Here’s the link to Don’s Facebook page for today’s Ramble.
(All the photos in this post are complements of Don.)

Today’s post was written
by Don Hunter and Linda Chafin with edits by Dale Hoyt.

Thirty two ramblers
showed up today, either a record high or a tie.

Announcements:

Eleanor mentioned an OLLI group trip to Costa Rica later this summer. The
leaders are UGA professors.–.an entomologist and a horticulturist. Spaces are
still available (you will need to be an OLLI member to participate.)

Today’s reading:

 Bill Pierson read the description of Shooting Stars in Curtis’s Flower Garden Displayed, 120 plates from
1787 to 1807 with new descriptions from Tyler Whittle and Christopher
Cook, 1991, Magna Books Winston Leicester, p. 108. Bill says: “I chose this flower, since our own Dodecatheons should be flowering sometime soon.”

SHOOTING Stars. as the Americans descriptively name this genus, is principally

confined to the east coast of their continent. It was twice introduced to Europe.
On the first occasion seeds were sent late in the l7th century by the clergyman-naturalist
John Baptist Banister, a martyr to botany for, according to one version, he was
shot while collecting, and, according to another, he fell a great height and broke
his neck. The seeds were sent to his Bishop. Henry Compton, for not only were all
Crown dependencies then considered as a part of the Diocese of London. but the Bishop
was a famous plantsman, The pleasure grounds of his palace were virtually a
botanic garden and there Shooting Stars were sown and grown. Then either the plant
disappeared or stocks in cultivation were so low that it became a variety known
to very few. A second introduction took place in about 1745. It was successful
and Mark Catesby, in his flora of the early colonies, gave it the generic name Meadea after a fashionable London physicianwho practised medicine partly in his own home but chiefly in a city coffee house. Linnaeus considered
it a misplaced honour. Dr. Mead might be physician to the King of England, the Prime Minister. Sir
Isaac Newton. and the poet Pope, but botanically he was entirely undistinguished.
In an unusual burst of irritation the Great Systematist arbitrarily used Dr.
Mead’s name only for this species and the genus he renamed Dodecatheon, from the
Greek for twelve gods, a figure suggested by the average number of its ‘stars’.

At that period the flower was greatly popular in England. It was figured in
one of the most fascinating flower books ever published, Dr. Thornton’s Temple
of Flora, and Dr. Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of the author of Origin of
Species and poet of some remarkably awful floral verses, was moved to describe
the five turned-back mauve petals and the prominent stamens, in a quatrain of
careful observations:

Meadia’s soft chain five suppliant beaux confess,

Rolls her dark eyes, and waves her golden hair.

Today’s route:

Leaving the arbor, we made our way down the walkway through the Shade
Garden and took the first mulched trail into the Dunson Native Flora Garden
(DNFG). We exited the DNFG through the south gate in the deer fence and headed
for the ephemeral pools to check on the tadpoles, then returned to the parking
lot via the south White Connector trail.

Parking Lot:

Native Azalea bud

Native azalea in bud at beginning of Shade Garden walkway:   wild azalea, sweet azalea, Piedmont azalea –
Rhododendron cancescens. “Canescent” means ”covered with short, fine gray or
white hairs” which describes the bud scales covering the soon-to-open buds.

Shade Garden:

Camellia flower

White and red
camellias along the paved Shade Garden path; all cultivars of the same Asian
species.

Japanese pachysandra flowers at tip of stem

Alleghany spurge flower buds at base of stem

Japanese
pachysandra in bud, flowers held at the tip of the plant stem……our native
pachysandra (Alleghany spurge) in the DNFG produces flowers from a short stem at the base
of the plant stem

DNFG:

Crossvine….growing
from duff and up the base of a northern red oak

Green & Gold

Green-and-gold
in flower

Bloodroot

Bloodroot in
bud and in flower

Mixed age Trillium leaves

Patch of young
(second or third year) single-leaved trillium, maybe seeds deposited in an ant
nest formed the patch. Trillium life cycle: first year underground, second and
third years single leaf comes up, next year very small plant with
characteristic three leaves though small, won’t flower until around 7 years
old. Further along, past the spring beauties, is a little patch of trillium
with all visible growth stages present: 
single leaf babies, young and small three leaf plants and the stems of
mature plants, leaves browsed by deer

White avens
leaf rosette, the leaves with characteristic green and white pattern and deeply
toothed margins.   

