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 Dale Hoyt.
33 Ramblers met today.
Today's Route: The International and Heritage Gardens with
short excursions into the woods along the Orange Trail Spur and the deer fence
trail to the Day Chapel. The curator of
the Heritage Garden, Gareth Crosby, showed us how the Indigo plant was
processed to produce the famous blue (indigo) dye.
Announcements:
1.
Order bird seed from Sandy Creek Nature
Center, Inc. by Oct. 15
and Emily will deliver it to you on the November 16.
a. Go to www.sandycreeknaturecenterinc.org
b. Click on the"Order Bird Seed"
link below the Mockingbird picture to download the order form.
c. Fill out the order form and mail it with
your payment before Oct. 15, 2017.
d. Email Emily if you want her to pick up your order and deliver it to you on the
Nov. 16 Nature Ramble. (Or, you may pick it up yourself.)
2.
Weds., Oct. 4, 9AM; Sandy Creek Nature Center First
Wednesday guided tree walk; free hot beverage and snacks afterwards.
3.
Thurs, Fri, Oct. 6,7; 4-6PM; Native Plant Sale – State Botanical Garden
4.
Sat., Oct. 8; 9-noon; Native Plant Sale – State Botanical Garden
5.
Oct. 13, 14,15; hours as above; Native Plant Sale – State Botanical Garden
Today's reading: Linda read Before the Blight by Ruth Stone:
The elms stretched themselves
in indolent joy,
arching over the street that
lay in green shadow
under their loose tent.
And the roses in Mrs. Mix's
yard pretzeled up her trellis
with pink Limoges cabbage
blooms like Rubens's nudes.
My lips whispered over the
names of things
in the meadows, in the orchard,
in the woods,
where I sometimes stood for
long moments
listening to some bird telling
me of the strangeness of myself,
rocked in the sinewy arms of
summer.
Show and Tell:
1.
Kathrine brought an Osage Orange and told us
about its natural history and uses. She suggests that you visit this link
for more information about this unusual plant.
2.
Katherine shared a book containing her flower
photos, “Flowers A to Z”, presented to her by her friends at the Florida Museum
of Natural History.
In the Heritage
Garden there is a large bed of a red-flowered salvia, Salvia guaranitica,
swarming with honeybees, Carpenter Bees and Cloudless Sulphur butterflies.
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| Cloudless Sulphur nectaring on Salvia |
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| Carpenter Bee nectar robbing a Salvia flower |
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| The white marks on the calyx are where the Carpenter Bees have bitten holes to get the nectar. |
That honeybees learn to loot nectar is an indication that
they are not as instinct-bound as most people believe. There is evidence that
bumblebees can learn by observing other bees performing a task, so these
insects aren't as dumb as we think.
 |
| Confederate Rose hibiscus with ruffled petals; stamenal column is yellow; stigmas are red. |
Also in the Heritage Garden is a "Confederate
Rose" hibiscus tree. At first sight the flowers don't look like a hibiscus,
they have way too many pink, ruffled petals. That is the breeder's art. This
cultivar has been selected to have multiple whorls of petals. That is usually
accomplished by selecting plants in which some of the stamens are converted to
petals. Plants in the mallow family (Malvaceae) have a central column with many
whorls of stamens. If just a few of these develop into petals, however
imperfect, you get a fluffy flower. It can still be recognized as a hibiscus,
though. In the center of the column of stamens the stigmas peek out and, where
the flower is attached to the stem, there is a group of bracts beneath the
calyx – the epicalyx.
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| Obedient plant |
In the sculpture garden the Obedient plant is blooming.
It is a mint and has all the characteristics of the mint family: square stems,
opposite leaves, bilaterally symmetrical flowers with an upper and lower lip.
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| Lespedeza sericea |
An unfortunate plant to find in this little garden is an
invasive: Lespedeza sericea. It is in
the bean family (Fabaceae) and has small yellow and white flowers, but it is
not currently blooming. Like many of bean family plants it has trifoliate
leaves, like clover. Each leaf is composed of three leaflets. Each leaflet is
wedge-shaped at the base, which helps to distinguish sericea from our native
lespedezas. The natives have pink to lavender colored flowers more obovate,
almost round, leaflets. Although lespedezas are in the bean family the seed
pods have only a single seed.
All lespedezas have a symbiotic relationship with
bacteria in nodules on the roots. These bacteria fix atmospheric nitrogen into
a chemical form that can be used by the plant. This enables such plants to grow
in nitrogen poor soil.
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| Spinybacked Orbweaver on her web |
We saw several large orb webs today, including one with
its spider, a Spinybacked Orbweaver, resident. The diagnostic feature of this
web is the alternating smooth and fuzzy strands of silk that make up the
framework of the web (not the sticky, capture strands that are woven in a
spiral on the framing strands).
 | |
| Poverty Oat Grass |
Alongside the walkway there are many clumps of Poverty
Oat Grass, with curly brown blades growing from the centers of the clumps. This
grass is unusual in that it has two flowering periods. It flowers in the
spring, like a cool-season grass, then goes dormant and then flowers again in
the fall, like a warm season grass. It thrives in poor soils, of which there is
an abundance in the piedmont.
 | |
| Carolina Milkvine |
On the deer fence near the entrance of the Orange Trail
Spur is a Carolina Milkvine that we have seen blooming on previous rambles.
