Leader
for today’s Ramble:
Linda
Authors of today’s
Ramble report: Linda and Don. Comments,
edits, and suggestions for the report can be sent to Linda at Lchafin@uga.edu.
Insect identification: Don Hunter, Dale Hoyt
Fungi identification: 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.
Photos may be enlarged by clicking them with a mouse or tapping on your screen.
Number of Ramblers
today: 24
Today’s emphasis: What’s happening in the Nash Prairie and
adjacent woodlands in late spring – or is it summer already?
It was a
froggy ramble today, starting with scores of tiny toads hopping along the Shade
Garden paths, and ending with this full grown American Toad spotted by
Catherine on the White Trail.
Reading:
Kathy
read “Morning Poem” by Mary Oliver, from Dream Work (1986).
Every
morning
the
world
is
created.
Under
the orange
sticks
of the sun
the
heaped
ashes
of the night
turn
into leaves again
and
fasten themselves to the high branches–
and
the ponds appear
like
black cloth
on
which are painted islands
of
summer lilies.
If
it is your nature
to
be happy
you
will swim away along the soft trails
for
hours, your imagination
alighting
everywhere.
And
if your spirit
carries
within it
the
thorn
that
is heavier than lead–
if
it’s all you can do
to
keep on trudging–
there
is still
somewhere
deep within you
a
beast shouting that the earth
is
exactly what it wanted–
each
pond with its blazing lilies
is
a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every
morning,
whether
or not
you
have ever dared to be happy,
whether
or not
you
have ever dared to pray.
Announcements/Interesting
Things to Note:
 |
| William Bartram |
Roger
C. shared that today is the 250th anniversary of William Bartram’s visit to
this part of the state during his journeys through the Georgia Piedmont. He
stopped at Cherokee Corner, only eight miles east of the Botanical Garden on
Hwy 78, with his party of surveyors, Cherokee Indians, and a rag-tag group of
“hangers on.” Bartram made a side trip to
Carr’s Hill, only about four miles from the Garden and adjacent to Oconee Hills
Cemetery, to view the North Oconee River. At that time, the river was so clear
you could count the fish on the bottom of the river, and stretches of the river
with mica-bearing bedrock would literally glitter in the mid-day sunlight.
Related to that,
Linda announced that the 2023 Bartram Trail Conference will be held in Athens this
year, August 4-5. For more info and to register, click here.
An opportunity for citizen scientists, or folks who just love watching
lightning bugs, is just now opening up – the chance to contribute sightings of
fireflies, i.e. lightning bugs, to a new database that will track their status:the Firefly Atlas. There
are 40(!) species of lightning bugs in Georgia – a hot spot for firefly
diversity – so our participation is important. Another way to help fireflies is
to provide and protect their habitat, including:
Healthy
soil: Fireflies spend most of their time in the soil as larvae, so healthy soil
rich with vegetation and leaf litter is essential for their success.
Moisture:
Ponds, rain gardens, and rotting logs attract fireflies,
providing a place for them to meet and mate.
Avoiding
pesticides: Insecticides, grub killers, and even some fertilizers can kill
fireflies and their larvae.
Minimizing
outdoor lighting: Light pollution discourages fireflies from congregating in an
area. Consider angling your outdoor lights toward the ground, setting timers, or turning them
off completely. Other measures include shielding motion detectors
and restricting light to where it is needed, such as paths and doorways.
The
GA DNR website concludes with this inspiring paragraph: “In fireflies, we have
a world of light that is often overlooked, the beauty of which most of us have only
glimpsed as the faintest glow. This world, first experienced by many of us in
jars, bug catchers, and even our hands, has the potential to take hold of our
curiosity again and reintroduce us to the magic of the outdoors.”
One
rambler (sorry, we forgot to note who!) urged us to visit the Ethnobotanical Garden
at the Georgia Mountain Research and Education Center in Blairsville, GA (two-hour drive from Athens). There was
an open house on June 9, but the garden is open any week day except federal
holidays or days when special educational activities are scheduled – best to call
ahead (706-745-2655).
Hugh
and Carol Nourse, founding members of the Nature Ramblers in 2009, sent an email from St. Louis recommending a new book: “Brave
the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the
Grand Canyon,” by Melissa Sevigny.