Carolina spring beauty

Carolina
spring beauty…Claytonia caroliniana
… there is a specialist pollinator, the spring beauty bee (Andrena erigeniae), that only visits
spring beauties….pink balls of pollen on legs.. (Other insects can and do
pollinate spring beauties.) Carolina spring beauty has narrowly elliptic
leaves, widening at the middle and tapering at both ends……..Virginia spring
beauty plants (C. virginica) have
narrower, grass-like leaves that are the same width from top to bottom.   Spring beauties are spring ephemerals,
meaning the plants come out in early spring when there is little or no canopy
and complete their entire life cycle and disappear within 6 or 8 weeks, after
the tree canopy becomes a solid cover.

Hearts-a-bustin’/Strawberry
bush    Young and stripped bare by
deer  …..deer candy

Early bluegrass (/) flowers & seeds

Native Poa (probably Early Bluegrass, Poa
cuspidata)……thin bladed
grass in clumps….juncos like to eat the seeds…..Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis) is not a native grass,
native of Europe.

American trout lily patch

American trout
lily (Erythronium americanum)
patch  

Etymology of rue…comes
from plant ruta from Greek word used for a lot of plants…..Ruta leaves look a
little like our meadow rue

Red tailed hawk

Red tailed
hawk perched on low limb for several minutes with nice view.    

Ashe’s
magnolia buds unchanged since end of February

Sharp lobed
hepatica blooming

Shooting star
foliage but no sign of flowers yet. The scientific name, Dodecatheon, means “twelve gods” and was given by Pliny the Elder
(23 – 79A.D.) who believed these wildflowers were under the care of the twelve
principal Greek gods.

Partridge
berry …….foliage only

Green-and-gold
in full flower.

Bellwort (Uvularia perfoliata) in bud

Cut leaf toothwort

Cut leaf
toothwort (Dentaria laciniata) with
four petals, like all plants in mustard family. Many of these have pink petals.
Two leaved toothwort also seen.

Native
honeysuckle/coral honeysuckle…..not blooming      

Pippsissewa/Spotted
wintergreen foliage  

Paw Paw  Two species in north Georgia…a tree
species, Asimina triloba, and a
shrubby one, small-flowered or dwarf pawpaw, Asimina parviflora, which is found in the DNFG…paw paws need to
be pollinated by carrion flies or other flies attracted to the flowers odor to produce
fruit.

Golden ragwort

Green-and-gold
and golden ragwort are two of the earliest blooming composites….

Coral bells in
leaf only.    

Walter’s violet

Walter’s
violet/Prostrate blue violet is one of the stemless blue violets. Violets come
in two forms, stemmed and stemless.

Allegheny
spurge, our native pachysandra…found buds under duff….flowers are strongly
fragrant, sometimes you can smell them from several feet away …. pollinated
by insects that are attracted by the fragrance and search for the nectar.       

Leatherwood        Introduced 30 years ago into DNFG and
has slowly spread to several locations within the DNFG

Pleated sedge
(or plantain-leaf sedge or seersucker sedge) have green scales on the female
flowers and purple on the male flowers, both on the same stem. They usually
mature at different times to prevent self- pollination. (See the photo with the Japanese pachysandra account, above.)

Newly emerged Painted buckeye leaves

Painted
Buckeyes are leafing out now, found over much of the DNFG, particularly along
the hillside bank; the Yellow Buckeye, a tree transplanted to the garden from
the mountains, has not even begun to open its buds.

American Hazelnut pistillate (female) flower

American
hazelnut in flower:  male,
pollen-producing flowers held in drooping catkins. One female flower with its
red style branches, was seen as the tip of a twig.

Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) is covered with yellow
flowers and has sprouted leaf buds. Its female and male flowers are on separate
plants; our plant is a female. Linda said this was the source of the old
fashioned medication, tincture of benzoin, but that is incorrect. Tincture of
benzoin derives from a tropical plant in the Storax family. Spicebush is in the
Laurel family and is native to North America.

Trout lily (Erythronium umbilicatum), with dimpled
rather than pointed fruit, growing on stump, already in fruit.

Virginia
bluebells coming along      

Yellow
anise   Florida anise      

Silverbells  with distinctive tan and gray striped
bark    

Beyond DNFG/ROW (White Connector Trail):

Tadpoles       American toad……..Southern leopard
frog. Call of the American Toad very loud, seems to come from trees on the west
side of the ROW.

Armadillo
tracks in mud    

Field madder

Purple dead nettle

Common blue violet (white morph)

Common blue violet (blue/purple morph

Flowers seen blooming:
Ground ivy, Common blue violet, Purple deadnettle, Kidney leaf buttercup. Field
madder, Indian strawberry or Mock strawberry (from Asia) and Rue anemone
continues to bloom at the base of the White Connector spur trail.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

There is a viral YouTube video with over 16 million views
that dramatically demonstrates that a young orangutan can be fooled by a magic
trick. Watch it before you read any further.

Continue reading →