Ramble Report March 28 2019

Today's Ramble was led by Linda Chafin.

Here's the link to Don's Facebook album for today's Ramble. (All the photos in this post are compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.)

Today's post was written by Linda Chafin.

Today’s Focus: Dunson Garden and Silverbells on the White Trail Spur

27 Ramblers met today.

Today's reading: Eugenia read The Cleverness of Seeds by Pat Brisson

Show and Tell:

Praying Mantis egg case (hatched)

Carla brought a praying mantis egg case and a weirdly deformed evergreen bough.

Announcements: Emily announced a herp walk at SCNC next Wednesday at 9:00 a.m.

Emily also announced birthdays for three of the Ramblers and said a very pretty chocolate cake would be served at the post-Ramble social hour.

Today's Route:   We headed straight to the new Children's Garden for a bit before taking the mulched path down to the Dunson Garden.  We omitted the upper sections and made our way down to the lower Dunson Garden before heading out into the ROW.  We then returned via the White Trail Spur back to the Visitor Center and the Cafe Botanica for our social hour.

LIST OF OBSERVATIONS:

Alice H. Richards Children's Garden:

Fothergilla (also called Dwarf Witch-alder) was planted at the entrance of the Children’s Garden and is coming into flower. This is likely the cultivar known as ‘Mt. Airy,’ discovered by Michael Dirr before he came to UGA and was working at the Mt. Airy Arboretum in Cincinnati. There are two species of Fothergilla native to Georgia and southeast, the low-growing Coastal Witch-alder and the Large Witch-alder. It’s believed that a cross between these two produced ‘Mt. Airy,’ which is halfway between the two in height. The genus Fothergilla was named in honor of Dr. John Fothergill, a London physician-botanist during the 1700s.

Fothergilla 'Mt. Airy'

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Close inspection of the Fothergilla flower clusters reveals two interesting things: they smell great, like honey, and the individual flowers have no petals. The showy, white structures are stamens, each tipped with a yellow pollen-producing anther, surrounding a single pistil. Both scent and color attract bees.

Pinxter Azalea

The native Pinxter Azalea, also known as Piedmont Azalea, are also in bloom near the Children’s Garden entrance.

Mulched Path to Dunson Garden:

Flowering sedge; Staminate flower at end, pistilate flowers below.

Sedges in the genus Carex are flowering now. This particular species bears a small, bristly spike of pale yellow, pollen-producing flowers atop an erect stem–the bristles are stamens. Below, the female flowers are just developing–their white style branches are protruding from between the uppermost leaves. The female and male flowers will mature at different times to prevent self-pollination. If cross-pollination does occur and fruits develop, we’ll be able to identify these plants to species. Because sedges don’t usually attract much attention, most lack common names. Until this one produces fruits, we’ll just call it a Carex.

Hybrid trillium; possibly a cross between Sweet Betsy and Lance-leaf Trillium.

Among the many hybrid trillium plants that occur in the Dunson garden, there are some that appear to be hybrids between Sweet Betsy and Lance-leaf Trillium. The broad leaves are mottled like Sweet Betsy’s and lack the central silver stripe of the Chattahoochee Trillium. The narrow, clawed, upright petals that allow you to look through the flowers from the side suggest Lance-leaf Trillium parentage. Or maybe Spotted Trillium, which also has clawed petals? It’s anybody’s guess in the Dunson Garden, where trilliums from all over the state have been brought together in combinations that don’t occur in nature. (“Clawed” petals are narrow at the base and widen abruptly above the middle.)

Chattahoochee Trillium, with the bright silvery green stripe down the middle of each leaf.

Golden Ragwort is peaking now all over the Dunson Garden.

Decumbent Trillium has spread over much of the Dunson Garden

Christmas Fern and newly expanding fiddleheads. (Fern fiddleheads are also called croziers because of their resemblance to shepherd’s crooks, also known as croziers; Roman Catholic bishops also carry croziers as a symbol of their pastoral duties.)

Sensitive Ferns are also unfurling their sterile fronds.

 

Rattlesnake fern fronds, both sterile and fertile, have recently emerged.

Virginia Bluebells continue to look nice but are beginning to wane.

Celandine Wood Poppies

Blue Phlox could be seen at several locations.

Three-parted Violet

Several Ramblers observed a Red-Headed Woodpecker getting a little too close to the Red-Shouldered Hawks nest.

Georgia Trillium

The Georgia Trillium is still in flower, but the petals have turned pink, indicating that the flower is on its way out after being pollinated. In contrast to the Sweet Betsy, Chattahoochee, Spotted, and Lance-leaf Trilliums, the Georgia Trillium flower is on a stalk and its leaves are solid green, not mottled. This is an extremely rare species, found in only four locations in Georgia. The plants here in Dunson were rescued from one of those sites when it was threatened with development.

