Ramble Report June 30, 2022 

Leader for today’s Ramble: Heather Larkin

Authors of today’s report: Heather Larkin, Linda Chafin 

Insect identifications: Heather Larkin, Don Hunter

 

Link to Don’s Facebook album for this Ramble. All the photos that appear in this report, unless otherwise credited, were taken by Don Hunter.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.6022574794425702&type=3

 

27 Ramblers today 

 

Announcements:  

Linda announced that several folks responded to her request for Ramble co-leaders. Among those responding are Heather Larkin (insect specialist, naturalist, photographer, computer whiz), Bill Sheehan (fungi, galls, and insects expert), Holly Haworth (certified Appalachian naturalist, environmental journalist, UGA Ph.D. student, and more), Catherine Chastain (naturalist, veteran rambler), and Gary Crider (veteran rambler, invasive plant specialist). We are so happy to have this talented group of leaders! We met after today’s ramble and sorted out a leader calendar till the end of 2022, but new leaders are welcomed to step forward at any time!

 

Welcome to Heather on her first ramble as an official leader!

Today’s emphasis: Pollinators in the Front Plaza, Museum Pollinator Beds, Herb and Physic Gardens, and Heritage Garden

 

Reading:

Bob presented his recent poem, “To Be In England”
http://bobambrosejr-poetry.blogspot.com/2022/06/to-be-in-england.html

To Be in England
for Sarah and Alan, Maggie and Willa

May in the South is a mellow affair –
how I fling open windows and breathe in the night,
how scented air soothes my skin, 

how my house exhales. I let go my grip
and sleep with whispers that drift on the breeze.
I wake to the calls of cardinals and wrens. 

The back deck beckons.
I take my mornings outside
where titmice and phoebes sing through the trees. 

I crumple up my do-list,
place my age on pause, and waste
whole days dreaming. A gentle rhythm 

settles in as new life quickens.
These are the weeks when springtime matures
and I would not leave them lightly. 

But I would fly four thousand miles and more –

To be in England when elderberry blooms,
and dog rose decorates embankments. 

The England of greenswards, copses and hedgerows,
of white lace flowering the shoulders of roads 

that carry me back to my daughter’s home
to slip on the role of grandpa again. 

To bask in a baby’s toothless smile
and feel the strength as she squirms for her mum.

To match wits with a cheeky toddler wielding
a mischievous grin. To watch her tussle 

then cuddle with dad. To embed in the bustle,
the banter, the tears, the staccato exuberance 

of playgrounds and parks. To be the old ‘grampa’
rolling a buggy down paths by the willows 

to a bend in the river where cygnets hatch
and hew to the wake of an elegant swan. 

As nights chase days, my weeks slip by – 

One morning I rise, home to gardenia
beginning to brown in the blaze of a summer
come too soon where I find myself just
another elder again wandering the aisles
of Kroger foraging for what I forgot.
 

*******

Show and Tell: 

 

Gary brought several specimens of the Class 1 invasive, Chinese Tallow Tree (AKA Popcorn Plant or Florida Aspen) from the Greenway. Native to tropical and subtropical Asia, it has been designated by The Nature Conservancy as “one of the ten worst alien plant invaders in the U.S.” Its destructive spread has been largely confined to lowland areas along the Gulf coast as far west as Texas and to barriers islands of Georgia and South Carolina. It is dismaying to find it as far inland as Athens; Kathy said it is present in great numbers at Heritage Park in Oconee County. It has undoubtedly spread from nearby planted trees; a quick search for this species on the internet finds that it is still for sale from a number of vendors.

Chinese Tallow Tree

Today’s Route:   We left the Children’s Garden arbor and headed to the flower beds in the plaza in front of the Visitor Center and around the Porcelain and Decorative Arts Museum. We then made our way to the Herb and Physic Garden and the Heritage Garden before returning to the Visitor Center’s Garden Room for the social hour.

Mexican Sunflowers are often planted in the beds outside the Visitor Center. It’s native to Mexico and Central America, and its flower heads are always busy with pollinators. In addition to the insects photographed below, we have seen butterflies, hummingbirds, and carpenter bees visit their flowers. This tall annual plant has velvety stems and more of less triangular leaves with winged leaf stalks.

