Today's Ramble was led by Dale Hoyt.
The photos in this post, except where
noted, came from Don's Facebook album (here's the link).
Today's post was written by Dale Hoyt and
Don Hunter.
Twenty four Ramblers met today.
Announcements:
Today's reading: Bob Ambrose
recited one of his new
evolution-themed creations: The First Nursery. (You can find the text of this poem in today's
email.)
Bill Pierson read a thought-provoking short
quotation from Henry Miller:
"Our destination is never a
place but a new way of seeing things."
Today's
route: We took the sidewalk next to the conservatory to the
various sections and gardens in the International, Heritage and Flower Gardens.
Pollination puzzle
Why is pollen spelled with an
"e," but pollination is spelled with an "i"?
Bees and Pollination
Much has been written about the pollination
services of bees and other insects, so much that we forget that this really
reflects a human perspective of what these insects are doing when they visit
flowers. From the perspective of a bee it is merely gathering food for its
young. Yes, they are literally stealing nectar and pollen from plants to feed
to their offspring. The nectar contains principally carbohydrate (sugars) and
is a source of energy, but very poor nutritionally. For the bee larvae to grow
they must have protein and this is supplied by the pollen. So when a bee
wallows about in a flower it cares not a whit about the fact that it is
pollinating that flower; it is merely harvesting as much pollen as it can
possibly get to carry back to its nest.
How many kinds of bees are found in the SBGG?
A two year study conducted
in 2006-2007 in the garden found 122 species of bees. Of these only 7 are
social bees: the non-native Honey bee and 6 kinds of Bumblebee.
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| Bumblebee nectaring; note pollen baskets on leg (orange mass is pollen) |
Social Bees
A social bee lives in a
colony of bees that has a single reproductive individual, the
"queen," who produces all the eggs. The other bees in the colony are either
workers or drones. Workers are non-reproductive bees that perform various
duties, e.g., foragers, nurses, etc. Foragers collect nectar and pollen to feed
the larvae; nurses feed and care for the larvae. Drones are male bees and are
produced only when the colony is making new queens. Only the Honeybee colony
survives the winter, using its stored honey and pollen; in the other social bees,
the Bumblebees, the colony dies in the fall, only the new, fertilized queens
survive over the winter. Each Bumblebee queen begins a new colony in the
Spring. Their colonies are much smaller than Honeybee colonies.
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| Carpenter bee (a solitary bee) stealing nectar by biting through the base of a flower. |
Solitary bees
The other 100+ bee species in
the Garden are solitary bees. A solitary bee does everything by itself. A fertilized
female constructs a nest that may be a burrow in the ground, a hollow twig or a
tunnel she excavates in dry wood. She gathers nectar and pollen and brings it
back to her nest, making a kind of "bee bread," a mixture of nectar
and pollen, on which she lays a single egg. She then closes off that part of
the nest, making a chamber in which the larva will grow and develop with no
further interaction with its mother. Meanwhile she continues to forage and
either adds another chamber to her nest or constructs or finds a new nest.
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| Franklinia with flower bud |
Franklinia
Brad Sanders is a William Bartram expert and accompanied us on our
Ramble today. He is the author of Guide
to William Bartram's Travels, an exhaustive compendium of the places
Bartram visited along with additional information and historical background. It
is currently available only on the used book market but Brad is revising it for
the second edition.
The Heritage Garden here at the State Botanical Garden has a single
specimen of Franklinia alatamaha, a shrub/tree discovered by
John and William Bartram, the first botanists in the American colonies. While
we gathered in the shade of the gazebo Brad told us about the Bartrams and
their discovery of Franklinia.
John and William Bartram discovered it on the banks of the Altamaha
river in south Georgia on October 30, 1765. The plant was growing in the
vicinity of Ft. Barrington, in a swampy area between sand dunes. The Bartrams returned
to Philadelphia and, several years later, William returned to the south,
traveling there for a number of years. He later published an account, Travels, of his time in the south. He
managed to find the Franklinia that he and his father had previously seen and
gather seeds, which he sent back to Philadelphia. His father successfully
germinated the seed and all the Franklinia plants known to exist today are
descendents of that seed.