Goldenseal flower

Goldenseal plants are just emerging from the ground, and one has even opened a flower before the leaves have developed. This is another plant that has dispensed with petals and attracts its pollinators (bees and syrphid flies) with showy white stamens.

May Apples

May Apples seem especially numerous this year with more two-leaved, reproductive individuals than usual.

Edna's Trillium (AKA Persistent Trillium)

Edna’s Trillium, also known as Persistent Trillium, is blooming. This is another rare trillium, found only in three counties in NE Georgia and one county in adjacent South Carolina.  The Persistent Trillium is another example of a stalked trillium with solid green foliage.

ROW and adjacent areas:

Spider egg sac on Highbush Blueberry

The Highbush Blueberry next to the road is covered with flowers and bumblebees, and is also sporting an old praying mantis egg case and a spider egg sac attached to twigs.

Blueberries are pollinated only by native bees (not honeybees) that specialize in “buzz pollination” or sonication. These bees grasp the stamens and vibrate their thoracic muscles, which shakes the pollen out of a tiny pore at the tip of the specialized anther (“poricidal anther”). The buzzing sound of sonication is higher pitched than the buzz made by the bee’s wings. Watch and listen to this 30-second video and you can hear the difference in the “buzzes” as the bee visits some blueberry flowers.

 

Shooting Stars have poricidal anthers, which are also visited by sonicating bees.

Field Pansy is abundant in the right-of-way. We checked for the characteristic wintergreen smell of the root, but it was very faint.

Blue Toadflax in the right-of way.

Corn-salad

The native species of Corn-salad is blooming in the right-of-way. The European species of Corn-salad is eaten as a salad in Europe and beyond. The name comes from the fact that it grew wild in cultivated wheat fields in England. (The English call wheat: "corn.") It was introduced to this country by English settlers and has since become a widespread weed in disturbed areas. It looks very much like the native species.

Black Cherry in flower along the edge of the right-of-way.

Black Cherry bark; the horizontal slits are lenticels.

White Trail Spur (from ROW to Children's Garden):

Witch's brooms in Hophornbeam

The witch’s brooms in the Hophornbeam growing on the edge of the right-of-way are leafing out. These weird growths occur on many types of trees, but in our area are most often seen on members of the Birch family. Witch’s brooms are usually caused by some type of pathogen – a fungus, virus, or phytoplasma – and even by insects. The tree responds to the alien invasion by producing a cluster of short but multi-branched twigs rising from a single point. Witch’s brooms can also result from a genetic mutation, resulting in a permanent change to that part of the tree’s structure. In this case, the broom can be removed from the tree and propagated vegetatively, resulting in dwarf cultivars such as the diminutive “Tom Thumb” spruce. Here’s a story about men obsessively hunting for witch’s brooms: 7

A few Silverbell flowers remain on the small trees next to the right-of-way.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES

 

Fothergilla	Fothergilla ‘Mt. Airy’.
Pinxter Azalea	Rhododendron periclymenoides
Sedge	Carex sp.
Hybrid Trillium, Sweet Betsy and Lanceleaf Trillium	Trillium cuneatum x. lancifolium
Cranefly Orchid	Tipularia discolor
Golden Ragwort	Packera aurea
Decumbent Trillium	Trillium decumbens
Christmas Fern	Polystichum acrostichoides
Rattlesnake Fern	Botrypus virginianus
Black Cohosh	Actaea racemosa (= Cimicifuga racemosa)
Red-headed Woodpecker	Melanerpes erythrocephalus
Red-shouldered Hawk	Buteo lineatus
Georgia Trillium	Trillium georgianum
Perfoliate Bellwort	Uvularia perfoliata
Sanicle, Black Snake-root	Sanicula sp.
Sensitive Fern	Onoclea sensibilis
Allegheny Spurge	Pachysandra procumbens
Goldenseal	Hydrastis canadensis
Devil's Walking Stick	Aralia spinosa
Virginia Bluebells	Mertensia virginica
Shooting Stars	Primula meadia (= Dodecatheon meadia)
Celandine Wood Poppy	Stylophorum diphyllum
Woodland Phlox	Phlox divaricata
Mayapple	Podophyllum peltatum
Edna’s [Persistent] Trillium	Trillium persistens
Yellow Three-parted Violet	Viola tripartita
Highbush Blueberry	Vaccinium corymbosum
Blue Toadflax	Nuttallanthus canadensis (syn. Linaria canadensis)
Field Pansy	Viola bicolor
Purple Deadnettle	Lamium purpureum
Ground Ivy	Glechoma hederacea
European Corn-salad	Valerianella radiata
Butterweed	Packera glabella
Black Cherry	Prunus serotina
Hophornbeam	Ostrya virginiana
Silverbells	Halesia tetraptera