Virginia Giant Hoverfly visiting the disk flowers in a Mexican Sunflower head Hoverflies are bee mimics, but you can always tell them apart from bees by the antennae. Bee antennae come out of the top of their heads, fly antennae come out of their foreheads right between their big giant eyes. There seem to be quite a lot of fly “wannabees” and this link will tell you more.

Fiery Skipper

Common Eastern Bumble Bee

North American Tarnished Plant Bug

Red Salvia is a bee magnet — today we saw both Eastern Carpenter Bees and Western Honey Bees visiting its flowers. Both species were “nectar robbing,” a term that describes how larger bees get nectar from smaller tubular flowers like those of Salvia. Smaller bees and butterflies insert their heads into the natural opening at the front of the flower to reach the nectar; in the process, pollen is rubbed onto their heads that is (hopefully) deposited in the next flower they visit. Large bees, like Carpenter Bees, whose heads will not fit into the natural flower opening, have learned to access nectar by chewing a hole in the base of the flower and extracting nectar through that opening. Bypassing the regular pollination route means the “nectar robbers” are not pollinating the plant.

Eastern Carpenter Bee nectar robbing from a Red Salvia flower

Honeybee tongues are too short to access nectar through the front of the flower and they also lack the mouth parts to chew into the flower, but they have learned to find and use the openings made by Carpenter Bees, demonstrating that bees can learn to access a nectar source that would not otherwise be available to them.

 

 

Common Eastern Bumble Bee on ‘Little Joe’ flower heads.

 

Georgia is home to three species of Joe-Pye-Weed (Eutrochium spp.) including Three-nerved Joe-Pye-Weed, a plant of Coastal Plain wetlands; our other two species are largely mountain plants. ‘Little Joe’ is a cultivar of Three-nerved Joe-Pye-Weed, and is a big hit with gardeners and pollinators. Today we saw Common Eastern Bumble Bees and Large Milkweed Bugs visiting its flower heads.

Swamp Milkweed flowers

An abundance of Swamp Milkweed was planted in the new beds behind the Porcelain and Decorative Arts Museum. Like other milkweeds, this species is a host plant for Monarch butterflies (though we did not see any caterpillars or adults today). It is also visited
by Milkweed Bugs (which are true bugs) that feed on milkweeds by
piercing the stems, leaves, and fruits and sucking the toxic sap. The
toxins are incorporated into their tissues, and their orange and black
coloration, being similar to Monarchs, are warning colors that let
predators know they taste terrible. The bugs are not usually detrimental
to the milkweed plant; efforts to eradicate them may also have a
negative impact on Monarchs.

Milkweed Bug adults with nymphs in several different instar stages

Milkweed Bug adult

Milkweeds have a very special pollination method. They rely on a series of events that is accidental! First the insect has to put its foot INTO a narrow slit in the center of the flower. Then the flower deposits a sac of pollen onto the foot and sticks it there firmly. Then the insect has to get its foot OUT, which is not always easy. In fact, that can sometimes prove impossible and the insect tears its leg off or dies because it can’t get away. For those that DO get away, they bring that sac of pollen with them to the next flower. Then that same foot has to fall into the slit in the plant AGAIN to deposit the pollen in the new plant’s flower. Quite a convoluted process that seems to work for these plants, since they’re super prolific! In the photo below, the arrow points to the tiny slit where the insect’s leg must go.Good link for further reading about this “series of fortunate events”: https://prairieecologist.com/2021/01/26/milkweed-pollination-a-series-of-fortunate-events/

Oleander Aphid infestation on Swamp Milkweed

Blackberry Lilies are actually an Iris!

The Herb and Physic Garden and Heritage Garden were buzzing with bees….and wasps and hornets and a Fiery Skipper or two.

Common Eastern Bumblebee on Purple Coneflower. Bumblebees are easy to distinguish from Carpenter Bees: Bumbles are smaller, and they have fuzzy butts. Carpenters are larger, and they have shiny, smooth butts.

Common Eastern Bumblebee on Clasping Heliotrope

European Hornet attacking and capturing a Western Honey Bee. European Hornets don’t collect nectar at all. They prey on other insects, honey bees being a primary target. They will follow honey bees back to the nest and invade, sometimes killing the whole colony. They also attack and eat other insects such as  grasshoppers, flies, and yellow jackets.

Fraternal Potter Wasp on Fennel flowers. Potter wasps sting and paralyze caterpillars and cart them off to small mud ‘pots,’ laying eggs on them. The eggs hatch out and the larvae eat the live, paralyzed  caterpillars before becoming adult wasps.