Today’s
Route: We left the Children’s Garden arbor and walked
through the Shade Garden, crossed the road, and took the White Trail spur to
the Nash Prairie. We explored the early summer flora in the Nash Prairie, then
moved into the adjacent forest and returned to the Shade Garden on the White
Trail.
OBSERVATIONS:
Don arrived early and got some great photos of insects in the
Children’s Garden.
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|
Daddy Longlegs, able to conceal its body but not its |
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| Winged ant (no ID) exploring a Mountain-mint’s leaves |
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| Broken-backed Bug visiting a Mountain-mint flower |
The ramble began with a stroll through the Shade
Garden….
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| The cultivar ‘Sunburst’ of St. John’s-wort, named for the saint day, June 24, of John the Baptist |
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| Oakleaf Hydrangea was one of the first native plants to make it in the ornamental trade. The showy white sterile flowers attract pollinators (and gardeners) and the tiny, pinkish-tan flowers massed beneath provide nectar and pollen. |
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| Spicebush Swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs on the leaves of all native species in the Laurel family (Lauraceae) including Spicebush and, in this photo, Sassafras. |
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| Eastern Whitelip Snail cruising the bridge across the Rock Wash. The “white lip” is the narrow white line on the left side of the shell. |
This year’s cool, wet spring seems to have fostered a mast year
for Hop Hornbeam and American Beech, both of which are now heavily covered with
fruits in the Bot Garden. Mast years are thought to be a reproductive
strategy called “predator satiation,” whereby trees produce small seed crops
for several years then a bumper crop. The bumper crop overwhelms seed predators
– mice, squirrels, chipmunks, blue jays, wild turkeys, black bears – leaving
some seed to germinate and grow into new trees.
 |
| The fruits (nuts) of American Beech are covered by a spiny husk that discourages predators until the fruits mature and drop off the tree, leaving the husks behind. |
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| Hop Hornbeam fruiting clusters somewhat resemble those of beer-flavoring Hops. The seeds are held inside the pale green sacs that make up the cluster. |
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| Hop Hornbeam fruiting cluster |
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|
Don somehow saw and, even more |
The White Trail spur between the road and the prairie is densely wooded
on its east side and more or less open to the west, and is transitional between the
deep shade of the Shade Garden and the blazing sun of the prairie, sporting species
like Daisy Fleabane and Smooth Spiderwort that tolerate both sun and shade.
 |
| Immature Daisy Fleabane flower heads |
Daisy Fleabane’s golden disk flowers are still
tightly closed and the ray flowers are just expanding. I suspect the ray
flowers are changing from lavender to white as the heads mature.
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| Smooth Spiderwort |
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| Ramblers exploring the Nash Prairie A welcome sign of summer is that Nathan is with us! |
The Nash Prairie flora is
coming into its own as the days lengthen and temperatures rise.
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| Leaf Cutter Bee |
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| Dale spotted the circular cuts that Leaf Cutter Bees made on Redbud leaves |
Dale wrote about Leaf Cutter bees in May 2014: “Leaf cutter bees construct a nest in a broken twig, especially one that has an easily chewed out core of pith. They hollow out the twig by removing the pith and then gather pollen and nectar to make a kind of bee bread that they put in the bottom of the hollow twig. When sufficient bee bread has been prepared the female bee lays an egg and then flies to a tree with the correct texture [smooth and thin] leaves and carefully cuts out a semi-circular piece from its edge. This is taken back to the nest and stuffed into the twig cavity. If there is enough room in the twig a second nest is provisioned in the same manner. When the twig is full of bee offspring she abandons them and seeks out another twig to provision. Leaf Cutter bees are a kind of solitary (non-colonial) bee that are highly efficient pollinators of native plants, better than honey bees. They and other solitary bee species are endangered by habitat loss as well as competition from Honey Bees which are not native to the United States.”
