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 Linda
Chafin and Don Hunter.
37 Ramblers met today.
Announcements:
1.
Weds., Dec. 6, 2017, 9:00 am. Guided Walk at Sandy Creek Nature Center.
Led by Mike Wharton who will explore the Managed Forest and the American
Chestnut planting project.
2.
Weds., Feb. 7-8, 2018. Overnight at the Len Foote Hike Inn
at Amicalola Falls State Park. Program on Georgia's Old Growth Forests Weds.
evening and Tree Walk Thursday morning. Both presented by forest ecologist Jess
Riddle of Georgia Forestwatch. Details on reservations will be available on or
after Dec. 7, 2017.
Today's
reading: Emily read a passage on Sassafras from A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and
Central North America (pp. 291-293) by Donald Culross Peattie
"Against the Indian summer
sky, a tree lifts up its hands and testifies to glory,
the glory of a blue October day. Yellow or orange, or blood-orange, or
sometimes softest salmon pink, or blotched with bright vermillion, the leaves
of the Sassafras prove that notall autumnal splendor is confined to the
northern forests. Deep into the South, along the snake-rail fences, beside the
soft wood roads, in old fields where the rusty brook [sic] sedge is giving way to the return of forest, the Sassafras
carries its splendid banners to vie with the scarlet Black Gum and the yellow
Sweet Gum and other trees of which the New Englander may hardly have heard. The
deep blue fruits on thick bright red stalks complete a color effect in fall
which few trees anywhere surpass."
Today's route:
We left the Visitor Center entrance plaza and headed
through the conservatory to the International Garden. We made our way across the gardens to the
head of the Purple Trail. We walked the
Purple Trail down to the old deer fence gate where we took the Purple Trail
Spur back up the hill to the Flower Garden.
From there we headed up the path near the woods to the steps up to the
Heritage Garden and then back to the Visitor Center and Cafe Botanica.
International
Garden:
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| Bumblebee (Bombus sp.) nectaring on Mexican Sage |
Our first stop was a large bush
of Mexican sage. We saw a Painted Lady or American Lady (Vanessa sp.) butterfly and several Bumblebees working the
many purple flowers we saw on the bush.
Bumblebee colonies are annual
affairs; unlike honeybees, they last one year only. Toward the end of the
season the bumblebee colony begins to produce males. These will mate with
fertile females (next year's queens). At this time the colony begins to
disperse and all the occupants except the future queens will eventually die.
The activity we saw today was probably mostly males and workers that have
abandoned their nests. They are now just foraging for nectar to keep themselves
alive until the first killing frost. The future queens will be looking for a
protected place where they can overwinter and then, come spring, each will
start a colony of their own.
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| Toothache tree; branch with thorns |
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| You call that a thorn? These are thorns! (Hercules Club trunk; photo from Wikimedia Commons) |
Purple Trail:
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| Cranefly Orchid (Tipularia) leaf |
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| Partridge Berry leaves |
Linda stopped to point out evergreen species of
wildflower that you might see during the winter, including the leaves of
Partridge Berry and Cranefly Orchid at our stop. Wild ginger and Pipsissewa are
also common along the trails at the Garden. Linda pointed out that Partridge
Berry is in the same family as coffee – as with many plant families, tropical
species in this plant family are mostly woody and temperate species are mostly
herbs.
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| Hop Hornbeam with "cat scratch" bark and old Sapsucker sap wells |
We stopped for a refresher on American Hop Hornbeam, with
its “cat scratch” bark. This particular tree at the top of the Purple Trail has
many rings of sapsucker woodpecker holes.
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| Green Ash bark; note the blocky divisions. |
Richard showed us a large piece of Green Ash bark, and
talked about how variable the bark is on this species. He has a chunk of bark
with large blocky plates, but younger trees will have braided bark. In either
case, the bark is soft and easily compressed with a fingernail.
We stopped to compare the fallen leaves of several common
oaks and had a quick refresher in the leaf types of the two subgroups of
oaks: white oaks with their rounded lobes and red oaks with their pointed, bristle-tipped lobes. Georgia has
about a dozen white oak species and about 20 red oak species.
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| Post Oak leaves |
Post Oak, a member of the white oak group, has
cross-shaped leaves with a prominent pair of blunt lobes above the middle of
the leaf. Their leaves are adapted to the dry, upland forests they
inhabit: thick and leathery with hairy
undersurfaces that trap moisture.
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| Southern Red Oak leaf |
Southern Red Oak leaves have a long, curving midvein and
lower surfaces covered with a tan, felty coating of hairs, the latter being an
adaptation to dry conditions. Leaf shape is very variable but the base of the
leaf is always bell-shaped, which leads to a mnemonic: southern red = southern
bell (or belle).