Although William Bartram was an exceptional botanist who discovered many
new plants during his travels, the only plant he ever named was the Franklinia alatamaha (with the name of
the river misspelled). The genus name honors Benjamin Franklin, a close friend
of the Bartrams.
The plant was last seen in nature in 1814.
Many people and institutions have plants that grow vigorously,
especially in the northern climate, which suggests that Franklinia is/was a
relict of past glacial periods.
The specimen we have here at the Garden is growing in a pot because
all attempts to grow the species in our soils fail. (The failure may be due to
the persistence of pathogens in our soil from the days of cotton farming.
If you'd like to see Franklinia in bloom you'll have to be quick. When
a flower bud opens it lasts but a day; the petals have fallen by the next
morning.
Franklinia is a close relative of the Camellia and Loblolly-bay; all
are in the tea family (Theaceae). Hybridization is in progress. The hybrid
forms will be called Gordenias, according to Brad.
Miscellaneous critters
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| Hentz's orbweaver spider |
Spider
Midsummer is when we begin to
encounter spider webs. Why? Most spiders are annual species, living only a
year. They hatch from overwintering eggs in the spring and start to feed and
grow. In early July they have started to reach the size that can construct
large, noticeable webs. (When they are smaller the webs are also small and
hidden from human view.) Now it is common to see or walk through large orb webs
stretching between shrubs or other open areas where humans walk. Today Angeli
found the orbweb of a Hentz's orbweaver stretched between two shrubs. She (the
spider) had capture a June bug (beetle) and was busy draining its bodily
fluids.
Later in the season the spiders will
have become fat and egg-laden. Then they will spin silken cases for their eggs
and die. The eggs overwinter and hatch the following spring.
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| A small group of Daddy longlegs on a Pawpaw leaf; there were a lot more on the leaf but they fled before they could be photographed. |
Daddy-long-legs
Everyone has seen a daddy-long-legs at
one time or another. Their tiny round body seems to bounce around as they run
away on their improbably slender, long legs. They are sometimes mistakenly
thought to be a kind of spider, but they belong to an entirely different order
of arachnids. (Most people recognize three types of arachnids: spiders,
scorpions and harvestmen, AKA daddy-long-legs.)
While looking for Pawpaw fruit Angeli
came across a group of about two dozen daddy-long-legs gathered together in a
tight cluster. They soon dispersed, but only after swaying back and forth as a
group right after being disturbed. Why were they clumped together? My first
guess was that this might be a mating aggregation – possibly a group of males
that were attracted to a female emitting a pheromone. But a bit of sleuthing on
the internet showed that is probably not the reason for this aggregation
behavior. This website has several
videos of harvestmen aggregations and explores some of the possible
explanations for the behavior. Few people study harvestmen and much about their
natural history is unknown. The upshot is that no one seems to know why they
get together in such groups.
Sorghum insects
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| A black and orange lady beetle larva is attracted to the Sorghum aphids; it is a major aphid predator |
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| A much enlarged Sorghum aphid colony |
The Sorghum always plays host to a large number of aphids that cluster beneath the leaves where they suck the sugary sap. The "honey dew," which is really aphid poo, drops down on the leaves below, just as it does on your car when you park beneath a tree. The Sorghum aphid poo has a lot more sugar and it attracts a lot of bees, flies and wasps that eat up as much sugar as they can.
Butterflies
Butterflies don't seem to be
particularly abundant this year. We only found a few different kinds today: 3
kinds of skippers (spread-wing skipper, Fiery skipper, & Silver-spotted
skipper), a Buckeye and a Tiger swallowtail.
