Leader for today’s Ramble: Linda Chafin

Authors of today’s Ramble report: Linda. Comments, edits, and suggestions for the report can be sent to Linda at Lchafin (at) uga.edu.

Insect, fungi, and gall identifications: Bill Sheehan

The photos that appear in this report were taken by several people whose names are given under each photo.

Number of Ramblers today: 6

Today’s emphasis: At 9:00a.m., thunder and lightning and rain were pounding the parking lot at the Garden. Still, six of us showed up and waited in the Visitor’s Center for about 30 minutes. The rain let up and we went out, seeking what we found between rain storms, which started back up about 11.

Reading: Linda chose a poem by Byron Herbert Reese, “The Sound of Rain” for today’s rainy ramble. It was published in his 1952 collection, A Song of Joy. (See last week’s Ramble Report for another of Reece’s poems.)

The Sound of Rain

I said to myself beneath the roof
One rainy night while fast they fell
From clouds with many in store for proof:
What raindrops most resemble, tell.
The answer that my fancy gave,
Since it could say the thing it chose:
I think the rain sounds like a wave
As sucking down the shore it goes.

The rain was always like the sea,
I told my fancy, try again.
And then my fancy said to me:
A lot of sticks are like the rain,
A lot of sticks cut from the brakes
Of cane that by the river crowd,
And set in rows like slender stakes
With top ends reaching to the cloud.

Announcements and other interesting things to note:
Next week’s ramble will be led by expert birders Eugenia and Tom. The book group will meet afterward at 11am to discuss Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard, by Joan E. Strassmann.

Here’s Ed Yong’s take on birding: When I Became a Birder, Almost Everything Else Fell into Place.

Interesting article from the BBC. Why you should let insects eat your plants.

Note from Linda on the changes to the trails in the Dunson Native Flora Garden: I met on Tuesday with Jenny Cruse-Sanders, the Garden’s Director, to discuss the proposed changes to the trails in Dunson. Jenny is working with the University’s architects to make all the trails in the Garden’s developed areas accessible to wheelchairs, strollers, walkers, rollators, etc. She is committed to getting folks at all levels of ability from the parking lots to the river without obstacles. The trail surfaces in Dunson will be altered to facilitate this but the plan does not include paving with concrete. Jenny stressed that every effort will made to minimize disturbance to trees and other plant populations. She invited the Ramblers to contribute to the effort to protect existing plant populations in Dunson by working with the Botanical Garden’s Horticultural staff to assist with mapping and photographing plants, helping with controlling the weedy natives, and in other ways–please be thinking of ways you’d like to contribute. Some proposed changes are long overdue, e.g. cameras to discourage poaching and updated signage.

It takes a village…. The Nature Rambles have always been a team effort, starting in 2009, when Anne Shenk and Shirley Berry started the Circle of Hikers, continuing when Dale Hoyt and Hugh Nourse came on as leaders to the more accurately named Nature Ramblers. Don Hunter joined in 2013 and has faithfully contributed his recorded notes and amazing photographs, week in and week out, ever since; he has also contributed his vast knowledge of fungi, lichens, and geology on many rambles. Critical to the ongoing rambles are the talented Ramble leaders, 2022-2024: Emily Carr, Kelly Carruthers, Catherine Chastain, Roger Collins, Gary Crider, Liana and Aubrey Cox, Connie Gray, Holly Haworth, Don Hunter, Heather Licklighter-Larkin, Jean Lodge, Roger Nielsen, Jim Moneyhun, Bay Noland-Armstrong, Jim Porter, Bill Sheehan, Tom Shelton, Kathy Stege, Sandy Shaull, John Schelhas, Kaitlin Swiantek, Eugenia Thompson, and Dan Williams. Bill is now wearing multiple hats since he began in April to set up and manage the ramble leader calendar, a huge help. Now, the latest addition to the village is Merrill Morris, a long-time friend and website expert, who has moved the Ramble Report, as of this week, from the old, clunky, unsupported Google Blogger to WordPress, a modern, user-friendly website manager. This transition is in progress, so if you have any comments or questions about the new site, please contact Linda or Merrill (merrill.morris@gmail.com). My heartfelt thanks to all of these folks and, of course, to all the Ramblers who turn out Thursday mornings to learn, ask great questions, share their readings and observations, point out cool stuff, and just have a good time!

Today’s Route: We met in the Visitor Center for about 30 minutes then headed outside when the rain let up. We walked through the International Garden to the Scout Connector Trail to the Callaway Building and from there down the White Trail spur to the White Trail along the river. We followed the White Trail downriver and then returned to the Visitor Center on the Purple Trail, just as the next downpour arrived.

OBSERVATIONS:

We stopped outside the Asia Section when Jenny stopped to wonder if the gate was a Chinese or Japanese character. As a fanatic NY Times Spelling Bee player, I remembered a recent acceptable spelling bee word “torii” – a traditional Japanese garden gate. Sure enough, a later internet search confirmed that the entry to the Garden’s Asia Section is a Torii gate, a symbolic gateway found throughout Japan at Shinto shrines. Torii gates identify entryways into sacred spaces, and are usually colored red, symbolizing vitality and protection against evil.

Sloughs (sometimes called back swamps) are periodically flooded wetlands that often form in the low area between the base of a slope and a river levee. When the river overflows its banks, water is trapped behind the levee and may stand for months, especially during a rainy winter. Tree trunks in sloughs are swollen at the base and marked with high-water mud lines many feet above the ground. Sloughs are important to frogs that lay their eggs in the shallow pools.

Bill noticed a patch of webbing on a Wingstem leaf and stopped to investigate what turned out to be the pupa stage of a Tussock Moth. Within the loose webbing, a papery structure held a fat pupa that had just molted from the caterpillar stage. Before turning from a caterpillar into a pupa, the Tussock Moth caterpillar constructed a webby dome incorporating stinging black hairs it plucked from its own body. Once safely covered under the webby dome, the caterpillar spun a cocoon, inside which it molted into a pupa. The pupa itself will molt several times over the course of 10 to 14 days, finally emerging as an adult moth. Bill has placed the pupa shown here in a dish at home and is waiting the ten days required for the pupa to molt into an adult moth before making a final identification.

Slippery Elm was named for the mucilaginous inner bark which has been used medicinally for centuries for sore throats. Slippery Elm is less subject to Dutch Elm disease, and both Slippery and American Elms are less affected in the south than northern and midwestern trees.

Leafy liverwort leaves are only one cell thick and must absorb moisture directly from the surface on which they live. These plants were growing on a rock at the base of the slope where it receives downslope seepage and stays wet much of the time. Bill photographed them under his microscope. Despite what seems like a precarious lifestyle, leafy liverworts have been around for 500 million years, surviving five extinction events.

Leafy liverworts are delicate plants that, like mosses, lack vascular tissues and reproduce by spores. Unlike mosses whose leaves are spiraled around the stem, leafy liverwort’s tiny leaves are in two rows along the sides of a stem, with a third row of even tinier leaves attached to the underside of the stem.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
Cope’s Gray Tree Frog Hyla chrysoscelis
American Toad Anaxyrus americanus
Honewort Cryptotaenia canadensis
Red Maple Acer rubrum
Goose Grass, Fowl Manna Grass Glyceria striata
Lurid Sedge Carex lurida
River Cane Arundinaria gigantea
Lizard’s Tail Saururus cernuus
Wingstem Verbesina sp.
Tussock Moth Orgyia sp.
Slippery Elm Ulmus rubra
Slippery Elm Gall Aphid Kaltenbachiella ulmifusa
Leafy Liverwort Porella platyphylla (tentative)

Leader for today’s Ramble, Emily

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. Photos may be enlarged by clicking them with your mouse or tapping your screen.

 

Today’s emphasis:  Winter tree ID and storm damage to Orange Trail watershed from the January 3-4 extreme rain event (4.5 – 5.0 inches total)

15 Ramblers today

New Rambler today…Lynn

Reading: Emily read from John Burroughs, at Dale’s request.  The reading is one of Hugh Nourse’s favorite nature-related inspirational passages. Hugh was the initial leader of the group we know as “Nature Ramblers.”

Continue reading →

 Online Show & Tell for the week of August 14 – 20, 2022

Many thanks to the ramblers who sent in photos and stories for this week’s Online Show & Tell! Keep sending your stories to LCHAFIN@UGA.EDU and put “Show & Tell” in the subject line so I can keep track of them. 

Reading  (From Donald Culross Peattie’s An Almanac for Moderns) 

 

AUGUST FOURTEENTH 

 

    As soon as the green and violet hour of summer dusk is at
hand and the bats begin to sweep the sky for midges, the voice of the
whippoorwill rises out of the hollow below my house. This will be but the
beginning of his whipping of poor Will (that luckless lad) and when first I
hear it I can very nearly enjoy it. For it is a nostalgic and intensely American
sound, and one that goes back, as we find nearly everything precious does, to
childhood.

