Ramble Report September 30 2021

Leader for today's Ramble: Linda
Link to Don's Facebook album for this Ramble. All the photos in this post are compliments of Don Hunter, unless otherwise credited.

Number of Ramblers today: 30
Today's emphasis: Learning to identify grasses
Reading:
Linda read the entry for September 23 from An Almanac for Moderns, by Donald Culross Peattie:

   How much of any landscape is due to the grasses is a quality in scenery that the best descriptions rarely admit. Orchard grass lends to any land that it inhabits something ample and light and gay. To the marshes the reed, Phragmites, gives long slant rainy-looking lines, and from their grasses the pampas and the steppes must surely take full half of their contour.
   It is in autumn that the grasses hereabout come forth in their full beauty; they fill the meadows like some fluid till they are become wind-swirled living lakes. But above all they give the meadow scene its dominant color. There is not one of our sterile upland fields or abandoned farms where the beard grass, Andropogon, does not show its soft terra-cotta sheaths, its glaucous blue stems, and woolly gray puffs of downy seed half bursting from the spike. The misnamed redtop troops across the fields, its purplish stems standing rank to rank, the panicles turning a dull gold as the seeds fall, reflecting the mild sunlight of hazy Indian summer mornings. In the woods and old fields the Indian grass has begun to bloom-as enchanting as any flower that, can boast calyx and corolla, with its golden brown spikelets, its dangling orange anthers, the whole plant turning to a sun-burnished bronze in its old age.

 

Sandra and her sisters made a surprise appearencel

Special Visitors:  Sandra Hoffberg, a former Nature Rambler who is a post-doctoral researcher at Columbia University, paid us a surprise visit this morning. Sandra received her Ph.D. from UGA in 2017, studying invasive species like Wisteria and Kudzu. She continues to work on invasive plants, this time on amaranths, at Columbia.  Her last Ramble with us was on July 20, 2017, so we were surprised and delighted to see her today.

Show and Tell:

The first of Halley's Georgia Asters to bloom this year.

Halley brought some "first of season" Georgia Asters from her yard

Today's Route:   We left the arbor and headed into the Lower Shade Garden via the sidewalk nearest to the Visitor Center.  We exited the Shade Garden and headed up the White Trail Spur connecting the paved road and the ROW.  We worked our way up the ROW via the two-rut road for a bit then turned around and headed all the way down the ROW to the paved road.  Once we were at the road, we took a left and headed back to the Visitor Center via the road, stopping briefly at the Passionflower vines on the Dunson Garden deer fence.

OBSERVATIONS:

Arbor:

This Joro on its web is illuminated to show the arrangement of the capture threads.

Don is trying to understand how the Joro webs are built. Here's what he thinks, so far:

1. First, a wide, square or rectilinear based grid of silk threads is laid down.  It is on this silk framework that the sticky capture thread is attached. As the spider walks across the framwork she keeps a constant distance from the center of the web so the capture thread is laid in a circle, or would be, if the spider completly walked around the web.
   
2. Insterd, she only walks about 3/4 of the way and then reverses her path but lays the silk a short distance outside the first line she just finished producing.
3. She continues this pattern, reversing her direction four or five times, after which she begins to lay another set of silk threads, but starting just a little fit further outside the previous group. (Look at the photo above and pick one thread. Follow it and you will find where she doubled back on her path. You may be able to find more reversals or other variations in the silk patterns.
   
4. In many of the webs, the upper quarter lacks capture threads due to the spider reversing her direction.
5. In addition to the two dimensional capture orb there are chaoticly organized, three-dimensional strands of silk that surround the area within which the orb is located.  Don say's he doesn't yet know how and/or when these messy strands of silk fit into the construction of the capture web proper.
   

Heather found a tiny Keeled Treehopper on goldenrod.

 

 

You can barely see the spindly legs of this Daddy Long Legs hiding in the Rattlesnake Master seed heads.

 

Yellow Garden Spider waiting on its web for an insect
to blunder into the web. The dense, white zig-zag is the stabilimentum.

Lower Shade Garden:

Just before leaving the Lower Shade Garden, Halley pointed out a single Jackson's Slender Caesar mushroom, an amanita, popping out of the duff.

 

White Trail Spur (paved road to ROW):

Linda wrote at beginner's guide to identifying grasses for Tipularia-Journal of the Georgia Botanical Society in 2014. It's available for downloading as a pdf file here.
With that guide in hand this report will not repeat all the things Linda told us about grasses today. Grasses not mentioned in the article are shown and discussed below.

