Today's Ramble was led by Linda Chafin.
The photos in this post, except where
noted, came from Don's Facebook album (here's the link).
Today's post was written by Linda Chafin and Don Hunter.
18 Ramblers met today.
Readings:
Linda read a poem from Lynda Hull,
“Insect Life”
Insect Life
By Lynda Hull
In those days I thought their endless thrum
was the great wheel
that turned the days, the nights.
In the throats of
hibiscus and oleander
I’d see them clustered yellow, blue, their shells
enameled hard as the
sky before the rain….
Afternoons, showers drummed the roof,
my parents silent for
hours.
Mother leaned over the seat to me, the orchid
Father’d pinned in her
hair shriveled
to a purple fist.
And always the trance
of blacktop shimmering
through swamps with
names like incantations—
Okeefenokee, where Father held my hand
and pointed to an
egret’s flight unfolding
white above swamp
reeds that sang with insects
Lizards flashed over his shoes, over the rail
where the citronella
burned
merging our
shadows—Father’s face floating over mine
in the black
changing sound
of night, the enormous Florida night,
metallic with cicadas,
musical
and dangerous as
the human heart.
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| One leaf and you know it is Autumn calligraphy and sumi=e by Bill Pierson |
Bill Pierson shared some more of his Chinese calligraphy
and painting “One leaf and you know it is Autumn”.
Today's Route: We left the Visitor Center
plaza and walked through the building to the International Garden, heading for
the Beautyberry bushes at the wooden bridge.
We then headed over to Freedom Plaza then on towards the Heritage
Garden, eventually heading down the path into the Flower Garden, passing
through the orchard and then across the hill and down to the Day Chapel. We returned to the Flower Garden, walking up
past the roses and then back to the Visitor Center.
Freedom Plaza:
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| Pink Muhly Grass |
The first thing we saw, and we were all awestruck by the
sight, was the huge planting of Pink Muhly Grass in the center of the plaza. All of the plants were covered in dew and
were catching the early morning rays of the sun.
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| Georgia Aster |
Linda stopped to point out the patch of Georgia Aster,
planted below the wall. The flowers were
large and a rich shade of purple, with white centers, and were weighing down
the stems, as most of the plants were leaning over. It's considered a rare plant and is listed as
endangered in the state. As it turns
out, it is not as rare as first thought, and since it's listing, which brought
attention to the plant, it has been identified in several different areas of
the state. It is a species of what was
once found in Piedmont prairies, loving open, sunny areas without much
competition. If you grow this plant in
our area, Heather Alley recommends cutting it to within a foot of the ground
around July 4th, which causes it to bush out, creating almost a
hedge, with many flowers and without the need for trellising.
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| Trifoliate Orange; note large thorns! |
We found a fruit of the Trifoliate Orange tree over in the
Herb and Physic Garden. Gary talked
about how invasive the plant is, becoming a problem in Watkinsville Woods. A house on the edge of the woods had planted
a hedge of Trifoliate Orange and it has quickly spread into the woods,
propagating from the seeds of dropped fruit.
Also known as Japanese (or Chinese) bitter-orange and hardy orange, it
was brought to this country from northern China and Korea for use as cold-hardy
grafting stock for frost-tender species of citrus, such as oranges, lemons, and
grapefruits. It was also planted as a “living fence” due to its incredibly
stout and sharp spines. From such uses, it has escaped into natural areas and
is considered an “Exotic plant that is a minor problem in Georgia natural areas,
or is not yet known to be a problem in Georgia but is known to be a problem in
adjacent states,” according to the Georgia
Exotic Pest Plant Council. Linda reported that it is a fairly serious invasive
in north Florida where it was widely used as grafting stock.
Heritage Garden:
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| Bumblebee nectaring |
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| Carpenter bee nectar robbing |
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| Honeybee nectar stealing |
We drifted towards the gazebo then headed over to the bed
of Red Salvia, which was teeming with pollinators, including Cloudless Sulphur
butterflies, an occasional Gulf Fritillary or two, and an assortment of bees,
including honeybees and carpenter bees.
