Ramble Report March 9, 2023
Leader for today’s Ramble: Linda Chafin
Authors of today’s report: Linda
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.
Number of Ramblers today: 36
Today’s emphasis: Early spring wildflowers in the
Dunson Native Flora Garden
Reading: From “The Living
Year,” by Mary Q. Steele, 1972.
“March 1: I
went up to the wildlife preserve at Hiwassee Islandto say goodbye to
the geese, but I was too late. Some Mallards, tidily paired, a few Black Ducks,
a Coot or two, and three Blue-winged Teal – these were all that were left of
the great flocks of wintering birds… The geese were gone, but I was not sorry
to have come. White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows whistled in the brush
piles and pheasants cackled from the hedgerows. The day was gray and gradually
the clouds lowered and thickened. When the rain began it did not come in drops,
the air simply grew damper and damper and condensed on the lenses of my
binoculars until, at last, it was obvious that it was useless to stay any longer.
All that qualifies me as a just person is the lack of an umbrella. In truth, I
like being rained on, the less than subtle reminder that, in the scheme of
things, I am no more privileged than a frog. Next to life itself, water is the
most astonishing phenomenon the universe has to offer, and rain is its
loveliest manifestation.”
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| Ramblers gathering for the second ramble of the year. |
Show and Tell:
Page brought
our attention to an Eastern Towhee, serenading us from a nearby tree. Later we
heard the high screeching call of a Red-shouldered Hawk, which have nested in trees in the Shade Garden in the past.
Myrna displayed
her tee shirt, a definite winner in the T-shirt of The Year contest: “Botany Plants This Year?” We promise to get a photo sometime soon!
Richard brought
a Camellia leaf with a mysterious disease, possibly the fungal infection Camellia Leaf Spot. The damage apparently started on the lower surface of the leaf where it shows a striking raised rim, says Bill Sheehan, after looking at the leaf under magnification.
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Lower surface of diseased Camellia leaf. Photos may be enlarged by clicking them with a mouse or tapping on your screen. |
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| Upper surface of diseased Camellia leaf. |
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| Magnification of lesion on lower surface of the diseased Camellia leaf; note the prominent rim. Photo by Bill Sheehan |
Linda brought
a twig from an American Beech tree that she found on the sidewalk near the Children’s Garden. It had probably been nipped off by a
squirrel. Beeches are monoecious, i.e. “female” and “male” flowers are held in
separate locations on the same tree. The rounded heads, drooping on two-inch long
stalks, are clusters of pollen-producing, male, staminate flowers that consist
of many stamens. Since beeches are in the oak family, it’s fair to call these
male flower clusters “catkins” as we do with the oaks even though they look quite different from oak catkins. (Catkins are a type of
flower cluster adapted for wind-driven pollen dispersal.) The female, pistillate flowers we saw today consist of two
tiny, rounded ovaries, each with three styles at the top; these will enlarge
many times as they develop into the three-sided nuts we see in the fall. The
copper-colored structures in Don’s photo are the remains of the bud scales that
enveloped and protected the new growth during the winter. As Dale pointed
out in his Nature Ramble report of April 5, 2018, every part of the Beech’s new growth – woody twig,
flowers, and leaves – are contained in the bud and need only warmth and
moisture to expand in size and take up their respective functions.
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Female Beech flowers in upper right, circled in red. Male flowers in catkins with prominent pale green anthers, in the lower half. |
From Dale’s
Nature Ramble report of April 5, 2018:
“The bud scales are not just dropping off, they are
actually elongating as they loosen to reveal the new growth hidden inside: the twigs,
leaves and, in some cases, the flowers. Each of these structures formed over
the last six or so months and they will now rapidly assume their full size over
the next few weeks. Increase in the size of the bud contents is accomplished by
the enlargement of the cells produced last fall and winter. Each cell in the
shoot and leaf elongates by imbibing water. The cells swell and elongate and
the leaf or twig lengthens accordingly. If you get a chance look at an emerging
leaf. Be amazed by the origami folds that enabled it to be packed inside the
bud and then unfurled into its adult form. Such packaging has been the
inspiration of NASA scientists in the design of the solar panels that power
many satellites – compressed in their bud, the launch rocket, and then unfurled
when the payload reaches its orbit.”