Spread-wing skippers
There are several kinds of spread-wing
skippers in our area and they are difficult to identify, which is why I'm
refraining from attempting to do so. They are sexually dimorphic, which means
males and females differ, and it's difficult to tell the sexes apart. They also
vary seasonally. Some experts say that the only sure way to identify them with
confidence is by examination of the male genitalia.
Other skippers
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| Fiery skipper |
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| Fiery skipper basking pose Both wings are flared open; hind wings open further than forewings |
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| Buckeye; photo taken through a plastic container |
Buckeye
The Buckeye is a common butterfly and
has prominent large eyespots on all its upper wing surfaces. The males are
territorial and will chase other buckeyes off.
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| Male Tiger Swallowtail Note the absence of blue color on the black margins of the hind wings (compare with female below) |
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| Female Tiger Swallowtail The black margins of the hind wings are heavily dusted with blue (compare to male above) |
Eastern Tiger swallowtail
Tiger swallowtails are our state
butterfly and usually pretty common. Their larval food is Tulip tree or Black
cherry, both common plants. The males are yellow with black stripes but the
females are dimorphic (two forms). One form is nearly all black in color and
the other form is yellow with black stripes, the same as the male coloration. The
dark females have additional black pigment, melanin, deposited in what would be
the yellow areas. This makes them blend in with the black stripes, producing a
solid black wing area. Though if you examine a melanic female you can see the
faint outlines of the dark stripes. A sexual dimorphism is superimposed on this
striped male, melanic or striped female pattern. The posterior margin of the
hind wing upper surface is black in males but is black with a frosting of blue
scales in females.
It is thought that the melanic female
Tiger swallowtail is a mimic of the Pipevine swallowtail. The Pipevine
swallowtail's larval stage feeds on Pipevine and accumulates the distasteful,
poisonous compounds in that plant, much like the Monarch butterfly larva
accumulates distasteful compounds from its milkweed host. Support for this idea
is found in the geographic distribution of the two forms. The Pipevine
swallowtail is common in the southeastern states, decreasing in abundance as
you go north. The frequency of the melanic Tiger Swallowtail is highest in the
south, decreasing as you go north. In the northeastern states there are no
Pipevine swallowtails and the Tiger swallowtails of both sexes in those areas are
all yellow.
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| Tiger swallowtail Tongue (proboscis) is coiled up below the head on left |
Butterfly "tongues"
The butterfly tongue (proboscis) is
used to obtain nectar from flowers and liquids from other sources. The
proboscis is held coiled up beneath the head and, when in action, is uncoiled
and used to probe the flower for nectar. The end of the proboscis has many taste
receptors. (Butterflies also have taste receptors in their feet.) The proboscis
is made of two parts that zip together. Each half is a tube with slit along its
length. To make the functional proboscis the two tubes meet together along
their slits, forming a double straw. In cross-section it's like a figure 8 on
its side, with an opening at the point of crossing. A muscular pump in the head
provides the suction to sip the fluid up to the mouth.
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
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Red salvia
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Salvia greggii
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Carpenter bee
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Xylocopa
virginica
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Bumblebee
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Bombus sp.
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Bog sage
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Salvia ulignosa
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Honey bee
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Apis mellifera
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Hentz's orbweaver
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Neoscona
crucifera
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June beetle
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Phyllophaga sp.
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Black-eyed Susan (?)
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Rudbeckia hirta
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Solitary bee
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Silvery checkerspot butterfly
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Chlosyne nycteis
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Paw paw tree
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Asimina triloba
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Daddy longlegs/Harvestman
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Order Opiliones
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Franklinia
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Franklinia
alatamaha
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Spread-wing skipper, Duskywing
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Erynnis sp.
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Common buckeye
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Junonia coenia
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Lady bug, larval stage
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Family
Coccinellidae
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Aphids
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Superfamily
Aphidoidea
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Sorghum
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Sorghum sp.
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Fiery skipper
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Hylephila phyleus
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Silver-spotted skipper
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Epargyreus clarus
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Eastern swallowtail butterfly
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Papilio glaucus
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Mealybug?
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Family Pseudococcidae
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