female; black above with blue crescents on the margin of the hind wings. (See photo elsewhere in this post.)

Black Swallowtail female Kenneth Dwain Harrelson [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

 2)     Black Swallowtail female; mostly black above with blue crescents on the margin of the hind wings. The male Black Swallowtail lacks the blue crescents and the yellow spots on all the wings are larger.

Spicebush Swallowtail female By Meganmccarty [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

3)     Spicebush Swallowtail; dark above, hind wings with greenish (male) or bluish (female) color.
 

Red-spotted Purple

4)     Red-spotted Purple; both sexes dark above and with blue border on hind wings.

 

The Batesian mimicry hypothesis has been tested with some of the above species. Florida Scrub Jays that had never seen a Pipevine Swallowtail attacked and swallowed the first one offered. They immediately retched and regurgitated the butterflies. When subsequently offered the melanistic female tiger swallowtails, spicebush swallowtails or black swallowtails, they declined to eat them. Other captive birds that had, presumably, already experienced pipevine swallowtails prior to being captured, also did not eat the offered species.
 

SUMMARY
OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Goldenrod     Solidago sp. 

Joe
Pye Weed, native and ‘Little Joe’   Eutrochium
fistulosum

Swamp
Milkweed     Asclepias incarnata

Monarch
Butterfly (adult and caterpillar)     Danaus
plexippus

Oleander
aphid     Aphis nerii

Large
Milkweed Bug     Oncopeltus fasciatus

Sweetbay
Magnolia     Magnolia virginiana

Wild
Bergamot     Monarda fistulosa

Purple
Coneflower     Echinacea purpurea

Eastern
Carpenter Bee     Xylocopa virginica

Tadpoles     ????

Venus
Flytrap     Dionaea muscipula

Horsetail     Equisetum hyemale

White-topped
Sedge     Rhynchospora colorata

Colocasia
‘Blackwater     Colocasia sp.

Eastern
Cottontail rabbit     Sylvilagus
floridanus

Eastern
Gray Squirrel     Sciurus carolinensis

Lemon
Basil     Ocimum × africanum

Common
Eastern Bumblebee     Bombus impatiens

Western
Honeybee     Apis mellifera

Ocola
Skipper     Panoquina ocola

Red
Cockscomb     Celosia argentea

Dark
Paper Wasp     Polistes fuscatus

Eastern
Tiger Swallowtail butterfly     Papilio
glaucus

Red-spotted
Purple     Limenitis
arthemis astyanax

Fiery Skipper            Hylephila phyleus

Hydrangea
bush     Hydrangea sp.

Great
Black Wasp     Sphex pensylvanicus

Carolina
Anole     Anolis caroliniensis

Bristle
(tachinid) Fly     Juriniopsis adusta

Luffa Gourd                  Luffa sp.

Long
Handled Dipper Gourd     Lagenaria
siceraria

Tobacco
    Nicotiana tabacum

American
Bird Grasshopper     Schistocerca
americana

Cotton
    Gossypium sp.

Skink     Plestiodon, probably P. fasciatus

Leader for today’s Ramble: Dale

This report written by Linda (plants) & Dale

Link to Don’s Facebook album for this Ramble

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=don.hunter.56&set=a.4921358374547355

Number of Ramblers today:  19

Today’s emphasis: Seeking what we find on the Purple Trail, Beaver Marsh and Orange Trail.

Reading:  Dale read Uncle Jotham’s Border by Annie Trumbull Slosson (b. 1838, d. 1926), the ninth of ten children. She was self-educated in botany and entomology and gained recognition among entomologists for her extensive collections in little-known areas of New England. She was also a popular author of books of short stories. She was also a member of all the entomological societies in the New York City region.

The full text of the poem can be found here.

Here is a short synopsis of her entomological contributions.

Show and Tell:

 Eve brought a beautiful Green June Bug and passed it around.

Dorsal view of Green June Bug (In spite of its name, it’s really a scarab beetle.)

Ventral view of the same beetle showing the iridescent structural color.

The Green June Bug can be a problem pest in large numbers. They will eat fruits and leaves of a variety of plants and their larvae feed on grass roots. But they are very pretty!

