Leader
for today’s Ramble: Dan Williams
Authors of today’s Ramble report: Linda, Don, and Dan. Some of the text here is taken from Dan’s book, Tree Facts and Folklore:
Identification, Ecology, Uses (traditional and modern), and Folklore of
Southeastern Trees). For a complete list of Dan’s books and videos, with links, scroll to the bottom of the report.
Insect and fungi identifications: 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.
Today’s emphasis: Trees of southeastern forests
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| Ramblers on the Purple Trail |
Reading: To Make a Frost Flower by Bob Ambrose
You could go a whole life
scarcely aware of ephemera.
How frost flowers grace
the morning hours in unkempt
ditches, ragged shoulders,
borders and abandoned fields
that first hard freeze of fall.
Consider the White Crownbeard
how it grows. It flourishes
in heat of summer, flowers
ugly early autumn, leaves
a stick carcass standing
barren to the bitter wind
that rattles down the winter.
But come the quiet dawn
when cold envelops open
fields and seeps inside
the hardened earth —
when morning crackles
frostweed blooms. Up
from old roots, sap bleeds
through breached stems,
oozing into open air
as frozen locks of cotton
candy, silver swirls
of crystal clouds leaven
its now broken body.
Translucent grace is born
to morning, gone by noon.
Wounded by winter the weed
turns guts to ghostly flowers
and waits for the inconceivable
spring to rise again from roots.
Show-and-Tell: Gary brought thermoses of hickory
nut milk that he made from Mockernut Hickory nuts, a technique he learned from
Dan years ago. It was delicious on this chilly morning! It takes about 20
hickory nuts to make a quart of nut milk. How to: Crack the nuts using vise grip pliers inside
a bag (to contain the flying shards of shell). Inspect each cracked nut for spoilage.
Put the cracked nuts and nutmeats (not the husks!) into a blender for a few seconds
to separate more of the nutmeats from the shell, then boil them in water for
about 30 minutes. Sweeten with a bit of sugar or, even better, maple syrup. Here’s
a link with a
printable recipe and a video of a Cherokee woman making hickory nut milk. Thank
you, Gary!
Announcements and other
interesting things to note:
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.
Linda
reminded us about the
upcoming series of Winter Walks, beginning the Thursday following
Thanksgiving, December 7. Walks will begin at 10:00am at state parks or
natural areas within an hour’s drive (more or less) of Athens. Dale
will announce by email the location and a description of each walk on
the Monday prior. The list of destinations is not finalized: please submit suggestions for places you’d like to visit.
Rambler
Kathy Stege invites all ramblers to join her for a moderate stroll on Thanksgiving
Day (2:00pm, Thursday, 11/23) at Heritage Park in Oconee County, on the west side
of Hwy 441 in Farmington – look for the big, old, white school house and white
fence along Hwy 441. The full walk is 1.5-2.0 hours, but there are plenty of
short cuts along the trail to return earlier. A fast group might split off in a
brave effort to work off their Thanksgiving feast calories. Bring your dog(s),
friends, and family. RSVP to Kathy by Wednesday 11/22 5:00pm: 478-955-34222
or kjstegosaurus@fastmail.com
Firefly art! https://mmagna.com/ “This series of images is the
result of photographing a kind of magic only found in nature, a phenomenon with
countless iterations that is often unseen – fireflies. The primary subject is a
synchronous firefly population recorded in spring of 2023, deep inside an
Athens, Georgia forest during the peak of their mating season.” On display at the Leathers Building by appointment.
Inspiration! “Just keep going“: the
horse-riding, 97-year-old botanist battling for England’s wildflowers.
Interesting article from the Prairie Ecologist: Grasses and
Wildflowers Can Live Longer Than Trees (But We Can’t Prove It).
Today’s
Route: We followed Dan from the arbor through the
Upper Shade Garden to the main parking lot, then down the Orange Trail, across
the wetland boardwalk, and up the Purple Trail to the International Gardens.
TODAY’S OBSERVATIONS:
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| The ground in the Upper Shade Garden was carpeted with White Oak acorns. |
Ramblers
asked: does such a large amount of White
Oak acorns suggest that this is a “mast year” for White Oaks? And what is
a “mast year” anyway?
