Today's Ramble was led by Don Hunter.
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 is the edited “bullet list” compiled by Don
Hunter.
Today’s Focus:
25 Ramblers met today.
Today's
emphasis: Dunson Native Flora
Garden, ROW, Orange Trail and White Trail
Announcements: Linda made the following request: “please
put a link to this new Georgia
Trees website. It’s newly posted by Richard and Teresa Ware, who have
been studying and photographing trees for decades. The photos are wonderful!
And the text is too. They plan to create webpages for shrubs, ferns,
wildflowers, etc. as they get to it.”
Today's reading: Eugenia brought a reading from
the New York Times: ”Truck and Tree” by Laura Lim.
Truck and Tree
Dear
Diary,
I
was walking along Henry Street in Brooklyn.
A blind man with a white cane was walking toward me. To my right, a truck was backing into a
parking spot
Just
as the man with the cane passed me on my left, I heard a bang. I turned and saw a young man poke his head
out of the truck to assess the damage to the tree that had just been hit.
The
man with the cane stopped and turned his head.
“What
was that?” he asked.
I
took a couple of steps back.
“A
truck was just backing up and hit a tree” I said. “Don’t worry.
Nobody’s hurt.”
“So
it’s O.K.?” he said.
“Yeah,
the truck looks fine. I don’t see any
damage.”
He
cracked a grin.
“Not
the truck,” he said. “The tree.”
Show and Tell:
 |
| Sicklepod (click to enlarge) |
1.
Kathy brought a large clump of Sicklepod (Senna
obtusifolia) from her yard, curious about whether it was a native or invasive
and wondering if it was a host plant for any butterflies. She learned it is a fairly cosmopolitan plant
and is likely to show up anytime a garden plot is tilled and planted. She will keep a few in her yard for the
butterflies. [Senna is the host plant for the Cloudless Sulfur.]
 |
| Firefly (Lightning Bug) (click to enlarge) |
2.
Betsy’s grandson, Clay, caught a lightning bug
to share with the early arrivers.
Today's
Route: We left the plaza, taking the walkway from
the arbor down to the mulched path to the Dunson Native Flora Garden where we through
the gate just above the Passionflower vines on the deer fence. From the vines we walked down to the river on
the ROW path, then turned left onto the Orange Trail, following it downstream
to the spur trail on the left, which we took to the White Trail, going up to
the Children’s Garden and then to the Visitor Center. We enjoyed refreshments and conversation at
the Café Botanica.
LIST OF
OBSERVATIONS:
Lower
Shade Garden Mulched Path:
 |
| Sweet Betsy Trillium (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Chattachoochee Trillium (click to enlarge) |
Chattahoochee
Trillium, still looking as if it were April or May.
Poison
Ivy growing along the mulched path.
 |
| Wood Ear mushroom (click to enlarge) |
Cut
tree sections, supporting many bracket fungi, most likely old, bleached
Violet-toothed Polypores and some Wood Ear fungus.
 |
| A large Jack-in-the-Pulpit with fruits (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Cluster of Jack-in-the-Pulpit fruits (click to enlarge) |
A
large, five-leaved Jack-in-the-Pulpit, with a cluster of green fruits located at the
junction of the two leaf stalks. This
plant is definitely female (it has fruits).
Dunson Native Flora Garden:
 |
| Black Cohosh inflorescences (click to enlarge) |
The flowers of Black Cohosh begin opening at the
bottom of the inflorescence. The bloom then progresses to the top, but it takes
several weeks for a plant to finish blooming. The delicate, airy whiteness of
the bloom is produced by the stamens because the flowers lack sepals and
petals. When a flower finishes blooming the stamens fall off.
 |
| Bush Katydid nymph; note the position of the jumping legs. (click to enlarge) |
A Bush
Katydid nymph, with an unusual leg posture, on the Cohosh. [The extended legs resemble
the long antennae at the other end of the insect. My first reaction to Don’s
photo was that it might be attracting attention away from the head. Most
katydids and grasshoppers will easily drop a leg if they are attacked by a
predator – they escape while the predator thinks it has a mouthful of food. DH]
 |
| Northern Horsebalm (click to enlarge) |
Northern Horsebalm is big and healthy and should be
flowering before too long. We enjoyed
the lemony smell of the foliage.
 |
| River Oats seed heads are plumping up. (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Leaf mine in Golden Ragwort; the mine starts on the right and gets wider as it progresses over to the left side. (click to enlarge) |
Leafminers, as they do every year, have created
feeding trails inside the Golden Ragwort leaves. The mine, either a caterpillar
or a fly maggot, starts at the point where the egg is laid on/in the leaf. The
larva eats its way between the upper and lower epidermis of the leaf, leaving
winding trail of consumed leaf. The trail grows in width as the larva grows
and, at the very end, you can see the brown pupal case from which the adult
insect will emerge. (In some leafminers the larva leaves the leaf and pupates
in the leaf litter below the plant.
 |
| Royal Fern (click to enlarge) |
Royal Fern is growing in the Upper Bog (just below
the Doghobble).
