Leader for today’s Ramble: Catherine

Authors
of today’s Ramble report: Linda and
Don. Comments, edits,
and suggestions for the report can be sent to Linda at Lchafin (at) uga.edu.

Insect identifications: Don Hunter, Heather Larkin

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: 29

Today’s emphasis: Weaving what we find!

Announcements and other
interesting things to note:
Last chance to order bird seed
from Sandy Creek Nature Center – Tuesday, October 31! Click here to order.

Reminder: The Nature Rambler book group is re-grouping after a three-year, pandemic-related hiatus. We will meet on Thursday, November 30, 10-11:30am in the Adult Classroom in the Garden’s Visitor Center to discuss dates and times of future meetings and to select a list of books for 2024. Bring a book (or a description of a book) that you’d like the group to read.

Here’s
a link to a
fascinating discovery about glow-in-the-dark mammals: “The Glowing Secret That Mammals Have Been Hiding: Fluorescent
anatomy, which recently seemed to be a quirk in unusual animals such as
platypuses and opossums, was found in most living families of mammals.”

Many Ramblers are fans of David
Haskell’s book, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, based on observations he made in Shakerag Hollow, a privately owned piece of prime forest
land in Sewanee, Tennessee. This land is now up for sale and a non-profit conservation
group, The South Cumberland Regional Land Trust, is raising funds to purchase
it. Dr. Haskell is asking for donations. For more information, you can click
here and here.

Show
and Tell: Sandy, our Nature Rambles butterfly expert, brought a collection of butterfly chrysalids
to show us the difference in sizes among chrysalids, as well as the discrepancy
between the size of the chrysalid and the size of the adult butterfly developing
inside.

From bottom to top, chrysalids of Buckeye, Gulf Fritillary, Pipevine Swallowtail, Variegated Fritillary, and Sleepy Orange. Below, close-up of Pipevine Swallowtail chrysalis.

Photos by Sandy of the butterflies whose chrysalids she brought today (Clockwise from upper left): Buckeye, Gulf Fritillary, Pipevine Swallowtail, Variegated Fritillary, and Sleepy Orange.

Reading:

Catherine read from Karl,
Get Out of the Garden! Carolus Linnaeus and the Naming of Everything, by
Anita Sanchez, Illustrated by Catherine Stock, a biography of Karl Linnaeus.

“…Karl realized that arguing would do no good. ‘Time is
too valuable to be spent in disputes,’ he wrote. He just went on naming things.
Karl became a teacher. Perhaps he remembered how bored he had been in the
classroom, because he used his garden as a living textbook, filled with thousands
of plants. He led exciting, rowdy fieldtrips into the woods and meadows – expeditions
with hundreds of students, lasting from morning till night. Karl and the
students marched along, carrying banners and playing musical instruments. Whenever
someone found an unusual plant, Karl would hurry over and get down on his hands
and knees to examine it. If the plant was a rare specimen, he would call for
the bugles to sound.”

Catherine brought a basketful of small
looms she’d constructed of cardboard squares strung with threads and explained how we were to to weave found materials from the prairie between the
threads. Inspired by Linnaeus, Catherine also brought a banner for today’s adventure
emblazoned, in English on one side and Latin on the other, with “Omnia mirari etiam tritissima  – find wonder
in everything, even the most ordinary.” It’s hard to imagine a banner that
better captures the Rambler’s own motto “seeking what we find.”

In lieu of
bugles, Catherine handed out flamboyantly decorated kazoos for us to
announce special finds for our looms. Then, with great fanfare, tooting our kazoos, behind our glorious
banner, we headed down through the Lower Shade Garden, on our way to the powerline
right-of-way, where a bounty of natural materials was found to fill our looms.

Today’s
Route:  We left the Children’s Garden, walking
the paved path through the Lower Shade Garden, then crossed the road to the
White Trail spur and the powerline right-of-way. We walked downhill to the entrance road and
convened at the picnic table to admire our collective weaving efforts. We then
took the ADA trail to the river and returned to the Visitor
Center via the entrance road.

Blue Curls in flower along the White Trail Notice the white pollen grains on the tips of the curled stamens of one flower and the round, green fruits of another flower.

OBSERVATIONS
Ramblers wandered the White Trail
and the newly created prairie in the right-of-way, searching for weaving materials.

… and began to assemble their weavings.

Some
of the species that found their way into our weavings….

Horseweed

Bushy Aster

Tall Goldenrod

Blue Mistflower

Outer hull of Red Buckeye fruits

Yellow Indian Grass

Carolina Desert Chicory

Splitbeard Bluestem

Scarlet Morning-glory

Pink Muhly Grass

River Oats

Ramblers eventually gathered at the picnic table and arranged our weavings on top of the table – an
impressive display. Collectively, the weavings reflected the diversity of grasses and wildflowers we have been enjoying all summer and fall in the right-of-way prairie.

Meanwhile, Heather and Don were
scouring the prairie for insects.

Gulf Fritillary bejeweled with dew – note the dew drops on the butterfly’s eye, below.

Red Goldenrod Aphids in a goldenrod inflorescence

Southern Armyworm caterpillar

Chinese Mantid

Brown Stink Bug (above) and tiny Geometer caterpillar (below) on a Red Buckeye hull in Emily’s weaving.

Scudder’s Short-winged Grasshopper

Tobacco Budworm moth on Rabbit Tobacco flower heads photo by Heather Larkin

Giant Leopard Moth caterpillar

A Gallery of Weavings with many
thanks to Catherine for bringing art to the rambles!

Victoria’s weaving

Barb’s weaving

Carla’s weaving

Richard E’s weaving

Linda’s weaving

SUMMARY
OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Blue
Curls        Trichostema dichotomum

Red Buckeye   Aesculus pavia

Geometer moth caterpillar   family Geometridae

Brown Stink Bug Euschistus servus

Bushy Aster        Symphyotrichum
dumosum

Horseweed         Conyza canadensis

Beaked Panic Grass      Coleataenia
anceps

Maryland Senna            Senna marilandica

Pink Muhly Grass          Muhlenbergia
capillipes

Yellow Indian Grass      Sorghastrum
nutans

Ginkgo                          Ginkgo
biloba

Green Lynx Spider        Peucetia
viridans

Appalachian Beebalm  Monarda fistulosa

River Oats                   Chasmanthium
latifolium

Tall Ironweed               Vernonia
gigantea

Alternate-leaved Wingstem   Verbesina
alternifolia

Southern Crownbeard  Verbesina occidentalis

Tall Goldenrod              Solidago
altissima

Dotted Smartweed       Persicaria
punctata

Mistflower            Conoclinium
coelestinum

Woolly Mullein     Verbascum thaspus

Virginia Creeper               Parthenocissus
quinquefolius

Splitbeard Bluestem        Andropgon
ternarius

Yellow Foxtail                  Setaria pumila

Swamp Smartweed         Persicaria hydropiperoides

Scarlet Morning-glory     Ipomoea
coccinea      

Red Goldenrod Aphid    Uroleucon solidaginis

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly    Agraulis
vanillae

Southern Army Worm   Spodoptera
eridania

Chinese Mantis            Tenodera sinensis

Giant Leopard Moth     Hypercompe scribonia

Scudder’s Short-winged Grasshopper     Melanoplus
scudderi    

Rabbit Tobacco, Sweet Everlasting         Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium

Carolina Desert-chicory    Pyrrhopappus
carolinianum

Silver Plume Grass           Erianthus
alopecuroides

Burnweed                         Erechtites hieraciifolius

Dotted Horsebalm           Monarda
punctata

Clasping Aster                Symphyotrichum
patens