    How often have I wakened gently, to hear, down in the valley,
the strange, contented calling of the whippoorwill, and lain awhile to breathe
the wind of the night fields, fresh with dew and the scent of sweet clover, and
drifted again to sleep, while he sang, thinking of the benediction of night
after the burning summer days.

Bill Sheehan sent in the following text and photos on August 18…. “I had a fun day
yesterday looking under leaves for galls. Two particularly exciting (to me)
finds:

Sawfly egg chambers and larvae! 

An artsy Water Oak leaf embroidered by a Sawfly mama. Sawflies are a kind of herbivorous wasp. Turns out the “saw” is part of the ovipositor used for inserting eggs in the EDGE of the leaf.

Evenly spaced Sawfly egg chambers on the edge of a Water Oak leaf. Bits of egg shell are protruding from the slit EDGE of the leaf. Who would have thought?

Sawfly larvae busily eating a Water Oak leaf

You can see Bill’s iNaturalist page documenting this find here. He provided this link to a video from France showing a female Sawfly ovipositing in the edge of a leaf.

The second find by Bill….

Pitch Gall Midge on a Loblolly Pine sapling

A gall created by a Pitch Gall Midge (Genus Cecidomyia) According to this website, the female midge lays her eggs on the twigs of pines in the spring. Tiny larvae hatch from the eggs and bore into the twig, causing resin (pitch) to flow out and envelop the larvae. The larvae then develop inside this mass, subsisting on the resin until they become adults.

Close-up view of the gall The Gall Midge larvae grow up in the sticky white resin, each with a breathing tube. Who would want to mess with them in a mass of semi-solid turpentine?!

The breathing tubes become escape hatches when the adults are ready to fly. Close-up of the pupal skins left behind in the gall when the adult flies away

Bill’s iNaturalist page documenting this find is at this link. Further information on this fascinating species can be found here.

And some caterpillars from Bill….

The oh, so aptly named Laugher Moth caterpillar

 

Pretty funny from the top too.

White-streaked Prominent (Ianassa lignicolor)

THANK YOU, BILL!

********************

On August 19, Catherine Chastain wrote “I have been noticing fungi lately – such a strange and beautiful kingdom.”

THANK YOU, CATHERINE!

********************

From Ed Wilde, on August 19….

“A few days ago, Sue and I were walking near one of the retention
ponds here at Presbyterian Village, and we noticed that there were two little frogs in the
bottom of a rain gauge that hangs on the fence surrounding the pond.
There were 3-4 inches of water in the gauge, but the frogs were trapped beneath
the red “float” ring that allows you to see the measurement from a
distance – they were agitated and struggling to move. We took the top off
the gauge, shook it onto the ground, and the frogs fell out and hopped away.

 

Today I was back at the pond, and there were two more frogs
trapped in the gauge – also below the float ring!  I dumped them out like
we did last time, and took a photo of them on the ground – one bright green,
one dark grey – the same colors as the first two. What is going on here!?” Was it raining frogs? Some answers here….

Update from Ed on August 20: “There was another frog in
the rain gauge this morning.  I guess they are crawling up the fence
post and then into the tube through the top openings (below) – which are
quite small.  Wonder what is attracting them to it – maybe some kind of
smell left by the original ‘inhabitants’?”

THANK YOU, ED!

**************************************************

 

Leader for
today’s Ramble: Linda

 

Author of today’s Ramble Report: Linda

 

Insect and fungi identifications: Don Hunter, Bill Sheehan, Heather Larkin

 

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: 34, with two new ramblers — welcome, Mary and Robin!

 

Bumper crop of ramblers today!

 

Reading: “The Dragonfly” by Louise Bogan, from The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968. 

 

You are made of almost nothing
But of enough
To be great eyes
And diaphanous double fans;
To be ceaseless movement,
Unending hunger,
Grappling love.

Link between water and air,
Earth repels you.
Light touches you only to shift into iridescence
Upon your body and wings.

Twice-born, predator,
You split into the heat.
Swift beyond calculation or capture
You dart into the shadow
Which consumes you.

You rocket into the day.
But at last, when the wind flattens the grasses,
For you, the design and purpose stop.

And you fall
With the other husks of summer.

**************************************

 

Show and
Tell: Kathy brought a stem of Poke Salad (aka Pokeweed), its leaves skeletonized by… …what? As it turns out, Poke is one of the many plants that the caterpillars of the Giant Leopard Moth feed on. (Here is a list of its many other hosts as well as some other good info about this species.) The Giant Leopard Moth is an elegant black-and-white creature, and its larvae are the caterpillars known as Giant Woolly Bears. Kathy extolled the virtues of the “lowly” Poke Salad plant because its deep taproots have broken up the hard clay subsoil in her garden and converted it to black topsoil. She commented that the seeds remain viable in the soil for up to 40 years, which may explain why we see Poke Salad showing up in sunny openings in what otherwise appear to be intact forests.

Bill brought a Skiff Moth Caterpillar, left, which is in the Slug Caterpillar Family (Limacodidae), as its inactivity this morning seemed to reflect. Below is a photo of the adult moth.

Photo by Andy Reago and Chrissy McClarren

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Still snip from Don’s video of the parasitoid wasps

 Bill
also brought an actively hatching mass of parasitoid wasp eggs, safely    ensconced
in a small clear plastic viewing case.  Many
tiny wasps, recently hatched, could be seen moving around in the case.The wasp eggs were lain inside the eggs of another insect, and when the wasp eggs hatched, the wasp larvae consumed the egg
contents, destroying the original inhabitants. Here is a link to a video that Don shot of the tiny wasps swarming over the eggs. No telling whose eggs those once were.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closeup photo of one of the parasitoid wasps, no larger than a gnat

Dr. Sher Ali
brought a hat from Elandan Gardens, in Bremerton, Washington, where he and
Barbara recently visited on their tour of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Elandan is famous for its world-class
bonsai collection and lushly
landscaped gardens on the shores of Puget Sound.

 

 

 

 

Gorgeous blue Cobalt Crust Fungus brought in by Carla

 

Announcements: Get your new Rambler t-shirts and hoodies! Here! Or here:
http://natureramblers.satisfactoryprinting.com/nature_ramblers/shop/home

The sale closes on Sunday so here’s hoping you are reading this in time!

 

Today’s
Route: We visited the International Garden and Physic Garden, before heading downslope on the Purple Trail. We returned via the Purple Trail Connector through the Flower
Garden and the
Heritage Garden.

 

Today’s emphasis:  Seeking what we found in the International Garden, Herb and Physic Garden, Purple Trail, Flower Garden, and Heritage Garden

OBSERVATIONS:

 

A patch of Cherokee Sedge, native to the southeastern U.S., is beginning to shed its seeds. It’s a sedge in the genus Carex, which is distinguished by the tiny sacs that surround each even-smaller seed. In Cherokee Sedge, the sacs are held in drooping clusters near the top of a three-sided stem. It was time to revisit the old jingle about the stems of grass-like plants: “Sedges have edges, rushes are round, and grasses have joints [or knees] all the way to the ground.”

 

Cherokee Sedge occurs in many Piedmont bottomlands. It flowers in the spring and sheds its seeds in late summer and fall. The seeds are held in the tiny sacs that make up the lower cluster; the spent male flowers are in the two clusters above.

 

Clasping Heliotrope is a pretty but weedy species found in many of the beds at the Garden

                                                                               

 

Looking down on Chamber Bitter, you think these plants resemble mimosa and must be in the bean family, right? Surely that’s a compound leaf with many leaflets along a rachis? And the leaves fold up, just like mimosa! But
flip over what appears to be a single leaf, and you’ll see a line of
minute flowers that belies our assumption. Each of those flowers arise
from what we now realize is a stem – not a midrib – bearing numerous flowers and leaves.

This is a species where there are flowers with pistils only (“female flowers”) and flowers with stamens only (“male flowers”). The flowers near the base of the stem are pistillate and have produced fruits (the round green things). The flowers toward the tip of the branch are staminate and are just now developing, which prevents self-pollination. This condition — where both sexes are on the same plant but in separate flowers — is termed monoecious (moe-nee-shus), literally “one house.”  Chamber Bitter is a ubiquitous weed, imported from Asia and once used in treating urinary disorders (check out its scientific name in the list below). It is an annual.

Common Olive planted in the Physic Garden. The fruits are the source of olive oil and the many types of olives we eat. The differences in color and taste are due to the time of harvesting and the type of processing the fruits receive.

Feverfew tucked in among other plants in the Physic Garden. A native of the Balkan Peninsula, Anatolia, and the Caucasus, it has a long history as a medicinal plant used for fevers, headaches, and many other ailments. Here’s a link to an interesting article about the medicinal uses of this species.

Hops vine with female flower clusters twining on an arbor between the Physic and Heritage Gardens.