“Mast”
is a term mostly used for the nuts of trees such as oaks, hickories, chestnuts, and beech
(also sometimes applied to the cones and soft fruits of other plants) that are
produced every year in low to moderate amounts. Then, along comes a year when
the acorns of a given oak species are thick on the ground. And not just in one
small area but, across large swathes of that species’ range, acorns are falling
in huge numbers. What’s behind this periodic bumper crop? Does it harm or benefit
the trees? What triggers the boom? And, how is it synchronized across a region?
The
intriguing answer to these questions is that scientists don’t actually know for
sure, although there are some good theories. One widely accepted idea about the
adaptive value of an occasional bumper crop is “predator satiation.” In a
normal year, most of the acorn crop is eaten by the hordes of deer, mice,
squirrels, bears, woodchucks, blue jays, woodpeckers, and chipmunks that share
the forest with oak trees. In a mast year, way more than enough acorns
are produced than needed to satisfy their appetites, and enough are left on the
ground to germinate and grow into a new generation of (for example) White Oaks.
What triggers this periodic boom across a large area is simply not known – the size
of acorn crops does not seem to fluctuate with environmental conditions such as
a droughts or El
Niño years. But one thing is
certain: mast years do NOT predict a hard winter.
Dan
discussed the importance of acorns to the diets of Native Americans and early European
settlers, who made stews and bread from the acorns of oaks in the “white oak” group (in Georgia,
there are about 13 species in the white oak group and 17 in the “red oak” group).
White oak group acorns are lower in tannic acid than acorns of oaks in the red
oak group; red oak acorns persist on the tree for two years before falling and the
extra tannins discourage predation during such a long gestation.
Yellow Birch
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| Dan and Jenny had recently returned from a trip to the Smokies, with Dan bringing home a walking stick made from a Yellow Birch branch. Yellow Birch in the south is limited to higher elevations in the Southern Appalachians, though it’s widespread and abundant further north. Its twigs and bark smell wonderfully of wintergreen when crushed and were the original source of oil of wintergreen flavoring (now chemically synthesized). |
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| Oil of wintergreen has another use – starting a fire! Dan handed Gary a jar of Yellow Birch bark and set it on fire with his lighter. The black, sooty smoke is evidence of oil in the bark. |
Mountain Ash
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| Dan pulled a cluster of bright red Mountain Ash fruit from his bag of Southern Appalachian “treeats.” These berries stay on the trees all winter long and provide a reliable winter feast for birds. Mountain Ash is at the southernmost part of its range in Georgia and is quite rare, with only five populations in the state on our highest mountains. The European species of Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia) is called Rowan and plays a large role in European folklore, spawning sayings such as “the devil beat his wife to death with a rowan stick” and is believed to ward off evil. |
Fraser Magnolia
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|
Dan |
American Chestnut
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| Once comprising about 25% of the trees in the forests of Southern Appalachia and elsewhere throughout eastern North America, American Chestnuts were wiped out in the first half of the 20th century by an introduced exotic fungus, the Chestnut Blight Fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica, formerly Endothia parasitica). Only root sprouts remain, persisting for a few years before succumbing to the blight. Dan collected this leaf from a small sapling. Blight-resistant trees have recently been bred and may be re-introduced to our forests. |
PINES
As we made our way down the
orange trail, Dan stopped to ask: How to identify the 10 species of pines in
Georgia? Why, with some genuine Dan Williams mnemonics! See page 124 in Dan’s
book, Tree Facts and
Folklore: Identification, Ecology,
Uses (Traditional and Modern), and Folklore of Southeastern Trees.
¨ Pines with three needles
per bundle: “Lob a Lone Pitch into a Pond” = Loblolly, Longleaf, Pitch, and Pond pines.
¨ Pines with two needles per
bundle: “Virginia will Spruce up the Table Shortly” = Virginia, Spruce, Table
Mountain, and Shortleaf Pines.
