This post
was written by Hugh Nourse. Additional text was supplied by Dale and is in
square brackets. The photos are by Don Hunter. You can find more of Don’s
photos of the ramble here.
Please give Don the credit he deserves. His photographs add greatly to this
blog. The three of us (Hugh, Dale and Don) hope that these posts are useful,
informative and interesting.

[Note for new Ramblers: Check lists of plants in the natural areas of the Garden, Trail guides, Trail maps and other information of interest to Ramblers are linked to at this site.]

Twenty-three
Ramblers met at 8:30AM at the arbor by the lower parking lot.  First we heard a poem by Ted Boss, The World is in Pencil,  read by Scott
Mason.  Bob Ambrose followed with a
recitation of one of his recent poems: Your Life is a Fractal Shadow.

Our route
today began at the Flower Bridge in the International Garden, passing through
the American Indian collection, Physic Garden, and pawpaw patch. Reaching the
Freedom Plaza we took the stairs down to a native plant walk leading to the
Purple Trail; from the Purple Trail to the Orange Trail along the Middle Oconee
River, then left beside the beaver pond. Reaching the bridge back to the Flower
Garden, we returned to the Visitor Center through the gardens.

Our first stop was in the Southeastern section
of the International Garden.  This
represents

Georgia Rockcress

the plants from the Southeast discovered by botanical
explorers.  Ed commented how amazing it
must have been for those explorers to find all of these new plants to take back
to Europe.  There were three blooming
plants to see here: Georgia rockcress, a threatened plant in Georgia, known
only in 28 sites in Georgia and Alabama, a bluestar, Amsonia tabernaemontana,  and
white false indigo. I do not know where the ‘false’ comes from since my guide
calls it white wild indigo.

Crossing the Flower Bridge we were overwhelmed
by the fragrance of the Florida azaleas in bloom.  Several weeks ago we had seen them beginning
to open.  Now as we moved into the Far
East section of the International Garden there was a variegated Solomon seal
along the path, as well as several azaleas, one of which was red, the other
pink, called Azalea ‘Coral Bell’,

The Age of Conservation in botanical gardens is
represented by a garden collection of rare and endangered plants including the
Georgia Rockcress we saw earlier.  Two
azaleas were in bloom.  One we did not
know, and the other was a plumleaf azalea, which is supposed to bloom much
later, as late as July.  But apparently,
it did this last year as we made the same comment in our report a year ago.  Since some had not heard about the Torreya,
we talked about how the Garden is a safe-guarding site for this tree which is
struggling in steepheads of ravines along the Appalachicola River in Florida
and along a similar place in Georgia beside Lake Seminole.  For some reason it does not produce viable
seeds there.  Two of the plants we viewed
were short and had lateral branches but no leader going straight up. These had
been cloned from twigs of this rare tree. 
Eventually similar plants safe guarded at The Atlanta Botanical Garden
produced seeds. Plants grown from those seeds grow normally. The third tree in
front of us, grown from those seeds had a leader and was growing tall.

The agressive Golden ragwort was growing in the
beds of the Rare and Endangered Plant Garden. 
Nearby in the American Indian Collection was a hawthorne.  The Garden has not figured which of the
Hawthornes this is, just giving it the label, Crateagus sp.

Beside it were a number of slender toothworts.
The prize was a Meadow hyacinth or Indian

Slender Toothwort

quamash. The scientific name the
Garden provided is Camasia leichtlinii.  My horticulture encyclopedia indicates that it
has a white bloom, whereas the ones in front of us were blue.  It could be a cultivar of the above plant,
which does have blue flowers, or it could be Camasia scilloides, wild hyacinth, which grows along the Shirley
Miller Wildflower Trail in Northwest Georgia. Billie, the curator tells me that
the sign should be Camasia sp..  Goldenseal, a medicinal plant, Solomon’s
seal, Christmas fern, and Mayapple were all prospering in this collection of
plants.  Ramblers found Mayapples with
flowers at the junction of the stems of the two leaves. Plants with a single
leaf do not produce a flower. We found a confusing label.  It read that we were looking at wintergreen, Gaultheria procumbens, the plant from
which wintergreen is commercially produced. But procumbens means it is low to the ground.  Here there was only a tall blueberry, which
Billie says is Vaccinium corymbosum.

PawPaw flower

Walking on through the Physic Garden, we came to the Pawpaw patch.  The trees were in flower with their small but
pretty maroon petals and yellow centers.

