Today's Ramble was led by Dale Hoyt.
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 Dale Hoyt.
Announcements:
1. From Karen Porter: There
is a Tallassee Forest SPLOST2020 information session at the Kenney Ridge
Community Center this coming Sunday. I'm inviting Ramblers to this community
event because most of them have visited the Forest and know its conservation
value as well as the desirability of having public access in an environmentally
protective way.
2. Even if they can't
get to the community meeting on the 9th I hope they'll come to the Mayor and
Commission meeting at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, June 18 in City Hall. Standing up and
speaking for a project can make a difference.
3. What: Tallassee Forest
SPLOST2020 information session
When: Sunday, June 9, 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Where: Kenney Ridge Community Center, 196 Three Oaks Drive
Directions: From 10 Loop Exit 15 go 4.5 miles out Tallassee Road. Pass Burney Harris Lyons Middle School (Tallassee Forest is across the street.) After 1 mile turn left onto Three Oaks Drive. The Community Center is next to a field on the right. Please park on the right side of the street.
When: Sunday, June 9, 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Where: Kenney Ridge Community Center, 196 Three Oaks Drive
Directions: From 10 Loop Exit 15 go 4.5 miles out Tallassee Road. Pass Burney Harris Lyons Middle School (Tallassee Forest is across the street.) After 1 mile turn left onto Three Oaks Drive. The Community Center is next to a field on the right. Please park on the right side of the street.
4.
What: Guided Nature Walk at the Shoal Creek
natural area
When: Saturday, June 8, 3:00 to 6:00 pm
Where: 275 Blue Heron Dr., Athens 30605 There is a facebook event you can register with if you’re interested in going. The property was recently purchased by John Pickering and his intention is to preserve the property as a natural area.
When: Saturday, June 8, 3:00 to 6:00 pm
Where: 275 Blue Heron Dr., Athens 30605 There is a facebook event you can register with if you’re interested in going. The property was recently purchased by John Pickering and his intention is to preserve the property as a natural area.
5.
Don announced that he will lead a Nature
Rambler’s trip at the Coweeta Lab on Sunday, June 16. Details will follow.
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| Ecoregions map of SE USA (click to enlarge) |
Show & Tell: Bill showed us a beautiful EPA Ecoregions
map of the southeastern US. These are available for download (free) in a
variety of formats from this EPA website. You can also
download single state maps.
Today’s Focus:
Whatever we found in the International and Herb & Physic Gardens.
22 Ramblers met today.
Today's reading:
The June 2nd entry from Donald Culross Peattie’s An Almanac for Moderns. Here is a gender-neutral version:
The June 2nd entry from Donald Culross Peattie’s An Almanac for Moderns. Here is a gender-neutral version:
A person may not know how to
name all the oaks or the moths, or be able to recognize a synclinal fault, or
tell time by the stars, in order to possess Nature. They may have his mind
solely on growing larkspurs, or he may love a boat and a sail and a blue-eyed
day at sea. They may have a bent for making paths or banding birds, or they may
only be an inveterate and curious walker.
But I contend that such a
person has the best out of life – they and the naturalists. You are ignorant of
life if you do not love it or some portion of it, just as it is, a shaft of
light from a nearby star, a flash of the blue salt water that curls around the
five upthrust rocks of the continents, a net of green leaves spread to catch
the light and use it, and you, walking under the trees. You, a handful of
supple earth and long white stones, with seawater running in your veins.
Today's route:
From the plaza to the Flower Bridge and the Bottlebrush Buckeye, then to the
Bog Garden via the open grassy area. From there to the Medicinal Plant Garden
and back to the conservatory.
