Nature Ramblers: September 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:

38 Ramblers met today.

NOTE ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS: Click on any photograph to see the original size. Then click again to return to the text.

Show and Tell:

Eastern Anglepod seed pod and seeds.
© John B. Nelson, www.namethatplant.net

Brown brought some Eastern Anglepod seed pods and seeds to show us. Eastern Anglepod is one of nine species of climbing milkvines in the southeast. Sharp, almost winged, angles run the length of the okra-like fruit. The seeds are black and flat and tipped with a tuft of long, white hairs, called a coma, that help disperse the seeds.

Purple False Fox-glove

Kathy brought a sprig of Purple False Fox-glove from her back forty. This is a common late summer/early fall wildflower of old fields and other dry upland openings. Like all members of the genus Agalinis, this species is a hemi-parasite, meaning that it is partially parasitic on other plants. Even though it photosynthesizes, it extracts mineral nutrients and water from the roots of its host, usually a grass. The flowers in the photo are in bud or folding up – they only last for one day – but are quite pretty when open.

New visitors: Today we had quite a few visitors on a field trip from the Georgia Connections Academy, an online alternative school.

Announcements:

Terry invited Ramblers to join her and Kathy out at Sandy Creek Park to play on the water in kayaks for a while, beginning at about 5:00 pm.

Today’s Reading: Our poet laureate, Bob Ambrose, recited his latest poem, To Heal an Epoch.

Today's Route: We headed over to the Children’s Garden arbor and walked the path through the Shade Garden down to the Dunson Garden. We exited on to the road and drifted down the deer fence to the passionflower vines. After checking them out we headed down the road to the Mimsie Lanier Center for Native Plants. We returned to the Visitor Center via the road.

OBSERVATIONS:

The Purple Passionflower vines growing along the northern edge of the Children’s Garden have been nearly defoliated by Gulf Fritillary caterpillars, who have now turned their attention to the fruits for their sustenance.

Shade Garden:

Sasanqua camellia, a native of East Asia, is coming into flower in the Shade Garden. Its showy crown of golden stamens attracts quite a few pollinators, including honey bees and bumblebees.

The large leaves and red-seeded “cones” of the deciduous Big Leaf Magnolia caught our eye. The “cone” is not really a cone, but is really an “aggregate fruit” that fuses together several dozen small fruits, each bearing two red-coated seeds

Dunson Garden:

It always surprises me to find wildflowers in bloom under a dense leaf canopy, but two natives are reliably in flower in September in the Dunson Garden.

Ovate Catchfly, with its petals dissected into many narrow segments

Northern Horsebalm, a mint with lemon-fragrant and lemon-colored flowers

Deer Fence (outside Dunson Garden):

Woodland Sunflower reaching for sunlight through the deer fence along the entrance road.

Yellow Anise-tree (or Swamp Star-anise) is in the same genus as the Star Anise (Illicium verum) from southern Asia that is used as a spice in Asian cuisine. The resemblance between the fruits, even with this immature Yellow Anise, is striking

Southern Mountain-mint attracts the attention of pollinators in two ways: with the purple spots on its flowers and with uppermost leaves coated with white wax.

The fragrant flowers of Coastal Sweet Pepperbush are followed by round fruits with persistent styles

Purple Passionflower vines on the deer fence have suffered very little damage from Gulf Fritillary caterpillars compared to the vines near the Children’s Garden, possibly because the vertical setting exposes the caterpillars to greater bird predation.

Mulberry Weed (L) and Chamber-bitter(R)

Two invasive exotic weeds are established along the edges of roads throughout the Garden: Mulberry Weed with heart-shaped leaves and Chamber-bitter with mimosa-like leaves. Chamber-bitter is also known as gripeweed, shatterstone, and stonebreaker, just to convey how well loved it is (not). Both are annuals from southeast Asia and produce many seeds in the late summer, so eradication is best achieved early in the season, either by hand-pulling or application of glyphosate. Seeds of both of these plants survive in the soil for several years, so even one year of successful flowering and seed set can create a long term problem in gardens.

Blue Mist Flower, known to many as Ageratum, is a beautiful celestial blue. Even though it is in the Aster family, its flower heads lack ray flowers. Instead, the long branched styles rising from the disk flowers are showy enough to attract pollinators.

Gulf Fritillary caterpillars on passionflower vines (several photos of cats and maypops)

Road (between Dunson Garden and Mimsie Center) and Mimsie Center:

The powerline right-of-way south of the road down to the river is a sea of gold this time of year. Wingstem, Tall Goldenrod, and Rough Sunflower rule this sunny wild garden. (A few Western Camphorweed have also snuck in.)

Wingstem flower heads have a raggedy look, owing to the few, drooping ray flowers that surround the central dome of spreading disk flowers.

Buttonweed’s small white flowers look like four-pointed stars scattered along the grassy paths in the powerline right-of-way. Its small, oval “button” fruits are covered with long hairs.

The delicate but large flower/seed heads of Bigtop Love Grass are about twice as tall as those of Purple Love Grass, which blooms a little later.