Today’s Route: We
left the Children’s Garden arbor and walked downslope through the Shade
Garden and into the Dunson Native Flora Garden, returning more or less by the same route.
Today’s Observations:
We stopped to admire the
large number of colorful Japanese Maple samaras (winged fruits) decorating the
walkway into the Shade Garden. Tim pointed out that our native Red Maples also seed
early in the year, unlike many other native trees such as oaks and beech that produce fruits in the fall. Red Maple seeds are highly nutritious – rich in
proteins, carbohydrates, and minerals – and chipmunks are known to travel long
distances to reach them. By producing their seed crop early in the season, Red
Maples limit predation by squirrels, chipmunks, and other small mammals, whose
numbers peak in the summer and fall. Another interesting maple seed story at this link
explores the aerodynamics of their swirling seeds.
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| Chattahoochee Trillium Its flower color ranges from bronze, as shown here, to a deep maroon. Note the prominent silvery, pale green stripe along the leaf midvein. |
Trilliums in the Dunson Garden are both a delight and a nightmare:
it’s a delight to see such a diversity of species in a small area, and a nightmare
to sort out the hybrids that have been produced by interplanting species that would not normally occur together in the wild. Trilliums from the Coastal
Plain were planted here cheek-by-jowl with trilliums found naturally only in
the mountains and Piedmont. This hybridization seems to be especially the case with the Coastal
Plain species, Chattahoochee Trillium (T. decipiens), whose genes show
up in a number of different forms in Dunson, most often crossed with the north
Georgia species, Purple Trillium/Sweet Betsy (T. cuneatum).
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| Decumbent Trillium is a toad-shade type of trillium. Its leaves are mottled with several shades of green, and its flower sits directly atop the leaves, without a stalk. |
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| Georgia Dwarf Trillium is a wake-robin type of trillium. Its leaves are solid green in color, and its flower is held at the end of a stalk. This is one of the rarest plant species in Georgia. |
(Photos may be enlarged by
clicking them with a mouse or tapping on your screen.)
Trilliums come in two growth forms: The toad-shades, with mottled
leaves and stalkless flowers that sit directly atop the leaves, and the wake-robins, with solid green leaves and flowers on stalks. Toad-shade trilliums
usually have maroon, yellow, or bronzey-green flowers, while wake-robin
trillium flowers are usually white, pink, or dark red.
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| Chattahoochee Trillium flower with the six anthers exposed |
Chattahoochee Trillium is easily recognized by its
tall stem (2-3 times longer than the leaves), mottled leaves with a distinctive
silver-green strip, and flower resting directly atop the
leaves. It also has distinctive anthers — the pollen sacs at the top of each of its six very short stamens. Chattahoochee Trillium anthers open to the side – in Don’s photo, you can
see this as a yellow stripe along the edges of the anthers, the yellow being
the pollen. Some trillium species have anthers that open on the inner surface, others on the
outer surface. Chattahoochee Trillium (aka Mimic Trillium) is uncommon in Georgia and tracked by Georgia DNR.
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| Spotted Trillium, a toad-shade trillium, is a Coastal Plain species, as is the Chattahoochee Trillium. Its petals narrow abruptly toward the base. |
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| Lance-leaf Trillium, another toad-shade trillium, has narrower leaves and petals than the other toad-shade trilliums in the Dunson Garden. |
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| American Trout Lily with fully opened flowers |
Two species of Trout Lily are native to Georgia: American Trout Lily, found infrequently in moist
forests in a few north Georgia counties, often in calcium-rich soils; and
Dimpled Trout Lily, found in moist forests, bottomlands, and seepy areas around
granite outcrops in many counties in north and southwest Georgia. Both species
were planted in the Dunson Garden but don’t appear to have hybridized. Here’s how to tell the two species apart.
