Ramble Report March 7 2019

Leader for today's Ramble, Dale

Today's emphasis:  Lower Shade Garden, Dunson Native Flora Garden

21 Ramblers today even though the temperature was only in the high 30s.

Today’s report was written by Dale, Don and Linda

Here's the link to Don's Facebook album with all the photos of today's Ramble. (All the photos in today's post were taken by Don, except where credited otherwise.)
Reading: Don read a passage from the book According to Season by Frances Theodora Parker (also known as Mrs. William Starr Dana). From the chapter titled A Spring Holiday:

“The next day dawned bright and clear. We mounted our wheels, and made our destination some woods of quite a different character from those we had visited the day before. They were low-lying and, in places, swampy. Before leaving the open, we visited the banks of a tiny brook, whose green, inviting shores suggested pleasant possibilities. Here we found our first violets -- little yellow ones, the so-called “downy” species, growing in fresh clumps. Nearby, on erect, leafless stems, looking like a dandelion with it's heart plucked out, we discovered the coltsfoot, otherwise the “coughwort,” “clay-weed,” “horsefoot,” and “hoofs.”  This being the first time I had ever found this plant in flower, the occasion was memorable.

A wet, mossy rock looked as though it might harbor any number of plant-waifs. Picking my way along the slippery banks, I shouted with joy on seeing lovely, fresh, and dainty, springing airily from the flattened top, the first liverworts we had found since leaving the train the previous morning. In the chinks of this same rock were soft young clusters of the fragile bladder-fern, still immature, but exquisitely green and promising. On the farther side of the rock grew that odd-looking plant, the blue cohosh, sometimes called “papoose-root,” with smooth, purplish stem, purple, divided leaves, and clusters of purple flowers. Close to this plant was a leafless shrub with insignificant yellow blossoms, and bark so tough that it was almost impossible to break off a branch. This proved to be the “leatherwood” used by the Indians for thongs. It is also known as “moosewood” and “swampwood.”

Once more on our wheels along the winding road and we were in the woods again. In the spring woods the sun filters everywhere through the leafless branches, and nowhere did it meet lovelier upturned flower-faces than here, where myriad, many-hued blossoms of the liverwort expanded beneath its rays. Never before had I seen this flower so abundant and so perfect -- pure white, pale lavender, deep violet, or pink of the most delicate shade. I abandoned my usual principle of leaving flowers as I find them, and I gathered them recklessly, with exultant, extravagant joy, seeking every little variety of shade, selecting the largest and most complete specimens, fairly gloating over their perfection of delicate beauty. Though the individual flowers of the liverwort are hardly fragrant, a faint and delicious odor came from the great bunch which finally I held.”

Today's Route:   From the plaza we walked past the newly refurbished Arbor and followed the cement walkway through the Lower Shade Garden to the Dunson Native Flora Garden. We explored most of the paths in the Dunson Garden and left it at the Yuccas and the Highbush Blueberries, walked a short distance down the power line RoW and entered the woods to the White Trail Spur on which we returned to the Alice H. Richards Children's Garden before retiring to the Cafe Botanica in the Visitor Center for refreshments and conversation.

OBSERVATIONS:

Arbor:

At the base of each Arbor post there were one or two large pots of Yellow Jessamine. These will replace the invasive Chinese Wisteria previously planted on the arbor.

All the Gingko trees survived the construction of the children's garden. None of the leaves have emerged as yet and you can clearly see the many short shoots that will bear the leaves and the male cones in a few weeks. (None of the Gingko trees here is a female.)

Lower Shade Garden:

We stopped along the path where several hazelnut trees used to be found. They are replaced by Winter Hazel, native to central China, and bearing hanging clusters of yellow flowers.

We arrived at the location where we normally see American Witch Hazel and, opposite it, a Chinese Witch Hazel. The American Witch Hazels have been severely pruned.

Calyx (the sepals) of Chinese Witch Hazel is retained over winter.

The Chinese Witch Hazel had many reddish-orange calyxes (sepals) still adorning the upper branches even though the petals are long gone.

Red Shouldered Hawk male

We soon heard the calls of a pair of Red Shouldered Hawks, their nest is in the upper reaches of a large American Sycamore. The male could be seen high up in a nearby White Oak, busily preening its feathers.

Dunson Native Flora Garden:

Chattaheechee Trillium

Not long after entering the Dunson Garden, we noticed that several trilliums could be seen in bud or beginning to bloom, including several Chattahoochee Trillium.