Tiny Black Swallowtail caterpillars feeding on Fennel stalks. Black Swallowtail caterpillars have a unique defense mechanism. If picked up, they extend yellow appendages from their heads, bend over backwards, and rub these all over the predator. It totally stinks (and will last through several hand washings). If that’s not enough, the caterpillar will barf its last meal all over the predator! Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sA2Y-jNqI4&ab_channel=BugoftheWeek

Western Honeybee nectaring on Oregano flowers

Yellow Bedstraw or Lady’s Bedstraw. Yellow Bedstraw was used in the Middle Ages to stuff mattresses because its odor repels fleas. It was also used to curdle milk to make cheese; the Bedstraw genus name “Galium” has the same root word as “galaxy” — both refer to milk.

Spiny Soldier Bug eggs on a leaf of Yellow Bedstraw. These are a type of stink bug. The nymphs hatch out bright red and then turn brown as they progress to adult stages.

Common European Greenbottle Fly

Asian Long-legged Fly Long-legged flies are predators, eating tiny insects like leaf hoppers, thrips, and mites.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVATIONS:
Mexican Sunflower     Tithonia rotundifolia
Virginia Giant Hoverfly     Milesia virginiensis
Common Eastern Bumble Bee     Bombus impatiens
North American Tarnished Plant Bug     Lygus lineolaris
Fiery Skipper     Hylephila phyleus
Red Salvia     Salvia coccinea
Eastern Carpenter Bee     Xylocopa virginica
Three-nerved Joe-Pye-Weed ‘Little Joe’ cultivar     Eutrochium dubium
Large Milkweed Bug     Oncopeltus fasciatus
Swamp Milkweed     Asclepias incarnata
Scarlet Beebalm     Monarda didyma
Purple Coneflower     Echinacea purpurea
Oleander aphids     Aphis nerii
Lemon Beebalm     Monarda citriodora
Clasping Heliotrope     Heliotropium amplexicaule
Oregano      Origanum vulgare  
Brazilian Vervain     Verbena brasiliensis
Western Honey Bee     Apis mellifera
Silvery Checkerspot     Chlosyne nycteis
European Hornet     Vespa crabro
Blackberry Lily     Iris domestica
Red-shouldered Hawk     Buteo lineatus
Fennel    Foeniculum vulgare
Fraternal Potter Wasp     Eumenes fraternus
Eastern Black Swallowtail (caterpillar)     Papilio polyxenes
Spiny Soldier Bug (eggs)     Podisus maculiventris
Yellow Bedstraw, Ladies’ Bedstraw     Galium verum
Common European Greenbottle Fly     Lucilia sericata
Asian Long-legged Fly     Condylostylus sp.
Green Lacewing (larvae)     Chrysoperla sp.
Fall Webworm Moth (caterpillar)     Hyphantria cunea

Leader for today’s Ramble, Linda Chafin
Today’s emphasis:  Seeking what we find in the Lower Shade Garden and the Dunson Garden.

Don’s Facebook Album contains all the photos he took on today’s ramble. Unless otherwise credited, all the photos that appear here are courtesy of Don Hunter.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.6000650206618161&type=3

21 Ramblers today
Show-and-Tell:

Musclewood fruit

Richard brought the infructescence from a Musclewood tree, resembling that of a Hophornbeam, but more leaflike.

American Basswood fruits

Richard drops in with American Basswood fruits. Gary looks on in amazement.

Richard also brought a number of fruits of an American Basswood. Each cluster of small fruits was suspended by a stalk attached to a leaf-like bract. The bract is shed from the tree and can, in a wind, carry the fruits a considerable distance away from the parent tree.

Spider attacked by Cordydeps fungus

Bill brought a dead spider that had been infected with a Cordycep fungus. The fungus grows throughout the body of the spider, killing it. The fungus then sends out spore producing structures. The fungus causes the infected host to climb to a location like an exposed leaf before it dies. Such places are optimal for the dispersal of spores.
 

Announcements:

• Emily announced a new run on the old style Nature Rambler’s t-shirt (dragonfly design).  She will provide details later.