Hops flower clusters are used to flavor beer. They also prevent spoilage and were first used to make casks of beer more “shelf-stable” during long sea voyages (thanks, Don!). Female and male flowers are produced on separate plants, that is, they are dioecious (“die – ee – shus”). The “active ingredients” – resins and essential oils – are produced by special, golden-colored glands found only on female flowers. 

Mulberry Weed is a common weed in the Athens area – even though it’s an herb, it really is in the mulberry family. A native of SE Asia, it was likely introduced with horticultural plants.

Giant Hyssop, a member of the mint family, in the Physic Garden. It is native to parts of the upper Midwest and Great Plains, and was used medicinally by Native Americans to treat a number of ailments.

Aerial roots descending from a Muscadine branch

Heading down the Purple Trail, we encountered a favorite Rambler sight: a
curtain of aerial roots descending from a Muscadine vine. They are possibly the result of freezing injury.
Although we’ve stopped by these aerial roots for many years, we’ve
never seen any reach the ground and actually root. Someone speculated
that this is due to deer browsing. Left unbrowsed, they would reach the
ground, take root, and anchor the vine in place.

 

Loblolly Pine cone demolished by a Gray Squirrel

Gray Squirrels love tender, green, unripe pine cones! The whole cone (except the core) is nutritious– loaded with fiber and vitamins– but the real treat is the high-protein seed tucked between, and protected by, the cone’s tightly closed scales. Squirrels will even stash the green cones; they don’t rot and the seed stays fresh and nutritious through winter’s scarcity. Here’s a fun video of a Gray Squirrel eating a green cone. I recommend turning off the sound on the video and turning up the sound on this as you enjoy the squirrel (Thanks to Gary for musical expertise!)

A very well camouflaged American Toad

An equally well camouflaged Crane-fly Orchid

 

Wondering: are the muted, woodsy colors of Crane-fly Orchid a type of camouflage that protects the flowers from indiscriminate browsers (i.e. deer) and/or from day-flying insect visitors that might remove nectar without pollinating the flowers? (Crane-fly flowers can be pollinated only by night-flying noctuid moths.)

Possumhaw Holly’s fruit, borne at the tip of a “short shoot,” will turn bright red in the fall.

A number of our native trees and shrubs have “short shoots,” like Possumhaw’s, that grow very, very slowly and bear leaves, flowers, and fruits in clusters at their tips, in addition to normal “long shoots.”  In the photo above, you can count at least 10 growth rings on the short shoot, each 1 or 2 mm long, and each representing a year’s growth. By concentrating the leaves, flowers, and fruits at the tip of the shoot, the carbohydrates produced by photosynthesis in the leaves are more readily available to the energy-expensive processes of flowering and fruiting.

Holly definitely won the award for the sharpest eyes when she spotted this caterpillar resting on a short shoot of the Possumhaw Holly.

Returning through the Heritage Garden, we came upon some Loofah vines bearing  fruits that make a nice meal when fresh and an even nicer sponge when dry, below.

Photo by Rik Schulling, TropCrop – Tropical Crops Services

A Heritage Garden fly gave Don the opportunity to apply his macro chops

Giving Holly a run
for her money in the sharpest eyes category, Bill made an exciting find,
noticing four bits of leaf in the shape of tiny party hats side-by-side
at the edge of an Indigo leaf. Under each “hat” was an even
tinier yellow caterpillar. Bill posted Don’s photos to bugguide.org. The
ID that came back was “Skipper – perhaps Epargyreus clarus”
(Silver-spotted Skipper). Larvae of this common butterfly indeed feed on
leguminous plants, and leaf-tying (note the silvery silken threads in the first photo) is a
common trait among Skipper caterpillars. In the second photo below, the caterpillar has
made its first cut toward constructing the protective “hat.”

 

More great fungal diversity today! Here’s a gallery of some of the fungi we saw.

 

Fairy Parachutes live by decomposing woody litter on the forest floor.

Another view of a Fairy Parachute, showing the stalk attached to woody root

Golden-gilled Gerronema is another wood-decaying species. It ranges in color from creamy white to orange. It would be a mistake to confuse this toxic species with orange Chanterelles.

Golden-gilled Gerronema, glowing on the forest floor.

Marasmius sullivantii, no common name

Fragile Dapperling: best mushroom name ever

For the second week in a row, Don found a nice example of a Shaggy Stalked Bolete.

I know it looks like a Christmas cookie left outside for 8 months, but it’s actually a fungus called Rounded Earthstar.

Ramblers in the Heritage Garden gazebo

SPECIES OBSERVED

Cherokee Sedge     Carex cherokeensis
Clasping Heliotrope     Heliotropium amplexicaule
Chamber Bitter     Phyllanthus urinaria
Common Olive     Olea europaea
Mulberry Weed     Fatoua villosa
Feverfew     Tanacetum parthenium
Hops     Humulus lupulus
Mulberry Weed    Fatoua villosa

Giant Hyssop     Agastache foeniculum
Agrimony     Agrimonia sp.
Indian Pink     Spigelia marilandica
Muscadine/Wild Grape     Muscadinia rotundifolia
Hop Hornbeam     Ostrya virginiana
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker     Sphyrapicus varius
Eastern Gray Squirrel     Sciurus carolinensis
Loblolly Pine      Pinus taeda
Fairy Parachute      Marasmiellus candida
Fragile Dapperling      Leucocoprinus fragillisimus
Golden-gilled Gerronema     Gerronema strombodes
Marasmius sullivantii (no common name)   
Horse Sugar     Symplocos tinctoria
Shaggy Stalked Bolete      Boletellus betula
Crane-fly Orchid     Tipularia discolor
Possumhaw Holly     Ilex decidua
Coral Slime Mold     Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa
Southern Grape Fern     Botrychium biternatum
Chalk Maple     Acer leucoderme
Eastern Redbud     Cercis canadensis
Pandora Sphinx Moth     Eumorpha pandorus
Rounded Earthstar mushroom     Geastrum saccatum
Creeping Cucumber     Melothria pendula
Loofah Vine     Luffa aegyptiaca
Common Eastern Bumble Bee     Bombus impatiens
Wild Indigo Duskywing skipper Erynnis baptisiae
Butterfly Weed     Asclepias tuberosa
Large Milkweed Bug     Oncopeltus fasciatusArticle of the Week: “Which ornamental plants perform best for pollinators?

And another, here, by Charlie Seabrook, environmental journalist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Nature Rambler, writes about galls and Bill Sheehan’s iNaturalist project, Galls of Clarke County, GA, USA.

Ramble Report July 7, 2022 

 

Leader for today’s Ramble: Linda Chafin

Authors of today’s report: Linda

Insect identifications: Don Hunter, Heather Larkin, Dale Hoyt

 

Linkto Don’s
Facebook album for this Ramble. All the photos that appear in this report,
unless otherwise credited, were taken by Don Hunter.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.6022574794425702&type=3

 

27 Ramblers today 

 

Announcements:  

Bob announced a new David Attenborough series, “The Green Planet,” showing on PBS. Filmed over a period of three years in 27 different countries, it consists of five episodes.

 

Today’s emphasis:  What’s blooming and who’s eating who in the right-of-way

 

Reading: Today we had two readings….

 

Kathy had a reading from a rabbinic midrash: 

“There is a wonderful Chasidic story about the child of a
rabbi who used to wander in the woods. At first his father let him wander, but
over time he became concerned. The woods were dangerous. He did not know what
lurked there. He decided to discuss the matter with his child. 

 

One day he took
him aside and said, ‘You know, I have noticed that each day you walk into
the woods. I wonder, why do you go there?’

 

The boy said to his father, ‘I go there to find
God.’

‘That is a very good thing,’ the father replied
gently. ‘I am glad you are searching for God. But, my child, don’t you
know that God is the same everywhere?’

‘Yes,’ the boy answered, ‘but I am not.'”

***********

Terry brought in our second reading, excerpted from an interview with Ed Yong, science writer, in Publisher’s Weekly (link to interview):

“There is one thing that I keep thinking about: if you look at all the colors of the flowers around you and consider what kind of eye would be best at telling them apart, what you end up with is an eye that’s basically exactly like what a bee has. You might think, then, that the bee has evolved an eye that’s really good at seeing flowers. And actually, you would be completely wrong. It’s the other way around. The bees came first and the flowers came after, which means that flower colors evolved to tickle the eyes of bees and other insects. And I think that’s just a truly magical thing to discover.”

Show and Tell: 

Heather brought in a branch from a White Oak tree; every leaf had been extensively damaged by Solitary Oak Leaf Miners, caterpillars so tiny they can actually feed between the upper and lower surfaces of the leaves, then go on to spin a cocoon and pupate there as well. The adult form is a very small, silvery moth with tan markings on its wings. For more information and suggestions for reducing leaf miner damage to your trees, check this link.

 

  

Tom brought two dead male Hercules beetles that he collected beneath an outdoor light at his house.