Going down the steps to the native plant walk,
we were greeted by lovely Piedmont azaleas and Red and Painted buckeyes.  Hugh thought that one of the shrubs had the
flowers of both species. But an astute observer, Mrs. Hall, pointed out they
were really on separate bushes.  These
two buckeyes hybridize, but only in the Piedmont and not in Coastal
Georgia.  That may be because the
pollinator, a hummingbird, migrates north from the red to the painted buckeyes
in the spring when they are in flower, but they are not flowering during the
southward fall migration.  That theory
did not seem to work here.

The native plant wall led us to the Purple
Trail where we found a Highbush blueberry, Vaccinium
elliottii. A Hophornbeam tree was riddled with Sapsucker holes, but seemed
to be doing just fine. I asked everyone if they recognized a young sapling was
with sharp pointed sheaths on its twigs. 
They knew it immediately, an American beech.  At one of the turns in the trail, we looked
down to see the dark trunk of a huge persimmon tree first noted for us by Linda
Chafin. The ground was littered with the discarded twig sheaths and new maple
leaves and samaras that squirrels must have chewed off the trees.  Looking at a leaf, Dale identified it as a
red maple.

Beyond the old deer fence the trail was blocked
with logs, and a new trail went left 
along

Silverbell flower

the beaver pond and down to the Orange Trail.  Walter Cook is being paid by the Garden to
work on the trail system. The erosion on the old trail was so severe that
Walter relocated this path.  It was a real
improvement and gave us views of the beaver pond that we had not had before.  Amazingly, we found a small Silverbell tree
no more than 2 feet high with a single flower. At the Orange Trail we once
again noted the difference between the bark of the Musclewood tree, Carpinus caroliniana, and hop hornbeam, Ostrya virginiana.  The former looks like it is made up of sinewy
muscles, and the latter looks like a cat scratched it. Along the river we noted
two huge River birch trees with crossvines crawling up them.

Since we had newcomers who had not heard the
story of the dam at the beaver pond, we retold it.  Some time ago it was a real beaver pond with
a beaver dam where there are now concrete bags. At the headwaters of the creek,
the UGA pig farms were located, and caused problems with the quality of the
water of the creek.  So  after the beavers left the University dammed
the creek again to improve the quality of the water before it went into the Middle
Oconee River.

As we rounded the corner to follow the creek
away from the river, we pointed out the wonderful heath bluff above the
river.  Right now a beautiful Piedmont
azalea is in bloom

Crown tipped coral fungus

there.  Earlier there
was a Silverbell.  Later this year, we
will see the flowers of mountain laurel. Along the trail, squirrels had dropped
buds of Tulip trees.  On a log nearby we
saw a coral fungus.  Don Hunter looked it
up and named it Crown tipped coral fungus. Both box elder sprouts and Poison ivy
were close together along the trail, so we took time to show the difference
between the two. Box elders have opposite leaves, while Poison ivy has
alternate leaves.  There were also the
five leaflets of Virginia creeper nearby.

Sensitive fern

Crossing the Eagle Scout bridge we saw Sensitive fern.  Several fertile fronds were found with the
spore-bearing structures pressed upward around the stem.  On Netted

Sensitive fern fertile frond

chain fern, which looks similar,
the spore bearing structures are held laterally from the stem like tree
branches and the sori seem to form a chain. 
Adjacent in the water were the arrow shaped leaves of Duck potato. Along
the path past the bridge were a Yellow morel

Yellow Morel

mushroom, Rattlesnake fern, and
the new unfurling leaves of Christmas fern. Probably the best find of the day
was Avis’s discovery of a Green tree frog in a shrub right next to the
trail.  Everybody got a good chance to
see this beauty.  We hailed Don Hunter to
make sure he got a photo. [You may have heard the advertisement

Green tree frog

call of the Green tree frog before.
It is a hollow nasal “honk” or “bonk”. Better than me
describing it, you can listen to it here, and here is a link to a recording of the Green tree frog aggressive call.]

[Several people saw something unusual on the surface of the creek. What appeared
to be an insect seemed to be bouncing up and down on the water. The
insect was really a mated pair of dragonflies, flying in tandem, the male gripping the
female behind her head with fork-like projections at the end of his slender abdomen.
The bouncing was not what it seemed. The pair descend toward the water and as
they near it the female curves her abdomen downward until the tip just enters
the water. As the tip dips into the water she releases an egg which will sink
to the bottom of the creek. Just as soon as she releases the egg she and her
mate fly upward, creating the effect that they have bounced off the surface of
the creek. This action was repeated several times while we watched and then the
pair flew off. The eggs will hatch into a predatory aquatic nymph that will
feed on other insects in the creek for a year or more. Eventually it will crawl
out of the water and an adult dragonfly will emerge, in much the same fashion
as a cicada emerges from its nymphal shell.]