 |
| Sensitive Briar is a sprawling member of the Mimosa subfamily of the Bean Family. Its flowers are tightly packed into showy clusters that attract pollen-gathering bees and flies (there is no nectar). Each flower consists of a tiny greenish-white calyx surrounding a pistil and 8-10 bright pink stamens. There are no petals, but who needs them with stamens like these? |
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| This close-up photo by Jim Conrad from Backyard Nature of a Sensitive Briar flower cluster shows the greenish-white calyxes with their strongly exserted stamens. |
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| The leaves of Sensitive Briar consist of many very small leaflets; when touched the leaflets fold up, discouraging herbivores and exposing the many spines on their stems. |
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| Woodland Coreopsis (or Tickseed) is a harbinger of the many composites that will bloom in the prairie in late summer. |
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| Appalachian Beebalm is just beginning to flower. |
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| Carolina Wild Petunia |
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| Carolina Phlox |
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|
Lance-leaf Loosestrife |
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| The tiny glands that cover the red center of the Loosestrife flower and the stamen filaments secrete oil that specialized bees collect and mix with pollen grains to feed their larvae. These so-called “oil bees” also line their underground nests with the oil as water-proofing. (Click or tap on the photo to enlarge.) |
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| Carolina Horse-nettle |
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| Carolina Milkvine |
This
time of year, I am always excited to explore the upper reaches of the Nash
Prairie – will the Carolina Milkvine be in flower? The answer this week is not
just yes, but YES! I’ve never seen so many flowers on these vines before – they are absolutely
loaded with clusters of these satiny, maroon flowers – gorgeous! If you
didn’t make it to today’s ramble and want to see these flowers, walk north up
the dirt road through the Nash Prairie. Near the top of the ridge,
look left and you will see a small tree, a Sparkleberry, in the midst of the
grasses. Start looking for the sprawling milkvine stems about 20 feet downhill
from the Sparkleberry. You will not be disappointed! (NB: I did not get any
ticks or chiggers today.)
In Georgia, Carolina Milkvine (sometimes called Carolina Spinypod)
is one of seven milkvine species, six in the genus Matelea and one in the
genus Gonolobus. Of these, five are state-listed as rare or endangered.
Carolina Milkvine is not listed, thank goodness, and is found at many sites
around Athens where the soils have basic or circumneutral pH. Only two other milkvines occur in
Clarke and other eastern Piedmont counties: Oldfield Milkvine (Matelea decipiens) and Eastern
Anglepod (Gonolobus suberosa). Carolina
Milkvine is my favorite of the three–the lush maroon flowers are so appealing.Telling milkvines apart is impossible without either fruits or flowers–the leaves are identical.
 |
|
Carolina Milkweed leaf |
Years ago, I was excited to find Carolina Milkvine in the Nash Prairie. As a calciphile (a calcium-loving plant), its presence here supports Dan
Williams’s find of amphibolite, a calcium-rich bedrock, in this part of the Garden. Usually, Carolina
Milkvine grows and even flowers in shady forests, twining up the trunks
of saplings and shrubs. Here in the Nash Prairie, it grows in full sun, sprawling
across the ground and wrapping its vines around grasses or any upright thing it
can get hold of.
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| Near the ridgeline, we stopped to examine a clump of Yucca plants, wondering if they had been more successful at setting fruit than the plants at the Dunson Garden. There were no fruits, alas, but lots of Yucca Plant Bugs. An adult bug is at the top of Don’s photo with two nymphs below. |
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| Happy to escape the building heat, we entered the forest on the west side of the prairie, and turned south onto the White Trail, a trail we’ve walked many times. |
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|
Known as Destroying Angels and Death Caps, species of fungi in the genus Amanita |
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| News-to-us: Cucumber Magnolia along the White Trail! As Don wrote about this tree on his Facebook page, “It’s amazing how you can still find or notice new things along paths you’ve walked for years.” |
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| Leaves of a Cucumber Magnolia crown sprout |
A Brief Word on Southeastern Plant Names and Southeastern
Botanical History…. What’s with
all these “Carolina” plants that we encountered today? Why do so many southeastern
plants have some form of the word “Carolina” in their names? Part of the answer
– the part that concerns their scientific names – lies with the history of early
North American plant exploration. Several of the early “big name” plant
explorers were deeply connected to the Carolinas and named their plant
discoveries for the region where they first encountered them. Mark Catesby published
The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands in 1743.