 

 

 

 

 Today’s Route: We left the Children’s Garden arbor and wove our way through the Shade Garden and over to the the Georgia Power right-of-way. We ventured briefly down the ROW but then turned north and walked up the ROW nearly to the top of the hill. From there we returned to the Visitor Center via the road.

Today’s Observations:

The small stand of Sweetshrub in the Lower Shade Garden blooms regularly but bears only a few fruits each year, relying more on vegetative spread than sexual reproduction. It may be that the sap beetles that pollinate Sweetshrub flowers are in short supply in this part of the Garden. Sweetshrub’s ancestors evolved early in the history of flowering plants, about 97 million years ago, and are pollinated mainly by sap beetles. Sap beetles (family Nitidulidae) are small dull-colored insects that mainly eat decaying vegetation, over-ripe fruit, and sap. They are drawn to Sweetshrub’s flowers by their fragrance which has been described as a mixture of melon, banana, pineapple, and strawberry. (Here’s a link to a great article about Sweetshrub pollination.) 

 

Sweetshrub ‘fruit’ is a bit of a misnomer – what appears to be a lumpy green fruit is actually a fleshy structure called a floral tube, formed when the lower part of petals, sepals, and stamens fuse together. If the flower is pollinated and ovules are fertilized, the floral tube expands and encloses the developing seeds. 

Sweetshrub fruit with mature seeds. Photo by Dan Tenaglia

Sweetshrub fruit opened by a rodent. Photo by Gary Knight.

Once the seeds mature, the sack-like tube dries and turns brown. It persists on the shrub through the winter; mice and other rodents tear open the sack and make off with the seeds. 

We first thought this Mabel Orchard Orbweaver was our first sighting of a Joro spider of the year — that actually happened later in the ramble. So it begins….

Chinese Pistache Tree

A small Chinese Pistache Tree growing along the White
Trail Spur has so far escaped Gary’s eradication efforts. Pistache Trees
of both sexes were planted in several places in the Garden decades ago, guaranteeing its spread. Although not on the Georgia
Exotic Pest Plant Council’s list of invasive species, it is expected to become a widespread problem,
especially if both sexes are sold. Its leaves resemble those of several
native trees but the crushed vegetation has a distinctive– and very
unpleasant–odor.

 

Yaupon Holly in fruit. Yaupon is the only native North American plant containing caffeine and was a valuable trade item among Native Americans

 

Hop Hornbeam in fruit The fruits – small, seedlike nutlets – are contained in the slightly inflated sacs that make up the fruit clusters. There are 10-30 sacs per cluster and only one nutlet per sac. The clusters of sacs superficially resemble the flower clusters of the hop plants (no relation) that are used in beer-making.

 

Red-femured Orbweaver spiders are easily identifiable by their red leg segments and the “cat-face” pattern on their abdomens.

Heather found a tiny Meadow Katydid nymph

The single Red Buckeye tree in the ROW is loaded with fruit. Each of its flower clusters has many flowers but only the flowers at the base of the cluster will bear fruit; the rest of the flower cluster has been shed, leaving behind only a bit of the dried stalk seen in Don’s photo.

Cross-section of a Red Buckeye fruit. It is typical for each fruit to contain two or three developing seeds and one or more aborted seeds.

Unlike the Red Buckeye, which flowered in April, Bottlebrush Buckeye blooms in the summer. Its fruits will closely resemble those of Red Buckeye. All buckeye species have highly toxic seeds.

Holly found a Field Cricket which we containerized for viewing.

A leaf-footed bug was also captured for viewing. It appears to be a late instar nymph of Acanthocephala terminalis, no common name.

Post Oak leaves

A small Post Oak sapling has so far escaped the maintenance mowing in the right-of-way. These tough trees are denizens of dry, open ridges and upper slopes. It comes equipped for droughts and dry soils: its leaves have a thick, waxy coating above and a felt-like coating of hairs below. It is also adapted to the frequent fires that used to sweep across Piedmont prairies and creep through Piedmont woodlands–it sprouts prolifically after fire and also after browsing.

 

Carolina Desert Chicory

Carolina Desert Chicory flower heads are composed of delicate, almost translucent, ray flowers that are a distinctive pale lemon yellow, different from the golden yellow of late summer’s sunflowers. But what’s up with that unwieldy name? The Carolina part it comes by honestly: the species name is carolinianus, indicating that the plant specimen on which the name was based was collected in “the Carolinas.” But desert…in the Carolinas? Of the four or five species in its genus, all but this one occur in the desert southwest of the U.S. and this one was swept up in the naming frenzy. And chicory? A bit more complicated: this species belongs to a subgroup of Aster Family plants called the Chicory Tribe (Cichorieae). Their flower heads are made up entirely of rays, all of which are fertile and capable of forming seeds. Disk flowers are absent. Instead, in the center of the head, you can see the dark anthers and yellow style branches belonging to each ray flower. If you’ve ever seen the blue flower heads of Chicory, you may recall the resemblance – other than the color – to this flower head. 

Photo by D. Mott

Blue flower head of Chicory

Little Sensitive Briar is in the genus Mimosa. Its flower heads resemble those of a Mimosa Tree.

Virginia Buttonweed in the moist, grassy areas of the right-of-way.

Southern Mountain Mint

Southern Mountain-mint is one of the most common wildflowers in the right-of-way and will be a pollinator magnet once the flowers open. Most mountain-mints have whitened bracts and calyxes that draw bees and butterflies to its otherwise inconspicuous flowers. The powdery white coating is called “pulverescence,” which shares a root word with pulverize–to reduce to powderiness (Thanks, Avis!). 

Redbud trees in the right-of-way are playing host to the caterpillars of Redbud Leaf-folder Moth. Dale wrote about this species in the July 10, 2014 Ramble Report: “Many insects and spiders fold or roll leaves to make a protective home that they can either retreat to or feed in. (Think of the fern leaf ball roller caterpillar we saw earlier this year.) So, it is was no surprise when someone noticed a folded leaf on a small Redbud. Carefully opening it, we discovered not one but two small caterpillars. They were light colored with numerous black rings encircling their bodies. This turned out to be the Redbud Leaf-folder caterpillar…Folded or rolled leaf shelters can provide protection from parasitic wasps and other predators, but some animals are capable of using the folded leaves as a sign of a tasty meal inside. An observer on buguide.net indicated that two birds, titmice and chickadees, were seen foraging on folded redbud leaves. When the leaves were examined after the birds left, no caterpillars were present.”

A folded Redbud leaf indicates that a Leaf-folder caterpillar is hiding (and eating) inside.

 

Black and white stripes mark the Redbud Leaf-folder Moth caterpillar, seen here with lots of frass

Delta Flower Scarab beetle

Heather took this photo of a Delta Flower Scarab beetle,
a first sighting for her and an old favorite of Don’s, who sees it each summer starting in late June or early July.

Thimbleweed flower is rare in the right-of-way but common and widespread throughout much of North America in areas with high-calcium soils.

Molted skin of a Praying Mantis

Short-horned Grasshopper on the leaves of White Crownbeard

Rustweed with its narrow, pointed leaves and tiny flowers. This plant forms circular mats on the ground, with the lower portions of the branches rusty-red at their bases.

Carolina Milkvine is still in flower.

We visited the right-of-way milkvine patch near the Sparkleberry tree on May 12
and found a large number of flowers. We returned today, expecting to see developing fruits. Instead, ever more
flower clusters were in full bloom or even still in bud. Milkvines are
close relatives of milkweeds and have the same risky
pollination system that depends on precise yet accidental leg
movements by pollinators. Details in last week’s blog!

Carolina Milkvine flower

Widow Skimmer dragonfly resting near the patch of Carolina Milkvine

A friendly Mischievous Bird Grasshopper hopped from one Rambler to the next. It was particularly fond of one of the flowers on Linda’s shirt.

Heal-all (aka Self-heal) living on this continent was long thought to be a European import. Recent molecular genetics work indicates that there is a native variety that differs in leaf shape; both are found in disturbed habitats such as the right-of-way.

Pencil Flower

Wild Petunias are abundant in the right-of-way.