Gareth, the curator, was working the bed and let the Ramblers pick some
of the ripe seed heads of the salvia to take home since she will soon remove
the plants in preparation for fall and winter plantings. All of the salvia had
seeded itself from last year's planting, she said. Linda talked about a
research paper she had recently read about a connection nectar-robbing by bees
and nectar guides. The researchers asked if nectar guides on flower petals
influenced the nectar-hunting behavior of bumblebees. It turns out that, in
their study, flowers with showy nectar guides (“landing strips”) were less
likely to be victims of nectar-robbing than flowers that lack nectar guides. In
other words, nectar guides seemed to work to direct bees into the natural
flower opening.
Ramblers have
seen lots of nectar-robbing by carpenter bees from the Blue Sage flowers in the
International Garden. These flowers are solid blue and appear to human eyes to
lack nectar guides (though who knows what they look like to a bee that can see
ultraviolet light?). Those Blue Sage observations support the paper’s
conclusion. But our observations today–of a multitude of bees visiting Red Sage
flowers in the “legitimate” way through the front of the flower, does not
support the paper’s conclusion. Science is always a work in progress.
It’s worth
remembering that studies have shown that the negative connotations of the term
“nectar-robbing” is purely a human projection, for the flower “victims” seem to
suffer no lack of reproductive success.
Flower Garden:
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| Broomsedge grass flowers |
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| Broomsedge grass stems |
We stopped to look at the Bluestem Broomsedge, which is
the last of the bluestem grasses to flower.
We only saw a few that had begun to flower but noticed that the flowers
could be detected as lumps inside the leafy sheaths or spathes at the tops of
the plants. Linda compared the Bluestem Broomsedge with the related Split-beard
Bluestem, whose flowers are borne naked on stalks that bear the forked seed
head. There is no spathe enclosing the Splitbeard seed heads as on Bluestem
Broomsedge.
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| Gulf Fritillary and Skipper |
We moved on down the path to a large planting of
lantana. It's not a native plant but is
attractive, none the less, and is loved by a variety of skippers. We saw a dark
brown skipper, as well as a Gulf Fritillary.
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| Dallis grass seed heads |
Dallis Grass, a native of the tropical Americas and a
widespread invader of disturbed areas, has turned up in the Flower Garden beds.
Its seeds are contained in branched (often forked) seed heads. All the grasses
in this genus, Paspalum, have
circular, flattened fruits arranged in two rows along each branch. Dallis Grass
was named for T. A. Dallis, a 19th-century farmer who grew the species near La
Grange, Georgia. (Linda first identified this grass as Vasey Grass, another
exotic species in the same genus.)
We saw a lone Cabbage White butterfly, with its
diagnostic black border and eyespot on the forewings, but it flew off before it
could be photographed.
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| Brazilian Vervain |
Brazilian Vervain, another exotic weed found in disturbed
areas, has also appeared in the Flower Garden beds. Its purple, tubular flowers
that expand into five lobes are held in dense clusters at the tips of tall
stems. The square stems with opposite leaves would suggest these plants belong
to the mint family, but the flowers lack the two lips that define that family.
Instead Brazilian Vervain is in the Verbena family.
We saw large bushes of a plant that was obviously in the
genus Amsonia along with our much-loved
Blue Star wildflower. This bushy species has long, very narrow leaves somewhat
resembling those of the Coastal Plain species, Sandhills Blue Star, but is
actually a larger, coarser plant, Hubricht's Bluestar, native to Oklahoma and Arkansas.
We say “obviously in the genus Amsonia”
because of the presence of long, slender bean-like fruits held in pairs, seeming
almost fused at the base, that are typical for this genus. Like all members of
the Dogbane Family, Amsonia have
milky latex.
We passed by more lantana and saw several Fiery Skippers.
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| Housing for solitary bees |
We saw two manufactured habitats for native solitary
bees, where horizontal tubes had been mounted in large flower pots on the face
of a concrete wall. The bees lay their
eggs in the backs of the tube, along with provisions consisting of pollen and
nectar for the hatched larvae to feast on as they are maturing.