 

Bowl and Doily spider web made visible by dew.

Because of the heavy dew this morning, spider webs were especially prominent.

 

Big Top Love Grass

.


Big Top Love Grass and its close relative Purple Love Grass are especially noticeable on dewy mornings.
    

Eastern Fork-tailed Damselfly, chilled and hanging from Purple Top Grass seeds.
(Damselflies don't eat seeds; they eat other flying insects.)

An immature  insect on Purple Top Grass seeds.

 

 

Northern Yellow Sac Spider ??

Split-beard Bluestem

Split-beard Bluestem stems are red and the leaf sheaths are blue-green, creating a two-tone barber-pole effect.

Split-beard Bluestem with "split" seed head

Rabbit Tobacco

Rabbit Tobacco is scattered over much of the ROW. The flower heads are barely open even at maturity.

Horseweed

 

Horseweed stem and leaves

Horseweed flowers

Horseweed flower heads as open as they will ever be.

One Horseweed plant had very hairy stems and lower leaves. Another nearby one was hardly hairy at all. This species frequently shows up in recently disturbed ground.

Beaked Panicgrass with its pointed ("beaked") seed heads

Saw Greenbrier is common in open sunny areas.

 

Grasshopper with "Summit disease"

Infected grasshopper closeup
The white encrustations are fungal spore-producing structures.

Heather found two examples from a grasshopper horror movie. The grasshoppers were dead but clinging tightly to the stems of grasses, head upward, as if the they had been trying to reach the top. This is the symptom of "summit disease," in which grasshoppers infected by a fungus (Entomophaga grylii) climb up a grass stem or other vertical vegetation and die, tightly gripping the stem. The fungus emerges through the thin cuticle between the body segments and leg joints, dispersing its spores. Visit this website for more details.

 

Blue Mistflower in the Nash Prairie

 

 

 

A low hairy ligule and patch of long hairs mark the transition from the leaf blade to leaf sheath of Silver Plume Grass

Stand of Silver Plume Grass at the edge of the woods..

Mature Thimbleweed seed head in the Nash Prairie

Decomposing Thimbleweed leaves

Maturing Thimbleweed seed pods

 

Brilliant Jumping Spider hunting on Rabbit Tobacco

 

"       Linda….share the wire grass story… I missed most of it.  

Dog Fennel; a natural bug repellent?!

Roger, who grew up in south Georgia, told that when he was working outside he would grab a handful of Dog Fennel and put it behind his ears as a bug repellent. 

 

Clasping Aster in the Nash Prairie

Maryland Goldenaster in the Nash Prairie

Yellow Indian Grass in the restored prairie

 

Coral Bead twining on Dog Fennel

Blazing Star in the Nash Prairie

Lined Orbweaver?

Hibiscus Scentless Plant Bug nymph

While we were examining the Passionflower vines on the Dunson Garden deer fence, Richard noticed that many of the brown, dried hibiscus seed capsules were teeming with Hibiscus Scentless Plant Bug nymphs, some early stage, barely visible red dots, but most mid- to late stage but still wingless.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Joro Spider     Trichonephila clavata
Spinyback Orbweaver     Gasteracantha cancriformis
Keeled Treehopper     Entylia carinata
Goldenrod     Solidago sp.
Daddy Longlegs/Harvestmen     Arachnida: Opiliones
Rattlesnake Master      Eryngium yuccifolium
Yellow Garden Spider     Argiope aurantia
Jackson's Slender Caesar mushroom     Amanita jacksonii
River Oats     Chasmanthium latifolium
Bowl and Doily spider     Frontinella pyramitela
Big Top Lovegrass     Eragrostis hirsuta
Purple Top Grass/Grease Grass     Tridens flavus
Eastern Forktail damselfly     Ischnura verticalis
Northern Yellow Sac Spider (tentative)     Cheiracanthium mildei ?
Splitbeard Bluestem grass     Andropogon ternarius
Rabbit Tobacco    Pseudognaphalium  obtusifolium
Horseweed     Conyza canadensis
Beaked Panicgrass     Panicum anceps
Saw Greenbrier     Smilax bona-nox
Grasshopper (no ID)     Order Orthoptera
Blue Mistflower     Conoclinium coelestinum
Silver Plume Grass     Saccharum alopecuroides
Thimbleweed     Anemone virginiana
Brilliant Jumping Spider     Phidippus clarus
Dog Fennel     Eupatorium capillifolium
Maryland Goldenaster     Chrysopsis mariana
Clasping Aster     Symphyotrichum patens
Purple Fountain Grass     Pennisetum setaceum rubrum
Fescue     Festuca sp.
Yellow Indian Grass     Sorghastrum nutans
Carolina Moonseed AKA Coral Bead Vine     Cocculus carolinus
Dense Blazing Star     Liatris spicata
Lined Orbweaver     Mangora gibberosa
Passionflower Vine     Passiflora incarnata
Hibiscus Scentless Plant Bug      Niesthrea louisianica