Each Wild Petunia flower lasts only a day but the plants are prolific and continue blooming well into summer. The flowers provide nectar for butterflies, bees, wasps, and hummingbirds. It is a host plant for caterpillars of Common Buckeye butterflies.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES

Eastern White-tailed Deer     Odocoileus virginiana
Sweetshrub     Calycanthus floridus
Joro Spider     Trichonephila clavata
Chinese Pistache Tree      Pistacia chinensis
Clasping Heliotrope   Heliotropium amplexicaule
Yaupon Holly     Ilex vomitoria
American Hophornbeam     Ostrya virginiana
Meadow Katydid (nymph)     Conocephalus sp.
Red-femured Orbweaver spider     Neoscona domiciliorum
Red Buckeye     Aesculus pavia
Bottlebrush Buckeye   Aesculus parviflora
Field Cricket     Gryllus sp.
Leaf-footed Bug (no common name)     Acanthocephala terminalis
Post Oak     Quercus stellata
Carolina Desert Chicory     Pyrrhopappus carolinianus
Virginia Buttonweed     Diodia virginiana
Little Sensitive Briar     Mimosa microphylla
Southern Mountain-mint     Pycnanthemum pycnanthemoides
Foxtail grass     Setaria sp.
Elliott’s Milkpea     Galactia elliottii
Eastern Redbud tree     Cercis canadensis
Redbud Leaf-folder Moth (caterpillar)     Fascista cercerisella
Delta Flower Scarab beetle     Trigonopeltastes delta
White Crownbeard/Frostweed     Verbesina virginica
Short-horned Grasshopper  Melanoplus sp.
Thimbleweed     Anemone virginiana
Wild Bergamot     Monarda fistulosa
Daisy Fleabane     Erigeron sp.
Rustweed/Juniper Leaf     Polypremum procumbens
Praying Mantis (molted skin)     Family Mantidae
Carolina Milkvine     Matelea carolinensis
Widow Skimmer Dragonfly     Libellula luctuosa
Mischievous Bird Grasshopper     Schistocerca damnifica
Pencil Flower     Stylosanthes biflora
Starry Rosinweed     Silphium asteriscus
Versute Sharpshooter  Graphocephala versuta
Heal-all     Prunella vulgaris
Wild Petunia     Ruellia caroliniensis

Ramble Report June 30, 2022 

Leader for today’s Ramble: Heather Larkin

Authors of today’s report: Heather Larkin, Linda Chafin 

Insect identifications: Heather Larkin, Don Hunter

 

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.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.6022574794425702&type=3

 

27 Ramblers today 

 

Announcements:  

Linda announced that several folks responded to her request for Ramble co-leaders. Among those responding are Heather Larkin (insect specialist, naturalist, photographer, computer whiz), Bill Sheehan (fungi, galls, and insects expert), Holly Haworth (certified Appalachian naturalist, environmental journalist, UGA Ph.D. student, and more), Catherine Chastain (naturalist, veteran rambler), and Gary Crider (veteran rambler, invasive plant specialist). We are so happy to have this talented group of leaders! We met after today’s ramble and sorted out a leader calendar till the end of 2022, but new leaders are welcomed to step forward at any time!

 

Welcome to Heather on her first ramble as an official leader!

Today’s emphasis: Pollinators in the Front Plaza, Museum Pollinator Beds, Herb and Physic Gardens, and Heritage Garden

 

Reading:

Bob presented his recent poem, “To Be In England”
http://bobambrosejr-poetry.blogspot.com/2022/06/to-be-in-england.html

To Be in England
for Sarah and Alan, Maggie and Willa

May in the South is a mellow affair –
how I fling open windows and breathe in the night,
how scented air soothes my skin, 

how my house exhales. I let go my grip
and sleep with whispers that drift on the breeze.
I wake to the calls of cardinals and wrens. 

The back deck beckons.
I take my mornings outside
where titmice and phoebes sing through the trees. 

I crumple up my do-list,
place my age on pause, and waste
whole days dreaming. A gentle rhythm 

settles in as new life quickens.
These are the weeks when springtime matures
and I would not leave them lightly. 

But I would fly four thousand miles and more –

To be in England when elderberry blooms,
and dog rose decorates embankments. 

The England of greenswards, copses and hedgerows,
of white lace flowering the shoulders of roads 

that carry me back to my daughter’s home
to slip on the role of grandpa again. 

To bask in a baby’s toothless smile
and feel the strength as she squirms for her mum.

To match wits with a cheeky toddler wielding
a mischievous grin. To watch her tussle 

then cuddle with dad. To embed in the bustle,
the banter, the tears, the staccato exuberance 

of playgrounds and parks. To be the old ‘grampa’
rolling a buggy down paths by the willows 

to a bend in the river where cygnets hatch
and hew to the wake of an elegant swan. 

As nights chase days, my weeks slip by – 

One morning I rise, home to gardenia
beginning to brown in the blaze of a summer
come too soon where I find myself just
another elder again wandering the aisles
of Kroger foraging for what I forgot.
 

*******

Show and Tell: 

 

Gary brought several specimens of the Class 1 invasive, Chinese Tallow Tree (AKA Popcorn Plant or Florida Aspen) from the Greenway. Native to tropical and subtropical Asia, it has been designated by The Nature Conservancy as “one of the ten worst alien plant invaders in the U.S.” Its destructive spread has been largely confined to lowland areas along the Gulf coast as far west as Texas and to barriers islands of Georgia and South Carolina. It is dismaying to find it as far inland as Athens; Kathy said it is present in great numbers at Heritage Park in Oconee County. It has undoubtedly spread from nearby planted trees; a quick search for this species on the internet finds that it is still for sale from a number of vendors.

Chinese Tallow Tree

Today’s Route:   We left the Children’s Garden arbor and headed to the flower beds in the plaza in front of the Visitor Center and around the Porcelain and Decorative Arts Museum. We then made our way to the Herb and Physic Garden and the Heritage Garden before returning to the Visitor Center’s Garden Room for the social hour.

Mexican Sunflowers are often planted in the beds outside the Visitor Center. It’s native to Mexico and Central America, and its flower heads are always busy with pollinators. In addition to the insects photographed below, we have seen butterflies, hummingbirds, and carpenter bees visit their flowers. This tall annual plant has velvety stems and more of less triangular leaves with winged leaf stalks.

Virginia Giant Hoverfly visiting the disk flowers in a Mexican Sunflower head Hoverflies are bee mimics, but you can always tell them apart from bees by the antennae. Bee antennae come out of the top of their heads, fly antennae come out of their foreheads right between their big giant eyes. There seem to be quite a lot of fly “wannabees” and this link will tell you more.

Fiery Skipper

Common Eastern Bumble Bee

North American Tarnished Plant Bug

Red Salvia is a bee magnet — today we saw both Eastern Carpenter Bees and Western Honey Bees visiting its flowers. Both species were “nectar robbing,” a term that describes how larger bees get nectar from smaller tubular flowers like those of Salvia. Smaller bees and butterflies insert their heads into the natural opening at the front of the flower to reach the nectar; in the process, pollen is rubbed onto their heads that is (hopefully) deposited in the next flower they visit. Large bees, like Carpenter Bees, whose heads will not fit into the natural flower opening, have learned to access nectar by chewing a hole in the base of the flower and extracting nectar through that opening. Bypassing the regular pollination route means the “nectar robbers” are not pollinating the plant.

Eastern Carpenter Bee nectar robbing from a Red Salvia flower

Honeybee tongues are too short to access nectar through the front of the flower and they also lack the mouth parts to chew into the flower, but they have learned to find and use the openings made by Carpenter Bees, demonstrating that bees can learn to access a nectar source that would not otherwise be available to them.

 

 

Common Eastern Bumble Bee on ‘Little Joe’ flower heads.

 

Georgia is home to three species of Joe-Pye-Weed (Eutrochium spp.) including Three-nerved Joe-Pye-Weed, a plant of Coastal Plain wetlands; our other two species are largely mountain plants. ‘Little Joe’ is a cultivar of Three-nerved Joe-Pye-Weed, and is a big hit with gardeners and pollinators. Today we saw Common Eastern Bumble Bees and Large Milkweed Bugs visiting its flower heads.

Swamp Milkweed flowers

An abundance of Swamp Milkweed was planted in the new beds behind the Porcelain and Decorative Arts Museum. Like other milkweeds, this species is a host plant for Monarch butterflies (though we did not see any caterpillars or adults today). It is also visited
by Milkweed Bugs (which are true bugs) that feed on milkweeds by
piercing the stems, leaves, and fruits and sucking the toxic sap. The
toxins are incorporated into their tissues, and their orange and black
coloration, being similar to Monarchs, are warning colors that let
predators know they taste terrible. The bugs are not usually detrimental
to the milkweed plant; efforts to eradicate them may also have a
negative impact on Monarchs.

Milkweed Bug adults with nymphs in several different instar stages

Milkweed Bug adult

Milkweeds have a very special pollination method. They rely on a series of events that is accidental! First the insect has to put its foot INTO a narrow slit in the center of the flower. Then the flower deposits a sac of pollen onto the foot and sticks it there firmly. Then the insect has to get its foot OUT, which is not always easy. In fact, that can sometimes prove impossible and the insect tears its leg off or dies because it can’t get away. For those that DO get away, they bring that sac of pollen with them to the next flower. Then that same foot has to fall into the slit in the plant AGAIN to deposit the pollen in the new plant’s flower. Quite a convoluted process that seems to work for these plants, since they’re super prolific! In the photo below, the arrow points to the tiny slit where the insect’s leg must go.Good link for further reading about this “series of fortunate events”: https://prairieecologist.com/2021/01/26/milkweed-pollination-a-series-of-fortunate-events/

Oleander Aphid infestation on Swamp Milkweed

Blackberry Lilies are actually an Iris!