• Dale announced that he has decided to step down as a Nature Ramble co-leader, handing the reins over to Linda.  She has asked that other Ramblers volunteer to take every other Ramble, including being prepared with a reading.  No requirements other than lead to a favorite area at the Garden, with the understanding that we will have no trouble finding things to look at and talk about.  We will also hopefully have guest leaders pop in from time to time.  There will be a party at a future date to honor Dale and celebrate his contributions to the Nature Ramble group.

Reading:  Sue brought an interesting reading, a completely fortuitous composition created by cutting out a piece of note paper from a page of “printed on one side” text, intending to use the blank side for a grocery list.  She calls it “ng again”

 .

Ng up in the Southern woods right now
How thoroughly invasive plants import
er the surrounding fields and forests.
sing in the branches of Bradford pear
on ivy vines that coil around them, too.
nness.  I can hardly help greeting them
to understand what invasive species
ness.  It’s entirely possible to understa
n this moment of dread and grief and
peeking out from the dead leaves o
icker of happiness that somehow leaps
e very saddest funerals, we can hear
a stagger out of an appointment.

Today’s Route:   We left the Children’s Garden pergola and headed directly down the right-side path into the Lower Shade Garden.  We wound our way through the Shade Garden and eventually entered the Dunson Native Flora Garden on the mulched path beginning at the old commemorative Dunson Native Flora Garden sign.  We walked all of the mulched paths containing ferns before heading4 back up to the Children’s Garden, entering at the comfort station. 

LIST OF OBSERVATIONS:
 

American South Section:

Beebalm, Monarda didyma

Bald Cypress cones

Bald Cypress knees

 
Flower Bridge:

Long-legged Fly, killer of mites

Bottlebrush Buckeye in full bloom

Bottlebrush Buckeye inflorescence closeup

Bottlebrush Buckeye is in full bloom.  The flowers were visited by many insects, including bumble bees and butterflies.  

 
China and Asia Section:

Witch Hazel Spiny Gall

Witch Hazel Spiny Gall opened to show the aphids inside.

The Witch Hazel Spiny Gall aphid has a complex life cycle that involves two alternate host plants and numerous rounds of asexual reproduction on both hosts. Thrown in among this is the asexual production of winged forms that fly to the alternate hosts and reproduce sexually. If you are interested in the details you can find more information at this source.

 https://influentialpoints.com/Gallery/Hamamelistes_spinosus_spiny_witchhazel_gall_aphid.htm

 

Purple Trail:
 

Female (pistillate) Deciduous Holly showing the short shoots.

Deciduous Holly AKA Possumhaw Holly.  All the hollies in the southease are dioecious (male and female flowers are on separate plants).  Hollies also bear leaves on “short shoots.” These are shoots that have extremely short internodes, resulting in clusters of leaves all jammed together.  

Leaf mine on Deciduous Holly

Many insect leaf miners produce a snake-like path as they feed between the upper and lower epidermis of a leaf. This leaf mine lacks a roof and the brown edges suggest that its occupant has departed, leaving the :roof to fall away. The dark mass at the bottom is the accumulated bundle of frass (fecal material).

American Carrion Beetle

Tom found an American Carrion Beetle on the upper surface of a bracket fungus. Carrion beetles are usually flound in the later stages of decay in vertebrates. They feed on the dried skin and flesh of road-killed mammals. This resource suggests that they may be attracted to mushrooms. 

Two Witch’s Brooms at the base of an American Hophornbeam

We normally see Witch’s Broom in the upper reaches of a tree. But maybe we don’t always look for it down low. It’s caused by bacterial or viral infection of the tree. 

 

Conservatory Back Area:

Eastern Cottontail Rabbit

 

SPECIES OBSERVED:
Scarlet Beebalm     Monarda didyma
Mariana Island Lady Fern     Macrothelypteris torresiana
Bald Cypress     Taxodium distichum
Asian Long-legged Fly     Condylostylus longicornis
Bottlebrush Buckeye     Aesculus parviflora
Common Eastern Bumble bee     Bombus impatiens
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail      Papilio glaucus
Red-femured Spotted Orbweaver     Neoscona domiciliorum
Chinese Witch Hazel     Hamamelis mollis
Spiny Witch Hazel Gall aphid     Hamamelistes spinosus
Spined Stilt Bug     Jalysus wickhami
Northern Red Oak     Quercus rubra
Deciduous Holly AKA Possumhaw Holly (male and female)     Ilex decidua
Holly leaf miner (no ID)
American Carrion Beetle     Necrophila americana
American Hophornbeam     Ostrya virginiana
Crossvine     Bignonia capreolata
Eastern Gray Squirrel     Sciurus carolinensis
Eastern Cottontail Rabbit     Sylvilagus floridanus
 

 

Leader for
today’s Ramble: Linda Chafin

Author of
today’s report: Linda Chafin

Fungus and insect identifications: Don Hunter

Link to Don’s Facebook page for this Ramble. All
the photos that appear in this report, unless otherwise credited, were taken by
Don Hunter.

