Leaders of Today’s Ramble: Roger Collins and Heather Larkin
Authors of Today’s Report: Don Hunter, Linda Chafin
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: Trees (mainly American Beech, Tulip Tree, and four Hickory species) and Fungi/Slime Molds (supported by Bill, Heather, and Don)
Number of Ramblers today: 25
Today’s Route: We left the Children’s Garden Arbor and walked through the Lower Shade Garden, crossing the entrance road onto the White Trail Spur, and moving across the right-of-way into the woods at the intersection of the White, Blue, and Green trails.
Announcements and other interesting things:
Today’s Ramble was the last one in 2024; we will resume in 2025 on the first Thursday in March, the 6th. However…. Winter Walks will begin this week on Thursday, December 5! The first Winter Walk will be on the Cook’s Trail at Sandy Creek Park. We will meet at 10:00 a.m. at the parking lot on the east side of Lake Chapman, on the far side of the dam, and walk out and back on Cook’s Trail to the oxbow lake, a round-trip total of 5 miles; walkers can turn back at any point for a shorter walk. Bring water and lunch to eat on the trail. The Winter Walks calendar is posted here and at the link on the Nature Rambler webpage. The schedule of walks is a work-in-progress; if you’d like to lead a walk on one of the TBD days, please let us know!
Halley announced that she will be hosting the Rambler Holiday Party on Thursday, December 12, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at her house: 405 Ponderosa Drive, in the Cedar Creek subdivision in east Athens. There will be a potluck lunch so bring your favorite holiday dish to share. Halley will provide beverages. PLEASE RSVP to Halley at halleypage@charter.net OR 706-318-0854.
Friends of the Georgia Museum of Natural History is holding its Holiday Party and Open House at the Museum on campus on Thursday, December 12th, from 5-8 pm. This is a very casual pot-luck. Please drop in any time and bring a small munchie for others to try. You can see the Museum display, talk to Board members, hear about news of the Museum, and share good cheer with folks you haven’t seen in a while. The Museum address is 101 Cedar Street, the corner of Cedar and East Campus Road. There is parking at Facilities South (STEM building), Food Science, and East Campus South parking lot.
Wolves as pollinators??? “Wolves Like a Little Treat: Flower Nectar“
Spotted Lanternfly has been discovered in Georgia. Spotted Lanternfly is a serious threat to trees and crops, both native and introduced. Native to China and Vietnam, its preferred host plant is the invasive Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissimus), also a native of southeastern Asia. Spotted Lanternfly is likely to establish itself wherever Tree of Heaven is present, underlining the importance of eradicating this invasive exotic tree. More info here.
Today’s Ramble began with a toast to the 2024 Ramble Season! Roger led us in a toast to the 2024 Nature Ramble season and ramblers lifted cups of Gary’s famous hickory nut milk. Here’s a video of Roger’s speech.
Roger introduced today’s Ramble with a little known fact: Athens/Clarke County used to be home to American Chestnut trees. Chestnut is typically thought of as an Appalachian Mountains tree, but the reality is that Chestnut trees occurred in a broad swath across the eastern United States, even reaching the coastal plain, before being wiped out by a blight. It is believed that Chestnut trees comprised 25% of the forest canopy throughout its range and formed the majority of the diet of many species of wildlife. Because of its high resistance to rot, Chestnut was widely used for fence rails and for marking property lines.
Historic distribution of American Chestnut. Map derived from the Biota of North America
Historic distribution of American Chestnut in Georgia, U.S. Forest Service map
Roger searched for mention of Chestnut trees in the Athens newspaper archives and found a story about a moonshine still raiding party which crossed Sandy Creek on an old Chestnut log. He also found mention of the historic Chestnut Grove School on Timothy Road, the only surviving one-room schoolhouse for Black children in Clarke County. It stands adjacent to the 143-year old Chestnut Grove Baptist Church on what is now Epps Bridge Parkway. There are only three historic specimens of Chestnut in the UGA herbarium (labels below) that were collected in Clarke County, none collected in the vicinity of Chestnut Grove School.
In addition to Chestnut, Clarke County’s forests were composed of two pine species, five species of hickory, at least five species of oak, as well as Black Gum, Flowering Dogwood, and Black Walnut, among many others. As cotton became king, it is estimated that 78% of the original forest had been removed, leaving only 22% of the original forest intact. The land now occupied by the Botanical Garden was part of a large cotton-growing operation for most of the 1800s; plowing probably occurred in the soils under the Visitor Center and the Children’s Garden, with the planted rows ending at the point where the Forest Play Area begins. Today, it is estimated that Clarke County’s tree canopy covers 58.2% of the county, making it the county with the highest canopy cover of any city with a population over 100,000 in the U.S. (For comparison, Tallahassee has a 55% tree canopy; Atlanta, 48%; Jacksonville, 38%; Baltimore, 20%).
Roger estimated that several Beech trees in the Lower Shade and Dunson Gardens are, respectively, 100, 150, and 200 years old. Beech trees are unique in the Piedmont for their ability to conduct photosynthesis through their bark: sunlight penetrates the thin outer bark to reach chlorophyll in the inner bark. Not surprisingly, there is more chlorophyll on the south-facing sides of the trees.
Coppicing is an ancient forest management practice that allows stems to sprout from the stump of a logged tree. After some time, the young stems may be harvested for firewood, poles, or fencing, a common practice in Europe and England until the last century. Repeated harvests create woodlands of coppiced trees called copses. Southeastern forests often contain coppiced trunks that formed incidentally after logging. Undisturbed, many stumps will produce several sprouts of which two or three will dominate and grow to large diameters, forming a mature, doubly or triply trunked tree, as in this Tulip Tree, left. Roger has determined that the secondary trunks here are at least 60 years old, meaning the logging probably occurred in the early 1960s; the age of the original tree has not been determined.