The Herb and Physic Garden and Heritage Garden were buzzing with bees….and wasps and hornets and a Fiery Skipper or two.

Common Eastern Bumblebee on Purple Coneflower. Bumblebees are easy to distinguish from Carpenter Bees: Bumbles are smaller, and they have fuzzy butts. Carpenters are larger, and they have shiny, smooth butts.

Common Eastern Bumblebee on Clasping Heliotrope

European Hornet attacking and capturing a Western Honey Bee. European Hornets don’t collect nectar at all. They prey on other insects, honey bees being a primary target. They will follow honey bees back to the nest and invade, sometimes killing the whole colony. They also attack and eat other insects such as  grasshoppers, flies, and yellow jackets.

Fraternal Potter Wasp on Fennel flowers. Potter wasps sting and paralyze caterpillars and cart them off to small mud ‘pots,’ laying eggs on them. The eggs hatch out and the larvae eat the live, paralyzed  caterpillars before becoming adult wasps.

Tiny Black Swallowtail caterpillars feeding on Fennel stalks. Black Swallowtail caterpillars have a unique defense mechanism. If picked up, they extend yellow appendages from their heads, bend over backwards, and rub these all over the predator. It totally stinks (and will last through several hand washings). If that’s not enough, the caterpillar will barf its last meal all over the predator! Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sA2Y-jNqI4&ab_channel=BugoftheWeek

Western Honeybee nectaring on Oregano flowers

Yellow Bedstraw or Lady’s Bedstraw. Yellow Bedstraw was used in the Middle Ages to stuff mattresses because its odor repels fleas. It was also used to curdle milk to make cheese; the Bedstraw genus name “Galium” has the same root word as “galaxy” — both refer to milk.

Spiny Soldier Bug eggs on a leaf of Yellow Bedstraw. These are a type of stink bug. The nymphs hatch out bright red and then turn brown as they progress to adult stages.

Common European Greenbottle Fly

Asian Long-legged Fly Long-legged flies are predators, eating tiny insects like leaf hoppers, thrips, and mites.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVATIONS:
Mexican Sunflower     Tithonia rotundifolia
Virginia Giant Hoverfly     Milesia virginiensis
Common Eastern Bumble Bee     Bombus impatiens
North American Tarnished Plant Bug     Lygus lineolaris
Fiery Skipper     Hylephila phyleus
Red Salvia     Salvia coccinea
Eastern Carpenter Bee     Xylocopa virginica
Three-nerved Joe-Pye-Weed ‘Little Joe’ cultivar     Eutrochium dubium
Large Milkweed Bug     Oncopeltus fasciatus
Swamp Milkweed     Asclepias incarnata
Scarlet Beebalm     Monarda didyma
Purple Coneflower     Echinacea purpurea
Oleander aphids     Aphis nerii
Lemon Beebalm     Monarda citriodora
Clasping Heliotrope     Heliotropium amplexicaule
Oregano      Origanum vulgare  
Brazilian Vervain     Verbena brasiliensis
Western Honey Bee     Apis mellifera
Silvery Checkerspot     Chlosyne nycteis
European Hornet     Vespa crabro
Blackberry Lily     Iris domestica
Red-shouldered Hawk     Buteo lineatus
Fennel    Foeniculum vulgare
Fraternal Potter Wasp     Eumenes fraternus
Eastern Black Swallowtail (caterpillar)     Papilio polyxenes
Spiny Soldier Bug (eggs)     Podisus maculiventris
Yellow Bedstraw, Ladies’ Bedstraw     Galium verum
Common European Greenbottle Fly     Lucilia sericata
Asian Long-legged Fly     Condylostylus sp.
Green Lacewing (larvae)     Chrysoperla sp.
Fall Webworm Moth (caterpillar)     Hyphantria cunea

Leader for today’s Ramble, Linda Chafin
Today’s emphasis:  Seeking what we find in the Lower Shade Garden and the Dunson Garden.

Don’s Facebook Album contains all the photos he took on today’s ramble. Unless otherwise credited, all the photos that appear here are courtesy of Don Hunter.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.6000650206618161&type=3

21 Ramblers today
Show-and-Tell:

Musclewood fruit

Richard brought the infructescence from a Musclewood tree, resembling that of a Hophornbeam, but more leaflike.

American Basswood fruits

Richard drops in with American Basswood fruits. Gary looks on in amazement.

Richard also brought a number of fruits of an American Basswood. Each cluster of small fruits was suspended by a stalk attached to a leaf-like bract. The bract is shed from the tree and can, in a wind, carry the fruits a considerable distance away from the parent tree.

Spider attacked by Cordydeps fungus

Bill brought a dead spider that had been infected with a Cordycep fungus. The fungus grows throughout the body of the spider, killing it. The fungus then sends out spore producing structures. The fungus causes the infected host to climb to a location like an exposed leaf before it dies. Such places are optimal for the dispersal of spores.
 

Announcements:

• Emily announced a new run on the old style Nature Rambler’s t-shirt (dragonfly design).  She will provide details later.

• Dale announced that he has decided to step down as a Nature Ramble co-leader, handing the reins over to Linda.  She has asked that other Ramblers volunteer to take every other Ramble, including being prepared with a reading.  No requirements other than lead to a favorite area at the Garden, with the understanding that we will have no trouble finding things to look at and talk about.  We will also hopefully have guest leaders pop in from time to time.  There will be a party at a future date to honor Dale and celebrate his contributions to the Nature Ramble group.

Reading:  Sue brought an interesting reading, a completely fortuitous composition created by cutting out a piece of note paper from a page of “printed on one side” text, intending to use the blank side for a grocery list.  She calls it “ng again”

 .

Ng up in the Southern woods right now
How thoroughly invasive plants import
er the surrounding fields and forests.
sing in the branches of Bradford pear
on ivy vines that coil around them, too.
nness.  I can hardly help greeting them
to understand what invasive species
ness.  It’s entirely possible to understa
n this moment of dread and grief and
peeking out from the dead leaves o
icker of happiness that somehow leaps
e very saddest funerals, we can hear
a stagger out of an appointment.

Today’s Route:   We left the Children’s Garden pergola and headed directly down the right-side path into the Lower Shade Garden.  We wound our way through the Shade Garden and eventually entered the Dunson Native Flora Garden on the mulched path beginning at the old commemorative Dunson Native Flora Garden sign.  We walked all of the mulched paths containing ferns before heading4 back up to the Children’s Garden, entering at the comfort station. 

LIST OF OBSERVATIONS:
 

American South Section:

Beebalm, Monarda didyma

Bald Cypress cones

Bald Cypress knees

 
Flower Bridge:

Long-legged Fly, killer of mites

Bottlebrush Buckeye in full bloom

Bottlebrush Buckeye inflorescence closeup

Bottlebrush Buckeye is in full bloom.  The flowers were visited by many insects, including bumble bees and butterflies.  

 
China and Asia Section:

Witch Hazel Spiny Gall

Witch Hazel Spiny Gall opened to show the aphids inside.

The Witch Hazel Spiny Gall aphid has a complex life cycle that involves two alternate host plants and numerous rounds of asexual reproduction on both hosts. Thrown in among this is the asexual production of winged forms that fly to the alternate hosts and reproduce sexually. If you are interested in the details you can find more information at this source.

 https://influentialpoints.com/Gallery/Hamamelistes_spinosus_spiny_witchhazel_gall_aphid.htm

 

Purple Trail:
 

Female (pistillate) Deciduous Holly showing the short shoots.

Deciduous Holly AKA Possumhaw Holly.  All the hollies in the southease are dioecious (male and female flowers are on separate plants).  Hollies also bear leaves on “short shoots.” These are shoots that have extremely short internodes, resulting in clusters of leaves all jammed together.  

Leaf mine on Deciduous Holly

Many insect leaf miners produce a snake-like path as they feed between the upper and lower epidermis of a leaf. This leaf mine lacks a roof and the brown edges suggest that its occupant has departed, leaving the :roof to fall away. The dark mass at the bottom is the accumulated bundle of frass (fecal material).

American Carrion Beetle

Tom found an American Carrion Beetle on the upper surface of a bracket fungus. Carrion beetles are usually flound in the later stages of decay in vertebrates. They feed on the dried skin and flesh of road-killed mammals. This resource suggests that they may be attracted to mushrooms. 

Two Witch’s Brooms at the base of an American Hophornbeam

We normally see Witch’s Broom in the upper reaches of a tree. But maybe we don’t always look for it down low. It’s caused by bacterial or viral infection of the tree. 