Carolina Spring Beauty

We also saw a patch of Carolina Spring Beauty and Virginia Spring Beauty, both in flower, though their pale pink petals were closed up due to the cold.

Rue Anemone

We also saw one, lone example of Rue Anemone in the upper Dunson Garden but were to see many more after exiting the Dunson Garden and making our way along the White Trail Spur on our way back to the Visitor Center.

Cut-leaf Toothwort

We saw a few Two-leaved Toothwort but none showed any sign of blooming at this time. They were easily identified by the large, toothed broad leaflets, which distinguish them from the Cut-leaf Toothwort, with narrow leaflets, which is also common in the Dunson Garden.

Golden Ragowort with purple flower buds.

Golden Ragwort open flowers.

Golden Ragwort was plentiful, seen throughout much of the Dunson Garden. This is a plant enjoyed while both in bud and later when flowering. The buds are typically purple, belying the golden yellow flower heads that are just beginning to open on a few of the plants.

The many Leatherwood shrubs in the Dunson Garden are in late flower, many already going to fruit. This shrub is the first of the plants in Dunson to flower, beginning in late January. Although that seems too early for pollinators, the plants always bear abundant fruit, and have spread aggressively throughout Dunson, although possibly as much by spread of rhizomes as much as seeds.

Decumbent Trillium

Decumbent Trillium was seen as we moved down the path, with leaves that appear to rise directly from the ground from short stems when, in fact, they are growing on short curved stems that lie along the soil surface, hence decumbent.

Allegheny Spurge

Soon we will start to examine the plants of Allegheny Spurge for flowers that are born on short spikes beneath the leaf litter.

Virginia Bluebells

Bright blue and pink flowers of Virginia Bluebell lit up the the edge of the rock-lined wash in the middle of the garden. Immature flowers and those in bud are pink; as they mature and open, they turn a beautiful sky blue. According to the New York Botanical Garden, “The floral color change is not uncommon in members of this family, the Boraginaceae (borage family) …The color change is due to changes in the pH of the cell sap,” which contains the pigment anthocyanin. The pigment turns from pink to blue as the sap in the petal’s cells becomes more acidic as it matures, just like litmus paper. It is probably not a coincidence that bluebells are pollinated by bees, which don’t see red colors but are attracted to blue colors. The presence of the blue color is a signal that the mature flowers are now producing nectar.

Bloodroot

We also saw the occasional Bloodroot at various locations along our walk through the Dunson Garden, mostly isolated occurrences until we arrived later at the lower bog.

Sweet Betsy Trillium

Groupings of one-, two-, and three-leaved, immature Sweet Betsy Trillium could be seen scattered in the lower Dunson Garden. They won’t flower until they are six or seven years old and have had three leaves aboveground and photosynthesizing for at least one year.

Lance-leaved Trillium

Linda pointed out a small patch of Lance-leaved Trillium, with their narrow, “lance-like” leaves.

Spicebush staminate (male) flowers

At the junction of two paths are a couple of blooming Spicebush, one female (with pistillate flowers), the other male (with staminate flowers). Both have small yellow flowers in clusters. The female flowers have a single style protruding from the end of the flower; the male flowers look bristly, with their nine protruding stamens. Each stamen is tipped with a tiny pollen-bearing structure called an anther, some of which have already dried and turned brown after releasing their pollen. Spicebush is one of the earliest shrubs to flower in the southeast, soon after Leatherwood. In spite of their early flowering, they still manage to attract insect pollinators, including small solitary bees and flies. Once the leaves emerge, they are likely to be eaten by caterpillars of Spicebush Swallowtail butterflies.

The buds of Painted Buckeyes that prematurely opened were damaged by the sub-freezing temperatures on Tuesday and Wednesday night. Keep watching to see what happens to the damaged leaves.

As we arrived in the lower sections of the Dunson Garden, we found two more species of toothwort, including the deep pink, almost purple, flowers of Purple Cress and, nearby, more of the Cut-leaf Toothwort. Purple Cress is native to states further north and west of Georgia but does not occur naturally in Georgia.

Eastern Red Cedar with pollen cones.

The male Eastern Red Cedar at the western end of Dunson is loaded with pollen cones. The nearest female is just down the road a bit, so we should get some get good “juniper berries” this year. The “berries” are actually small, fleshy, blue cones that enclose the seeds.