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| Ramblers looking for fertile flowers of an Oakleaf Hydrangea (click to enlarge) |
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| Oakleaf Hydrangea; a mass of sterile white phony flowers. (click to enlarge) |
The Oakleaf Hydrangea is still blooming but the
number of large, white “flowers” in each inflorescence has increased. I put
scare quotes around the flowers because these large, white objects are not
really flowers. They are made of bracts/sepals and completely lack the male and
female floral structures, the stamens and pistils. They function as insect
attractors, bringing insects to the flower head where the real flowers that
offer pollen and nectar are found. This use of a non-reproductive structure to
attract potential pollinators is found in many other plants. For example, the
white bracts of dogwoods surround the cluster of real flowers in the center, as
do the white leaves of Mountain Mint and the red leaves of poinsettias.
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| Oakleaf Hydrangea fake flowers above, fertile flowers below. (click to enlarge) |
The true flowers lie hidden among all the white bracts.
They are tiny, green and lumpy looking, but they have the nectar, stamens and
pistil of true flowers.
The natural Oakleaf Hydrangea only has a few of the large
white attractors in each flower head. This specimen is a horticultural cultivar
that has been bred for an increased number of the white pseudo-flowers.
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| Ramblers in awe of a Bottlebrush Buckeye. (click to enlarge) |
A large Bottlebrush Buckeye is located across the
sidewalk on the other end of the Flower Bridge. This plant bears more than one
hundred inflorescences and each of these is composed of hundreds of flowers. In
hot, sunny weather the plant is buzzing with activity.
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| Imperfect Bottlebrush Buckeye flowers. No pistils here.(click to enlarge) |
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| A perfect Bottlebrush Buckeye flower. The pistil is in the center sticking almost straight up. Thanks to Nathan for finding this.(click to enlarge) |
A strange thing about the flowers is that most of them
are what botanists call “imperfect.” An imperfect flower is one that lacks
either stamens or pistils. The Bottlebrush Buckeye flowers are mostly male; they
only have the pollen producing structures, the stamens and lack the seed
producing part, the pistil.
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| Bottlebrush Buckeye inflorescences showing progression of the bloom from base to tip. (click to enlarge) |
The flower stalk matures from the base toward the tip and
the early flowers are pollen producers only; they have stamens but no pistil,
the fruit and seed producing female structures. As the season progresses more
and more of the flowers toward the upper part of the inflorescence open and
some perfect flower appear. (A perfect flower has both male (stamens) and
female (pistil) structures and can produce fruit with seeds). So later in the
season, when the flowers are gone all the fruits are usually found near the end
of the inflorescence stalk.
This condition, where a single plant has two kinds of
flowers, staminate (male) and perfect (male and female parts) is called
“andromonoecious.” (The andro- prefix means male and the -monoecious suffix
means two different types of flowers on the same plant. A literal translation
of monoecious is “one house.” It is the term used to describe plants like
zucchini that have two kinds of flowers, male and female, growing on the same
plant.)
A question to ponder: why is the sex ratio so male biased?
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| A small Fall Webworm nest (click to enlarge) |
The nest of the Fall Webworm moth was found at the
edge of the grassy area across from the pitcher plant bog. In spite of the name
these nests can be found in both spring, summer and fall, although they are
more abundant in late summer and fall.
The nest is always a complex bag of silk threads that
covers the leaves at the end of a branch. It is produced by a group of caterpillars,
all the offspring of a single egg mass laid earlier by a female moth. The
caterpillars eat the leaves encased in the silk and, as the leaves disappear,
they enlarge the silk covering to include more uneaten leaves. The size of the
enclosure increases until the caterpillars are ready to pupate and they leave
the nest to find a safe place to spin their cocoons. There can be up to four broods
a year, with the eggs of the last generation of moths overwintering.
The Fall Webworm is often confused with the Tent
Caterpillar, but the Tent Caterpillar web is always built in the crotch of a
tree, usually a cherry or apple tree. The caterpillars leave their colonial
nest and feed on the leaves of the branches outside the nest. They are limited
to one generation a year, beginning in early spring. When they are ready to pupate
they leave the nest and are often seen crawling across sidewalks and playgrounds
as they search for a place to spin a cocoon.