 

Conservatory Back Area:

Eastern Cottontail Rabbit

 

SPECIES OBSERVED:
Scarlet Beebalm     Monarda didyma
Mariana Island Lady Fern     Macrothelypteris torresiana
Bald Cypress     Taxodium distichum
Asian Long-legged Fly     Condylostylus longicornis
Bottlebrush Buckeye     Aesculus parviflora
Common Eastern Bumble bee     Bombus impatiens
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail      Papilio glaucus
Red-femured Spotted Orbweaver     Neoscona domiciliorum
Chinese Witch Hazel     Hamamelis mollis
Spiny Witch Hazel Gall aphid     Hamamelistes spinosus
Spined Stilt Bug     Jalysus wickhami
Northern Red Oak     Quercus rubra
Deciduous Holly AKA Possumhaw Holly (male and female)     Ilex decidua
Holly leaf miner (no ID)
American Carrion Beetle     Necrophila americana
American Hophornbeam     Ostrya virginiana
Crossvine     Bignonia capreolata
Eastern Gray Squirrel     Sciurus carolinensis
Eastern Cottontail Rabbit     Sylvilagus floridanus
 

 

Leader for
today’s Ramble: Linda Chafin

Author of
today’s report: Linda Chafin

Fungus and insect identifications: Don Hunter

Link to Don’s Facebook page for this Ramble. All
the photos that appear in this report, unless otherwise credited, were taken by
Don Hunter.

Today’s emphasis:  Ferns in the Lower Shade Garden and Dunson Native Flora Garden

21 Ramblers today
 
Show-and-Tell:  
 
Both Gary and Michael brought in a frond from the same fern species – Kunth’s Maiden Fern – for identification. This is a widely planted ornamental species as well as a common fern of moist, limestone-based lowlands in the Coastal Plain.

Halley brought in a single flower from her Eastern False-aloe plant. Don has been posting a series of photos of the developing flowers on an Eastern False-aloe he  found at one of his Ga Power ROW meadows. Eastern False-aloe is the only agave native to Georgia.

Announcements:  Sandy recommended “The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman, and Linda seconds it. As this review puts it, “This book is a delight… There is another world of intelligence out there, and this is a great introduction to it.”

Some early arriving ramblers were greeted by a Carolina Anole on the split rail fence.

Reading:  Linda read “Turtle” from Kay Ryan’s “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems,” Grove Press, 2010. Here’s a link to the author reading the poem.

 

Turtle

Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
she can ill afford the chances she must take
in rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
a packing case places, and almost any slope
defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
she’s often stuck up to the axle on her way
to something edible. With everything optimal,
she skirts the ditch which would convert
her shell into a serving dish. She lives
below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
the sport of truly chastened things.

 

Today’s Route: We left the Children’s Garden arbor and wound
our way through the Shade Garden and the Dunson
Native Flora Garden, before heading back up to the Children’s
Garden.

Continue reading →

Nature Ramble Report for June 9, 2022 
Leader for today’s Ramble: Dale
Authors of today’s report: Linda and Dale

Link to Don’s Facebook post for this Ramble All the photos that appear in this
report, unless otherwise credited, were taken by Don Hunter.  

20 Ramblers today.

Today’s emphasis:  The Yucca plants in the Dunson Native Flora Garden, wildflowers in the right-of-way, and further discoveries in the Dunson Native Flora Garden.

 

Reading:  Don read from “A Long Island Meadow,” a chapter in Frances Theodora Parsons’ According to Season, published in 1902.
    “The
brilliant coloring which is a feature of this midsummer meadow is
intensified by the insect life which it sustains. Butterflies,
especially, seem to abound. They float over the nodding grasses or poise
quivering above a nectar-laden blossom or rest on some leafy plant, the
dull undersides of their folded wings blending with their surroundings
and diminishing the likelihood of attacks from their enemies.
    Not
only is a butterfly endowed with unusual beauty, but its life-history
is full of charm. Then, too, the very names of butterflies breathe
romance (unlike those of birds and plants, of which “Wilson’s thrush”
and “Clayton’s fern” form fair samples). Who would not yield to the
spell of the Wanderer, the Brown Elfin, the Little Wood Satyr, and the
Dreamy Dusky-wing?  Or who could resist the charm of the Painted Lady,
the Silver-spotted Hesperid, the Tawny Emperor, or the Red Admiral?
    In
the meadow, perhaps, the monarch or milkweed butterfly is one of the
most omnipresent. Indeed, this is probably the best-known butterfly in
the United States, as its broad, orange-red, black-bordered wings carry
it many hundreds of miles and make it conspicuous everywhere. In
addition to being the most widely distributed, it is one of the most
interesting of our butterflies. Its career is an amazing one. How so
fragile a creature can endure the fatigue and resist the storm and
stress incidental to a journey of thousands of miles, such as it is
believed to take when migrating to southern lands, and how such a
“shining mark” escapes destruction from its enemies, it is difficult to
understand. That this annual migration does take place seems fairly well
established. The butterfly is known to have marvelous powers of flight,
and along the coast in fall it has frequently been seen assembling in
flocks numbering hundreds of thousands, changing the color of the trees
on which it alights for the night.”

 
Show-and-Tell: 

Gary brought some filamentous algae he collected from the water feature behind the Porcelain Arts Museum. Looks can be deceiving: the swaying masses of algae in the pool looked slimy but actually have a texture more like cotton candy.

Bill dissected a fresh Oak Apple Gall, exposing the larval Cynipid wasp in the fibrous mass suspended inside the gall. The gall formed when a female Cynipid wasp injected an egg into a vein of a developing leaf, hijacking the process of leaf development. Instead of producing a leaf, the plant responded to the invasion by forming a structure around the egg, both isolating and protecting it. The egg hatches into a larva then a pupa and ultimately into an adult wasp that chews its way out of the gall and takes flight. The gall doesn’t always succeed in protecting its larval resident however; birds such as woodpeckers and chickadees have learned to open galls to reach the snack that is captive inside.

Today’s Route:  We left the
Children’s Garden pergola and took the entrance road to the lower end of
the Dunson Native Flora Garden. We visited the Yucca patch, then the
adjacent right-of-way, and returned to the Children’s Garden by way of
the Dunson Garden and Shade Garden paths.

OBSERVATIONS ON TODAY’S RAMBLE Continue reading →

Leader for today’s Ramble, 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.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=don.hunter.56&set=a.5938741856142330

Number of Ramblers today: 32
 

Today’s emphasis:  Trees (Lower Shade Garden, White Trail Spur and ROW)
 

Reading:  Dale read a passage about Johnny Appleseed from Treepedia:  A Brief Compendium of Arboreal Lore by
Joan Maloof. Roger recounted
how he and Pat recently came across a spring in Pleasant Valley, Ohio, that John Chapman (AKA Johnny Appleseed)
used for water during his wanderings. 

 

Show-and-Tell:

Southern Magnolia flower Stamens have fallen, exposing the dark red base of the receptacle; the golden stigmas are curling away from the ovaries that will comprise the aggregate fruit.

Although native to moist ravines in the Coastal Plain, Southern Magnolia is planted in parks and lawns throughout the south. Its flowering marks the beginning of summer for many southerners. Fossils from the Magnolia family are found in the fossil record as far back as 140 million years ago, making it the earliest flowering plant family to evolve (how we got from ferns and conifers to magnolias is still a multi-million year mystery). The flowers we see today resemble their ancient ancestors in two ways. Unlike most modern flowers, which have separate whorls of colorful petals and green sepals, Magnolia flowers (and other primitive families’ flowers such as Sweet Shrub’s) have undifferentiated “tepals,” a word for petal-like structures that function as both petals and sepals. At the center of the flower, a cone-shaped receptacle holds whorls of stamens at its base with whorls of curled stigmas above. The stigmas are attached to the ovaries that will eventually form an aggregate fruit with many seeds.

Roger brought a branch of Chinquapin in flower. The fuzzy white spikes contain the pollen-producing flowers. The spiny green structures will mature into nuts.

Richard brought some immature Osage Orange fruits festooned with dried, blackened style branches, each attached to one of the ovaries that make up this “multiple fruit”

Richard also brought a small wasp nest that we thought was probably made by Yellowjackets. It was partially enclosed by a fragile paper envelope.

 

Reading:  Dale read from the book “Treepedia:  A Brief Compendium of Arboreal Lore” by Joan Maloof.  The passage was about Johny Appleseed. Roger recounted how he and Pat, two weeks ago, while in Ohio, came across a spring in an area called Pleasant Valley, where John Chapman AKA Johnny Appleseed used to stop for water during his wanderings.

Today’s Route:   We left the Children’s Garden pergola, taking the walkway into the Lower Shade Garden. After several switchbacks, we took the mulched path leading from the Shade Garden and heading towards the Children’s Garden forest play area. We stayed on the White Trail Spur and headed down the hill, eventually walking out into the power line right-of-way. We then took a right and headed up the road, back towards the Visitor Center.

OBSERVATIONS:

 

Today’s tour of trees began with upland species on the slopes above the Middle Oconee River and transitioned to trees adapted to life in the periodically flooded soils of the floodplain.