Announcements/Interesting Things to Note:

Jim told us about tying a thread around the hind leg of a Green June Bug when he was a kid. He would walk it around, holding the thread as it flew around his head.

Here’s a link to an article about Monarch butterflies using medicine from dead Boneset leaves.

 

Today’s Route: We walked through the Conservatory and through the Herb and Physic Garden to the Purple Trail, which we took to the boardwalk across the Beaver Marsh.  We turned left on the Orange Trail and then left at the bridge across the creek and followed the path to the Flower Garden. We followed the walkway along the edge of the Flower Garden to the Heritage Garden

 

OBSERVATIONS:

 

Aerial roots on grape vine

Aerial roots on Muscadine vine, 2019 Ramble.

Aerial roots on Muscadine vine, today’s Ramble

 

Plant structures that appear where they don’t belong are called adventitious. There doesn’t seem to be a well supported explanation for the appearance of these adventitious aerial roots in grape vines. Most of the “explanations” are really guesses: “Perhaps the vine was damaged by freezing during the winter.”

Even if we don’t really know why they appear it will be interesting to see if any are able to reach the ground below.

 

Cranefly Orchids are blooming.

Cranefly Orchid

Crane-fly Orchids are flowering along the Purple
Trail. A close look at the flowers reveals that they are slightly twisted
either to the right or left. The flowers are pollinated by noctuid moths that
probe the flowers for nectar and, in the process, bring their eyes into contact
with a sticky packet of pollen (called a pollinia). The packet sticks to either
the left or right eye of the moth, depending on which way the flower is
twisted, and is carried to another flower and deposited during nectar-probing
on the stigma of that flower. This type of pollination is “all
or nothing” – instead of producing lots of loose pollen grains that may be
picked up by several different visiting insects, all the pollen is packed
inside the pollinia and is carried all together to another flower – or not.
This may seem like a risky pollination strategy but the orchid family is the
second largest plant family, so they must be doing something right.

 

Persimmon tree

 

“Hugh’s” Persimmon tree

Hugh and Carol Nourse were the original leaders of the Nature Ramblers back in 2012. Any time we walked down the Purple Trail Hugh would point out this lone Persimmon tree and tell us that it was a male tree because no one had ever found any fruit under it. (But of all the times I went down the Purple Trail no one ever volunteered to look for fruit.) Hugh and Carol moved to St. Louis early in 2016, but we can’t pass this tree without thinking of them.

Puffballs

Puffballs on rotting wood

Puffball caught in the act. The “smoke” is a cloud of spores emitted when the center puffball was tapped.

 

Puffballs are an unusual type of mushroom. The spore producing tissues are not directly exposed to the atmosphere. Instead they are enclosed in a spherical capsule with a single, central opening. Other mushrooms drop their spores from gills on the underside of their caps, or from pores in a spongy cap. The puffballs wait until their spores are ripe and then a single, small opening appears in the center of the dome. And then the puffball waits for rain or a curious Rambler. Just a light touch on the dome expels millions of spores through the opening. In the absence of curious humans, a raindrop will do the job. 

Puffballs come in a variety of sizes and shapes. When they are immature they are usually solid and white and it is at that stage they are edible. But be careful — the early stages of the deadly poisonous Amanita mushrooms resemble newly emerged puffballs.

 

Southern Grape Fern

 

Southern Grape Fern with fertile frond

Southern Grape Fern and Rattlesnake Fern are sometimes confused as both have fertile fronds that are separate from non-fertile fronds. The fertile frond arises near the ground in the Southern Grape Fern. It arises from the base of the leaves in the Rattlesnake Fern.

Boardwalk over Beaver Marsh

Boardwalk over the Beaver Marsh

The Boardwalk was part of a project to re-route the Orange Trail to avoid the badly eroding sections that were becoming a danger to walkers/runners. It gives us access to the plants that we could never safely reach before.

Water Hemlock

Water Hemlock with Great Black Digger Wasp

Water Hemlock has been called the most toxic
plant in North America. For livestock who browse this plant, death is
nearly instantaneous. For humans, convulsions and vomiting are followed
by death – or life with a permanently damaged
central nervous system. The toxic ingredient is called cicutoxin and is
present in all parts of the plant at all seasons of the year, but is
concentrated in the root. There is no antidote for cicutoxin poisoning,
only palliative care. This plant ain’t fooling
around!

