Ramble Report May 30 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 Dale Hoyt.

Today’s Focus:  Herb and Physic Garden, Purple Trail, Purple Trail Spur to Flower Garden, Flower Garden, Heritage Garden

32 Ramblers met today.

Today's reading: No reading today.

Show and Tell:

Brown snake (Dekay's Brown snake)
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Kathy brought a Brown Snake for an identification and recommendation for disposition.  The scientific name for this species is Storeria dekayi, named for an early American naturalist, James Dekay. For many years its common name was “Dekay’s snake.” On hearing this many people would ask: “Is it dead?” or “How long has it been dead?” Finally, herpetologists gave up explaining that it was not decaying and decided to call it the Brown snake, for the most common color on the upper side. The Brown snake and its close relative, the Red-bellied snake, are specialists on snails and slugs, although they will eat other soil and leaf litter dwelling invertebrates. If you don’t like the damage that snails and slugs can do to your garden vegetables you should be happy to have these snakes in your yard. They never get very large and can’t injure you.

Today's Route: From the plaza through the Great Room and then across the Herb and Physic Garden to the Purple Trail. Down the Purple Trail to the Purple Trail/Flower Garden Spur; taking the spur up the west side of the Flower Garden, then going up the steps to the Heritage Garden, passing the Pawpaw patch before heading back into the Visitor Center.

OBSERVATIONS:

Herb and Physic Garden:

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Comfrey
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491633/

Horsetail with Mealybug (white object near top)
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Horsetails are also known as Scouring Rushes because of the gritty crystals of hard minerals in their tissues. They were used to scour pots and pans as well as sand wood. They are now recognized as an ancient branch of the ferns. The common name, horsetail, of the group doesn't seem appropriate when looking at our example, Equisetum hyemale, but other species have a dense covering of long, thin leaves that does resemble a horse's tail. (See the illustration in Wikipedia.)

Recent molecular evidence indicates that the horsetails are an early diverging group of ferns.


Near the top of the horsetail photo is a small, white creature, a mealybug. Mealybugs can be important pests of many plants, especially in orchards or greenhouses. They are a type of scale insect. Scale insects have complex life histories, starting with mobile forms called crawlers that wander about a plant, seeking a place to feed. They have piercing, sucking mouthparts and subsist on plant juices. The true scales undergo a weird metamorphosis into an immobile form that lacks legs and eyes and is covered with a protective "scale." This makes them nearly impossible to control by spraying. You would never think of the adult as being an insect. Mealybugs are not as extreme. The adults are capable of crawling about, retaining their legs and eyes. A beetle, the Mealybug Destroyer, is used as a biological control agent for the mealybug.

Common Cow Parsnip
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Cow Parsnip can be confused with several other plants in the carrot family: Queen Anne's Lace, Water Hemlock, Poison Hemlock and Giant Hogweed. Of these, Poison Hemlock and Giant Hogweed are especially dangerous, while the others may cause minor contact dermatitis in susceptible individuals. The irritating agent in Cow Parsnip is in the surface layers of the stem and native americans ate the center of the stems after first peeling the skin.  

Purple Trail:

Pignut Hickory
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Pignut Hicory axillary bud at base of leaf petiole
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There are several kinds of Hickory in the natural areas of the garden. All of them have alternate, compound leaves. Novices often have trouble distinguishing a leaf from a leaflet. The leaf has a bud where the leaf stem (known as a petiole) attaches to the twig. Everything from the bud out is a leaf. Hickory leaves usually have five or more leaflets, depending on the species. One common species, the Pignut Hickory, typically has 5 leaflets and the petiole is not stout and fuzzy.

Hickory bark.
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The bark of some hickories has a braided pattern that produces diamond shaped patterns between the ridges.

Poison Ivy vine on White Oak
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White Oak bark is frequently shigled
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Poison Ivy vines are very "hairy," producing a dense network of roots that cling to the trunk of their host tree. You should avoid touching the roots, just as you avoid touching the leaves.