During flowering: All trout lily flowers consist of 3 petals surrounded
by 3 sepals that are nearly identical to the petals (collectively these are
called “tepals”). If you take apart the flower from an American Trout Lily, and
locate the inner petals, you may be able to spot two tiny “ears” at the base of each petal (circled in red below). Ramblers today decided that “ear” is a bit grandiose for these tiny
flanges of tissue – henceforth they will be called nubbins. Dimpled Trout
Lily petals do not have nubbins.
During fruiting: The fruit of
American Trout Lilies are rounded or pointed at the tip and are typically held
erect or at least well off the ground. The fruit of Dimpled Trout Lily has a
depression or dimple on its flat top and is usually resting on the ground at
the tip of a drooping or fallen stalk. The resemblance of the dimple to a belly
button is reflected in its scientific name, Erythronium umbilicatum, as shown in the photos here.
Vegetatively: All trout lilies have elongated bulbs,
often with bead-like segments attached. American Trout Lily also produces 1-3
stolons (called “droppers”) on each bulb that spread at or near the ground
surface; the droppers look like strands of spaghetti and are tipped with new
bulbs. This method of vegetative reproduction produces dense colonies of
genetically identical plants. Dimpled Trout Lily bulbs have no droppers or
sometimes just one.
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| Trout Lily flowers close at night, and open the next day when warmth and sunlight bring out the pollinators. At 9:30 on this cloudy morning, these flowers were closed, protecting their pollen from rain. |
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| When we returned later in the morning, after the sun had emerged from behind the clouds, the tepals were beginning to reflex (open and fold backwards), exposing their pollen-laden anthers. |
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| Like Trout Lily, Spring Beauty flowers close up at night and remain closed on cold or cloudy days. These Carolina Spring Beauty flowers were closed at 9:30am and fully opened by 11am. |
(Photos may be enlarged by
clicking them with a mouse or tapping on your screen.)
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| Golden Ragwort is the most abundant wildflower in the Dunson Garden. |
Allegheny Spurge is a peculiar spring-blooming wildflower. In fact, as an evergreen groundcover
in the same family as Boxwood, it may not even qualify as a wildflower in some
books. Its mottled leaves are crowded at the tips of stems that lie along the
ground beneath the leaf litter, and the flowers are located at the base of the
stem, quite a distance from the cluster of leaves. There is a short spike of fragrant
male flowers, each flower with four white, fleshy stamens.
Look closely at the base of this spike and find the pale, pinkish-tan female
flowers, each with 2-4 spreading lobes. Allegheny Spurge is listed as Rare in Georgia,
with fewer than 10 wild populations known, though the species is common further
north.
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| Allegheny Spurge flowers The three-lobed female flowers are fully open. Male flowers, in a dense spike, are still tightly closed. They will open after the female flowers wither, thus preventing self-pollination. |
Here’s a gallery of other wildflowers we saw today in the Dunson Garden.
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| Rue-anemone |
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| Bloodroot |
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| Dwarf Crested Iris |
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| Virginia Bluebells |
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| Columbine |
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| Shooting Star |
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| Perfoliate Bellwort |
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| Green-and-Gold |
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| Atamasco Lily |
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| Flowers of Heartleaf aka Wild Ginger. They were completely covered with leaves, perhaps accounting for their lack of color. |
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| Seersucker Sedge in flower The plump green structures are female flowers; the dark spike at the tip of the stem contains the not yet mature male flowers. |
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| Seersucker Sedge leaves appear to be pleated. |
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| Celandine or Wood Poppy |
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| Early Meadow Rue is dioecious: its female and male flowers are on separate plants. These flowers, with their dangling stamens, are male flowers. |
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| Long-spurred Violet |
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| Cut-leaf Toothwort |
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| Foamflower |
Two shrubs are in flower today in Dunson Garden, Wild Olive (aka Devilwood) and Dwarf Pawpaw.