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| Shortleaf Pines have two or three short needles per bundle; Loblolly Pines have three needles per bundle. Photo by Craven County North Carolina Cooperative Extension |
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| Dan with a Shortleaf Pine |
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| Shortleaf Pine is easily identified by its short needles in bundles of two or three, flaky bark plates dotted with pitch pockets (above), and its small cones (below). |
Shortleaf
Pine wood is loaded with resin; it produces more heat energy per pound than oak
due to the high resin content. That same resin is also a preservative; the core
or heartwood of Shortleaf Pines can be seen standing in the forest long after
the bark and outer wood has rotted away. It’s one of the first trees to establish
in a young forest and will live about 100 years. Dan laid to rest the old adage
that you can’t burn pine in your wood stoves. You can, but you must burn it
fast and hot. Slow, closed-door burning can still create problematic amounts of
soot and creosote in your flues. Here’s an interesting article about folks working to restore Shortleaf
Pine savannas.
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| Loblolly Pine needles are in bundles of three; the trunk of the mature tree is covered with large, reddish plates of bark; and the large cones are armed with stout, sharp prickles. |
Eastern White Pine
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| Dan held up a long and slender cone of the Eastern White Pine, one of his favorite trees because of the exhilarating smell of a White Pine forest. White Pines are pioneer species: they rapidly colonize open land then persist in the forest for many, many years as other trees grow up around them. White Pine is the only five-needle pine in Georgia. |
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| Dan brought us a large, reddish-brown cone of the Slash Pine from his travels in south Georgia. The red color and the lack of sharp prickles is diagnostic of the cones of Slash Pine, a tree native to the Coastal Plain. Because of their fast growth, industrial foresters attempted to grow them in the Piedmont, but they were no match for the occasional north Georgia ice storm. Now, Loblolly Pines are the favorite of the silviculture industry in middle Georgia. Slash Pines have two or three needles per a bundle. |
Sourwood
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| Sourwood is both the straightest and crookedest of our trees. Young saplings and root sprouts are arrow-straight, but as they age they curve in search of light falling through gaps in the canopy. The wood is highly shock resistant; mule-drawn sleds were made with sourwood runners, and used for hauling lumber and supplies across streams and over the mountains. |
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| Dan remarked that Sourwood was the favorite tree of Bob and Martha Walker, longtime ramblers now living in Arizona. Sourwood provides the most luminous fall color in the Piedmont and mountains, their leaves glowing like stained glass; Dan mentioned that Sourwood leaf color in the mountains this year was among the best he has ever seen. |
Sourwoods
have simple, alternate, finely toothed leaves….just like a whole lot of other
species in the southeastern forest. Dan’s mnemonic for one group of these
species is: “Willy and Al hollered and drank sour cherry wine when they caught a
cottonpickin’ bass at the beach” = Sourwood, Black Cherry, Cottonwood, Basswood,
and Beech (page 71 in his book).
The
second group of trees with simple, alternate, toothed leaves is summed up with
this mnemonic: “Elmer is the son of birch that hacked a horn off a buck with
silver service sword” = Elm, Birch, Hackberry, Hornbeam, Buckthorn, Silverbell,
Serviceberry.
Mystery tree…. or Black Gum??
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| Mysterious bark |
We stopped at another tree along
the Orange Trail, puzzled by its bark. Could it be a Sweet Gum? Or, a Black Gum?
Or even, a Winged Elm? Nothing seemed to fit. Finally, looking upwards, we saw
that nearly every limb was growing horizontally at a more or less 90-degree
angle from the trunk, a distinctive trait of Black Gum trees. We also found
several deep-red Black Gum leaves on the ground beneath, clinching the
identification though not solving the puzzle of the unusual bark. Dan reminded
us that Black Gum twigs were once used as a tooth brush. You chewed on one end till
it frayed then brushed your teeth with the chewed end, preferably after it had
been dipped in whisky!
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| Typical blocky bark of Black Gum. Photo by Jim Brighton |
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| Dark red Black Gum leaf |
Viburnums
We stopped at a Rusty Blackhaw, the common name
for one of the many native species of Viburnum in Georgia. This small
tree still sported a few leaves, and we looked for the diagnostic rusty hairs
on the veins on the underside of the leaf and on the leaf stalk. Most had been
shed by this point but here’s a photo of what the lower leaf surface looks like
in the summer. The upper leaf surface (not seen) is so glossy it looks varnished.