Today’s emphasis:  Ferns in the Lower Shade Garden and Dunson Native Flora Garden

21 Ramblers today
 
Show-and-Tell:  
 
Both Gary and Michael brought in a frond from the same fern species – Kunth’s Maiden Fern – for identification. This is a widely planted ornamental species as well as a common fern of moist, limestone-based lowlands in the Coastal Plain.

Halley brought in a single flower from her Eastern False-aloe plant. Don has been posting a series of photos of the developing flowers on an Eastern False-aloe he  found at one of his Ga Power ROW meadows. Eastern False-aloe is the only agave native to Georgia.

Announcements:  Sandy recommended “The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman, and Linda seconds it. As this review puts it, “This book is a delight… There is another world of intelligence out there, and this is a great introduction to it.”

Some early arriving ramblers were greeted by a Carolina Anole on the split rail fence.

Reading:  Linda read “Turtle” from Kay Ryan’s “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems,” Grove Press, 2010. Here’s a link to the author reading the poem.

 

Turtle

Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
she can ill afford the chances she must take
in rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
a packing case places, and almost any slope
defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
she’s often stuck up to the axle on her way
to something edible. With everything optimal,
she skirts the ditch which would convert
her shell into a serving dish. She lives
below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
the sport of truly chastened things.

 

Today’s Route: We left the Children’s Garden arbor and wound
our way through the Shade Garden and the Dunson
Native Flora Garden, before heading back up to the Children’s
Garden.

Continue reading →

Nature Ramble Report for June 9, 2022 
Leader for today’s Ramble: Dale
Authors of today’s report: Linda and Dale

Link to Don’s Facebook post for this Ramble All the photos that appear in this
report, unless otherwise credited, were taken by Don Hunter.  

20 Ramblers today.

Today’s emphasis:  The Yucca plants in the Dunson Native Flora Garden, wildflowers in the right-of-way, and further discoveries in the Dunson Native Flora Garden.

 

Reading:  Don read from “A Long Island Meadow,” a chapter in Frances Theodora Parsons’ According to Season, published in 1902.
    “The
brilliant coloring which is a feature of this midsummer meadow is
intensified by the insect life which it sustains. Butterflies,
especially, seem to abound. They float over the nodding grasses or poise
quivering above a nectar-laden blossom or rest on some leafy plant, the
dull undersides of their folded wings blending with their surroundings
and diminishing the likelihood of attacks from their enemies.
    Not
only is a butterfly endowed with unusual beauty, but its life-history
is full of charm. Then, too, the very names of butterflies breathe
romance (unlike those of birds and plants, of which “Wilson’s thrush”
and “Clayton’s fern” form fair samples). Who would not yield to the
spell of the Wanderer, the Brown Elfin, the Little Wood Satyr, and the
Dreamy Dusky-wing?  Or who could resist the charm of the Painted Lady,
the Silver-spotted Hesperid, the Tawny Emperor, or the Red Admiral?
    In
the meadow, perhaps, the monarch or milkweed butterfly is one of the
most omnipresent. Indeed, this is probably the best-known butterfly in
the United States, as its broad, orange-red, black-bordered wings carry
it many hundreds of miles and make it conspicuous everywhere. In
addition to being the most widely distributed, it is one of the most
interesting of our butterflies. Its career is an amazing one. How so
fragile a creature can endure the fatigue and resist the storm and
stress incidental to a journey of thousands of miles, such as it is
believed to take when migrating to southern lands, and how such a
“shining mark” escapes destruction from its enemies, it is difficult to
understand. That this annual migration does take place seems fairly well
established. The butterfly is known to have marvelous powers of flight,
and along the coast in fall it has frequently been seen assembling in
flocks numbering hundreds of thousands, changing the color of the trees
on which it alights for the night.”

