Leader
for today’s Ramble: Linda
Authors of today’s Ramble report: Linda. Comments, edits, and suggestions for the report can be
sent to Linda at Lchafin@uga.edu.
Photos in this report were
taken by Jan Coyne, Bill Sheehan, and Don Hunter. Don was out sick but photos
taken by him on earlier rambles are included and credited. Photos may be
enlarged by clicking them with a mouse or tapping on your screen.
Number
of Ramblers today: 35
Today’s emphasis: Flowers,
fruits, butterflies, moths
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| Ramblers entering the Flower Garden photo by Bill Sheehan |
Reading:
“Jurassic
Dreams and Katydids” by Bob Ambrose
There is always a week in early August
stuck in a musty fold of time,
when the world spins in place
and the season teeters on the brink
as every August that ever was
seeps in the marrow of a single day.
I rise in darkness.
Damp air caresses my skin
as I amble down empty streets listening to
crickets.
Furtive songbirds molt in silence.
A doe slips through the shadows of a
streetlamp.
The moon dissolves in a bank of haze.
Morning dawns, gray-laden and soft,
tucked with mushrooms, mold and rot,
laced with dew-spun webs.
The sodden hours slip by, dripping,
yet in the dripping, never dry. But mist
burns off by noon, and midday glares.
As sun beats down on bare pavement,
profane hawks shriek obscenities.
A gang of crows loiters in the treetops.
Oblivious gnats hurl their bodies
at unguarded eyes. The world thrums
with the jet-beat of cicada days.
On a primal August such as this
Griffin flies stretched their foot-long
wings
to hunt Carboniferous swamps.
Red-eyed raptors stalked Jurassic plains,
and monster crocs lay in wait for Cretaceous
prey.
They ruled their own unchanging days.
The western sky blackens. Cool
downdrafts shake the canopy. Limbs crack.
A pack of storms sweeps through.
Out my open bedroom window
a sultry evening settles in. Soon,
I think. Soon enough the season turns.
Soon enough it all moves on. I sleep
with the distant night-song of
dilophosaurus
enveloped by ancient tree-tip strumming –
she did – she didn’t
she
did – she didn’t
she did –
she did – she did
Announcements
Trail Guides are needed
at Sandy Creek Nature Center! No experience required! If you love nature and
are looking for a way to get involved in your community, being a Trail Guide at
Sandy Creek Nature Center is the way to do it. Trail Guides are trained to take
small groups of school-age children on walks along the Nature Center trails as
a part of their field trip experience. As long as you enjoy being outdoors and
sharing nature with others, you’ll be a great fit! The kids love it and you’ll
love it, too. Sign up for a training session today. Dates are August 29, 30, or
31, from 9am-noon. You only need to register for one day. Register online here.
Today’s
Route:
We
left the Children’s Garden arbor and headed for the Flower Garden, with stops
along the way in the Visitor Center Plaza, the Herb & Physic Garden, and
the Heritage Garden. We returned via the paths beside the Rose Garden and
Freedom Plaza.
OBSERVATIONS:
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| Bent Alligator-flag photo by Jan Coyne |
The fountain in the
Visitor Center plaza is crowned by a large and vigourously flowering Bent Alligator-flag. From
its ruby red stems topped with towering flowering stalks to its large lime-green
leaves, this plant is a sight to behold.
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| Bent Alligator-flag’s three-petaled flowers are held on drooping, zig-zag stalks. Photo by Don Hunter |
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| The lower lip of a Bent Alligator-flag flower provides a perfect landing platform for pollinators. Photo by Don Hunter |
Bent
Alligator-flag is a striking member of the tropical family Marantaceae, aka the
Arrowroot family; its genus Thalia is the only member of the family
found in temperate North America. Bent Alligator-flag’s native range is Central
and South America and extending north throughout Florida and into southern
Georgia and Alabama.
The
Zinnia and Mexican Sunflower beds in the Plaza are a favorite haunt of
butterflies.