 

Water Hemlock, a native of North America, looks almost identical to Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum),
a native of Eurasia. Poison Hemlock is equally poisonous to both humans
and livestock, and is probably the plant used to execute
Socrates in 399 BC. Both Water Hemlock and Poison Hemlock occur in
wetlands throughout Georgia.

 

Many important culinary herbs – coriander (aka
cilantro), dill, fennel, cumin, parsley, and caraway, and anise — are
in the same family as these poisonous plants. As are carrots, parsnips,
and celery. All share a family resemblance:
highly dissected leaves and small white flowers held in showy,
umbrella-shaped clusters. One wonders how many people died on the way to
sorting out which members of this family are edible.

 

Duck Potato/Arrowhead

Leaves of Duck Potato/Arrowhead

Spots on Duck Potato leaves. What are they?

White spots enlarged. Are they Scale Insects?

 

The most conspicuous plant in the Beaver Marsh is the Duck Potato or Arrowhead. The second common name, Arrowhead, is obvious — it refers to the shape of the leaves. Duck Potato is  a little more obscure. It refers to the edible tubers at the bottom of the stems. These are apparently edible both raw and cooked. Wildlife (muskrats, beavers, wading birds and ducks) eat both the tubers and seeds of the plant.

Some of the plants we looked at were covered with white spots. On closer examination it looked as if each spot was raised on the surface of the leaf, not a part of the leaf. This suggested to me that they might be scale insects.

Scale insects are strange creatures. The larval stages are mobile — they crawl around like ordinary insects. But, for females, the molt in the last stage is to an immobile, eyeless, legless creature that secretes a waxy cover. She retains her mouthparts to suck juices out of the plant she is on. There are no males in many scale insects; the females reproduce parthenogenetically.

 

Arrow Arum

Arrow Arum

Arrow Arum, showing the marginal vein.

Is it Arrow-arum or Duck Potato? 

Two species with similar leaves grow in the beaver
marsh: Arrow-arum and Duck Potato. Both have arrowhead-shaped leaves,
but very different flowers. To distinguish them when not in flower (most
of the growing season), look closely at the
leaf venation. Arrow-arum leaves have a prominent central vein and
lateral (side) veins that parallel each other. There is also a barely
perceptible vein that runs close to and parallel with the leaf margin.
Duck Potato leaves lack this marginal vein, and
its lateral veins originate from a central point at the junction of the
leaf blade and stalk. Arrow-arum leaves are also glossier and smoother
than those of Duck Potato. If you feel like doing a bit of wild-edible
exploring, you could also dig up the plant:
Duck Potato rhizomes bear small, white, starchy tubers that were an
important food source for Native Americans. Less so for ducks, who
usually can’t dig deep enough to excavate the tubers, though muskrats
can.

 

Image of Duck Potato tubers by Eric Toensmeier CC BY 2.0 https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/sagittaria-latifolia/

Lurid Sedge

Lurid Sedge

Lurid Sedge perigynia

Sedges have edges….and some sedges – those in the genus Carex –
also have small but easily observed, inflated sacs holding their
three-sided seeds. The sacs are called perigynia, i.e. “surrounding the
female parts.” In Lurid Sedge,
the sacs have elongated beaks which may help with seed dispersal.
Waterfowl and other birds eat the seeds. Both the common and scientific
names derive from Latin
luridus “pale yellow, ghastly, the color of bruises,” which seems a bit harsh for one of the prettiest sedges.