 
Show-and-Tell: 

Gary brought some filamentous algae he collected from the water feature behind the Porcelain Arts Museum. Looks can be deceiving: the swaying masses of algae in the pool looked slimy but actually have a texture more like cotton candy.

Bill dissected a fresh Oak Apple Gall, exposing the larval Cynipid wasp in the fibrous mass suspended inside the gall. The gall formed when a female Cynipid wasp injected an egg into a vein of a developing leaf, hijacking the process of leaf development. Instead of producing a leaf, the plant responded to the invasion by forming a structure around the egg, both isolating and protecting it. The egg hatches into a larva then a pupa and ultimately into an adult wasp that chews its way out of the gall and takes flight. The gall doesn’t always succeed in protecting its larval resident however; birds such as woodpeckers and chickadees have learned to open galls to reach the snack that is captive inside.

Today’s Route:  We left the
Children’s Garden pergola and took the entrance road to the lower end of
the Dunson Native Flora Garden. We visited the Yucca patch, then the
adjacent right-of-way, and returned to the Children’s Garden by way of
the Dunson Garden and Shade Garden paths.

OBSERVATIONS ON TODAY’S RAMBLE Continue reading →

Leader for today’s Ramble, Linda
Link to Don’s Facebook album for this Ramble. All the photos that appear in this report, unless otherwise credited, were taken by Don Hunter.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=don.hunter.56&set=a.5938741856142330

Number of Ramblers today: 32
 

Today’s emphasis:  Trees (Lower Shade Garden, White Trail Spur and ROW)
 

Reading:  Dale read a passage about Johnny Appleseed from Treepedia:  A Brief Compendium of Arboreal Lore by
Joan Maloof. Roger recounted
how he and Pat recently came across a spring in Pleasant Valley, Ohio, that John Chapman (AKA Johnny Appleseed)
used for water during his wanderings. 

 

Show-and-Tell:

Southern Magnolia flower Stamens have fallen, exposing the dark red base of the receptacle; the golden stigmas are curling away from the ovaries that will comprise the aggregate fruit.

Although native to moist ravines in the Coastal Plain, Southern Magnolia is planted in parks and lawns throughout the south. Its flowering marks the beginning of summer for many southerners. Fossils from the Magnolia family are found in the fossil record as far back as 140 million years ago, making it the earliest flowering plant family to evolve (how we got from ferns and conifers to magnolias is still a multi-million year mystery). The flowers we see today resemble their ancient ancestors in two ways. Unlike most modern flowers, which have separate whorls of colorful petals and green sepals, Magnolia flowers (and other primitive families’ flowers such as Sweet Shrub’s) have undifferentiated “tepals,” a word for petal-like structures that function as both petals and sepals. At the center of the flower, a cone-shaped receptacle holds whorls of stamens at its base with whorls of curled stigmas above. The stigmas are attached to the ovaries that will eventually form an aggregate fruit with many seeds.

Roger brought a branch of Chinquapin in flower. The fuzzy white spikes contain the pollen-producing flowers. The spiny green structures will mature into nuts.

Richard brought some immature Osage Orange fruits festooned with dried, blackened style branches, each attached to one of the ovaries that make up this “multiple fruit”

Richard also brought a small wasp nest that we thought was probably made by Yellowjackets. It was partially enclosed by a fragile paper envelope.

 

Reading:  Dale read from the book “Treepedia:  A Brief Compendium of Arboreal Lore” by Joan Maloof.  The passage was about Johny Appleseed. Roger recounted how he and Pat, two weeks ago, while in Ohio, came across a spring in an area called Pleasant Valley, where John Chapman AKA Johnny Appleseed used to stop for water during his wanderings.

Today’s Route:   We left the Children’s Garden pergola, taking the walkway into the Lower Shade Garden. After several switchbacks, we took the mulched path leading from the Shade Garden and heading towards the Children’s Garden forest play area. We stayed on the White Trail Spur and headed down the hill, eventually walking out into the power line right-of-way. We then took a right and headed up the road, back towards the Visitor Center.

OBSERVATIONS:

 

Today’s tour of trees began with upland species on the slopes above the Middle Oconee River and transitioned to trees adapted to life in the periodically flooded soils of the floodplain.