Members of the genus Juniperus are susceptible to a fungal disease known as Cedar Apple Rust. This fungus has a complex life cycle that involves two different kinds of trees, a cedar (really a plant in the genus Juniperus) and an apple (or a susceptible plant in the Rose family).

Cedar Apple Rust gall on Eastern Red Cedar
(Flickr page of Tara Taubuch, CC by 2.0)

The disease appears as orange, gelatinous galls on juniper and red cedar twigs. The galls sprout “horns” which release zillions of spores into the air. (Once the spores are released, the gall because hard and brown, almost woody.) If the spores are carried (by wind) to an apple, hawthorn, or other susceptible rose family plant, those plants will become diseased.

Lesions caused by Cedar Apple Rust on apple leaves.
Ronincmc [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

Their leaves will develop orange lesions that eventually turn black and produce orange or brown spores, and the leaves drop prematurely. 

Apple leaf with Cedar Apple Rust releasing spores from the leaf lesions.Ronincmc [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

These spores will, in turn, infect nearby Red Cedars, thus completing the two-year life cycle of this fungus.

"Frost flower" produced on stem of plant by overnight subfreezing temperatures.

Just outside the bottom of the Dunson Garden Tom spotted frost flowers. These ribbons of ice are produced when overnight temperatures remain below freezing for several hours. Wingstems (plants in the genus Verbesina)  seem to be particularly prone to producing them. Water emerges from splits in the stem and, as it oozes out it freezes into the delicate, flat ribbons.

White Trail Spur:

The floodplain between the trail and the river is still submerged, creating the habitat for the larval Marbled Salamanders. In order for these amphibians to reach metamorphosis this area will need to remain wet. Now that much of the privet has been removed the chances of these pools lasting log enough is greatly enhanced. When the privet was present it was a source of great water loss through transpiration, the evaporation of water from its leaves.

The Spur trail enters the woods and turns uphill just past a fallen tree. In the soil on the north side of the trail, just before the fallen tree is reached, there are many Rue Anemone blooming. This patch was first seen by Ramblers four years ago. If the past is any guide, it should continue to produce numerous blooms as the season progresses.

Witch's Brooms

While the tree branches are still unencumbered by leaves you can see very clearly the abnormal growths called Witch’s Brooms. These are very common on trees in the birch family, Betulaceae, and Linda spotted numerous examples on a Musclewood and several Hophornbeams. The “brooms” are caused by a fungal infection that causes the internodes, the area of a branch or twig between adjacent buds, to shorten, leading to the production of numerous small twigs in a short area. This clustering together creates the “broom.”

Several Ramblers saw a Red-Headed Woodpecker in this area.

Also nearby is a Mayberry shrub that hasn’t started flowering yet though there are others, located in full sun along the entrance road, that have been flowering for a week or longer. Mayberry is always the earliest flowering blueberry in the Piedmont and earns its common name because of its early-maturing fruits. 

This year’s warm winter brought out the flowers of Highbush Blueberry much earlier than usual. It will be interesting to note if this species bears as much fruit as usual or if the early flowering time put it out of sync with its pollinators.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Yellow Jessamine	Gelsemium sempervirens
Ginkgo	Ginkgo biloba
Winter Hazel	Corylopsis veitchiana
American Witch Hazel	Hamamelis virginiana
Japanese Witch Hazel	Hamamelis japonica
Red-shouldered Hawk	Buteo lineatus
American Sycamore	Platanus occidentalis
White Oak	Quercus alba
Chattahoochee Trillium	Trillium decipiens
Carolina Spring Beauty	Claytonia caroliniana
Virginia Spring Beauty	Claytonia virginica
Rue Anemone	Thalictrum thalictroides
Two-leaved Toothwort	Cardamine diphylla
Cut-leaved Toothwort	Cardamine concatenata
Golden Ragwort	Packera aurea
Decumbent Trillium	Trillium decumbens
Allegheny Spurge	Pachysandra procumbens
Virginia Bluebells	Mertensia virginica
Bloodroot	Sanguinaria canadensis
Little Sweet Betsy Trillium	Trillium cuneatum
Lance-leaved Trillium	Trillium lancifolium
Spicebush	Lindera benzoin
Painted Buckeye	Aesculus sylvatica
Purple Cress	Cardamine douglassii
Muscadine Grape	Muscadinia rotundifolia
Red-headed Woodpecker	Melanerpes erythrocenphalus
Mayberry	Vaccinium elliotii
Highbush Blueberry	Vaccinium corymbosum