Black Gum

Black Gum, a tree of uplands, is a difficult tree to identify – its obovate leaves are pretty generic and, until it’s quite old, its bark is not very distinctive. But one trait is very useful: its branches leave the main trunk at a nearly 90 degree angle, making them more or less parallel to the ground. Most trees hold their branches at an acute angle (less than 90 degrees relative to the trunk), seeming to be reaching toward the sun. The placement of branches, and leaves as well, evolved in all plants to maximize the capture of sunlight. In Black Gum, stretching laterally seems to be working just fine.
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American Beech

American Beech trees are covered now with developing fruits or “beech nuts.” Beech is in the same family as oaks, chestnuts, and chinquapins, and, with some imagination, you can see the similarity of the spiky covering on beech fruits to the rough caps of acorns. Beech leaves are thin-textured, almost papery, and have parallel, evenly spaced lateral veins. Beech trees have only a slim connection to Beech-Nut gum. The company that made Beech-nut gum began life as the Imperial Company making smoked bacon and ham (later expanding into baby food, gum, etc). Deciding that Imperial sounded un-democratic, the original owners changed the name to reflect the beech wood embers over which their meat products was cured.

Northern Red Oak leaf

Northern Red Oak bark with “ski trails”

Northern Red Oaks are common in upland forests throughout the Garden. They are easy to identify by the vertical, white “ski trails” that mark their bark and by the pointed, bristle-tip lobes of their leaves. Northern Red Oaks at the Garden seem especially vulnerable to wind-throw; most of the recently downed trees here are this species. It seems likely that climate change – hotter temperatures, longer droughts, more intense storms – coupled with the shallowness of our topsoils (legacy of 100+ years of cotton agriculture) is responsible for this.
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Hickory bark

Hickory leaves

A large, old hickory marks the first switchback along the Shade Garden trail. Its bark shows the typical braided or diamond-shaped ridges of most hickory species. This tree may be Pignut Hickory or, more likely, Red Hickory which has shaggier, loose-looking braids. We’d need to see a nut to be certain. Both Pignut and Red Hickories have alternate leaves with five leaflets.
 

Sycamore camo bark

This American Sycamore has the typical “camo” bark found on the mid- to upper trunk of Sycamores. Myrna pointed out that the word “Sycamore” contains the word “camo,” providing us with the best mnemonic of today’s ramble. Sycamores are naturally bottomland trees that nevertheless thrive when planted in uplands.
 

Red Maple branches

Red Maple leaves

Red Maples are among the handful of tree species in the Georgia Piedmont with opposite leaves and branches. Their leaves are distinguished by being both lobed and toothed. (Chalk Maple and Florida Maple leaves are lobed but not toothed and look like small Sugar Maple leaves.) There is something red on a Red Maple in every season of the year:  in winter, it’s twigs and buds; in late winter and early spring, it’s flowers; in spring, the fruits; in summer, petioles; and in fall, the leaves.
 

Chalk Maple leaves

Chalk Maple leaves are lobed but not toothed.

 

Shortleaf or Loblolly pine?

Shortleaf pine bark with resin pits

From a distance it’s hard to distinguish a Shortleaf from a Loblolly Pine, but up close the resin pits (or pitch pockets), resembling tiny moon craters, on the bark plates distinguish the Shortleaf.
 

Black Oak

Black Oak is the hardest of our upland oaks to identify but the consensus seems to be that these leaves – with the glossy green upper surface and the yellowish-green petioles and midveins – came from a Black Oak, courtesy of a squirrel. The inner bark of the twig was yellow, clinching the deal. We did not locate the tree from which it came.
 

Octagonal Casemaker Moth caterpillar inside self-constructed case

On an American Beech leaf Bill Sheehan found an unusual moth larva living in a case of its own making. It is constructed by the caterpillar from its own frass (a polite word for caterpillar poop). The case grows longer and wider as the caterpillar grows.  It is basically a long, hollow eight-sided tube with unconsolidated frass at the largest end. The common name is Octagonal Casemaker Moth. 

 

Nymph of Annual Cicada

Bill also found a living crawling on someone’s shirt. This seems to be too small to be one of the dog-day cicadas that we hear later in the summer. 

 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Jack-in-the-Pulpit is not a tree, but who can complain about going off-mission when a conspicuously tall one is growing right on the trail, with developing fruits and lush, five-leafletted leaves? The question arises: what is a wetland species doing on this high-and-dry upper slope? Maybe it’s not the wet soils that this species requires but the extra nutrients washed downslope to floodplains? And maybe the soil on this slope provides those nutrients?
 

Hop Hornbeam

A positive answer to that last question is suggested by the presence along this trail of a number of Hop Hornbeams, with their “cat-scratched” bark. This species is an indicator of a soil high in the nutrient elements calcium and magnesium.
 

Mockernut Hickory bark Photo courtesy of Janie K. Marlow, Name that Plant, http://www.namethatplant.net/plantdetail.shtml?plant=279

Mockernut Hickory leaves

Mockernut Hickory has the most conspicuously “braided” bark of all our hickories. The tight ridges look more like diamonds or expanded metal than braids to some people. Mockernut is as likely to have seven leaflets as five, and they are very hairy on the lower surface, the leaf stalk, and the rachis (the extension of the leaf stalk that holds the leaflets).
 

Leaving the upland slopes and entering the Middle Oconee River floodplain, we encountered what is probably the most abundant tree along this stretch of the river, 

 

Box Elder leaves

Box Elder (or Ash-leaved Maple). Its leaves have 3, 5, or 7 leaflets; when three, the leaf resembles those of Poison Ivy.
 

Silverbell bark

Silverbell leaves

Common (or Mountain) Silverbell is abundant in the floodplain at the Garden. Its oval leaves are not particularly distinctive but the bark, striped gray and tan, is a good indicator. When the dangling, four-winged fruits are present, you can narrow your choices to this species or Carolina Silverbell, which is mostly found in the Coastal Plain and is rare in the Piedmont.
 

Red Mulberry

Red Mulberry is a beautiful and ecologically important tree of the floodplain subcanopy. Its rough-textured, heart-shaped leaves are distinguished by elongated “drip tips,” so named because they are thought to channel water away from the leaf surface, thus reducing the growth of fungi or other pathogens on the leaf surface. Drip tips are especially noticeable and quite elongated where they occur in the hot, rainy tropics. But recent research is calling this “just so” story into question, so the jury is still out. The berries in this photo are immature and will turn white then reddish- or purplish-black as they mature; they are relished by a variety of birds.
 

Silky Dogwood flowers

Silky Dogwood “elastic veins”

Silky Dogwood flower clusters are quite different from those of the upland Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida), completely lacking the showy white bracts that mark the latter species and attract pollinators to its tiny greenish flowers. Silky Dogwood flowers are larger and form a showy, flat-topped cluster that is plenty attractive to pollinators. Silky Dogwood is found in southern swamps and other wetlands as is Swamp Dogwood (Cornus foemina); they can be distinguished by counting the number of veins on one side of the midvein. Silky Dogwood leaves have 5 or more veins on each side of the midvein; Swamp Dogwood has only 3 or 4. Dogwood veins have an amazing feature: if you gently tear the leaf and carefully part the broken segments, fibrous threads will stretch across the gap. These threads are the vascular tissues that transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. In the Cornus genus, they are especially strong and elastic.
 

 

SPECIES LIST

Common Eastern Bumble Bee     Bombus impatiens
Purple Beautyberry     Callicarpa dichotoma
Southern Magnolia     Magnolia grandiflora
Blackgum       Nyssa sylvatica
American Beech     Fagus grandifolia
Japanese Maple     Acer palmatum
Northern Red Oak     Quercus rubra
Prothonotary Warbler     Protonotaria citrea
Borage species     Family Boraginaceae
Pignut Hickory     Carya glabra
American Sycamore     Platanus occidentalis
White Oak     Quercus alba
Red Maple     Acer rubrum
Shortleaf Pine     Pinus echinata
Octagonal Casemaker Moth (cocoon)     Homoledra octagonella
Black Oak (tentative)     Quercus velutina
Annual cicada     Family Cicadidae
Jack-in-the-Pulpit     Arisaema triphyllum
Hophornbeam     Ostrya virginiana
Mockernut Hickory     Carya tomentosa
Box Elder     Acer negundo
Four-winged Silverbells     Halesia tetraptera
Chalk Maple     Acer leucoderme
Wild Rye     Elymus sp.
North American Tarnished Plant Bug     Lygus lineolaris
Flower weevil     Family Baridinae
Daisy fleabane     Erigeron sp.
Goldenrod gall fly     Eurosta solidaginis
Tulip Tree     Liriodendron tulipifera
Sweetgum Tree     Liquidambar styraciflua
Aaron’s Rod     Thermopsis villosa
Swamp Dogwood     Cornus foemina