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| Monarch nectaring on the disk flowers of a Mexican Sunflower We also saw Tiger Swallowtails and Skippers visiting the zinnias. Photo by Don Hunter |
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| Mugwort, planted in the Herb & Physic Garden, has been used medicinally for centuries and is also the main ingredient in absinthe. Photo by MichielSt |
Aubrey
shared this information about a medicinal use of Mugwort: “Mugwort, also called
Wormwood, has been used throughout
Asia medically in a process called moxibustion, in conjuction with
Traditional Chinese Medicine. In moxibustion, acupunture points on the body are heated with
the burning herb as a way to treat arthritis and a host of other ailments. It
is very popular and still used in clinics to this day.”
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| Spikenard flowering near the Herb and Physic Garden Photo by Jan Coyne |
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| Spikenard flower clusters Photo by Jan Coyne |
Like
most medicinal and edible plants, Spikenard has a lot of common names: Indian-root,
Spice-berry, Spignet, Life-of-man, Hungry-root. Leaves and stems have an
anise-like taste and were cooked in stews; its root was used to make root beer;
and the small round fruits make a spicy jelly. Various parts were used in
tonics, poultices, cough medicines, and other medicinals. Although shrubby in appearance,
it is an herb that dies back completely to the ground in winter. It grows throughout
eastern and central North America, reaching as far west as South Dakota; its
southern extent is in north Georgia and adjacent states. It is in the genus Aralia,
along with Devil’s Walking-stick, and in the same family as Ginseng.
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| Spotted Orbweaver was weaving its web in the Spikenard inflorescence while a Long-tailed Skipper was visiting its flowers. Photo by Bill Sheehan |
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| Hop vines growing on one of the small arbors in the Herb & Physic Garden. Photo by Jan Coyne |
Hops
have long been used to flavor beer, but were first used as a preservative to prevent spoilage of beer during long sea voyages. Female and
male flowers are produced on separate Hops plants; it is the flowers on female plants that bear the glands that produce the flavorful compounds.
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| The gold-colored “dust” at the base of the bracts in a female Hops inflorescence are the glands that produce “hoppy” flavors in beer. These compounds also act as a preservative and promote a good head on a glass of beer. Photo by Jan Coyne |
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| Pawpaw fruit and leaf photos by Don Hunter |
We
stopped to look for Pawpaw fruits on the trees shading the path to the Heritage
Garden. We found one nice cluster and a few single fruits, prompting a
discussion of flowering, fruiting, and dispersal in this species. Large fruits
such as Pawpaw’s are thought to be relicts
of a time when
now extinct “megafauna” – large animals
such as Giant Ground Sloths, American Camels, and American Mastodons – inhabited
North America and gulped down large fruits from plants such as Pawpaw, Osage
Orange, and Honey Locust. The loss of their megafauna seed dispersers and
widespread habitat destruction across eastern North America has created a problem for wild Pawpaw populations. Pawpaw
flowers require cross-pollination in order to set fruit. When you see a large
thicket of plants in the wild, you are probably looking at a single genetic individual,
its many trunks connected by underground stems. Visiting flies (the main
pollinator, also beetles) may travel from flower to flower and never
reach a truly different plant. Since the populations are now so widely
scattered across the landscape, a fly may never visit a genetically different
Pawpaw and therefore its efforts may never result in fertilization and fruit
development. In their article “Pollinator limitation, fruit production, and
floral display in pawpaw (Asimina triloba),” Mary Willson and Douglas
Schemske state that less than one percent of flowers they looked at produced
fruit. Because
Pawpaw pollinators are attracted to dead and fermenting things,
commercial Pawpaw growers (yes, there are such things!) hang dead animals or
buckets of animal parts in their pawpaw groves to encourage pollinators to move
around among genetically different plants and patches.
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|
Butterfly |
Butterfly
Ginger, also known as White Ginger-lily, is thought to be native to the
Himalayas but it has been so widely cultivated throughout Asia for so long that it’s hard
to be certain of its original range. In Hawaii, Butterfly Ginger flowers are used to make leis.