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| Dwarf Pawpaw flowers are miniature versions of the flowers of Tall Pawpaw. Both are pollinated by flies that are attracted by the flower’s pungent smell and carrion-colored petals. |
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| Wild Olive really is in the Olive Family; its ripe fruits are black and oval and reported to be edible by humans. It occurs naturally only in the Coastal Plain. |
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| Don captured water droplets beaded up on the waxy leaves of Leatherwood, each droplet topped with a speck of pollen. Dale and Catherine performed an impromptu experiment, holding the leaf perpendicular to the ground. The droplets did not roll off! Clearly something was holding the droplets in place. It turns out that young leaves of Leatherwood are covered with tiny hairs that hold dew or rain drops, increasing humidity at the leaf surface and reducing water loss from the interior of the leaf. The hairs are sloughed off later in the growing season. |
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| Large Green Stinkbug |
Many
ramblers were dismayed by the early bloom and leaf-out we witnessed today. It
seems that a month or more of spring botanical events are all happening at
once. Two recently published essays on this topic are worth a read:
Raggedy Spring in Paint Rock – Paint Rock Forest Research
Center
The Beautiful and Terrifying Arrival of an Early Spring – New York Times
If
you enjoy learning about the ecology and life histories of our spring-blooming
wildflowers, I highly recommend “Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast: A Natural
History,” by Carol Gracie (Princeton University Press, 2012). Of the 30 species
(or groups of species) that she discusses in depth, 28 occur in Georgia, so
don’t be put off by the title. Sadly,
Carol Gracie died in 2021. Here’s a link to videos and an essay by her:
Videos:
Great Native Groundcovers, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and Marvelous
Mayapple, and “Remembering a Great Naturalist: A Toast to
Carol Gracie.”
Essay: “From Jack-in-the-pulpit to Featherfoil: An
appreciation of wildflower names.”
SUMMARY OF TODAY’S OBSERVED SPECIES:
Japanese Maple Acer
palmatum
Chattahoochee Trillium
Trillium decipiens
Red-shouldered Hawk
Buteo lineatus
Golden Ragwort Packera
aurea
Allegheny Spurge
Pachysandra procumbens
Kunth’s Maiden Fern
Thelypteris kunthii, synonym
Perfoliate Bellwort
Uvularia perfoliata
Leatherwood Dirca
palustris
Carolina Spring Beauty
Claytonia caroliniana
Virginia Spring Beauty
Claytonia virginiana
Green Stink Bug
Chinavia hilaris
American Trout Lily
Erythronium americanum
Early Meadow Rue
Thalictrum dioicum
Sensitive Fern Onoclea
sensibilis
Rue Anemone Thalictrum
thalictroides
Dwarf Crested Iris
Iris cristata
Violet Wood Sorrel
Oxalis violacea
Shooting Star Dodecatheon
meadia, synonym Primula meadia
Columbine Aquilegia
canadensis
Cut-leaf Toothwort
Cardamine concatenata
Bloodroot Sanguinaria
canadensis
Decumbent Trillium
Trillium decumbens
Green-and-Gold Chrysogonum
virginianum
Wild Olive/Devilwood
Cartrema americana, synonym Osmanthus americana
Dwarf Pawpaw Asimina
parviflora
Virginia Bluebell
Mertensia virginica
Georgia Dwarf Trillium
Trillium georgianum
Celandine Wood Poppy
Stylophorum diphyllum
Mayapple Podophyllum
peltatum
Seersucker Sedge
Carex plantaginea
Heartleaf/Wild Ginger
Hexastylis arifolia
Atamasco Lily Zephyranthes
atamasco
Spotted Trillium
Trillium maculatum
Purple Cress/Limestone Bittercress Cardamine douglassii
Foam Flower Tiarella
cordifolia
Long-spurred Violet
Viola rostrata
Sharp-lobed Hepatica
Anemone acutiloba
Lance-leaf Trillium
Trillium lancifolium