Ramble Report – April 18, 2024 | Nature Ramblers: Seeking What We Find

Leader for today’s Ramble: Catherine

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

Insect identifications:
Don Hunter

Gall identification:
Bill

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. Not all of Don’s photos from
today’s ramble made it into the ramble report, so be sure to check out
his Facebook album at this link.

Number of Ramblers today:
23

Today’s emphasis:
Using watercolors to capture shapes and surface details of leaves and
flowers.

Fringe
Tree, aka Grancy Graybeard, is in full, fragrant flower in the
Children’s Garden.

Each flower is divided into four, thread-like
segments. The oval, blue-black fruits that appear on female plants in
late summer and fall betray this species’ membership in the Olive
Family. In the wild, it occurs in habitats as diverse as rock outcrops,
pine-hardwood forests, and shrub bogs.

Reading: Cathy read a poem by MK Creel, “Give yourself permission, let
go of worry.”

It could be the rain

that gives permission

to let go of worry, forgive

the body, its pain, shift

awareness outside

this cracking vessel.

Maybe it’s the rum cherry,

its pendulous fortress

of branches, scaling bark

& wands of white flowers,

the shock of lemon-yellow

goldfinches, suck of mud

beneath your bare feet,

stepping with purpose

to keep from bruising

wild violets & tiger moths.

If skin was toxic bark

& the heart, pith & xylem

would we be any stronger?

If brain synapses were as

fibrous as mycorrhizae

tunneling through dark earth,

if we lived above & below,

flowering & fruiting after

every winter, could we better

accept what comes next?

Show and Tell:

Karen couldn’t join the ramble
today but sent in photos of “fuzzy white things” she found on her
sidewalk. Photos above by Karen Porter. Photo below by Bill Sheehan.

Bill identified the “fuzzy things” as shredded Wool
Sower galls and took this photo of one of the galls attached to a
White Oak twig. Bill suspects that squirrels took the galls apart in
search of a larval meal; birds are also known to feed on the
inhabitants of Wool Sower galls. These galls are created by tiny (1/8
inch) gall wasps in the family Cynipidae. The female wasp lays her
eggs only on White Oak trees early in the spring. The tree responds by
forming a fuzzy gall of plant tissue around the eggs. The gall
contains hardened, seed-like structures that enclose the eggs and,
later, the larvae. After the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the gall
material as they mature into adults. Bill says, “Each spherical wooly
cluster contains 15 or 20 little seed-like capsules, inside of which a
juicy wasp larva develops. So, somebody had a good meal….” More information on Wool Sower galls is here.

Roger provided an update on his investigation into
diabase (bluestone) dikes in the Athens area (learn about his ongoing geology research in the March 21st ramble report, here). While at a job site in Madison County last week, he discovered that
the owner had a huge collection of bluestone boulders including one
that was more than five feet tall, in the photo above. Diabase is a
mafic rock, high in magnesium, calcium, and iron. It often weathers to
form a soil with a circumneutral pH that supports plant species rarely
seen in the Piedmont’s typically acidic soils.

Announcements and other interesting things to note:

This week’s ramble on Thursday, April 25 will be led by Bay Noland-Armstrong, a senior in the Wildlife Sciences program at the School of Forestry with a certificate in Environmental Education. Her passion is birding and she will share her birding knowledge and experience with ramblers on Thursday. Bring binoculars if you have them – we will have some extras to share. Also download the free Merlin app from the Cornell University Ornithology Lab to your phone, here. As always, we will meet at 9:00am in the arbor next to the Children’s Garden.

Cathy reminded us the Athens/East Piedmont chapter of the Georgia
Native Plant Society will be holding its annual native plant sale on
May 4, 10am – 2pm, at the Sunrise Nursery, 550 Athens Road, in
Winterville. More than 160 native species will be for sale, including
100+ herbaceous perennials, six grass species, ten fern species, 26
shrub species, six vine species, and eight tree species. Many of these
were grown or rescued by GNPS members. More than 1,300 plants will be
available – bring a wagon!

The April 17 issue of Flagpole features a review of Between Birdsong
and Boulder, the latest book by our own poet laureate, Bob Ambrose. You can read the column here. Bob will be reading from his book at
the Globe on May 7.

Sandy Creek Nature Center’s next work day is Saturday, May 4, 10:00am to 12 noon. Volunteers will help with removing invasive plant species and
maintaining the Nature Playscape. Participants should bring water and
wear comfortable, weather-appropriate clothes and closed-toe shoes. All
tools, including gloves, will be provided. For more information, call
the Nature Center at (706) 613-3615 or register here.

You already knew this! A Little Bit of Dirt Is Good for You!

Earth Day is April 22. Test your knowledge of the ways that our choices and actions impact the planet.

Southeast Bumble Bee Atlas Training Workshop, Saturday, April 27th,
9:00 AM – 1:00 PM. Sweetwater Creek State Park, 1750 Mt Vernon Rd,
Lithia Springs, GA. For more information and to register, click here.

The Georgia Botanical Society has a field trip on
Saturday, April 27 to Buckeye Creek, in Otto,
North Carolina, just over the Georgia border and about 2 hours north of Athens on U.S. Hwy 441. This site is relatively accessible, and is rich in
spring wildflowers, especially ephemerals, including several species
that are rare in Georgia. For more info, click here.

Today’s Route: We remained in and around the Children’s Garden arbor
as we gathered leaves and painted.

OBSERVATIONS:

Between taking shots of ramblers’ artwork, Don looked for
pollinators in the Children’s Garden.

An Eastern Carpenter
Bee searches for nectar in a mustard flower (above).
Mustard family flowers are
often yellow, but may be pink, white, or purple.

Members of the Mustard family (Brassicaceae) have similar
flowers, each divided into four petals that form a cross – plants in
this family are often called ‘crucifers,’ meaning cross-bearing. Hugely
important economically, the Mustard family includes not only mustard,
but also turnip, broccoli, collards, cabbage, brussels sprouts,
rapeseed, radish, horseradish, kale, cauliflower, and more. Most of
the plants in this family have strong smelling sulfur compounds in
their leaves, well known to anyone who has ever over-cooked a batch of
collards.

A Honeybee explores a flower of ‘Extrakta’ Garden
Sage, a cultivar of Common Sage, a European native long used for
medicine and cooking. The species name, Salvia officinalis, refers to
the storeroom, the officina, in monasteries where herbs and medicines
were stored.

Catherine prepping our “outdoor studio”

Today was an Art Ramble led by Catherine, who introduced us last year
to printing and weaving. Catherine said about today’s art, “Our
activity was essentially printing leaves with watercolor paint. We
used simple watercolor palettes and painted our leaves, then pressed
them onto copy paper or watercolor paper. The idea was to play with
the paint and see what could happen. Pretty soon, everyone got
creative by layering prints, adding painted details, or just painting
nature on their own. I loved seeing everyone’s creativity and unique
approach to produce such lovely results. My resource for printing
activities is a wonderful book, Hand Printing from Nature by Laura
Bethmann, which is available at the Athens library. Tips for good
results: pat leaves dry before painting, some leaves take paint better
than others, use a sheet for practice prints, keep one water container
for washing brushes and another for clean water. Play around with your
materials and keep trying!”

Catherine
brought with her several beautifully illustrated children’s books from
the Athens public library to inspire our artistic efforts this morning.