 

American Lopseed

American Lopseed

During the summer, the Piedmont forest floor is a
dark and quiet place. Very few wildflowers are in bloom in July in the
forest understory – there is simply too little light penetrating the
canopy to sustain most plant species, perhaps
as little as 5% of ambient sunlight. One species that does flourish in
the shade, in its own inconspicuous way, is American Lopseed. An herb 1 –
3 feet tall, Lopseed flowers are held in a narrow spike at the top of
the plant; once they are pollinated the flowers
“lop” or fold down against the stem and begin to develop fruits. With
its opposite leaves, angled stem, and two-lipped flowers, Lopseed
resembles plants in the mint family. But there are no mint family plants
in our area that hold their spent flowers and fruits
in such a peculiar fashion. Lopseed has adapted to living in a low
light environment in several ways. Its leaves are thin and wide, and the
leaf pairs are held at right angles to adjacent pairs to prevent
overlapping and shading each other. Also, the uppermost
leaves are smaller than the lower. Lopseed is aided in its efforts to
obtain sunlight by a surprising source: sunflecks. These are merely
flashes of sunlight that make it through the overlying tree canopy and
rest briefly on leaf surfaces. Studies have shown
that sunflecks account for up to 80% of the sunlight reaching the
forest floor and significantly increase photosynthesis in understory
plants.

 

Carolina Milkvine

Carolina Milkvine fruit

Carolina Milkvine is one of two species of milkvines found at the
Garden. A large population occurs in the Nash Prairie and several
populations are found throughout the forest. Its deep maroon flowers are
pollinated by flies and beetles
and produce spiny, cucumber-like pods. Although they produce a milky
latex like milkweeds, the milkvines are not known to support Monarch
caterpillars.

Mushrooms

The underside of the cap of a mushroon, showing the gills that produce spores.

 

Underside of bolete mushroom caps, showing the pores. Spores are produced from these tubes.

 

Mushroom parts
A mushroom has two basic parts: a mycelium and a fruiting body. (Most people refer to the fruiting body as the mushroom, but mushroom = mycelium + fruiting body.) The mycelium is by far the largest part. The mycelium and the fruiting body are both made of long, threadlike cells. The mycelium is the underground part and it is the part of the fungus that decomposes the wood or leaf litter it is growing in. This makes it analogous to the root system of a plant.

Fungal life styles
There are three fungal (mushroom) life styles: saprobic, parasitic and mycorrhizal.
Saprobic mushrooms get the energy they need by decomposing dead organic material. They do this by secreting digestive enzymes into their environment and absorbing the resulting material. It’s the same process that happens in our digestive tract, but the products of digestion remain enclosed in our digestive organs. The products of mycelial digestion are absorbed by the mycelium.
(Saprobic was formerly called saprophytic, which literally means a decomposer plant. This was when fungi were still believed to be plants. We now know that no plants are decomposers and those that were thought to be are really tapping into an existing mycorrhizal connection.
Parasitic fungi acquire their energy by decomposing living material. Some mushrooms grow on the living parts of trees and may eventually kill the tree. In that case they become saprobic.
Mycorrhizal fungi have a mutualistic relationship with the roots of plants. (Mycorrhizal literally means: fungus-root.) The fungus is more efficient than the plant roots in finding water or mineral nutrients that contain nitrogen or phosphorus. In return the plant shares some of its photosynthetically produced carbohydrate (sugar). To do this the fungal partner’s mycelium is intimately wrapped about the finer parts of the root system.

Is a mushroom a flower?
What we call a mushroom fruiting body is analogous to a flower. The purpose of a flower is sexual reproduction. The function of a flower is to produce seeds. Similarly, the purpose of a mushroom is to produce spores. 

 

Are mycelia just fungal roots?
The mycelium performs the same function as the roots of a plant: it transports water and dissolved minerals throughout the mycelium and the fruiting body. But it also does something else that the roots of a flowering plant don’t: it makes carbohydrates (CHO). The mycelium secretes digestive enzymes that break down the complex CHO in decaying leaves and wood. The simpler sugars that are released in this process are then absorbed by the mycelial threads and used as a source of energy to make more mycelium and, when the time comes, the fruiting body. (Note that the origin of this absorbed CHO is ultimately from the photosynthetic products of formerly living plants.)

