Leader of Today’s Ramble: Catherine Chastain, whose background as a children’s librarian and teacher makes her uniquely qualified to lead on Halloween!

Authors of Today’s Report: Linda Chafin, Don Hunter

The photos that appear in this report were taken by Don Hunter unless otherwise credited. 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.

Nature Ramble Rainy Day Policy: We show up at 9:00 a.m., rain or shine. If it’s raining, we will meet and socialize in the conservatory (bring your own coffee); if there is a break in the rain, we’ll go outside and do a little rambling.

Today’s Emphasis: Creating Halloween monsters

Number of Ramblers today: 21

Announcements and other interesting things:
Kathy Stege announced that from now on she will be using her given name, Kathryn.

Dave Miller shared this interesting youtube video, The Surprising Map of Plants, that summarizes the evolutionary history of plants from algae to the aster family. The author and illustrator explains how plants across the evolutionary spectrum are related to each other and what makes them so successful.

From the Washington Post: A Year in the Life of a Leaf: explore a leaf’s magical transformations across seasons.

Forest fires are shifting north and intensifying – here’s what that means for the planet.

Don’s Pre-Ramble Observations:

The Handsome Meadow Katydid, with its white face, pale blue eyes, turquoise wings, bright green body, and legs brownish-red fading to yellowish-green, is indeed handsome. It lives in moist to wet forests and in brushy thickets near streams and lakes from Florida north to New York, and east to Mississippi. They eat pollen, seeds, and leaves and are eaten by other insects and birds. Females lay their eggs in rows along plant stems, where they overwinter. Small wingless nymphs hatch in the spring, becoming larger during a succession of molts and eventually developing wings. When they mature in mid to late summer, the males attract females with their songs (to hear the song, click here) and the females select a mate based on the strength of the song. The song is created by stridulation: one wing has a “file” that is rubbed against the other wing that has a “mirror” that amplifies the sound.

Show-and-Tell:

I had just returned from a trip to the mountains, bringing with me several White Oak and Northern Red Oak leaves with numerous neatly incised circular holes (photos above). I’d never noticed this in the woods before and thought first of the circular bites taken out of Redbud leaves by leaf-cutting bees, a favorite of Dale’s. But that yielded nothing on the internet, so I googled “oak leaves with round holes,” and right away was taken to several websites about the Oak Shothole Leaf-miner Fly.

The female of this tiny fly feeds in the early spring by inserting her hairlike ovipositor into an oak leaf bud and then lapping up the sap that seeps from the microscopic wound. She may do this several times to the same bud before moving on to another bud. As spring progresses, and the leaf emerges from the wounded bud, the tiny holes expand as the leaf does, turning the tiny wounds into easily visible holes. Where the developing leaf expands evenly in all directions, the wound becomes a round hole; where the leaf grows mostly lengthwise, an oval hole forms. When the leaves are mature, the females return to deposit their eggs inside the leaves. The eggs then hatch, and tiny larvae emerge and eat their winding way inside the leaf, “mining” the nutritious tissue within and leaving trails of dead tissue behind. Oak Shothole Leaf-miner Flies visit several oak species that occur in our area – Black Oak, Northern Red Oak, White Oak, and Post Oak – as well as Chinese Chestnut and some maples. If you take a look at the list of Observed Species at the end of this report, you’ll see that the genus for this fly is Japanagromyza, suggesting that it’s not native to North America, but it is an American species of an otherwise Asian genus.

Today’s Reading: Catherine brought a reading relevant to monster creation, a poem by Shel Silverstein entitled “The Worst.”

When singing songs of scariness,
Of bloodiness and hairyness,
I feel obligated at this moment to remind you
Of the most ferocious beast of all:
Three thousand pounds and nine feet tall –
The Glurpy Slurpy Skakagrall –
Who’s standing right behind you.

At least two ramblers chose to dress appropriately for monster creation!
(Myrna, left, and Gary, right)

Today’s Activities and Observations:
Catherine brought boxes of nature finds: sweet gum balls, grape vine tendrils, okra pods, dried leaves, lichen-encrusted twigs, acorns, and magnolia and chinaberry fruits, as well as googly eyes, hot glue and gun, twine, and felt scraps. Ramblers got busy!

And the results were spectacular!

Monsters by Roger C and Marsha (above)

Don’s Gingko Bee and Halley’s monster

Monsters by Henry and Linda

Dave’s Snake Mummy and Myrna’s Mr. Lichen Face with two small cohorts

Monsters by Jan and Gary

Monsters of unknown parentage

Inspired by the monsters, Ramblers set off for a short ramble through the Lower Shade Garden to the floodplain….

Bigleaf Magnolia leaves (above) and Sasanqua Camellia in flower (below)
in the Lower Shade Garden

From the New York City Park Daily Plant: “The American Sycamore attains the largest girth of any tree native to Eastern North America. In colonial times, families used hollow sycamores as temporary shelter, and a single trunk cavity was known to hold up to 15 men on horseback! The current record holder in Ohio is 15 feet in diameter. The sycamore is very long lived, sometimes reaching 500 years of age. After 200 or 300 years, it becomes hollow. Sycamores grow in rich, alluvial or bottomland soil, usually along river banks and streams. Sycamores prefer well-drained soils, but tolerate periods of waterlogged, anaerobic conditions (lacking oxygen). Urban soils are notoriously compacted with poor aeration, so this natural adaptation allows Sycamores to function well in the urban environments.”

Yellowwood’s golden yellow leaves and Sourwood’s coral-red leaves in the Dunson Garden

The Middle Oconee River continues to be low.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Rattlesnake Master Eryngium yuccifolium
Handsome Meadow Katydid Orchelimum pulchellum
Oak Shothole Leafminer Fly (leaf damage only) Japanagromyza viridula
Carolina Anole Anolis carolinensis
Daddy Longlegs Order Opiliones
Bigleaf Magnolia Magnolia macrophylla
American Witch-hazel Hamamelis virginiana
Sasanqua Camellia Camellia sasanqua
Yellowwood Cladrastis kentukea
Sourwood Oxydendrum arboreum
American Sycamore Platanus occidentalis
Neoscona orbweaver spider Neoscona sp.
Dotted Smartweed Persicaria punctata