When the leaves are off these plants, the bark is pretty helpful for
identification – it’s very rough and broken into small blocks.
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| Lower surface of a Rusty Blackhaw leaf in midsummer Photo by Will Cook |
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| Rusty Blackhaw bark Photo by Will Cook |
Dan took the opportunity to remind
us of the mnemonic for woody plants that have opposite leaves (page 38 in his
book): “Mad dogs with beards and buckeyed cats name Paul” = maple (M), ash (A),
dogwood (D), grancy graybeard aka fringetree, buckeye, catalpa, paulownia
aka princess tree.
The tree formerly known as
Yellow Poplar or Tulip Poplar*
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|
Tulip Trees are often the largest tree in a |
Aging a Tree
Finding
a large tree in the woods almost always elicits the question: I wonder how old it is?
Dan has a formula for aging trees based on their shade tolerance and their
diameter at breast height (DBH, 4 feet). The following is taken from his book.
Shade tolerant trees can germinate,
grow to seedling stage and on to maturity in nearly full shade, though it can also
prosper in full sunlight. Examples: Hickories, Southern Magnolia, Basswood,
American Beech, Redbud, Persimmon, Sugarberry, Hop Hornbeam, Musclewood,
Silverbell.
Shade intermediate trees can germinate
and grow to seedling stage in moderate or even full shade, but must have
moderate to full sunlight of an opening in the forest canopy in order mature.
Examples: White Pine, White Oak, Red Maple, Southern Red Oak, Fraser Magnolia,
Bigleaf Magnolia, Sourwood, Black Gum, Winged Elm, Hackberry, and Yellow, Black,
and River Birch.
Shade intolerant trees require full
sunlight from seedling to maturity. It will die if shaded for extended periods.
Examples: Tulip Tree, Sweet Gum, Loblolly Pine, Longleaf Pine, Shortleaf Pine,
Eastern Red Cedar, Black Cherry,
The
Four-Five-Seven rule for aging trees:
4 – If it’s a shade intolerant, pioneer tree,
multiply the DBH X 4
5 – If it’s a shade intermediate tree, multiply the DBH X 5
7 – If it’s a shade tolerant tree, multiply the DBH X 7
OAKS
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| Southern Red Oaks are common throughout the uplands at the Garden. Their leaves are distinguished by the curved midvein and the (usually) elongated central lobe. |
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| Southern Red Oak bark is not very distinctive. |
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| Northern Red Oak, “the king of the oaks,” according to Dan, who described them as “THE trees of the southern Appalachians.” They grow to be large and are shade-tolerant. Their bark is marked by wide, vertical white streaks – “ski trails.” This is the tree we see most often toppled over by storms at the Garden. It may be suffering more from the long droughts and higher temperatures of the changing climate than other more dry-adapted trees in the Piedmont. |
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| Northern Red Oak leaf dotted with a fungus |
Musclewood
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| Roger admiring a pair of Musclewood trees in the Middle Oconee River floodplain Along with its sinewy trunks and smooth gray bark, Musclewood has the hardest wood of any tree in the eastern U.S. The leaves are simple and alternate and the branches are very fine, giving the canopy a very twiggy look. |
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| We found a Musclewood with odd bands of scar-like bark on its bark, the bands evenly spaced from ground level to ten or more feet above the ground. We debated several causes: Sapsuckers? No, the wood is too hard and no one has ever seen sapsucker holes on a Musclewood. Fencing: No, because the scars aren’t on just one side of the trunk but encircle it. Galls or burls? No, the damage is too regular. Another mystery. |
American Beech
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|
A |
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| Another American Beech, this one with extensive buttressed roots for support on the steep slope. |
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| Dan barefootin’ beneath an upper slope American Beech |
Hop Hornbeam
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| “Cat scratch” bark of Hop Hornbeam |
Basswood
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| Dan holding a large Basswood leaf, a mid-elevation tree in cove forests in the mountains and occasionally found in bottomlands in the Piedmont. At the Garden, it’s found on the toe slope above the beaver marsh. |
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| The multi-trunked Basswood near the Garden’s beaver marsh |
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| Another bottomland species in the Piedmont is Red Mulberry, an understory tree whose leaves somewhat resemble Basswood’s but often have thumbs. They are seldom as large as this unusual example. |
Mockernut Hickory
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| Mockernut Hickories have conspicuously braided bark, the ridges forming diamond-shaped patterns. |
Dan told us that Mockernut Hickory
was one of William Bartram’s “Magnificent Forest” trees. Besides being an
essential part of the Native American diet, Mockernut provided premier wood for
making bows – arrows shot with these bows could penetrate six inches into a tulip
tree. (Before we moved on, Dan recommended a book by William Thomas Hamilton, My Sixty Years on the Plains, a first-hand account of his years living outdoors in the
Old West. Dan recorded the book – you can listen to his reading on Youtube here.
