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 (plants) and
Dale Hoyt (animals).
Today’s Focus:
Plants in the upper power line right of way.
31 Ramblers met today.
Announcements:
Weds., Sept. 4, at 8:30 am,
Sandy Creek Nature Center will have a Guided Walk led by naturalist Carmen
Champagne. (Note that the starting time is one half hour earlier than usual.)
After the walk there will be free coffee and Pumpkin bread from Donderos.
Friday,
September 20, 2019 at 4:00 PM Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads
Sing, will speak and answer questions at the Miller Special Collections
Library. Details
are here. (There is a price to attend; attendees
get an autographed copy of the book, according to the website.)
Thursday September 26, 3:00 PM. Memorial service
for Tom Patrick, Georgia’s State Botanist, who passed away on August 22. State
Botanical Garden of Georgia, 2450 S. Milledge Avenue, Athens GA. Potluck
refreshments following.
Today's reading:
Bob Ambrose recited one of his earlier poems inspired by the Nature Rambles, Weeds
Have Names.
Today's route:
Down the road to the White Trail, turn right, go to the power line RoW, then up
the RoW and return via the passionflower vines and the Dunson Garden.
LIST OF
OBSERVATIONS:
Road/Deer
Fence:
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| American Beautyberry fruits (click to enlarge) |
American
Beautyberry fruits are just beginning to mature. Sometimes called French
Mulberry, this beloved species is native (not French) and related to mints and
verbenas (not mulberries). The fruits are tasteless to humans but are an
important food source for birds and small mammals. The leaves have long been
used to repel mosquitoes and are being studied at the University
of Mississippi’s National Center for Natural Products Research as a
potentially marketable repellent.
White
Trail, ROW Prairie:
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| The Prairie restoration project; bluestems in the sunlight, Foxtails in the foreground. (click to enlarge) |
Prairie restoration work continues in the powerline right-of-way. Rock Spring
Restorations, an ecological restoration company from Atlanta, has made several
applications of a grass-specific herbicide to remove the non-native grasses
(mainly Bermuda and fescue) and followed that with seeding and mulching with
Broom-sedge, a native bluestem grass, and Little Bluestem Grass. Meanwhile, a number of native warm-season
grasses have seeded in and are in bloom.
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Big-top Love Grass flower clusters are just beginning to emerge from their sheaths. (click to enlarge) |
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Perennial Foxtail Grass is one of three native Foxtail grasses in Georgia; the other two occur in the Coastal Plain only.(click to enlarge) |
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| Purpletop Grass (AKA Greasey Grass) (click to enlarge) |
Purpletop Grass is easily identified this time of
year along roadsides–the purple flower clusters with their delicate drooping
branches are quite distinctive. Don’s wonderful macro shot of the flowers
reveals the source of the color: dark
red spikes of florets that open to reveal brushy, pollen-catching purple
stigmas. The pollen-producing anthers dangle nearby on thread-like stalks; they
mature later than the stigmas to reduce the odds of self-pollination. Grasses
are wind-pollinated and mostly self-incompatible, meaning that they require
cross-pollination to set viable seed. Of the vast quantity of pollen that
grasses release into the air in late summer and early fall, only pollen of the
same species but from a different plant will result in pollination,
fertilization, and viable seed.
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| Beaked Panic Grass flowers (click to enlarge) |
Beaked Panic Grass is in flower and Don’s photo
raises this common grass to the level of orchids or lilies as far as flower beauty
is concerned. The pink, brush-like structures are the stigmas, ready and
waiting to comb pollen from the air. Only pollen from the same species but from
a different plant (i.e. cross-pollination) will produce viable seed. The dark
purple anthers are waiting to open and shed their pollen. The staggered timing
of maturity of stigmas and stamens reduces the likelihood of self-pollination.
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The shrubby Red Buckeye, mid-ROW, is heavy with fruits now. The one we sliced open had only one seed; most buckeye fruits have 2-3 seeds. (click to enlarge) |
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| Sweet Autumn Clematis (click to enlarge) |
Sweet Autumn Clematis, in full
flower, is clambering over shrubs and trees along the White Trail. This
invasive, non-native plant grows in uplands and has smooth leaflet margins. Our
native, look-alike clematis, Virgin’s Bower, is usually found in floodplains
and bottomlands and has toothed leaflets. The flowers of these two species are
almost identical.
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| Spotted Beebalm is a bee magnet. (click to enlarge) |
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Tooth-leaved Croton–a non-native weed from American tropics. (click to enlarge) |
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| Anchor Bug (click to enlarge) |
The Anchor Bug fooled us. At first
glance it looks like a beetle. But, if you have a hand lens, you can clearly
see that it lacks a pair of tough wing covers, typical of beetles. Instead, an
enlarged, triangular structure covers most of the back. This structure is the
scutellum, a characteristic of true bugs, and, in other bugs, it is not nearly
as large. The base of the wings can be seen peeking out on either side of the
scutellum. The clinching feature is the piercing, sucking mouth parts, also a
defining feature of true bugs. (Beetles have chewing mouthparts.)
The Anchor Bug is highly variable in coloration and pattern, ranging from
an entirely black insect with red spots to the kind we saw today, white with
black markings.
It is a type of predatory stink bug and feeds on caterpillars but also on
the larval stages of many beetles that are injurious to crops.
For more information about the Anchor Bug consult this “Featured
Creature” from the University of Florida.