Ramble Report September 23 2021

Leader for today's Ramble: Dale
Link to Don's Facebook album for this Ramble. All the photos in this post are compliments of Don Hunter, unless otherwise credited.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=don.hunter.56&set=a.5103239919692532
Number of Ramblers today:  25
Today's emphasis:
Reading:  Karen Porter read two poems:
Cicadas at the End of Summer by Martin Walls
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42476/cicadas-at-the-end-of-summer
For the Chipmunk in my Yard by Robert Gibb:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53932/for-the-chipmunk-in-my-yard
Show and Tell:

One of Gary's "Joro sticks"

Gary showed us two sticks he uses to take down Joro spider webs.  The golden color of the silk was very obvious when densely wrapped around the sticks.
 

Today's Route:   We left the arbor and headed into the Lower Shade Garden via the sidewalk adjacent to the new Children's Garden comfort station.  We left the sidewalk and took the mulched path (White Trail Spur), veering off of it on to the mulched path leading down to the Dunson Native Flora Garden.  We cut directly across the Dunson Garden and exited via one of the gates in the deer fence and headed down the road to the Passionflower vines.  After lingering there, we slowly made our way towards the Mimsie Lanier Center for Native Plant Studies on the access road.  When we were done there, we headed back to the Visitor Center via the road.
 

LIST OF OBSERVATIONS:

Arbor:
 

We saw examples of three common orbweaver spiders and their webs.  

Joro spider on web

Joro spider web showing detail of the sticky capture threads.

 

Red-femured Spotted Orbweaver
(this one is actually in the Dunson Garden)

Spinyback Orbweaver
Closeup of the white colored variant

Spinyback Orbweaver web

Bird's Nest fungus

Bird's Nest Fungus fruiting bodies

Heather discovered numerous Bird's Nest fungi growing on the mulch that borders the arbor. Each tiny "cup", less than 1/2 inch in diameter, contains several spherical "eggs." Together, the "cup" and "eggs" look like a bird's nest you might find in a doll's house. This bird's nest is the fruiting body of a fungus that is decomposing a chunk of mulch. Y'all will remember that the job of a fungal fruiting body is to reproduce via the production of spores. Here the "eggs" contain the spores and falling raindrops cause the "eggs" to be ejected into the surrounding shrubbery where they stick to whatever they land on. Some have been found on leaves as far as 3 feet above their cup. While attached to their new location the "eggs" release their spores which are dispersed by the wind.
There are other species of Bird's Nest fungi in our area, but these are the only ones in our area that have white "eggs."
Sources:
Elliott, TF & Stephenson, SL. 2018. Mushrooms of the Southeast. Timber Press. p.: 343
Kuo, M. (2014, February). The bird's nest fungi. Retrieved 9/25/2020 from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/birdsnestshtml
 

Hillside Mulched Trail, Dunson Garden:

Onion-stalk Parasol (Lepiota) mushrooms

Same mushroom showing gills under cap and annulus around stalk.

Several small clusters of Onion-stalk Parasol (Lepiota) mushrooms are growing on the roots of a rotting tree stump just off the path through the Dunson Garden. This is another fungus usually found on decaying wood. It has a finely scaly, bell-shaped cap and a partial veil. A partial veil is a delicate layer of tissue that extends from the edge of the cap to the stem and protects the spores as they develop within the gills on the lower surface of the cap. When the spores are ready to be dispersed, the veil disintegrates, often leaving a ragged ring around the stem, the annulus.

Deer Fence at Road:

Two weeks ago we checked the Passionflower vines and found not caterpillars and no sign of feeding on the leaves. Today many of the vines were stripped of leavess and only a few, small Gulf Fritillary caterpillers were found, indicating that the missing caterpillars had wandered off to find a place to pupate.