Aerial roots on a Muscadine grape vine
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Aerial root formation in Vitis has been documented on different grape species; however, the driving forces behind the formation of adventitious roots are not well understood. In tropical areas and greenhouse situations, aerial roots in the grape family (Vitaceae) are common. In these regions, roots that form adventitiously on aerial portions of the vine may provide an adaptive response mechanism to avoid drought or flooding or provide other unknown functions. In temperate regions, freeze injury is the most likely initiator of aerial roots, as de Klerk et al. (1999) stated that some wounding is generally necessary to induce rooting….Overall, aerial root production, although uncommon in the temperate zone, is not an unknown phenomenon in regions where freeze injury occurs and wet, humid growing conditions exist. For more information click here.

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Someone with very keen eyes spotted several eggs on the aerial roots of the muscadine vine. Each egg proper was on the end of a slender stalk, lifting the egg away from surface of the vine. This type of egg is characteristic of Lacewing flies, a type of insect.

 

An adult Green Lacewing fly
(Alvesgaspar [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)])
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Lacewing flies are not true flies (insect order Diptera). They are members of the insect order Neuroptera, the "nerve-winged" insects. Both the adults and the larvae are predators. Favorite food items are aphids. The larvae resemble little alligators and often have bristles on their backs that they decorate with the empty exoskeletons of their prey. This is thought to protect them from ants that farm the aphids that are the prey of the lacewing larvae.
Other Lace-winged insects you may be familiar with are the doodlebugs, sometimes called "antlions." These are the larval stages that excavate conical pits in sand or dry, dusty soil. The antlion lies in wait at the bottom of the pit and, when an ant stumbles in, siezes it with its tong-like mandibles and sucks it dry. The remains of the ant are flung out of the pit and the antlion patiently waits for more prey.
 

Partridgeberry
No flowers or berrys seen.
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Hophornbeam with sapsucker sap wells
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Hophornbeam leaves
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How can a ramble on the Purple Trail not stop at our favorite Hophornbeam that is riddled with sapsucker wells?
Besides the distinctive shredded-wheat or cat-scratched bark the leaves of the Hophornbeam are doubly serrate. If you click on Don's photo of the leaves to enlarge them, you'll see that many of the large points on the edge and smaller points as well. In other words, the serrations are, themselves, serrate.

Northern Red Oak leaves
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Northern Red Oak bark with "ski tracks"
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Northern Red Oaks have leaves with lobes that end with a bristle tip. The bark has long, continuous ridges with flat tops that are lighter in color. These white ridge tops remind some of us of ski trails and they are characteristic of the Northern Red Oak. (Another oak species, Scarlet Oak, also has a very similar bark pattern.)

Harvestman (Daddy-long-legs) on Horse Sugar
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Another traditional stopping place on the Purple Trail is the patch of never-in-bloom Horse. Today we found a number of Harvestmen, AKA "Daddy Longlegs," hanging out. If you count those gangly legs you'll find eight, which makes them Arachnids. 
The arachnids that most people are familiar with are, of course, spiders. Other familiar types of arachnids are: scorpions, ticks and mites, and daddy-long-legs. There are several other kinds but most people are not familiar with them. 
One of the most persistent urban legends is that harvestmen have a deadly venom. This is untrue -- they lack venom glands entirely

Deciduous Holly (male plant)
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Deciduous Holly (female plant - see the fruit?)
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Hollies are dioecious plants - each tree either bears staminate (male) flowers or pistilate (female) flowers, but never both on the same individual. Most hollies are evergreen, but along the Purple Trail we encounter several Deciduous Holly trees that shed their leaves in autumn. (Another common name for this species is Possumhaw.)

Nathan found a Crane Fly dancing between a tree and a large fallen log in the woods away from the trail.  It’s rather small flight path varied very little the entire time we observed it.

