Today's Ramble was led by Dale Hoyt.
The photos in this post, except where
noted, came from Don Hunter's Facebook album (here's the link).
Today's post was written by Dale Hoyt.
22 Ramblers met today.
Announcements:
Wednesday, March 7, at 9:00 am: Guided walk at Sandy Creek Nature Center
led by Dr. Carlos Camp, of Piedmont College. Dr. Camp specialized in
salamanders! Snacks and conversation following.
Today's reading: Rosemary read
the poem Lost by David Wagoner (link here).
Richard read Advice to Myself by Louise Erdrich (link here).
Today's route: From the
visitor center we made our way to the Administration bldg. via the construction
parking area. After descending the stairs we walked up the road to the mulched
path that connects to the White trail. Turning right on the White trail we then
took the next left down to the Dunson Native Flora Garden, walked through the
garden to the power line right-of-way, turned left and walked as far as the
ephemeral pool. Then we returned to the visitor's center.
Dunson Native Flora Garden.
For the benefit of our new ramblers:
the DNFG contains plants that are native to the state and that will grow in
this area. Some of the wildflowers, trees and shrubs are not native to the
Athens area or the piedmont, but are found growing naturally in Georgia. You
can see species here that you would have to drive hundreds of miles to see in
their native habitat.
When different species of related plants grow together they
can potentially hybridize. That has happened here with the trilliums. As a result, we find trilliums
in the DNFG that have mixed characteristics of several different species. So
don't expect that every plant can be identified with confidence.
We also find individual plants that
have "escaped" the garden. Trilliums do not naturally occur the
Botanical Garden, so if you find any growing outside the DNFG, you're seeing
the result of seed dispersal. (In the case of trilliums this is done by ants.
More about this later.) Before entering the DNFG we saw a group of these
escaped trilliums and inside the garden proper there were more.
 | |
| Chattahoochee trillium with unopened bud |
 | |
| Chattahoochee trillium with opened bud |
Both these species are examples of a
group of trillium species called "Wake Robins," or sessile trilliums.
(Sessile means attached and refers to the fact that the blooms seem to be
sitting on top of the leaves.)
The other group of trilliums have
flowers that are not sessile – the flower is supported by a stem that separates
the flower from the leaves below it. This condition is called a "nodding"
trillium.
 |
| Georgia Dwarf trillium |
One of the nodding trilliums, a Georgia Dwarf Trillium is currently
blooming. It has only recently (February, 2017) been recognized as a new
species, distinct from the other dwarf trilliums. It is only found in one location
in Whitfield County, northwest Georgia. The plants in the DNFG were rescued
from a site that is due for development in the future.
 |
| Cranefly Orchid leaves are purple on the underside but normally "green side up." |
Cranefly Orchid leaves are still
to be found. The single green leaf has a pleated appearance and if you turn it
over you will discover that the undersurface is colored an intense purple. This
orchid has an unusual life history. The orchid leaf emerges in the fall and
lies flat on the bed of newly fallen tree leaves. The lack of a tree canopy
enables the orchid leaf to carry out photosynthesis during the winter, although
it is limited by temperature. When spring arrives and the canopy closes the
single orchid leaf will wither away. If it stored enough energy during the
winter the plant will send up a flowering stalk in the middle of summer. The
stalk bears dozens of tiny tan flowers that resemble an insect known as a crane
fly, hence the common name, Cranefly Orchid.
Early Spring Flowers.
 | |
| Bloodroot |
 |
| Virginia Bluebells; as the flowers age they turn blue. |
 | |||
| Halberd-leaved Violet |
 | |
| Rue Anemone |
 | |
| Spring Beauty |
 | |
| Cutleaf Toothwort |
 |
| Common Blue Violet |
Early spring flowers take advantage of
tardy trees. Most of the tree species in eastern North America do not leaf out
early in the season. This gives a literal opening to the flowering plants. If
they bloom early they can bask in the early spring sunshine unobstructed by tree
leaves. This allows them to gather enough sunlight energy to produce flowers
with their pollen and seeds. But they have to hurry, because soon the trees
overhead will block the sunlight and the plants on the ground beneath will be
starved of the suns energy. When the tree canopy closes many of the early
spring plants allow their leaves to wither and enter a state of dormancy,
existing only as an underground storage organ, a bulb, root, corm or rhizome.
These early spring flowers must somehow
scatter their seeds. Many of them rely on ants for dispersal. To entice the
ants the plants produce seeds with a nutritious handle, called an elaiosome (pronunciation:
e-LIE-o-som). This is a fat and protein rich handle on the seed that ants love.
The ants carry seeds with elaiosomes back to their nest and feed the elaiosome to
their larvae. The left-over seed part is carried to the ant colony's waste
disposal location and dropped among the bodies of deceased ants and ant poo. In
this nutrient rich environment it can germinate and grow vigorously. Among the
plants that produce seeds with elaiosomes are violets, Bloodroot, trilliums,
spring beauties, bleeding hearts and dutchman's britches, most of which can be
found in the DNFG.
 | ||
| Golden Ragwort; Aster family note the kidney shaped lower leaves; seeds are wind dispersed, like dandelions |
 |
| Golden Ragwort Highly dissected leaf on the flowering stalk. |
Ephemeral pools form in low
lying areas as a result of heavy rains. If the pools form in the spring they
are often called vernal pools. At other times of the year they are simply
called temporary pools. Collectively, they are ephemeral pools. These small
wetlands are temporary and, depending on weather, last from a few weeks to a
month or two. One such pool regularly forms in the lower power line right of
way on the west side between the path and woods. In early February of this year
this pool formed and immediately attracted at least three kinds of amphibians: I
heard the calls of Southern Leopard frogs, American toads, and Spring Peepers.
Males arrive first and begin shouting their characteristic mating
vocalizations. The leopard frogs make a grunting, chuckling noise from under
water. American toads issue a lengthy trilled call and the spring peepers
produce a whistled "peep." You can hear recording of all these
species on the internet.
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Several egg masses of Southern Leopard frog fused together; each black dot is a single egg (photo by Emily Carr) |
Southern Leopard frog, American toad
and Spring Peeper.
Frogs face some difficult decisions in
selecting a place to breed. Permanent bodies of water are dangerous. They
contain fish and dragonfly larvae, both of which prey on tadpoles. Ephemeral
pools are safer because they are not permanent. When they dry up all the living
inhabitants either die or enter a resting stage. Fish don't have such abilities
and neither do dragonfly larvae. But the trade off is that the ephemeral pool
is impermanent. It may not last long enough for the tadpoles to complete
metamorphosis. Additional dangers arise from where the eggs are laid. If the
water is too shallow the egg masses will be exposed and dry out before they can
hatch. That has been the fate of many Leopard frog egg masses that we have seen
deposited in this pool over the years. The mortality rate is high and only a
small percentage of tadpoles survive through metamorphosis into frogs or toads.
 |
| Tadpoles (three weeks later) These could be American toad or Southern Leopard frog tadpoles. (photo by Rosemary Woodell) |
Rosemary found many dark colored
tadpoles swarming about in the pool edge. They are hard to identify without
examining their mouthparts under a microscope. Since they were clustered
together a good guess would be American toad, since tadpoles of that species
are known to aggregate. But they could also be Southern Leopard frogs, because
we saw their egg masses just three weeks ago.
 |
| Two Ostracods, greatly magnified |
I scooped up a water sample from the pool
and was surprised by two things: I didn't find any mosquito larvae (I did three
weeks ago) and I got dozens, if not hundreds of tiny ostracods. Ostracods are a type of crustacean
found in both marine and freshwater. They look like tiny clams that are able to
swim about. They range in size from about 1/125th of an inch to 1/8th of an
inch. They are grazers, feeding on bacterial films and decaying organic matter
on surfaces under water. The ostracods I found are on the very tiny side.
 | |
| Mosquito on Blueberry flower |
 |
| Male Mosquito on Georgia Dwarf Trillium |
Speaking of mosquitoes, no one complained of being bitten today, but many mosquitoes
(or similar-looking harmless midges) were seen flying about. Don got a
photograph of a male mosquito on a Georgia Dwarf Trillium. You can tell that it's a
male because it has very bushy antennae. In mosquitoes both sexes feed on
nectar; only the female feeds on blood. She requires a blood meal in order to
make her eggs. It is also the female that makes that annoying "hum"
you hear when you're trying to go to sleep. The female's antennae are much less bushy than
the males. That's because the hum is a mating signal and the antennae are the
"ears" of the mosquito.
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
Bloodroot
|
Sanguinaria
canadensis
|
Cranefly Orchid
|
Tipularia
discolor
|
Chattahoochee Trillium
|
Trillium
decipiens
|
Trillium species
|
Trillium sp.
|
Bedstraw
|
Galium aparine
|
Golden Ragwort
|
Packera aurea
|
Leatherwood
|
Dirca palustris
|
Georgia Dwarf Trillium
|
Trillium georgianum
|
Virginia Bluebells
|
Mertensia
virginica
|
Spicebush
|
Lindera benzoin
|
Cutleaf Toothwort
|
Dentaria laciniata
(= Cardamine concatenata) |
Carolina Spring Beauty
|
Claytonia
caroliniana
|
Rue Anemone
|
Thalictrum
thalictroides
(= Anemonella thalictroides) |
Halberd-leaved Violet
|
Viola hastata
|
Common Blue Violet
|
Viola sororia
|
British Soldier lichen
|
Cladonia cristatella
|
Highbush Blueberry
|
Vaccinium corymbosum
|
Ostracods, Unspecified
|
Class Ostracoda
|
Tadpoles of Southern Leopard Frog or American Toad
|
Lithobates sp.
(Leopard frog) or Anaxyrus americanus (American toad)
|
Ground Ivy
|
Glechoma
hederacea
|
Purple Deadnettle
|
Lamium purpureum
|
Common Chickweed
|
Stellaria media
|
Hairy Bittercress
|
Cardamine hirsuta
|