Andre Michaux created and maintained a botanical garden in Charleston and based
his plant explorations from there. In 1788, Thomas Walter published Flora
Caroliniana, the first North American flora to use the Linnaean system of
classification.
That is a
reasonable explanation for the names that have some form of Carolina in their scientific
name, including several plants we saw today: Carolina Milkvine (Matelea carolinensis),
Carolina Horse-nettle (Solanum carolinense), Carolina Phlox (Phlox
carolina), and Carolina Wild Petunia (Ruellia caroliniensis).
But there are dozens of common names that include the word “Carolina” as a prefix that
have no connection to a “carolina” scientific name (see the very partial list* at
the end of this blog). How did this come about?
The origins
of so many common names are obscure but, in this case, I think the explanation lies
with another historical fact: botanists at the University of North Carolina
dominated the southeastern botanical world during the 20th century.
The near-biblical, 1200-page manual, Vascular Flora of the
Carolinas, was published at UNC in 1968 and functioned as a flora for the entire
southeastern region for 50+ years. (Georgia has never had an equivalent state manual,
nor Alabama; Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia have only recently published
theirs.) Common names in the Carolina manual became the standard though the sources of its common names are not known and are probably legion. North Carolina botanists also published many popular books on
wildflowers during the 20th century and continue to do so (search in
your browser on “north carolina wildflower guides” and start counting), most of them perpetuating names from the Carolina manual. The
current ‘bible’ of technical manuals, Flora of the Southeastern United States (2022),
also comes out of UNC and is the source of most of the scientific and common names
used in this blog. It seems
inevitable that common names, too, would reflect both the remote and recent history
of botanical expertise centered in “the Carolinas.”
OBSERVED SPECIES:
Mountain Mint Pycnanthemum pycnanthemoides
Rattlesnake Master Eryngium yuccifolium
Broken-backed Bug Taylorilygus apicalis
Winged ant Family Formicidae
Northern Flatid Planthopper (nymph) Flatormenis proxima
Daddy Longlegs Family Opiliones
St. John’s-wort Hypericum frondosum ‘Sunburst’
Oak-leaf Hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia
Spicebush Butterfly caterpillar Papilio troilus
Sassafras tree Sassafras albidum
Eastern Whitelip snail (tentative) Neohelix albolabris
Hop Hornbeam Ostrya virginiana
Green Lacewing (egg) Chrysoperla rufilabris
Daisy Fleabane Erigeron strigosus
Smooth Spiderwort Tradescantia ohiensis
Sensitive Briar Mimosa microphylla
Appalachian Beebalm Monarda fistulosa
Woodland Coreopsis (Tickseed) Coreopsis major
Carolina Wild Petunia Ruellia caroliniensis
Eastern Redbud Cercis canadensis
North American Tarnished Plant Bug Lygus lineolaris
Carolina Phlox Phlox carolina
Lance-leaf Loosestrife Steironema lanceolatum synonym: Lysimachia lanceolata
Carolina Milkvine Matelea caroliniensis
Summer Bluet Houstonia longifolia
American Beech Fagus grandifolia
Yucca Yucca filamentosa
Yucca Plant Bug Halticotoma valida
Ebony Spleenwort Asplenium platyneuron
Southern Red Oak Quercus falacata
Sericea Lespedeza Lespedeza cuneata
Amanita fungi Amanita sp.
American Toad Anaxyrus americanus
Cucumber Magnolia Magnolia acuminata
Latte Bracket Trametes lactinea
Trident Maple Acer buergerianum
Florida Betony Stachys floridana
Carolina Horse-nettle Solanum caroliniense
*Some
examples from Flora of the Southeastern U.S. of Carolina common names that do not refer to a scientific name:
Carolina
Bellwort, Uvularia puberula
|
Carolina Carolina Pineland-cress, Warea Carolina Carolina Carolina |
Carolina
Buckthorn, Sideroxylon lycioides
Carolina
Chaffhead, Carphephorus tomentosus
Carolina
Green-and-Gold, Chrysogonum repens
Carolina
Holly, Ilex ambigua
Carolina
Jessamine, Gelsemium sempervirens
Carolina
Milkweed, Asclepias cinerea
Carolina
Sweet Pitcherplant, Sarracenia rubra
Carolina
Vervain, Verbena carnea