Post-Ramble Observations in the
Herb Garden
On our way back to the Visitor
Center, Don and I walked past several beds of ‘Hillside Sheffield Pink’ chrysanthemums that were absolutely abuzz with
pollinators, including several species of hover flies, bumble bees, honey bees,
a wasp, lots of Fiery Skippers and a beautiful yellowish Cabbage White
butterfly. Don says, “I would have to say it was the most concentrated pollinator
activity I’ve seen all summer and fall on any plant.”
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| Cabbage White butterfly |
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| Tropical Plushback Fly |
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| Dark Paper Wasp |
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| Fiery Skipper |
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| Western Honeybee |
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| Bicolored Plushback Fly |
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| Common Eastern Bumblebee |
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| Yellow-legged Flower (syrphid) Fly |
SUMMARY
OF OBSERVED SPECIES
White
Oak Quercus alba
Shortleaf Pine Pinus echinata
Sourwood Oxydendrum arboreum
Black Gum Nyssa sylvatica
Southern Red Oak Quercus falcata
Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum rufidulum
Tulip Tree/Yellow or Tulip Poplar Liriodendron
tulipifera
Northern Red Oak Quercus rubra
Musclewood Carpinus caroliniana
American Beech Fagus grandifolia
American Hop Hornbeam Ostrya
virginiana
Red Mulberry Morus rubra
Basswood Tilia americana
Mockernut Hickory Carya tomentosa
Persimmon Diospyros
virginiana
Cabbage White butterfly Pieris
rapae
Fiery Skipper Hylephila
phyleus
Bi-colored Plushback fly Palpada
pusila
Tropical
Plushback fly Palpada furcata
Yellow-legged Flower Fly Syrphus rectus
Common Eastern Bumble Bee Bombus
impatiens
Western Honey Bee Apis
mellifera
Dark Paper Wasp Polistes fuscatus
Dan’s books on southeastern
trees and geology are highly recommended and available from Amazon.
Dan D.
Williams (2014), Tree
Facts and Folklore: Identification, Ecology, Uses (Traditional and
Modern), and Folklore of Southeastern Trees.
Dan D.
Williams (2011),Tree ID
Made Easier: A full color photo guide, plus helpful hints for
identifying major trees of the Southern U.S.
Dan D.
Williams (2010), The
Forests of Great Smoky Mountains National Park: A Naturalist’s Guide to
Understanding and Identifying Southern Appalachian Forest Types.
Dan D.
Williams (2012),The
Rocks of Georgia: A full-color photo guide to Georgia’s rocks, including
what they look like, how they formed, and where to find them.
Dan D.
Williams (2012), The
Rocks of Great Smoky Mountains National Park: A full color guide to the
rocks of the Park, including how they formed, what they look like and where to
find them.
Also check
out (and subscribe to) Dan’s geology videos on Youtube: https://youtube.com/@PapaRocks?si=0iYVB9huvzwVk9RG
There are
also lots of Dan’s geology videos and also videos on “van & tiny house”
living on Youtube. Subscribe and make Dan happy!