This plant is in the same family as milkweed, Apocynaceae, as has some of the
characteristics of milkweeds,
notably the presence of latex that exudes from damaged
leaves and stems. The latex and sap are in separate, independent vessels. The
function of the latex is to discourage leaf-feeding herbivorous insects. When
they bite into a latex channel the white material oozes out and sticks to the
mouthparts, making it harder for the insect to feed.
 | |
| Latex oozing from a torn leaf edge of Carolina Milkvine |
Although in the same family as milkweed the milkvines are
not used by Monarch butterflies. In an Indiana cornfield I once saw a Monarch
lay an egg on a Milkvine, but I don't know if they can complete development on
it.
 | |
| Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar |
We did have a surprise waiting for us on the milkvine:
two caterpillars resting on the uppermost leaves. One we couldn't identify with
confidence, the other was the caterpillar of the Spicebush Swallowtail. There
are a pair of eyespots on the thorax and the caterpillar was resting on a silk
platform that curled up the leaf. The surprise is that milkvine is not the food
plant for this species. We did find two small plants that we think are
Spicebush nearby. It's possible that this caterpillar crawled away from its
food plant and is preparing to molt.
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| Beechdrops |
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| Beechdrops; unopened flower buds |
In the woods on the Orange Trail Spur we found an
abundance of Beechdrops sprouting from the roots of an American Beech. (This
individual tree is unusual for an American Beech. Instead of being smooth and
gray its bark is "warty," looking like a hackberry or sugarberry.)
Beechdrops are a parasitic plant and lack chlorophyll.
Each individual plant, and there were hundreds, is attached to the root system
of its host and uses that access to steal nutrients. The Beechdrop produces no
chlorophyll and no leaves, just a stem with flower buds. None of the buds we
looked at are open, so we'll have to revisit in the future.
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| Mockernut Hickory fruit with green husk covering nut inside. |
Hickories are beginning to drop their fruits. The common
species in this area are the Pignut and Mockernut hickory. We vacillate over
whether we have the pure species or a lot of hybrids. Charles Wharton, who did
a survey of the flora and fauna of the Garden back in the 1980s was of the opinion
that we had a hybrid swarm. But one of the fruits we found today has most of
the characteristics of a Mockernut hickory: the fruit lacks a "pig
nose," has a thick husk, and splits open completely, releasing the nut
inside. The nut has four prominent ridges.
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| Underwing moth resting on bark |
Katherine disturbed a large moth and followed it as it
flew to another tree and landed. It's camouflage was perfect. If you didn't
know it was on the tree trunk you never would have spotted it. The moth is an
Underwing moth, genus Catocala, a
group of moths that have forewings marked like tree bark and hind wings that
are brilliantly striped in contrasting colors like red and black. When at rest
on tree bark the front wings hide the hind wings and they are perfectly
concealed. When disturbed they open the front wings and reveal the hind wings,
depending on the startle effect of the sudden appearance of bright colors to
make their escape by flying off. It worked!
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| Spotted Pipsissewa |
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| Georgia Basil |
Other plants noticed in the area were Spotted Pipsissewa,
Partridge berry and Georgia Basil.
We caught up with Gareth Crosby, the curator of the
Heritage Garden, and she showed us how she processes the leaves of the Indigo
plants she's been growing this summer. (Visit this link to see
the preparation of indigo dye, starting with the plants.) Indigo was an
economically important crop for colonists in South Carolina and Georgia. (For
more information on the historical importance of indigo read this article in
the New Georgia Encyclopedia.)
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
Carpenter Bee
|
Xylocopa virginica
|
Cloudless Sulphur
|
Phoebis sennae
|
Red salvia
|
Salvia sp.
|
Confederate Rose (Hibiscus)
|
Hibiscus mutabilis
|
Spinybacked Orbweaver
|
Gasteracantha cancriformis
|
Obedient Plant
|
Physostegia virginiana
|
Sericea Lespedeza
|
Lespedeza cuneata
|
Black-eyed Susan
|
Rudbeckia sp.
|
Poverty Oat Grass
|
Danthonia spicata
|
Carolina Milkvine
|
Matelea carolinensis
|
Skipper caterpillar
|
Family Hesperiidae
|
Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar
|
Papilio troilus
|
American Beech
|
Fagus grandifolia
|
Beech Drops
|
Epifagus virginiana
|
Witchgrass
|
Panicum capillare
|
Spotted Pipsissewa
|
Chimaphila maculata
|
Mockernut Hickory
|
Carya tomentosa
|
Underwing Moth
|
Catocala sp.
|
Georgia Basil
|
Clinopodium georgianum
|
Rattlesnake Master
|
Eryngium yuccifolium
|
Lace Cap Hydrangea
|
Hydrangea macrophylla
|
Kousa Dogwood (fruit)
|
Cornus kousa
|
Hurricane (Surprise) Lily
|
Lycoris radiata
|
Twinkle Bells Clematis
|
Clematis repens
|
Amistad Purple Sage
|
Salvia guaranitica
|