Not
surprisingly, this species is in the same plant family (Zingiberaceae) as the spice
ginger (Zingiber officinale) that we cook with but Butterfly Ginger rhizomes do not
have the aromatic qualities as the spice.
A
trip through the Heritage Garden is always an opportunity to discuss the complex roles that plants play in human culture and history.
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|
Seminole |
Kathy
Stege has been growing this cucurbit in her garden for years and shared
some seeds from her plants with Gareth, the curator of the Heritage Garden. And
voila! Here’s a whole bed of these amazing squashes called Chassahowitzka Squash
or Seminole Gourd. Kathy
reports that they are delicious! This article from the Naples (Florida) Botanical Garden recounts the plant’s history: “These
pumpkins are deeply intertwined in Florida’s history. The Seminole, Calusa,
Creek, and Miccosukee people cultivated this pumpkin by planting it
at the base of dead trees where the vines could climb up their trunks and the
pumpkins would hang. The Seminole word ‘chassahowitzka’ loosely
translates to ‘hanging pumpkin.’ These pumpkins,
with their numerous uses, were a staple for locals. When Europeans first
settled in Florida, they took note of the pumpkin plants’ large yields and
the vertical growing practice that allowed hundreds of acres to
be cultivated.”
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| Seminole Pumpkin Photo by Naples Botanical Garden |
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| Cotton has been a major part of Georgia’s culture and economy since the late 18th century. Photo by Jan Coyne |
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| Indigo plant in flower Photo by Jan Coyne |
During
the American colonial period, the British government subsidized the growing and
production of Indigo in the colonies, a support that disappeared with the
beginning of the Revolutionary War. No longer profitable
in North America, indigo production in the New World shifted to Central America.
The Indigo plant, whose scientific name Indigofera tinctoria, literally
means “indigo-bearing dye plant,” has been in cultivation for so long – at
least six millenia – that its original native habitat is unknown. Its rich,
vivid blues can now be had from synthetics but indigo is still marketed as a
natural dye all over the world. Wikipedia has a
long, in-depth article on indigo, as does the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
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| Sweet Autumn Clematis leaflets have no marginal teeth (left, photo credit); Virgin’s Bower Clematis leaflets have toothed margins (right, photo by Don Hunter.) |
Sweet
Autumn Clematis, an Asian invasive plant, looks enough like our native Virgin’s Bower Clematis that it
has gone unnoticed here in the Heritage Garden. Although their flowers are very similar, and both have
compound leaves, you can tell the two species apart by looking at
their leaflets: Sweet Autumn Clematis leaflets are smooth along their margins–no teeth;
Virgin’s Bower leaflets have toothed margins. One rambler shared this
mnemonic: No notches, no grow. (The
leaflet teeth are notches – without notches, the plant is a no-no.)
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| ‘Thomasville’ – a cold-hardy hybrid citrus plant Photo by Bill Sheehan |
An
interesting hybrid citrus was planted along the steps leading
down to the Flower Garden from the Heritage Garden. It’s something called Citrangequat
× ‘Thomasville’ – a complicated mix of Sweet Orange, Trifoliate Orange, and
Kumquat. This particular cultivar is named for Thomasville, Georgia and is the
tastiest of the cultivars of this three-way hybrid. ‘Thomasville’ is a very cold-hardy
citrus, able to tolerate temperatures down to 5°F.
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|
Jan |
So
many butterflies in the Flower Garden plus one amazing caterpillar! A shout-out to the Flower Garden curators, Gareth Crosby and Jim Moneyhun, for creating such a butterfly-rich habitat.
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| Red-spotted Purple photo by Sandy Shaull |
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| Sleepy Orange visiting a Mexican Sunflower photo by Sandy Shaull |
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| Long-tailed Skipper nectaring on Lantana flowers Photo by Don hunter |
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| Fiery Skipper on Lantana flowers photo by Don hunter |
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| Painted Lady photo by Don Hunter |
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| Io Moth caterpillar on its host plant, Wild Indigo photo by Bill Sheehan |
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| Not seen today but worth a look: adult female Io Moth photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren |
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| Gulf Fritillary photo by Don Hunter |
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| Cloudless Sulphur photo by Sandy Shaull |
Dale
Hoyt wrote about two of these butterflies in the ramble report of September 26,2019, asking questions about the movements of Cloudless Sulphurs
and Gulf Fritilllaries:
“Most
of the butterflies seen today are visitors because they lack the adaptations
that enable them to survive our winters. Are the visitors migrants?