Witchgrass
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Dead stump with signs of insect activity
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We stopped at a long dead stump of a Northern Red Oak and saw evidence of large burrows in the interior.  There were also many piles of coarse “sawdust” on the ground at various locations around the stump.  We’re thinking the burrows may be the work of Bess Beetles.

Violet Toothed Polypore
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Sourwood bark
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Purple Trail/Flower Garden Spur:

Chalk Maple leaves
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Chalk Maple prefers soils with a higher pH, so they are most often found in areas underlain by rocks that are high in magnesium and iron. These are the so-called "mafic" rocks. Such rocks also contain larger amounts of calcium and as they weather, they create soil with higher pH than the normally acidic soils of the southeast. 
Chalk Maple leaves resemble those of Florida Maple but the under side of the leaf is a different color. Chalk Maple is light green beneath while Florida Maple is white. Another difference is the shape of the central lobe - in Chalk Maple this lobe tapers slightly moving from the leaf to the tip. In Florida Maple the central lobe increases slightly going from base of the lobe to the tip. All these characters are variable and you may need to examine many leaves before being confidant in your identification.
 

White Oak showing a little lovin' from a Honeysuckle vine.
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The spiral growth of a small White Oak was due to the hug of a vine, probably Japanese Honeysuckle. The vine twined around the tree for support as it climbed upward. As years went by the tree increased in diameter, but was constrained where the vine wrapped the trunk. When the vine died and decayed away this constraint was removed but the marks of the embrace were retained as the girth of the trunk increased. 

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There are several species of lespedeza in the garden but one, L. sericea, is considered invasive.

Appalachian Milkwort
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High Bush Blueberry
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Rabbiteye Blueberry
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Poverty Oat Grass
(Note the curly brown grass blades at the base.)
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Steps from Flower Garden to Heritage Garden:

Pomegranite
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Heritage Garden:

Needle Palm
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Sweeshrub, 'Athens" cultivar
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We stopped at one of the Sweetshrubs which have yellow/yellow-green flowers.  Calycanthus floridus ‘Athens’ (syn. ‘Katherine’) is a yellow-flowered variant of our native sweetshrub. Common names include Carolina allspice. It is a beautiful and understated shrub.  Calycanthus ‘Athens’ is named after the city of Athens, Georgia. It was introduced to UGA Professor Michael Dirr by Jane Symmes. Dr. Dirr originally named the plant ‘Katherine’ for his daughter. This cultivar was discovered in the 1960s by Mary Brumby in Athens (Hatch L., Cultivars of Woody Plants: Genera C) and first introduced for sale in 1985.

Pawpaw fruit; mealybug above
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SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail	Papilio glaucus
Common Comfrey	Symphytum officinale
Horsetail	Equisetum hyemale
Common Cow Parsnip	Heracleum maximum
Pignut Hickory	Carya glabra
Poison Ivy	Toxicodendron radicans
White Oak	Quercus alba
Lacewing (eggs)	Neuroptera: Chrysopidae
Muscadine	Vitis rotundifolia
Partidgeberry	Mitchella repens
Hophornbeam	Ostrya virginiana
Northern Red Oak	Quercus rubra
Horse Sugar	Symplocos tinctoria
Daddy Longlegs	Arachnida: Opiliones
Deciduous Holly	Ilex decidua
Crane Fly	Diptera: Tipulidae
Witchgrass	Dichanthelium sp.
Violet-toothed Polypore	Trichaptum biforme
Sourwood	Oxydendrum arboreum
Chalk Maple	Acer leucoderme
Sericea Lespedeza	Lespedeza sericea
Appalachian Milkwort	Polygala curtissii
High Bush Blueberry	Vaccinium elliottii
Poverty Oat Grass	Dichanthelium spicata
Yucca	Yucca filamentosa
Rabbiteye Blueberry	Vaccinium ashei
Pomegranate	Punica granatum
Needle Palm	Rhapidophyllum hystrix
Sweetshrub ‘Athens’	Calycanthus floridus ‘Athens’
Paw Paw	Asimina triloba
Mealybug	Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae