Ramble Report October 26, 2023

Leader for today's Ramble: Catherine

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

Insect identifications: Don Hunter, 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. Photos may be enlarged by clicking them with a mouse or tapping on your screen.

Number of Ramblers today: 29

Today's emphasis: Weaving what we find!

Announcements and other interesting things to note:
Last chance to order bird seed from Sandy Creek Nature Center – Tuesday, October 31! Click here to order.

Reminder: The Nature Rambler book group is re-grouping after a three-year, pandemic-related hiatus. We will meet on Thursday, November 30, 10-11:30am in the Adult Classroom in the Garden's Visitor Center to discuss dates and times of future meetings and to select a list of books for 2024. Bring a book (or a description of a book) that you'd like the group to read.

Here’s a link to a fascinating discovery about glow-in-the-dark mammals: “The Glowing Secret That Mammals Have Been Hiding: Fluorescent anatomy, which recently seemed to be a quirk in unusual animals such as platypuses and opossums, was found in most living families of mammals.”

Many Ramblers are fans of David Haskell’s book, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, based on observations he made in Shakerag Hollow, a privately owned piece of prime forest land in Sewanee, Tennessee. This land is now up for sale and a non-profit conservation group, The South Cumberland Regional Land Trust, is raising funds to purchase it. Dr. Haskell is asking for donations. For more information, you can click here and here.

Show and Tell: Sandy, our Nature Rambles butterfly expert, brought a collection of butterfly chrysalids to show us the difference in sizes among chrysalids, as well as the discrepancy between the size of the chrysalid and the size of the adult butterfly developing inside.

From bottom to top, chrysalids of Buckeye, Gulf Fritillary, Pipevine Swallowtail, Variegated Fritillary, and Sleepy Orange. Below, close-up of Pipevine Swallowtail chrysalis.

Photos by Sandy of the butterflies whose chrysalids she brought today (Clockwise from upper left): Buckeye, Gulf Fritillary, Pipevine Swallowtail, Variegated Fritillary, and Sleepy Orange.

Reading:

Catherine read from Karl, Get Out of the Garden! Carolus Linnaeus and the Naming of Everything, by Anita Sanchez, Illustrated by Catherine Stock, a biography of Karl Linnaeus.

“…Karl realized that arguing would do no good. ‘Time is too valuable to be spent in disputes,’ he wrote. He just went on naming things. Karl became a teacher. Perhaps he remembered how bored he had been in the classroom, because he used his garden as a living textbook, filled with thousands of plants. He led exciting, rowdy fieldtrips into the woods and meadows – expeditions with hundreds of students, lasting from morning till night. Karl and the students marched along, carrying banners and playing musical instruments. Whenever someone found an unusual plant, Karl would hurry over and get down on his hands and knees to examine it. If the plant was a rare specimen, he would call for the bugles to sound.”

Catherine brought a basketful of small looms she’d constructed of cardboard squares strung with threads and explained how we were to to weave found materials from the prairie between the threads. Inspired by Linnaeus, Catherine also brought a banner for today’s adventure emblazoned, in English on one side and Latin on the other, with “Omnia mirari etiam tritissima  – find wonder in everything, even the most ordinary." It’s hard to imagine a banner that better captures the Rambler’s own motto “seeking what we find.”

In lieu of bugles, Catherine handed out flamboyantly decorated kazoos for us to announce special finds for our looms. Then, with great fanfare, tooting our kazoos, behind our glorious banner, we headed down through the Lower Shade Garden, on our way to the powerline right-of-way, where a bounty of natural materials was found to fill our looms.

Today's Route:  We left the Children’s Garden, walking the paved path through the Lower Shade Garden, then crossed the road to the White Trail spur and the powerline right-of-way. We walked downhill to the entrance road and convened at the picnic table to admire our collective weaving efforts. We then took the ADA trail to the river and returned to the Visitor Center via the entrance road.

Blue Curls in flower along the White Trail
Notice the white pollen grains on the tips of the curled stamens of one flower and the round, green fruits of another flower.

OBSERVATIONS
Ramblers wandered the White Trail and the newly created prairie in the right-of-way, searching for weaving materials.

... and began to assemble their weavings.

Some of the species that found their way into our weavings….

Horseweed

Bushy Aster

Tall Goldenrod

Blue Mistflower

Outer hull of Red Buckeye fruits

Yellow Indian Grass

Carolina Desert Chicory

Splitbeard Bluestem

Scarlet Morning-glory

Pink Muhly Grass

River Oats

Ramblers eventually gathered at the picnic table and arranged our weavings on top of the table – an impressive display. Collectively, the weavings reflected the diversity of grasses and wildflowers we have been enjoying all summer and fall in the right-of-way prairie.

Meanwhile, Heather and Don were scouring the prairie for insects.

Gulf Fritillary bejeweled with dew –
note the dew drops on the butterfly's eye, below.

Red Goldenrod Aphids in a goldenrod inflorescence

Southern Armyworm caterpillar

Chinese Mantid

Brown Stink Bug (above) and tiny Geometer caterpillar (below) on a Red Buckeye hull in Emily’s weaving.

Scudder's Short-winged Grasshopper

Tobacco Budworm moth on Rabbit Tobacco flower heads
photo by Heather Larkin

Giant Leopard Moth caterpillar

A Gallery of Weavings with many thanks to Catherine for bringing art to the rambles!

Victoria’s weaving

Barb’s weaving

Carla’s weaving

Richard E’s weaving

Linda's weaving

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Blue Curls        Trichostema dichotomum
Red Buckeye   Aesculus pavia
Geometer moth caterpillar   family Geometridae
Brown Stink Bug Euschistus servus
Bushy Aster        Symphyotrichum dumosum
Horseweed         Conyza canadensis
Beaked Panic Grass      Coleataenia anceps
Maryland Senna            Senna marilandica
Pink Muhly Grass          Muhlenbergia capillipes
Yellow Indian Grass      Sorghastrum nutans
Ginkgo                          Ginkgo biloba
Green Lynx Spider        Peucetia viridans
Appalachian Beebalm  Monarda fistulosa
River Oats                   Chasmanthium latifolium
Tall Ironweed               Vernonia gigantea
Alternate-leaved Wingstem   Verbesina alternifolia
Southern Crownbeard  Verbesina occidentalis
Tall Goldenrod              Solidago altissima
Dotted Smartweed       Persicaria punctata
Mistflower            Conoclinium coelestinum
Woolly Mullein     Verbascum thaspus
Virginia Creeper               Parthenocissus quinquefolius
Splitbeard Bluestem        Andropgon ternarius
Yellow Foxtail                  Setaria pumila
Swamp Smartweed         Persicaria hydropiperoides
Scarlet Morning-glory     Ipomoea coccinea      
Red Goldenrod Aphid    Uroleucon solidaginis
Gulf Fritillary Butterfly    Agraulis vanillae
Southern Army Worm   Spodoptera eridania
Chinese Mantis            Tenodera sinensis
Giant Leopard Moth     Hypercompe scribonia
Scudder’s Short-winged Grasshopper     Melanoplus scudderi    
Rabbit Tobacco, Sweet Everlasting         Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium
Carolina Desert-chicory    Pyrrhopappus carolinianum
Silver Plume Grass           Erianthus alopecuroides
Burnweed                         Erechtites hieraciifolius
Dotted Horsebalm           Monarda punctata
Clasping Aster                Symphyotrichum patens