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| An assortment of pitcher plants in the bog garden. (click to enlarge) |
Pitcher plants are found in nutrient poor soils
like bogs and soils with high sand content. Such habitats are subject to
invasion by other plants that could easily overgrow the pitcher plants. In
nature these communities are maintained by frequent low-intensity fires and
pitcher plants will thrive under such conditions. In our bog garden you can see
that ferns and grasses have already invaded to a considerable extent.
Pitcher plants grow in low nitrogen environments but are
able to find a source of this element by trapping insects in specially modified
leaves. Each trumpet shaped plant is a single leaf that has curled and joined
together its edges to form a tube open at the top and sealed at the bottom. The
tube holds water and the pitchers passively trap insects that fall into the
open mouth. The upper portion of the pitcher is waxy and slick and, below that,
there are often hairs the point downward. An insect that has fallen in is
prevented from climbing out by the downward pointing hairs. If it does manage
to get past the hairs it slips again on the slick, waxy mouth and falls back into
the pitcher. Finally, it will drown there.
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| A split pitcher showing the decaying gunk inside. (click to enlarge) |
A split pitcher showing the decaying gunk inside.
(click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)
The dead insects begin to rot and form a foul-smelling
soup of parts in various stages of decay. This broth is a breeding ground for
bacteria that hasten the decay process. The bacteria are also food for a species
of mosquito that lives exclusively in pitcher plants. The mosquito wrigglers (mosquito
larvae) feed on the bacteria and their waste products add to the fermenting
material. The pitcher contributes to this by secreting digestive enzymes into
the broth and absorbing the material that makes up the soup. The pitcher plant
creates a micro-ecosystem that supplies it with nutrients, especially those
that contain nitrogen, that give it a competitive edge in a nitrogen poor
environment.
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| The "upside-down" umbrella style of the pitcher plant flower. The five stigmas are at the end of each "umbrella rod." (click to enlarge) |
Pitcher plant flowers are as unusual as the plant itself.
The strangest part of the plant is the part of the pistil called the style. In
ordinary plants the style is simple stalk that connects the ovary (where the
seed will develop) to the stigma, the structure that receives pollen grains. In
pitcher plants the style expands into an upside-down umbrella with five “ribs.”
At the end of each rib is a stigma. When a bee enters the flower it crawls over
a stigma, depositing any pollen it may have picked up from other flowers. It
then picks up pollen that has fallen into the “umbrella” and flies away to
visit another flower.
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| Green Lynx Spider on Dianthus(click to enlarge) |
The Green Lynx Spider does not build a web to
capture its prey. Instead, it is an ambush predator. It sits in a likely
situation and waits for its prey to visit. Like its namesake, the lynx, it
rushes out and captures its victim, biting it and injecting a paralyzing venom.
It then can leisurely consume its victim. Lynx spiders are often found lurking
in flowers or nearby and can be easily identified by their green coloration and
long, very spiny legs.
On a sunny day there are usually many insect visitors to
the flowers growing in the Herb and Physic Garden. Today’s overcast skies and
sprinkling rain were sufficient to discourage most of them, so we didn’t see the
expected amount of insect activity. Two or three Bumblebees, a single Honeybee,
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| Wild Quinine (click to enlarge) |
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| Culver's Root (click to enlarge) |
Wild Quinine is blooming, along with Culver’s Root and
Rattlesnake Master.
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| Assassin bug nymph (click to enlarge) |
Assassin bugs, as their name implies, are
predators. Like all true bugs (insect order Hemiptera, suborder Heteroptera)
they have piercing, sucking mouthparts. This can be clearly seen in Don’s photo
of an Assassin bug nymph. It’s the curved, pointed structure that is pointed
backward, under the head. This stabbing beak is hollow and, when it is stabbed
into a caterpillar it injects a paralyzing venom and digestive enzymes. The venom
keeps the victim from running and the enzymes liquifies the contents of the
victim’s body. The liquidized lunch is sucked into the bug‘s digestive system through
the beak.
