Nature Ramblers

Leader for today's Ramble: Catherine

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

Insect identifications: Don Hunter

Gall identification: Bill

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. Not all of Don's photos from today’s ramble made it into the ramble report, so be sure to check out his Facebook album at this link.

Number of Ramblers today: 23

Today's emphasis: Using watercolors to capture shapes and surface details of leaves and flowers.

Fringe Tree, aka Grancy Graybeard, is in full, fragrant flower in the Children’s Garden.

Each flower is divided into four, thread-like segments. The oval, blue-black fruits that appear on female plants in late summer and fall betray this species’ membership in the Olive Family. In the wild, it occurs in habitats as diverse as rock outcrops, pine-hardwood forests, and shrub bogs.

Reading: Cathy read a poem by MK Creel, “Give yourself permission, let go of worry.”

It could be the rain
that gives permission

to let go of worry, forgive
the body, its pain, shift

awareness outside
this cracking vessel.

Maybe it’s the rum cherry,
its pendulous fortress

of branches, scaling bark
& wands of white flowers,

the shock of lemon-yellow
goldfinches, suck of mud

beneath your bare feet,
stepping with purpose

to keep from bruising
wild violets & tiger moths.

If skin was toxic bark
& the heart, pith & xylem

would we be any stronger?
If brain synapses were as

fibrous as mycorrhizae
tunneling through dark earth,

if we lived above & below,
flowering & fruiting after

every winter, could we better
accept what comes next?

Show and Tell:

Karen couldn’t join the ramble today but sent in photos of “fuzzy white things” she found on her sidewalk. Photos above by Karen Porter. Photo below by Bill Sheehan.

Bill identified the "fuzzy things" as shredded Wool Sower galls and took this photo of one of the galls attached to a White Oak twig. Bill suspects that squirrels took the galls apart in search of a larval meal; birds are also known to feed on the inhabitants of Wool Sower galls. These galls are created by tiny (1/8 inch) gall wasps in the family Cynipidae. The female wasp lays her eggs only on White Oak trees early in the spring. The tree responds by forming a fuzzy gall of plant tissue around the eggs. The gall contains hardened, seed-like structures that enclose the eggs and, later, the larvae. After the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the gall material as they mature into adults. Bill says, “Each spherical wooly cluster contains 15 or 20 little seed-like capsules, inside of which a juicy wasp larva develops. So, somebody had a good meal….” More information on Wool Sower galls is here.

Roger provided an update on his investigation into diabase (bluestone) dikes in the Athens area (learn about his ongoing geology research in the March 21st ramble report, here). While at a job site in Madison County last week, he discovered that the owner had a huge collection of bluestone boulders including one that was more than five feet tall, in the photo above. Diabase is a mafic rock, high in magnesium, calcium, and iron. It often weathers to form a soil with a circumneutral pH that supports plant species rarely seen in the Piedmont’s typically acidic soils.

Announcements and other interesting things to note:

This week's ramble on Thursday, April 25 will be led by Bay Noland-Armstrong, a senior in the Wildlife Sciences program at the School of Forestry with a certificate in Environmental Education. Her passion is birding and she will share her birding knowledge and experience with ramblers on Thursday. Bring binoculars if you have them – we will have some extras to share. Also download the free Merlin app from the Cornell University Ornithology Lab to your phone, here. As always, we will meet at 9:00am in the arbor next to the Children's Garden.

Cathy reminded us the Athens/East Piedmont chapter of the Georgia Native Plant Society will be holding its annual native plant sale on May 4, 10am – 2pm, at the Sunrise Nursery, 550 Athens Road, in Winterville. More than 160 native species will be for sale, including 100+ herbaceous perennials, six grass species, ten fern species, 26 shrub species, six vine species, and eight tree species. Many of these were grown or rescued by GNPS members. More than 1,300 plants will be available – bring a wagon!

The April 17 issue of Flagpole features a review of Between Birdsong and Boulder, the latest book by our own poet laureate, Bob Ambrose. You can read the column here. Bob will be reading from his book at the Globe on May 7.

Sandy Creek Nature Center’s next work day is Saturday, May 4, 10:00am to 12 noon. Volunteers will help with removing invasive plant species and maintaining the Nature Playscape. Participants should bring water and wear comfortable, weather-appropriate clothes and closed-toe shoes. All tools, including gloves, will be provided. For more information, call the Nature Center at (706) 613-3615 or register here.

You already knew this! A Little Bit of Dirt Is Good for You!

Earth Day is April 22. Test your knowledge of the ways that our choices and actions impact the planet.

Southeast Bumble Bee Atlas Training Workshop, Saturday, April 27th, 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM. Sweetwater Creek State Park, 1750 Mt Vernon Rd, Lithia Springs, GA. For more information and to register, click here.

The Georgia Botanical Society has a field trip on Saturday, April 27 to Buckeye Creek, in Otto, North Carolina, just over the Georgia border and about 2 hours north of Athens on U.S. Hwy 441. This site is relatively accessible, and is rich in spring wildflowers, especially ephemerals, including several species that are rare in Georgia. For more info, click here.

Today's Route: We remained in and around the Children’s Garden arbor as we gathered leaves and painted.

OBSERVATIONS:

Between taking shots of ramblers’ artwork, Don looked for pollinators in the Children’s Garden.

An Eastern Carpenter Bee searches for nectar in a mustard flower (above).
Mustard family flowers are often yellow, but may be pink, white, or purple.

Members of the Mustard family (Brassicaceae) have similar flowers, each divided into four petals that form a cross – plants in this family are often called 'crucifers,' meaning cross-bearing. Hugely important economically, the Mustard family includes not only mustard, but also turnip, broccoli, collards, cabbage, brussels sprouts, rapeseed, radish, horseradish, kale, cauliflower, and more. Most of the plants in this family have strong smelling sulfur compounds in their leaves, well known to anyone who has ever over-cooked a batch of collards.

A Honeybee explores a flower of ‘Extrakta’ Garden Sage, a cultivar of Common Sage, a European native long used for medicine and cooking. The species name, Salvia officinalis, refers to the storeroom, the officina, in monasteries where herbs and medicines were stored.

Catherine prepping our “outdoor studio”

Today was an Art Ramble led by Catherine, who introduced us last year to printing and weaving. Catherine said about today’s art, “Our activity was essentially printing leaves with watercolor paint. We used simple watercolor palettes and painted our leaves, then pressed them onto copy paper or watercolor paper. The idea was to play with the paint and see what could happen. Pretty soon, everyone got creative by layering prints, adding painted details, or just painting nature on their own. I loved seeing everyone's creativity and unique approach to produce such lovely results. My resource for printing activities is a wonderful book, Hand Printing from Nature by Laura Bethmann, which is available at the Athens library. Tips for good results: pat leaves dry before painting, some leaves take paint better than others, use a sheet for practice prints, keep one water container for washing brushes and another for clean water. Play around with your materials and keep trying!"

Catherine brought with her several beautifully illustrated children’s books from the Athens public library to inspire our artistic efforts this morning.