Northern Red Oaks typically inhabit moister forests than
either of the two species mentioned above, and their lower leaf surfaces lack
the moisture-trapping hairs. They have many pointed, bristled lobes and
shallow, U-shaped sinuses between the lobes. Scarlet Oak also has many bristled
lobes, but the sinuses are deep and round, cut almost to the midvein.
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| Short leaf pine bark; pitch pockets are tiny and hard to see. Large holes made by woodpeckers getting insect larvae; white streaks are pine pitch. |
We also compared Shortleaf and Loblolly Pines. Shortleaf has (surprise!) short needles,
small cones, and many tiny resin pits (aka pitch pockets) on the bark surface.
This particular tree also has many large holes in the bark, the result of
pecking by woodpeckers. They were seeking the larvae of wood eating beetles.
Shortleaf Pine used to be the most numerous upland pine
species in the piedmont of Georgia until Loblolly Pines were introduced.
Loblollies have longer needles, larger and more prickly cones, and no pitch
pockets.
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| Sourwood trunk |
The Purple Trail cuts through an area with many Sourwood trees.
These are easy to spot, with their sinuously curving trunks curving toward
sunlight, and the dark, reddish-brown “alligator bark.”
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| Marasmoid muchrooms |
We found a flush of a pale yellow brown marasmoid fungi. They
have the ribbed or crenulated caps of other “parasol” fungi seen on previous
Rambles.
We stopped to examine the little “grove” of Horse Sugar
or Sweet Leaf. These plants have not bloomed for at least six years, most
likely because they are not getting enough sunlight. Although they are usually
described as deciduous, in this part of the country many of the leaves turn a
deep burgundy red and hang on till spring (that is, they are “tardily
deciduous”). The green leaves of these plant taste a bit like green apple,
which the bravest ramblers experienced. This species is the only member of its
family to occur in North America.
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| Persimmon trunk; note the blocky bark. |
We stopped to admire the large male Persimmon tree
growing off the trail on a lower slope. We know it’s a male because we’ve never
seen any fruit; female trees near the Administration building bear fruit almost
every year, probably thanks to this tree’s pollen. This is the largest
Persimmon that most of us have ever seen. For some ramblers, its black, blocky
bark answered the “burning question”: where do charcoal briquettes come from?
(Kidding!)
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| Gilled Polypore mushroom; upper surface |
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| Gilled Polypore mushroom; lower surface showing gills |
Angeli found a rotting log bearing a small flush of
(Multicolor) Gilled Polypore mushrooms. Curiously, most of the mushroom caps
had a fringed appearance apparently caused by something eating the outer edges
of the caps. The lower surface of the mushroom is gilled, which is unexpected
for a polypore mushroom. There is a discussion of this peculiar combination of
features here.
We stopped at a Possumhaw or Deciduous Holly. There were
no fruits present, indicating that this plant is male, since this time of the
year fruits are usually present on female plants. (A female Possumhaw plant,
covered with red fruits, was later found nearby.) All hollies are dioecious,
meaning that female flowers and male flowers are found on separate plants. Like
most hollies, this plant sports “short shoots,”
stubby stems that arise along
the longer shoots and grow only a millimeter or two each year (the annual
growth is visible in rings of tissue around the short stem). Leaves and flowers
usually emerge from the tips of short shoots. Possumhaw is a shrub, rarely
reaching tree height, with numerous curving stems rising from ground level.
It’s usually found on lower slopes or in bottomlands but this particular plant
is thriving at the top of a moist draw. And it is not closely related to
hawthorns!
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| Deciduous Holly showing berries on "short shoots." The scales on the shoot mark the growth in previous years. The shoot only grows about 1 millimeter per year. |
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| Trunk of Northern Red Oak; Note the white "ski trails" -- a good identification feature. |
We stopped briefly to check out another recently blown-down
Northern Red Oak. The large root mat with its clinging soil, now held
perpendicular to the ground, will eventually rot and form a low mound. The
mound and the hole left behind create “pit and mound topography,” a
characteristic of mature forests that fosters microhabitat diversity on the
forest floor.
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| Two Beech leaves attached by silk where they overlap. |
Dale displayed a pair of American Beech leaves that were
stuck together. The larvae of some unknown species of insect had taken safe
harbor between the leaves, when the leaves were green, tacking them together
with silk, to provide a safe and protected place for it to feed and mature. In
between the two leaves, it was safe from predators such as parasitic wasps.
Linda passed around several examples of Pignut Hickory
leaves as examples of compound leaves. Compound leaves are composed of two or
more leaflets. Simple leaves have only a single blade. All leaves, whether
simple or compound, have an axillary (“backup”) bud at the base of the leaf
stalk – this will produce a leaf if the first leaf is damaged. Leaflets, on the
other hand, do not have buds at their base. To determine if a leaf is compound
or simple, look for the location of the bud. Everything from the bud out is a
single leaf, sometimes simple or sometimes with leaflets.