Gulf Fritillary caterpillar

Many green, immature "maypops" were hanging from the vines, most perfect for popping, and a few were beginning to ripen. The mature fruit consists of a tough, wrinkled, yellowish rind and numerous dark seeds, each seed enclosed by and aril, a sac filled with sweet-tart juice. 

Passionflower leaves and roots were used by Native Americans and early European colonists to treat a variety of ailments, including boils, wounds, earaches, and liver problems. Currently, dried Passionflower leaves are included in teas that aid anxiety and insomnia.

Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillars are variable in color and appearance as well as food plants. Here are three examples, two from the Passionflower vines in the Dunson Garden deer fence and one from the road into the Mimsie Lanier Center.

Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillar on Passionflower.
Red color, sparser hair

Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillar on Passionflower
White color, denser hair

Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillar on Morninglory
Red, dense hair

ROW and Road to Mimsie Lanier Center:

Scarlet Morning-glory

The bright orange-red of Scarlet Morning-glory flowers caught our attention, twining around the shrubby vegetation along the road to the Mimsie Lanier Center.  One vine could be seen 25' to 30' up in a large pine tree. (Photo of flowers) There are two other morning-glories in our area with bright red flowers: Scarlet Creeper (Ipomoea hederifolia) and Cypress-vine  (Ipomoea quamoclit). With their bright color and long floral tubes, the flowers of all three attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Here's how to tell them apart:
Scarlet Morning-glory: leaves are somewhat heart-shaped, sometimes with low teeth but not deeply lobed. Flower orange-red with a yellow throat. Native to southeast U.S.
Scarlet Creeper: leaves heart-shaped or three-lobed like English Ivy leaves, often both shapes on one plant. Flower red with a yellow throat. Native to Central and South America.
Cypress-vine: leaves fern-like, divided into many narrow segments. Flower dark red throughout.

As we made our way down the road towards our destination, we saw examples of Yellow Crownbeard and Common Wingstem growing close together and compared their main characteristics (wings, alternate vs. opposite leaves, flowers) (Photos of three characteristics of each) 

Common Wingstem with torpid Bumble Bee
Note that the disk florets are arranged in a hemisphere.
There ae only a few ray florets per flower head in this example.

Yellow Crownbeard
The floral parts are loosely arranged -- only a few disk florets in each flower head.

 

Common Wingstem
Alternate leaves

Yellow Crownbeard
Oposite leaves

Tall Thistle

Our native Tall Thistle is a butterfly magnet in late summer and an important seed source for finches in the winter. It is distinguished from other thistles, native and non-native, by the white coating on its lower leaf surfaces and by the relatively few spines along the unlobed leaf margins.

Fall Webworm Moth caterpillar on Sweetgum

Heather found a Fall Webworm Moth caterpillar (FW) on a Sweetgum leaf. These caterpillars are often confused with those of Eastern Tent Caterpillars (ETC). Here's how to distinguish them. Both create silken nests, ETC in the spring only and FW mostly in summer and fall, but rarely in spring. 

Location of the nest: 

    ETC: crotch of tree branchs, not surrounding leaves. Caterpillars travel to ends of branches to feed on leaves, then return to nest to digest their meal.

    FW: nest surrounds the ends of branches, covering leaves that will be eaten.

 

Leaf-footed Bug
(Note: this photo is from a different Ramble and clearly shows the white line and expanded tibia of the male bug. At the top of the photo is a nymph with black legs and scarlet body.)

Heather captured an Eastern Leaf-footed Bug, These true bugs are found throughout the year. Two features are especially obvious: the expanded and flat parts of the hind legs and the white line that runs across the body. Why do the legs bear these leaf-shaped enlargements? No one seems to have studied this aspect of Leaf-footed bug biology. But we can speculate. Male bugs seem to have the largest hind legs, suggesting that the “leaf” structure might be used in sex recognition or as a dominance signal. This can only be determined by careful observation and recording of the bug interactions. Here’s a project for an amateur entomologist. 

We’ve seen Leaf-footed bugs gathered on the Yucca at the foot of the Dunson Garden in spring. They are broad ranging pests of garden vegetables, fruits of many kinds, pine seeds. The damage they cause depends on their abundance; if you have a home garden and see a large number you may want to discourage them by drowning them in water with a little detergent added.  

One thing to be aware of: Leaf-footed bugs have a gland on their thorax that emits a strong odor that is will cling to your fingers. Most people find it disgusting, so if you’re going to handle them, wear gloves.