Topsy-turvy sex
A plant produces a flower and waits for a bee to bring some pollen to make a seed.
A fungal mycelium fuses with another mycelium of the same species and then waits for the right conditions to make a fruiting body and produce spores. But not any old mycelium will do – it has to be a different sex.
There is nothing like easily recognizable male and female fungi, and a fungus doesn’t mate with just any other fungus. Fungal sexes are separated into what are called “mating types.” In order to produce a fruiting body (a mushroom) a mycelium must fuse with the mycelium of a different mating type. To humans the mating types are not visibly different. They can be determined in the laboratory by whether or not two mycelia will fuse if grown in the same petri dish. If they can’t, they are the same mating type. If they can, they were different mating types and the fused portions will go on to produce a fruiting body. The catch is that there are more than just two mating types.
A Harvard mycologist discovered multiple mating types in the common Split gill fungus, He eventually discovered that there were two genes that determined the mating type, call them A and B. Each gene had many different versions (A1, A2, . . . An; B1, B2 ,. . . Bm). Any one mushroom carried just one of the A genes and just one of the B genes. He found that two mycelia would mate only if both their A and B genes were different. If even one of the two genes was the same no myceluim fusion would take place. He calculated that, worldwide, there were probably at least 20,000 different mating types in the Split-gill fungus.

 

Mushroom sex differs in other ways from that seen in plants and animals. In plants and animals when egg and sperm come together their nuclei fuse to produce a single cell. That cell has a single nucleus that contains the chromosomes (and genes) of both parents. Fungi delay the nuclear fusion. Instead, when two mycelia of different mating types fuse their respective nuclei intermingle in a common cytoplasm. (The fungal cytoplasm is not clearly divided into separate cells like that of a plant or animal. Instead, it is a single cytoplasm within which the nuclei can move about more or less freely. So after the two mating types have joined their mycelia the fungal cytoplasm contains two genetically distinct nuclei. In other words, mycelial fusion is not the same as egg and sperm fusion. It does not result in a single cell with a single nucleus combining the genetic material of both parents. Instead, it results in a cytoplasm in which two genetically distinct nuclei coexist — a special kind of “hybrid” called a dikaryon. (The di- means two; -karyon is a Greek word that refers to the nucleus; thus, a dikaryon is an organism with two different nuclei in its cytoplasm.)
 

The dikaryon mycelium can continue to grow and when the conditions are right it will produce a fruiting body. Within the tissues of the fruiting body are specialized cells, called basidia, that will produce spores. Each basidium has two separate nuclei, one of each mating type. When ready to produce spores, the two nuclei fuse and then undergo the same type of division that human egg or sperm precursor cells do, called meiosis. This type of cell division reduces the amount of genetic material by half in each resulting cell. The cells produced by this type of division become spores and are released from the gills of the mushroom by the billions, to drift away on the gentlest of breezes. Those few that land in suitable places will germinate to form a new mycelium that combines the genetic makeup of both parents. Some spores will be the same mating type as their parents, and some will have a new combination of mating type genes.
 

So, when did sexual reproduction occur in this fungus? When the two mycelia fused to form a dikaryon? When the dikaryon “decided” to produce a fruiting body? When the two nuclei inside each basidium fused? Or when that basidial cell divided by meiosis to produce four spores?

 

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Grape                                         Vitis rotundifolia

American
Caesar mushroom     Amanita jacksonii 

Cranefly
Orchid                         Tipularia discolor

Sweetbread
Mushroom             Clitopilus prunulus

Persimmon
Tree                        Diospyros virginiana

Amanita
Mold                            Hypomyces hyalinus

Bolete
mushroom (not IDd)       Boletus sp.

Ornate-stalked
Bolete               Retiboletus ornatipes

Puffball
mushroom                    Lycoperdon perlatum

Southern
Grape Fern                Botrychium biternatum

Smooth
Chanterelles                Cantharellus
lateritius

Water
Hemlock                        Cicuta maculata

Bumblebee                               Bombus sp.

Great
Black Digger Wasp        Sphex
pensylvanicus

Beautyberry                              Callicarpa ??

Duck
Potato/Arrowhead           Sagittaria
latifolia

Lurid
Sedge                              Carex lurida

Crossvine                                 Capreolata bignonia

Sensitive
Fern                          Onoclea sensibilis

Arrow-Arum                              Peltranda virginica

Jellied
False Coral Fungus      Sebacina
schweinitzii

American
Lopseed                   Phryma leptostachya

Carolina
Milkvine                     Matelea caroliniensis