When
food is scarce or population density high animals tend to leave their current
location and seek better places with more food or fewer competitors. This
tendency will automatically lead to the dispersion of individuals from areas
with high population density to places with fewer competitors and/or more
available food for themselves and their offspring. This process will lead to
the spread of a species over larger and larger areas. You can imagine
butterflies slowly dispersing north from overwintering locations in peninsular Florida
and gradually working their way through Georgia into the Carolinas and Virginia
and, in a year with good weather, as far as New York.
Two
butterflies, the Gulf Fritillary and the Cloudless Sulphur, are suspected to be
migrants, not simple dispersers. Each year the northern populations of both
species are eliminated by cold weather. Neither species can survive over
winter. Each year both species reappear in the landscape, having flown north
from sources in Florida that have warmer climates. What makes them migrants
rather than simple dispersers?
Much
of what we know about the Gulf Fritillary comes from the work of T. J. Walker
and his associates at the University of Florida. Walker noticed that in the
spring Gulf Fritillaries flew across his property low to the ground and when
they encountered an obstacle they flew up and over it, rather than around it.
Their flight seemed intent on moving in one direction. To gather information on
flight behavior he built a trap that separated butterflies flying in different
directions. Butterflies flying into the trap from the south were diverted into
a holding cage so that he could record the number of each species before
releasing them. Similarly, for butterflies coming from the north. He operated
the trap during the fall and spring months for 6 years. The results for the
Gulf Fritillary were unequivocal. In the spring he recorded a total of 135 Gulf
Fritillarys, of which 98% were traveling north. In the fall a much larger
number were captured, 1355, and 99% were traveling south.
Walker
also collected data on Cloudless Sulphurs. In the spring 84% of 106 captured
were flying north. In the fall 93% of 493 captured were flying south. These
results also suggest that the Cloudless Sulphur may be a true migrant.” Thanks, Dale!
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| This Cloudless Sulphur may have been flying south but it’s taking a time out on Dale’s nose in September 2019. Photo by Don Hunter |
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| Heading up and out of the Flower Garden on the stairs next to the roses, some ramblers spotted an Eastern Garter Snake similar to the one pictured above. It quickly disappeared under the brick wall before anyone could get a photo. Photo credit |
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES
Bent Alligator-flag Thalia
geniculata
Zinnia Zinnia
sp.
Mexican Sunflower Tithonia
rotundifolia
Monarch butterfly Danaus
plexippus
Tiger Swallowtail Papilio
glaucus
Mugwort,
Wormwood Artemisia absinthia
Spikenard Aralia
racemosa
Spotted Orbweaver Neoscona
crucifera
Long-tailed Skipper Urbanus
proteus
Hops Humulus
lupulus
Tall Pawpaw Asimina
triloba
Butterfly Ginger, White Ginger-lily Hedychium coronarium
Seminole Pumpkin, Chassahowitzka Squash cultivar of Cucurbita moschata
Cotton Gossypium
hirsutum
Indigo Indigofera
tinctoria
Sweet Autumn Clematis Clematis
terniflora
Virgin’s Bower Clematis Clematis
virginiana
‘Thomasville’ cultivar of Citrangequat hybrid
Carolina Anole Anolis
carolinensis
Lantana Lantana camara
Red-spotted Purple Limenitis
arthemis astyanax
Sleepy Orange Abaeis
nicippe
Fiery Skipper Hylephila
phyleus
Painted Lady Vanessa
cardui
Io Moth caterpillar Automeris
io
Wild Indigo Baptisia sp.
Cloudless Sulphur Phoebis
sennae
Gulf Fritillary Agraulis
vanillae
Eastern Garter Snake Thamnophis sirtalis