Strawberry Bush / Hearts-a-bustin'

Several Strawberry Bush/Hearts-a-bustin' shrubs, loaded with their bursting seed capsules, are in full glory along the road to the Mimsie Lanier Center. Local naturalist and forester Walt Cook refers to Strawberry Bush as "Deer Ice Cream" because deer browse every leaf and tender stem they can reach. Although known to reach 12 feet in height, it is rare to see a tall specimen so loaded with fruit in this deer-ridden part of the state. Both common names refer to the warty, dark pink fruit which bursts open to reveal the bright reddish-orange seeds.

Eastern Tailed Blue butterfly

Heather, with a lot of patience, coaxed a tiny Eastern Tailed Blue butterfly into a viewing tube. This tiny butterfly has wings that are about the size of a finger nail. It normally sits with its wings held together above its back, concealing its upper wing surface, which, in males, is a beautiful blue. The color of females is a rather drab grayish brown.

Recently emerged individuals have one or two fine, hairlike projections on the hind wings. At the base of these "hairs" is a colored spot. Together, the spot and hairs vaguely resemble an eye and and antennae. In other words, this part of the wing has a false head. To make the illusion more realistic the butterfly will slide the hind wings up and down, causing the fake antennae to wiggle up and down. It is thought that this movement will cause any nearby predator to attack the pseudo-head, enabling the butter fly to escape with its life, minus a piece of its wings. Consistent with this idea is that collections of butterflies with similar false eyes and antennae frequently also have wedge-shaped pieces of their hind wings missing.

 

Dogbane Saucrobotys Moth caterpillar??

A tiny orange caterpillar, barely noticible, even by Heather's keen eyes, on Common Wingstem.  The wingstem is not one of the preferred host plants for this moth (either dogbane or milkweed), so Don says that this ID is tentative and his best guess after comparing the photo with on-line resources.

 

Sumac Gall Aphid    

Sumac Aphid Galls

On the south side of the road there is a group of Smooth Sumac plants with clusters of swollen growths on their leaves. These are the work of the Sumac Gall Aphid. In the spring, as the sumac plant is producing leaves, it is visited by an aphid that lays a single egg, usually on the mid-vein of a leaf. The plant reacts by enveloping the egg with a growth of tissue that begins as a small, spherical swelling. Inside this growth the egg hatches and the aphid nymph begins to feed by sucking plant juices from the gall. As the nymph grows it will shed its skin (exoskeleton) five times. The last molt produces a mature aphid that produces more aphids parthenogenetically; i.e., without benefit of a male. Those aphids, in turn, produce more aphids and the number of aphids within a single gall grows exponentially.

This exponential growth produces thousands of aphids in a single gall. Since each adult aphid has molted 5  times you can imagine how many shed skins accumulate inside the gall. We discovered how many when we opened a gall and found it stuffed with a powdery white substance. What was it? All those skins that were shed during the summer! 

A single gall, opened to show the accumulation of cast off skins.

Close up of opened gall showing winged aphids.
(click on photo to see enlarged view)

Toward the end of the growing season winged aphids are produced. They leave the gall and fly to an alternative host where they overwinter. The winter host is, strangely enough, a moss!
In the spring male and female aphids are produced, mate, and the females fly off to find more sumac, starting the cycle again.
https://bygl.osu.edu/node/1112
Visit this website for additional excellent photographs of the galls and the aphids.

Mimsie Lanier Center for Native Plant Studies:

Deceiver Mushroom

As we neared the greenhouses and hoop houses, occasional patches of small Deceiver mushrooms could be seen growing in the grass.  The common name comes from its highly variable appearance and it is considered a "mushroom weed" by the mushroom crowd because of it's abundance. 

 

"       A plump, orange Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillar was seen under one of the leaves on the vine. 

 

Late-blooming Boneset and Mist Flower

Common Evening Primrose

 

*(Photo of the Virginia Tiger Moth cat on the morning glory vine)

Georgia Basil

Georgia Basil is a low shrub in the mint family, one of only a few woody mints found in Georgia. It has wonderfully aromatic leaves and small, pink flowers with a patch of darker dots forming a nectar guide. 

Stone Mountain Daisy

Bright and cheery patches of Stone Mountain Daisy are found throughout the grounds of the Mimsie Lanier Center. Stone Mountain Daisy is in the sunflower genus Helianthus, and is one of the few native annual sunflower species in the southeast. It thrives in the thin, dry, gravelly soils and hot temperatures of granite outcrops and is found in abundance on the granite outcrop at Rock and Shoals here in Clarke County. In older field guides and manuals, you will see it named Viguiera porteri. It was also called Confederate Daisy in the past because of its association with Stone Mountain and the carving of confederates on the side of the mountain, but now has the less controversial name.