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| Dogbane Leaf Beetles (click to enlarge) |
Dogbane Leaf beetles are beautifully colored with
metallic shades of green, gold and copper. The adults as well as their larvae
feed on the leaves of Dogbane, a plant related to Milkweed.
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| Genista Broom Moth caterpillar (click to enlarge) |
A caterpillar of the Genista Broom moth was found
feeding on the leaves of Wild Indigo. We’ve seen this caterpillar at this
location in previous years.
Several ramblers asked questions about the Wild Indigo.
It is a member of the bean family (Fabaceae) as evidenced by the seed pods that
look like inflated pea pods. This type of seed pod is known as a legume, a word
that came into English from the Latin via French. Plants with leguminous seed
pods are also known as legumes.
Nitrogen Fixation: Many legumes are noted for
their symbiotic association with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, called Rhizobia.
These soil bacteria are taken up into root nodules by legumes. There, in the
nodules, the bacteria can “fix” nitrogen from the air. Fixing means converting
the atmospheric nitrogen gas into a chemical form that plants can utilize, in
this case, ammonia. The ammonia can then be utilized by the host plants to make
many nitrogen-containing compounds that are needed for plant growth. Thus,
legumes are able to grow in nitrogen-poor soils that other plants do poorly in.
This is why legumes are used as “cover crops” to improve the soil. Legumes are
planted and left to grow for a season or two and then plowed under. The
nitrogen that they fixed is then released to the soil as the plowed material
decays, improving the soil and reducing the amount of fertilizer needed.
What does the plant use the nitrogen for? Making
amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins. Nitrogen containing
compounds are also used in the construction of the DNA molecules that every
cell needs to live. Without nitrogen life as we know it would not exist.
In addition to their use as a cover crop, legumes are
also, because of their high nitrogen content, used a forage crop for animals.
That’s why farmers grow alfalfa (Medicago sativa) for hay to feed their
horses and cattle.
Because of their high nitrogen content legumes are
subject to being eaten by a wide variety of insects. This has resulted in a
coevolutionary arms race between plants and insects: insects feeding on plants
selects for plants that can resist insects feeding on them. Then insect-resistant
plants select for insects that can evolve ways of eating the resistant plants.
And so on, ad infinitum.
Here, again, legumes have played an interesting role. You
may remember that there are only twenty different amino acids that are found in
proteins. (A protein is a long chain of amino acids that are chemically hooked together.)
Each cell in a plant or animal body needs to have a supply of all twenty amino
acids to make the proteins it requires to do its job. The legumes have taken
advantage of this by making, in addition to the twenty kinds of amino acids
found in proteins, hundreds of other amino acids that are not found in
proteins. These modified amino acids act as poisons to animals that eat
legumes. They get incorporated into proteins in place of the correct amino acid
and, thereby, destroy the function of the protein. An insect that eats enough
of these legumes gets very sick.
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES
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Oakleaf
Hydrangea
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Hydrangea
quercifolia
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Bottlebrush
Buckeye
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Aesculus
parviflora
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Green Lynx
Spider
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Peucetia
viridans
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Dianthus
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Dianthus
gratianopolitanus
|
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Crepe
Myrtle
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Lagerstroemia
sp.
|
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Pitcher
Plant
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Sarracenea
sp.
|
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Fall
Webworm Moth
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Hyphantria
cunea
|
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Carolina
Wild Petunia
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Ruellia
caroliniensis
|
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Dogbane
Leaf Beetle
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Chrysochus
auratus
|
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Rattlesnake
Master
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Eryngium
yuccifolium
|
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Wild
Quinine
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Parthenium
integrifolium
|
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Culver’s
Root
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Veronicastrum
virginicum
|
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Blue False
Indigo
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Baptisia
australis
|
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Assassin
Bug (nymph)
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Hemiptera:
Reduviidae
|
|
Genista
Broom Moth (caterpillar)
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Uresiphita reversalis
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