[Just slightly upstream we saw a termite swarm on a small tree
stump. These winged termites are the reproductive caste – their sterile, wingless
siblings are left underground, feeding on the rotting wood. When conditions are
suitable the colony produces fertile reproductives, called alates, that emerge
into the above ground world and fly off to mate and found new colonies. While
we watched the hundred-plus alates gathered on the top of the stump and slowly
seemed to evaporate as, one by one, they flew off to meet their fate. Unfortunately, by this time Don was out of sight so we did not get a photograph of the event.]

 

From here to the bridge to the Flower Garden,
we saw a number of flowers blooming:  Rue

Three-part yellow violet

anemone, Bluestars, Three part yellow violets, and Mayapple.  We saw the leaves of Wild yam and Lion’s foot.  A flowering

May apple flower

Jack-in-the-pulpit gave us a chance
to talk about the difference between the leaves of Trilliums and Jacks.  Both are monocots meaning their leaves are
parallel veined, but those of Jack-in-the-pulpit have a midvein from which
parallel veins go to the edge of the leaf where they join a vein along the
margin of the leaf.  Also the arrangement
of the leaves are different.  Trillium
leaves are

Jack-in-the-Pulpit leaf

equidistant from each other around the stem.  Jack-in-the-pulpit leaves have two that are
opposite and the third one lies perpendicular to these two. Crossing the bridge
for the return trip to the Visitor Center, we found Wood sorrel and Common blue
violets in flower, as well as the leaves of Perfoliate bellwort.

In the woodland walk in the Flower Garden we
found flowering Green and gold, Dwarf crested iris, and Jack-in-

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

the-pulpit.  One of the jacks was solid green, and the
other had maroon stripes. Next we found the Native wisteria just beginning to
flower.  An unusual tree for this part of
the country, a Live oak tree is growing beside the Heritage Garden.

Today our ramble was video recorded by a
student in photojournalism, who did a report on us last year.  Afterwards he interviewed Dale and
myself.  Hope he gets a good grade!

We retired to Donderos for conversation and
snacks.

Hugh

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

(Comments: b=blooming or, if fern, with fertile frond; g=in
garden, not the natural area, otherwise in the natural area)

Common Name	Scientific Name	Comments
Georgia rockcress	Arabis georgiana	g,b
Eastern bluestar	Amsonia tabernaemontana	g,b
White false indigo	Baptisia lactea	g,b
Florida azalea	Rhododendron austrinum	g,b
Plumleaf azalea	Rhododendron prunifolium	g,b
Torreya pines	Torreya taxifolia	g
Golden ragwort	Packera aurea	g,b
Hawthorne tree	Crataegus sp.	g,b
Slender Toothwort	Cardamine heterophylla	g,b
	syn. Dentaria heterophylla
Meadow hyacinth	Camassia quamash	g,b
Solomon’s seal	Polygonatum biflorum	g,b
Goldenseal	Hydrastis canadensis	g,b
Christmas fern	Polystichum acrostichoides
Mayapple	Podophyllum peltatum	g,b
Blueberry	Vaccinium sp.	g,b
Paw Paw	Asimina triloba	g,b
Red Buckeye	Aesculus pavia	g,b
Yellow buckeye	Aesculus flava	g,b
Hop hornbeam	Ostrya virginiana
American beech	Fagus grandifolia
American persimmon	Diospyros virginiana
Red maple	Acer rubrum
Carolina silverbell	Halesia carolina	b
Crossvine	Bignonia capreolata
River birch	Betula nigra
Tulip poplar	Liriodendron tulipifera
Crown-tipped coral fungus	Clavicorona pyxidata
Box elder	Acer negundo
Poison ivy	Toxicodendron radicans
Virginia creeper	Parthenocissus quinquefolia
Sensitive fern	Onoclea sensibilis	b
Christmas fern	Polystichum acrostichoides
Rattlesnake fern	Botrypus virginianus
Kidneyleaf buttercup	Ranunculus abortiva	b
Yellow morel	Morchella esculenta
Duck potato	Sagittaria latifolia
Green tree frog	Hyla cinerea
Rue anemone	Thalictrum thalictroides
Jack in the pulpit	Arisaema triphyllum	b
Dragonflies	Order Odonata: Anisoptera
Threepart violet	Viola tripartita	b
Wild yam	Dioscorea villosa
Lion’s foot	Prenanthes sp.
Yellow woodsorrel	Oxalis stricta	b
Common blue violets	Viola sororia	b
Perfoliate bellwort	Uvularia perfoliata	g,b
Green and gold	Chrysogonum virginianum	g,b
Dwarf crested iris	Iris cristata	g,b
American wisteria	Wisteria frutescens	g,b
Live oak	Quercus virginiana	g