Silver Plume Grass seed heads

Silver Plume Grass seed heads support Sorghum Webworm Moths. This moth is native to the New World tropics and north into Texas as far as New York.

Ragweed flower spikes preparing to torment allergy-sufferers.

Frosted Aster (Old Field Aster)

Birders have their confusing fall warblers; botanists have our confusing fall asters. This species is one of four small-headed, white-flowered asters that bloom in September and October. All four of these have spreading branches covered with a mix of many tiny and few medium-sized leaves. This species, Frosted Aster (or Old-field Aster), has about 30 white ray flowers and many red or yellow disk flowers. A close look at the leaves and stems usually reveals many minute white hairs, often dense enough to give the plant a “frosted” look. For more information on confusing fall-flowering white asters, see pages 120-121 in Linda’s wildflower book.

Blue Curls, a lovely mint family species, has long curved stamens that drop pollen on the backs of visiting bees. The distance between the anthers and the lower lip describes the size of the bees that visit these flowers.

Red Morning Glory (or Scarlet Creeper) is a native twining vine found in sunny habitats and open disturbed areas. The other red-flowered morning glory, Cypress Vine, is a native of New World tropics.

Bush Katydid on the pink flower of the Seashore-mallow, a native of beach dunes and tidal marshes that also flourishes in inland gardens.

Coral Honeysuckle flowers

Coral Honeysuckle fruits

Coral Honeysuckle usually flowers in April and May; these plants growing on a fence at the Mimsie Lanier Center got a late start.

Downy Goldenrod is one of several species of goldenrod that will be on offer at the Native Plant Sale in early October.

Joe Pye Weed inflorescences going to seed.

Winged Sumac fruits and leaves. Notice the narrow wings of leaf tissue that seem to connect the individual leaflets to one another.

Smooth Sumac leaves lack the wings that give Winged Sumac its name. The fruits of both Sumac species can be used to make a “lemonade.”

Will is standing next to a bed of a rare plant: Ruth's Golden-aster.

The Nature Ramblers were lucky to catch Will Rogers, the Garden’s plant geneticist, hard at work in his “common garden” experimental beds. Will explained how his research project is comparing a rare species, Ruth’s Golden-aster (seen in the photo near Will) with a common species, Grass-leaved Golden-aster (close-up photo), in the same genus. By studying this species pair (and another six such species pairs), his research team hopes to discover at least some of the reasons why one species is rare and the other is abundant. They are looking at the DNA of the paired species as well as conducting “common garden” experiments, a classic method used by plant ecologists to answer this question: how much of the difference between two species growing in different habitats is due to environment and how much is due to genetics? Two species that grow in different habitats are brought together into a common environment then studied to see if they retain their differences or begin to resemble each other. The traits that are measured include stem height, size and number of leaves, size and number of flowers, seed set, etc.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Purple False Foxglove	Agalinis purpurea
Angle-pod Milkvine	Gonolobus suberosus
Purple Passionflower	Passiflora incarnata
Gulf Fritillary (caterpillars)	Agraulis vanillae
Sasanqua Camellia	Camellia sasanqua
Honeybee	Apis mellifera
Bumblebee	Bombus sp.
Big Leaf Magnolia	Magnolia macrophylla
Ovate Catchfly	Silene ovata
Northern Horsebalm	Collinsonia canadensis
Woodland Sunflower	Helianthus divaricatus
Yellow Anise-tree	Illicium parviflorum
Southern Mountain-mint	Pycnanthemum pycnanthemoides
Coastal Sweet Pepperbush	Clethra alnifolia
Mulberry Weed	Fatoua villosa
Chamber-bitter	Phyllanthus urinaria
Blue Mistflower	Conoclinium coelestinum
Virginia Buttonweed	Diodia virginiana
Big-top Love Grass	Eragrostis hirsuta
Purpletop Grass	Tridens flavus
Broomsedge Bluestem	Andropogon virginicus
Stilt Bug	Family Berytidae
Yellow Crownbeard	Verbesina occidentalis
Common Wingstem	Verbesina alternifolia
White Crownbeard	Verbesina virginica
Muscadine Grape	Vitis rotundifolia
Western Camphorweed	Heterotheca latifolia
Tall Goldenrod	Solidago altissimum
Silver Plume Grass	Erianthus alopecuroides
Winged Sumax	Rhus copallinum
Smooth Sumac	Rhus glabra
Common Ragweed	Ambrosia artemisiifolia
Frosted Aster, Old-field Aster	Symphyotrichum pilosum
Georgia Aster	Symphyotrichum georgianum
Blue Curls	Trichostema dichotomum
Grand-daddy Longlegs	Order Opiliones
Appalachian Sunflower	Helianthus atrorubens
Brazilian Vervain	Verbena brasiliensis
Red Morning Glory	Ipomoea coccinea
(Scudder’s) Bush Katydid (nymph)	Scudderia sp.
Coral Honeysuckle	Lonicera sempervirens
Downy Goldenrod	Solidago petiolaris
Joe Pye Weed	Eutrochium fistulosum

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Ramble Report September 26 2019

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Ramble Report September 19 2019