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| Curly-leaf Yucca |
Heading up the spur trail, we came on two large clumps of
Curly-leaf Yucca, with many tan fibers curling off the margins of its stout,
spine-tipped, spear-like leaves. Sometimes called Spanish Bayonets, yuccas are
actually native and got that name from their use by Spanish explorers who
planted them around their forts on the coast. Earlier this year, we admired Curly-leaf
Yucca with large clusters of showy white flowers at the west end of the Dunson
Garden. After flowering, the aboveground stem will die, but buds at the base of
the stem will send up new plants, sometimes called “pups.” The flowers are
edible though not particularly tasty.
Flower Garden Path (Off of Purple Trail Spur):
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| Dwarf Palmetto |
After we left the Purple Trail and ventured out into the
Flower Garden, we stopped at a planting of Dwarf Palmetto. Although tipped with
sharp points, the large, flat, palm-shaped leaves of this plant can’t be
confused with the yuccas which have narrow, strap-shaped, succulent leaves.
These plants had flowered this summer and now bore large clusters of ripe,
round fruits.
Several large amaryllis' were seen planted along the path
through this section of the Flower Garden. They were beautifully flowering.
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| Bluebird and Robin eating Eastern Red Cedar berries |
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| Cedar Waxwings foraging on Eastern Red Cedar berries. |
As we made our way up the path, Gary quickly stopped us
in our tracks. We were nearing a large, female Eastern Red Cedar tree, loaded
with small, blue, berry-like cones. A flock of Cedar Waxwings moved back and
forth in the tree, searching for the berries and sharing the bounty with several
Robins and Bluebirds. Gary told us how the bright red tips on the wing feathers
are waxy secretions derived from the wax that coats the Red Cedar’s berries. The
red wing tips appear to be status signals that play a role in mate selection.
Up to nine feathers may be tipped with wax–the older the bird, the more wax
droplets.
Gary Crider provided the following information
about the dangers of Nandina berries
to wild birds, especially Cedar Waxwings.
During the late winter and early
spring, Cedar Waxwings may have exhausted most of their normal food supplies,
which is when they turn to eating Nandina berries. Waxwings are particularly
voracious feeders and will be poisoned if they consume enough of the berries.
Birds that survive the toxic effects of Nandina berries become the agents of
seed dispersal to surrounding woodlands. Nandina is a non-native and highly
invasive weed that displaces the native plants on which birds normally thrive.
WILDLIFE IMPLICATIONS: Nandina
is an exotic, ornamental shrub. Consumption of any part of N. domestica by free-ranging wildlife could be a potential source
of cyanide poisoning. Population impacts of consumption of this plant are unknown,
but large scale mortality events associated with consumption of N. domestica berries have been reported
in cedar waxwings.
Birds like Robins seasonally alter their diets. In spring
and summer they are commonly seen foraging for worms and other invertebrates on
suburban lawns. These food items are high in protein and easily digested. At
this time of the year the Robin's digestive tract is relatively short, typical
of a carnivorous diet. But the winter diet consist mostly of berries and seeds
and digestion of these requires more time. The Robin's digestive tract actually
changes in length in the winter, allowing it to extract more nutrients from its
lower protein diet.
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| Most of us on today's Ramble |
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
Mexican Bush Sage
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Salvia leucantha
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Bumblebee
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Bombus perplexus?
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Toothache Tree
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Zanthoxylum americanum
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American Beech
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Fagus grandifolium
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Partridge Berry
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Mitchella repens
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Cranefly Orchid
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Tipularia discolor
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American Hophornbeam
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Ostrya virginiana
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Green Ash
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Fraxinus pennsylvanica
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Post Oak
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Quercus stellata
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Shortleaf Pine
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Pinus echinata
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Sourwood
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Oxydendrum arboreum
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Marasmoid Fungi
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Marasmius sp.
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Horse Sugar/Sweet Leaf
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Symplocos tinctoria
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Southern Red Oak
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Quercus falcata
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White Oak
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Quercus alba
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Northern Red Oak
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Quercus rubra
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American Persimmon
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Diospyros virginiana
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Mulitcolor Gilled Polypore
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Trametes betulina
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Possumhaw/Deciduous Holly
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Ilex decidua
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Pear-Shaped Puffball
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Lycoperdon pyriforme
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Pignut Hickory
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Carya glabra
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Curly-leaf Yucca
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Yucca filamentosa
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Sericea Lespedeza
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Lespedeza cuneata
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Dwarf Palmetto
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Sabal minor
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Amaryllis
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Amaryllis sp.
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Cedar Waxwing
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Bombycilla cedorum
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Eastern Bluebird
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Sialia sialis
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American Robin
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Turdus migratorius
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