Great Blue Lobelia

Cardinal Flower

Cut-leaf Coneflower

Spotted Bee Balm

Great Black Digger Wasp     Sphex pensylvanicus

A torpid Great Black Digger Wasp on Spotted Bee Balm

After mating a female wasp excavates a tunnel with multiple cells in soft, sandy soil. After she finishes digging she hunts for katydids, paralyzing them with her sting. Each katydid is still alive and is flown by the wasp back to the tunnel and placed in a cell. Each cell can hold two or more katydids. When all the cells are full, the wasp lays a single egg on one katydid in each cell and then fills the tunnel with soil.The eggs hatch and the grubs feed on their katydid food, finally emerging as adult wasps in late summer of the following year. (You may think that I misspelled the species name -- shouldn't there be two "n" in "pensylvanicus?" When this wasp was given its name Pennsylvania was spelled with a single "n." The rules of scientific nomenclature only permit changing a name in the case of typographical error. Once the name is properly published it is, in effect, written in stone.)

Green Lynx Spider with egg sac

The Green Lynx spider, difficult to see in the photo above, is an active predator, similar to a wolf spider, but usually hunting in shrubby vegetation. Unlike wold spiders it continuously spins a "drag line" of silk. The female remains with her egg sac, aggresively defending it. Several spiders were seen in a shrub in front of one of the hoop houses.

Flower flies mating on spiderwort

Three-lined Flower Moth on Dog Fennel

Difoliate Orbweaver spider     Acacesia hamata

Difoliate Orbweaver
(Photo, courtesy of Heather)

Heather spotted this spider nestled in the tip of some vegetation. It's pose is unusual: the first two pairs of legs bunched together and pointing forward, alongside the head. L. L. Gaddy reports, in Spiders of the Carolinas, that the species is nocturnal, building a 10 to 12 inch wide orb web.

Three-lined Flower Moth on Dog Fennel

 

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Joro Spider     Trichonephila clavata
Red-femured (Spotted) Orbweaver     Neoscona domiciliorum
Spiny-backed Orbweaver     Gasteracantha cancriformis
Common Bird's Nest Fungi     Crucibulum laeve
Onion-stalk Parasol (Lepiota)     Leucocoprinus cepistipes
Passionflower Vine     Passiflora incarnata
Gulf Fritillary (caterpillar)     Agraulis vanillae
Virginia Tiger Moth (caterpillar)     Spilosoma virginica
Scarlet Morning Glory     Ipomoea coccinea
Yellow Crownbeard     Verbesina occidentalis
Common Wingstem     Verbesina alternifolia
Common Eastern Bumble Bee     Bombus impatiens
Tall Thistle     Cirsium altissimum
Fall Webworm Moth (caterpillar)     Hyphantria cunea
Eastern Leaf-footed Bug     Leptoglossus phyllopus
Princess Tree     Paulownia tomentosa
Strawberry Bush/Hearts-a-bustin'     Euonymus americanus
Camphorweed     Heterotheca subaxillaris, syn. H. latifolia
Eastern Tailed Blue butterfly     Cupido comyntas
Dogbane Saucrobotys Moth (caterpillar)     Saucrobotys futilalis
Smooth Sumac     Rhus glabra
Sumac Gall Aphid     Melaphis rhois
Deceiver mushroom     Laccaria laccata
Difoliate Orbweaver spider     Acacesia hamata
Late Flowering Boneset     Eupatorium serotinum
Common Evening Primrose     Oenothera biennis
Georgia Basil     Clinopodium georgianum
Stone Mountain Daisy     Helianthus porter, syn. Viguiera porteri
Great Blue Lobelia     Lobelia siphilitica
Cardinal Flower     Lobelia cardinalis
Cut-leaf Coneflower     Rudbeckia laciniata
Spotted Bee Balm     Monarda punctata
Great Black Digger Wasp     Sphex pensylvanicus
Green Lynx Spider     Peucetia viridans
Syrphid fly     Diptera: Syrphidae
Spiderwort     Tradescantia sp.
Grass-leaved Goldenaster     Pityopsis graminifolia, syn. Pityopsis nervosa
Dog Fennel     Eupatorium capilifolium
Three-lined Flower Moth     Schinia trifascia