Fungi grow on almost every conceivable substrate, including the living bodies of insects. Now that the leaves are dropping, Don is starting to check for “zombie ants” – ants that have been parasitized by fungi – on twigs of a variety of tree species. In this photo, a Carpenter Ant has been parasitized by a “zombie ant” fungus. A fungal spore invaded and spread throughout the ant’s body. Once the fungus reached the ant’s head, the ant climbed a nearby tree, attached itself to an exposed twig, then died. Soon after, a stalk-like reproductive organ called a stroma emerged from the ant’s head and began releasing spores that will then infect other ants on the ground below.
Red Hickory is one of the most common trees at the Garden. The raised ridges of its bark are looser than that of Mockernut and Pignut hickories, leading some to call it a False Shagbark Hickory.
Red Hickory nuts (left) are smaller than those of Mockernut and have thin husks. Mockernut husks (right) can be as thick as 1/4 inch.
The ridges of Mockernut Hickory bark appear to be tightly braided.
The ridges of Pignut Hickory bark are not as tight as Mockernut’s and are often broken or “checked” horizontally.
Pignut Hickory is so named because its nuts were eaten by wild pigs and reportedly made for excellent pork. Conveniently for our ID purposes, the husk enclosing the nut has a “pig
snout” on one end. Pignut has tough, durable wood that was used for ax
handles and wagon wheel hubs. The husk splits at the fat end but opens only about a third of the way down.
The long, loose plates of Shagbark Hickory bark are usually attached toward the middle and curve outward at top and bottom. Upper trunks and branches of White Oaks also have long, loose plates but they are attached along the vertical edge and open to one side.
Ramblers examining the bark on the lower trunk of a White Oak, right. It looks quite different from the loose plates found on the upper trunk, below.
The annual growth rings of trees reveal the history of the tree and the environment in which it grew. This Northern Red Oak was about 105 years old when it fell. The innermost rings in the center of the trunk are narrow and account for only 4 inches of diameter growth, indicating that the tree first grew in a dense forest with lots of competition for light, water, and nutrients. Around 1962, the rings suddenly become wider. It’s likely that larger, surrounding trees were logged out at that time, freeing this tree from competition.
Yaupon Holly, the source of the famous Native American Black Drink, is in fruit.
During the ramble, Don and Bill began to notice an amazing diversity of fungi on the many fallen trees in this forest.
Sulphur Tuft fungi on a fallen trunk, left; gill surface shown below
Asian Beauty, a toothy crust fungus, has “teeth” in many different shapes. It is a recent arrival to North America and its impact on native species is unknown.
Witch’s Butter jelly fungus, left, sharing a downed limb with Giraffe Spots crust fungus (close-up below)
The larva of a predatory fungus gnat prowling among a patch of White Tubelet Fungus
Ramblers have seen lots of examples of guttation from the tips and margins of plant leaves. Fungi also guttate, exuding water produced by respiration during rapid growth. Above, left, an orange-colored crust fungus (growing among White Tubelets) is covered with guttated droplets. Right, amber-colored droplets are exuding from a pink-colored crust fungus.
Pink-colored crust fungus covered with pores from which spores will be released.
Bill peeled back the bark on a downed hardwood, exposing a dendritically patterned yellow slime mold plasmodium.
Bicolored Bracket fungus is actually a crust fungus.
Common Gray Disco fungus
Shadowy Oysterling fungus upper surface, left; lower pore surfaces, right
Ceramic Parchment Crust fungus
Small black cramp balls
Yellow balls of Trichoderma gelatinosum (no common name), growing on a pink poroid crust fungus, left. Right, the same species, with the yellow balls turning green.
Unidentified poroid crust fungus
Hypoxylon species, a kind of cramp ball fungus, on a hardwood branch, right, and dissected, below.
Xylariales species are usually firm and solid; this species has a soft, dusty coating. In the photo on the right, Xylariales is growing on a pale-colored lichen that has produced the smaller, black, lipped disks that are the lichen’s reproductive structures.
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED AND DISCUSSED SPECIES:
American Chestnut Castanea dentata
American Beech Fagus grandifolia
Tulip Tree Liriodendron tulipifera
Zombie Ant Camponutus sp. (ant) and Ophiocordyceps kimflemingiae (fungus)
Red Hickory Carya ovalis
Poison Ivy Toxicodendron radicans
Mockernut Hickory Carya tomentosa
Pignut Hickory Carya glabra
Shagbark Hickory Carya ovata
Northern Red Oak Quercus rubra
White Oak Quercus alba
Yaupon Holly Ilex vomitoria
Sulphur Tuft fungus Hypholoma fasiculare
Asian Beauty crust fungus Radulomyces copelandii
Scarlet Oak Quercus coccinea
Witch’s Butter jelly fungus Tremella mesenterica
Giraffe Spots crust fungus Peniophora albobadia
White Tubelet Henningsomyces candidus
Predatory fungus gnat Family Keroplatidae
Pink crust fungus Steccherinum nitidum
Slime mold plasmodium, not specified Class Myxomycetes
Bicolored Bracket fungus Gloeoporus dichrous
Common Grey Disco fungus Mollisia cinerea
Shadowy Oysterling fungus Hohenbuehelia grisea
Ceramic Parchment Crust fungus Xylobolus frustulatus
Small, black cramp balls Rosellinia subiculata, Order Xylariales
Trichoderma gelatinosum fungus Order Hypocreales
Unidentified poroid crust
Orange cramp ball Hypoxylon sp.
Soft, powdery cramp ball Order Xylariales