A white cultivar of Muhly grass was seen as we turned to
climb the steps up the hill heading back to the Visitor Center. At the same locations we also admired an
exotic, lush, purple salvia hybrid, Ultra Violet, Salvia lycoides x greggii.
We noticed several large Lespedeza shrubs that had been
planted along the steps up to the path to the Chapel. Don reminded Linda that
these shrubs could not be Desmodium (Beggar Lice) since their pink flowers
lacked the green or yellow “V” at the base of the banner petal. We spotted a
Fall Webworm Moth in one of the bushes; it was first thought to be a tussock
moth but the lack of striking tufts (tussocks) of hairs tipped us off to its
real identity.
Plaza to Day Chapel:
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| Azolla (Mosquito) fern |
At the fountain, we stopped to look at the Eastern Mosquito
Fern, a native aquatic fern that floats of the surface of freshwater ponds, its
tiny roots dangling in the water. Here it has formed a dense, floating mat in
the open water at the top of the fountain and has spread to the pool below.
Mosquito Fern is our only native aquatic fern and, from a distance, it looks
like pond scum, or even duckweed fern. Interestingly, it is also the only fern that
fixes nitrogen; it has a symbiotic relationship with a cyanobacterium,
Anabaena, which provides the nitrogen lacking in watery habitats. In many parts
of the world, Mosquito Fern is used as fertilizer, green manure, and livestock
feed. According to Wikipedia, “When rice paddies are flooded in the spring,
they can be inoculated with an Asian species of Mosquito Fern, which then
quickly multiplies to cover the water, suppressing weeds. The rotting plant
material releases nitrogen to the rice plants, providing up to nine tonnes of
protein per hectare per year.
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| Turkeytail mushrooms |
Looking over the wall along the path, we saw a stump
below that was covered in a rosette of a dark form Turkey Tail mushroom.
We walked as far as the Day Chapel and turned around but
before leaving the chapel, we stopped for short while at the base of a large
Red Mulberry tree to look at its heart-shaped leaves silhouetted against the
sky and lying on the ground. Red Mulberry fruits are not only edible but also
delicious, making a nice jam, jelly, or a pie.
Freedom Plaza:
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| Red Spotted Purple butterfly imbibing fermented Beautyberry fruit. |
Before heading in, we went back to the Beautyberry bushes
to see if the butterfly activity had picked up and saw several Red Spotted
Purple butterflies, along with more Cloudless Yellow and Gulf Fritillary butterflies.
A nearby patch of Red Salvia was teeming with Cloudless Sulphurs.
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
Pink Muhly Grass
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Muhlenbergia capillaris
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Georgia Aster
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Symphyotrichum georgianum
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Trifoliate Orange
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Poncirus trifoliata
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Red Salvia
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Salvia coccinea
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Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly
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Phoebis sennae
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Honeybee
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Apis mellifera
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Carpenter Bee
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Xylocopa virginica
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Bluestem Broomsedge
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Andropogon virginicus
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Lantana
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Lantana sp.
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Gulf Fritillary Butterfly
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Agraulis vanillae
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Clouded Skipper
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Lerema accius
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Dallis Grass
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Paspalum dilatatum
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Cabbage White Butterfly
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Pieris rapae
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Aster sp.
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Symphyotrichum sp.
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Brazillian Vervain
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Verbena brasiliensis
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Hubricht's Bluestar
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Amsonia hubrichtii
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Fiery Skipper
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Hylephila phyleus
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Ultra Violet salvia hybrid
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Salvia lycoides x greggii
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Lespedeza
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Lespedeza sp.
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Fall Webworm Moth caterpillar
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Hyphantria cunea
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Azolla or Mosquito Fern
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Azolla sp.
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Turkey Tail mushroom
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Trametes versicolor
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Red Mulberry
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Morus rubra
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Beautyberry
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Callicarpa americana
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Red Spotted Purple Butterfly
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Limenitis arthemis astyanax
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