We looked for Gulf Fritillary eggs or caterpillars
on the Purple Passionflower vines but found none. Several Gulf Fritillary butterflies have been
seen in the Garden so it’s just a matter of time before we start seeing the
caterpillars.
 |
| Carpenter Bee on yesterday's Passionflower (click to enlarge) |
A Carpenter Bee and a shield bug/stinkbug nymph were
seen on the vines and flowers of the Purple Passionflower vines.
 |
| Two boys in front of a Longleaf Pine (for scale) (click to enlarge) |
Don took Nathan and Clay into the Dunson Garden to
get them to pose next to the Longleaf Pine, which really seems to have taken
off this past year. Longleaf pines spend several years in the “grass” stage where
they look like a clump of grass. In that stage they are establishing their root
system. Then they shoot up over the next few years, growing eight feet or more,
which gets the growing tip of the tree out of range of mile ground fires.
 |
| Mayberries/Juneberries (click to enlarge) |
The Mayberry/Juneberry bushes along the split rail
fence have nice, plump berries.
ROW:
 |
| Wild Petunia (click to enlarge) |
Wild Petunia continues to be seen along the edges of
the mown paths in the ROW.
 |
| Virginia Buttonweed (click to enlarge) |
Virginia Buttonweed, also growing in the closely
mown paths of the ROW.
 |
| Wingstem (click to enlarge) |
Wingstem is now in bloom, the first of the flowers
of the summer.
 |
| Rough Daisy Fleabane (click to enlarge) |
Rough Daisy Fleabane also grows along the edges of
the mown paths in the ROW.
Orange Trail, along river:
Deer tracks are seen on the sandy path.
 |
| Nymph of Leaf-footed bug (Acanthocephala sp.?) (click to enlarge) |
 |
| A plant hopper nymph (click to enlarge) |
 |
| A predaceous Stink Bug (click to enlarge) |
A coreid nymph (Leaf-footed bug family), a predaceous
pentatomid Stinkbug and several early instar planthopper nymphs were seen on
the vegetation.
Orange Trail, spur back to White
Trail:
 |
| False Turkeytail (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Mustard Yellow Polypore (click to enlarge) |
False Turkeytail and Mustard Yellow Polypore bracket
fungi growing on a fallen dead tree trunk.
 |
| Laughing Cap mushroom (click to enlarge) |
Bright orange examples of Laughing Cap or
Spectacular Rustgill fleshy cap mushrooms
 |
| White Avens (click to enlarge) |
White Avens were seen along the trail before the
intersection with the White Trail.
A black, spiny caterpillar, species unknown,
possibly a moth.
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES
Sweet
Betsy Trillium
|
Trillium cuneatum
|
Chattahoochee
Trillium
|
Trillium decipiens
|
Poison
Ivy
|
Toxicodendron radicans
|
Violet-toothed
Polypore
|
Trichaptum biforme
|
Wood
Ear fungus
|
Auricularia auricula-judae
|
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
|
Arisaema triphyllum
|
Black
Cohosh
|
Actaea racemosa
|
Bush
Katydid (nymph)
|
Scudderia sp.
|
Northern
Horsebalm
|
Collinsonia canadensis
|
River
Oats
|
Chasmanthium latifolium
|
Golden
Ragwort
|
Packera aurea
|
Royal
Fern
|
Osmunda regalis
|
Purple
Passionflower
|
Passiflora incarnata
|
Carpenter
Bee
|
Xylocopa virginica
|
Shield-backed
Bug (nymph)
|
Hemiptera:
Scutellaridae
|
Longleaf
Pine
|
Pinus palustris
|
Mayberry/Juneberry
|
Vaccinium corymbosum
|
Wild
Petunia
|
Ruellia caroliniensis
|
Virginia
Buttonweed
|
Diodia virginiana
|
Wingstem
|
Verbesina alternifolia
|
Rough
Daisy Fleabane
|
Erigeron strigosus
|
American
Whitetail Deer (tracks)
|
Odocoileus virginianus
|
Florida(?)
Leaf-footed Bug
|
Acanthocephala sp.
|
predaceous
Stink Bug
|
Hemiptera:
Pentatomidae
|
Planthopper
(nymph)
|
Order
Hemiptera, superfamily Fulgoroidea
|
False
Turkeytail Mushroom
|
Stereum ostrea
|
Mustard
Yellow Polypore
|
Fuscoporia gilva
|
Spectacular
Rustgill
|
Gymnopilus junonius
|
White
Avens
|
Geum canadense
|