Black Gum

Black Gum, a tree of uplands, is a difficult tree to identify – its obovate leaves are pretty generic and, until it’s quite old, its bark is not very distinctive. But one trait is very useful: its branches leave the main trunk at a nearly 90 degree angle, making them more or less parallel to the ground. Most trees hold their branches at an acute angle (less than 90 degrees relative to the trunk), seeming to be reaching toward the sun. The placement of branches, and leaves as well, evolved in all plants to maximize the capture of sunlight. In Black Gum, stretching laterally seems to be working just fine.
?

American Beech

American Beech trees are covered now with developing fruits or “beech nuts.” Beech is in the same family as oaks, chestnuts, and chinquapins, and, with some imagination, you can see the similarity of the spiky covering on beech fruits to the rough caps of acorns. Beech leaves are thin-textured, almost papery, and have parallel, evenly spaced lateral veins. Beech trees have only a slim connection to Beech-Nut gum. The company that made Beech-nut gum began life as the Imperial Company making smoked bacon and ham (later expanding into baby food, gum, etc). Deciding that Imperial sounded un-democratic, the original owners changed the name to reflect the beech wood embers over which their meat products was cured.

Northern Red Oak leaf

Northern Red Oak bark with “ski trails”

Northern Red Oaks are common in upland forests throughout the Garden. They are easy to identify by the vertical, white “ski trails” that mark their bark and by the pointed, bristle-tip lobes of their leaves. Northern Red Oaks at the Garden seem especially vulnerable to wind-throw; most of the recently downed trees here are this species. It seems likely that climate change – hotter temperatures, longer droughts, more intense storms – coupled with the shallowness of our topsoils (legacy of 100+ years of cotton agriculture) is responsible for this.
?

Hickory bark

Hickory leaves

A large, old hickory marks the first switchback along the Shade Garden trail. Its bark shows the typical braided or diamond-shaped ridges of most hickory species. This tree may be Pignut Hickory or, more likely, Red Hickory which has shaggier, loose-looking braids. We’d need to see a nut to be certain. Both Pignut and Red Hickories have alternate leaves with five leaflets.
 

Sycamore camo bark

This American Sycamore has the typical “camo” bark found on the mid- to upper trunk of Sycamores. Myrna pointed out that the word “Sycamore” contains the word “camo,” providing us with the best mnemonic of today’s ramble. Sycamores are naturally bottomland trees that nevertheless thrive when planted in uplands.
 

Red Maple branches

Red Maple leaves

Red Maples are among the handful of tree species in the Georgia Piedmont with opposite leaves and branches. Their leaves are distinguished by being both lobed and toothed. (Chalk Maple and Florida Maple leaves are lobed but not toothed and look like small Sugar Maple leaves.) There is something red on a Red Maple in every season of the year:  in winter, it’s twigs and buds; in late winter and early spring, it’s flowers; in spring, the fruits; in summer, petioles; and in fall, the leaves.
 

Chalk Maple leaves

Chalk Maple leaves are lobed but not toothed.

 

Shortleaf or Loblolly pine?

Shortleaf pine bark with resin pits

From a distance it’s hard to distinguish a Shortleaf from a Loblolly Pine, but up close the resin pits (or pitch pockets), resembling tiny moon craters, on the bark plates distinguish the Shortleaf.
 

Black Oak

Black Oak is the hardest of our upland oaks to identify but the consensus seems to be that these leaves – with the glossy green upper surface and the yellowish-green petioles and midveins – came from a Black Oak, courtesy of a squirrel. The inner bark of the twig was yellow, clinching the deal. We did not locate the tree from which it came.
 

Octagonal Casemaker Moth caterpillar inside self-constructed case

On an American Beech leaf Bill Sheehan found an unusual moth larva living in a case of its own making. It is constructed by the caterpillar from its own frass (a polite word for caterpillar poop). The case grows longer and wider as the caterpillar grows.  It is basically a long, hollow eight-sided tube with unconsolidated frass at the largest end. The common name is Octagonal Casemaker Moth. 

 

Nymph of Annual Cicada

Bill also found a living crawling on someone’s shirt. This seems to be too small to be one of the dog-day cicadas that we hear later in the summer. 

 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Jack-in-the-Pulpit is not a tree, but who can complain about going off-mission when a conspicuously tall one is growing right on the trail, with developing fruits and lush, five-leafletted leaves? The question arises: what is a wetland species doing on this high-and-dry upper slope? Maybe it’s not the wet soils that this species requires but the extra nutrients washed downslope to floodplains? And maybe the soil on this slope provides those nutrients?
 

Hop Hornbeam

A positive answer to that last question is suggested by the presence along this trail of a number of Hop Hornbeams, with their “cat-scratched” bark. This species is an indicator of a soil high in the nutrient elements calcium and magnesium.
 

Mockernut Hickory bark Photo courtesy of Janie K. Marlow, Name that Plant, http://www.namethatplant.net/plantdetail.shtml?plant=279

Mockernut Hickory leaves

Mockernut Hickory has the most conspicuously “braided” bark of all our hickories. The tight ridges look more like diamonds or expanded metal than braids to some people. Mockernut is as likely to have seven leaflets as five, and they are very hairy on the lower surface, the leaf stalk, and the rachis (the extension of the leaf stalk that holds the leaflets).
 

Leaving the upland slopes and entering the Middle Oconee River floodplain, we encountered what is probably the most abundant tree along this stretch of the river, 

 

Box Elder leaves

Box Elder (or Ash-leaved Maple). Its leaves have 3, 5, or 7 leaflets; when three, the leaf resembles those of Poison Ivy.
 

Silverbell bark

Silverbell leaves

Common (or Mountain) Silverbell is abundant in the floodplain at the Garden. Its oval leaves are not particularly distinctive but the bark, striped gray and tan, is a good indicator. When the dangling, four-winged fruits are present, you can narrow your choices to this species or Carolina Silverbell, which is mostly found in the Coastal Plain and is rare in the Piedmont.
 

Red Mulberry

Red Mulberry is a beautiful and ecologically important tree of the floodplain subcanopy. Its rough-textured, heart-shaped leaves are distinguished by elongated “drip tips,” so named because they are thought to channel water away from the leaf surface, thus reducing the growth of fungi or other pathogens on the leaf surface. Drip tips are especially noticeable and quite elongated where they occur in the hot, rainy tropics. But recent research is calling this “just so” story into question, so the jury is still out. The berries in this photo are immature and will turn white then reddish- or purplish-black as they mature; they are relished by a variety of birds.
 

Silky Dogwood flowers

Silky Dogwood “elastic veins”

Silky Dogwood flower clusters are quite different from those of the upland Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida), completely lacking the showy white bracts that mark the latter species and attract pollinators to its tiny greenish flowers. Silky Dogwood flowers are larger and form a showy, flat-topped cluster that is plenty attractive to pollinators. Silky Dogwood is found in southern swamps and other wetlands as is Swamp Dogwood (Cornus foemina); they can be distinguished by counting the number of veins on one side of the midvein. Silky Dogwood leaves have 5 or more veins on each side of the midvein; Swamp Dogwood has only 3 or 4. Dogwood veins have an amazing feature: if you gently tear the leaf and carefully part the broken segments, fibrous threads will stretch across the gap. These threads are the vascular tissues that transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. In the Cornus genus, they are especially strong and elastic.
 

 

SPECIES LIST

Common Eastern Bumble Bee     Bombus impatiens
Purple Beautyberry     Callicarpa dichotoma
Southern Magnolia     Magnolia grandiflora
Blackgum       Nyssa sylvatica
American Beech     Fagus grandifolia
Japanese Maple     Acer palmatum
Northern Red Oak     Quercus rubra
Prothonotary Warbler     Protonotaria citrea
Borage species     Family Boraginaceae
Pignut Hickory     Carya glabra
American Sycamore     Platanus occidentalis
White Oak     Quercus alba
Red Maple     Acer rubrum
Shortleaf Pine     Pinus echinata
Octagonal Casemaker Moth (cocoon)     Homoledra octagonella
Black Oak (tentative)     Quercus velutina
Annual cicada     Family Cicadidae
Jack-in-the-Pulpit     Arisaema triphyllum
Hophornbeam     Ostrya virginiana
Mockernut Hickory     Carya tomentosa
Box Elder     Acer negundo
Four-winged Silverbells     Halesia tetraptera
Chalk Maple     Acer leucoderme
Wild Rye     Elymus sp.
North American Tarnished Plant Bug     Lygus lineolaris
Flower weevil     Family Baridinae
Daisy fleabane     Erigeron sp.
Goldenrod gall fly     Eurosta solidaginis
Tulip Tree     Liriodendron tulipifera
Sweetgum Tree     Liquidambar styraciflua
Aaron’s Rod     Thermopsis villosa
Swamp Dogwood     Cornus foemina