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| Dog Fennel (click to enlarge) |
Dog Fennel, a weedy native of frequently disturbed soils, is one of the
species mentioned in Bob Ambrose’s poem "Weeds Have Names," that he
recited for us this morning. For Ramblers who grew up in the eastern U.S., the
strong smell of this plant’s crushed leaves may evoke powerful childhood
memories of playing in the woods and fields. I wonder if anyone has ever tested
its leaves for insect-repellent compounds?
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White Crownbeard seems to be having a bumper year this summer in the Nash Prairie.(click to enlarge) |
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Black form (melanistic) female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, on White Crownbeard(click to enlarge) |
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Black form (melanistic) female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, on Mexican Sunflower in the Children's Garden.(click to enlarge) |
We found two examples of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio
glaucus, one visiting the White Crownbeard on the upper part of the
powerline RoW and the other nectaring on Mexican Sunflower in the Children’s
Garden. “But”, I hear you say, “aren’t Tiger Swallowtails yellow with black
stipes? These are very dark, almost completely black.” Male Tiger Swallowtails
are the iconic yellow and black, but there are two forms of females: yellow and
black, just like the males, and a dark form in which the areas that are yellow
in the male are very dark brown. The black stripes are caused by granules of a
pigment called “melanin.” It is the same pigment that produces the browning of
your skin when exposed to sunlight, i.e., tanning. The more concentrated the
melanin granules the darker the area. In the dark form female Tiger
Swallowtails the areas that would normally be yellow have lots of melanin
granules, making them almost as dark as the black stripes. You have to get
close to the butterfly, or have it back lit by the sun, to see the faint darker
stripes and the somewhat lighter areas between them on the wings.
Why are some of the females dark colored? It’s an interesting story. This
is the short version:
The dark form mimics another swallowtail butterfly, the Pipevine
Swallowtail, which is distasteful. In areas where the Pipevine Swallowtail is
abundant, the dark form tiger is also more common. In the southern Appalachians,
where the Pipevine Swallowtail is very common, as many as 90% of the tiger
females are dark form. In areas where the Pipevine Swallowtail is less common,
so is the dark form tiger. In areas where there are no Pipevine Swallowtails
all the Tiger Swallowtails are yellow and black. By resembling a distasteful
species the dark form has an advantage over the yellow and black form -- predators learn to avoid dark butterflies with blue colored hind wings.The Tiger Swallowtail female piggy-backs on the toxic Pipevine Swallowtails reputation.
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| Torpid male Carpenter Bee (click to enlarge) |
Slightly torpid Carpenter Bee, on White Crownbeard
A torpid male Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa
virginica, was found on the stem of a White Crownbeard. How do we know it’s
a male? The white mark on its face, just below the eyes. Bees sometimes get
caught away from shelter when the temperature drops and they can no longer fly.
They have to wait for the temperature to rise or the sun to warm them until
they reach flight temperature.
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Flowering Spurge–those white “petals”? They’re actually appendages on tiny glands that ooze nectar. The flowers themselves consist of only the basics–pistil and stamen–and leave the heavy lifting of pollinator attraction to the glands.(click to enlarge) |
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Green Lynx Spider(click to enlarge) |
Also found on White Crownbeard is a Green Lynx Spider. This spider is a predator. It sits and waits for potential prey to unwittingly land nearby and then quickly bites them, injecting a paralyzing venom with its fangs. In the fall of the year the lynx spiders will be making egg sacs and they defend them from attack by actually spitting venom from their fangs. A droplet of venom can be propelled a distance of about 10 inches. This is highly unusual for a spider to spit venom; very few species do so.
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| Funnelweb Spider's web (click to enlarge) |
We usually don’t see a Funnelweb Spider, just its
web. The web is a sheet of dense silk threads that tapers to funnel-like
retreat at one side. Inside the retreat the spider sits, waiting for an insect
to walk on the web. The web is not sticky; the many strands of silk carry
vibrations to the retreat indicating to the spider the location and size of the
possible prey. The spider rushes out and rapidly bites its victim, injecting a
paralyzing venom. The immobilized prey is carried back to the retreat where it
is consumed.
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| Sensitive Brier (click to enlarge) |
Sensitive Briar sprawls across the ground, fending off herbivores with
the stout, curved prickles that line its stems. Its “sensitive” leaflets fold
up when touched to discourage herbivores too. The flower heads (“pompoms”)
consist of dozens of flowers that lack petals but lure in pollinators with their
bright pink stamen filaments.
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| Shed exoskeleton of a Katydid nymph. (click to enlarge) |
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| Japanese Parasol Mushroom (click to enlarge) |
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Yellow Star Grass(click to enlarge) |
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| Rabbit Tobacco (click to enlarge) |
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| Nodding Ladies' Tresses (click to enlarge) |
Nodding Ladies’ Tresses orchid–like many orchids, Ladies’ Tresses come
and go, sometimes lying dormant for years between flowering events. Don last photographed
this species in the Nash Prairie in 2014. There are about 15 species of Ladies’
Tresses in Georgia–this one can be fairly well identified by a combination of these
traits: it flowers in the fall with no leaves visible, its flower is a bit
droopy (or nodding) and is pure white (no green splotches), and there are often
unopened buds mixed in with open flowers (these self-pollinate).
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| Gulf Fritillary chrysalis (pupal stage) (click to enlarge) |
Gulf Fritillary butterflies are not as common this year as they have been in the past. In a typical year the passionflower vines, their host plant, would be severely eaten by late summer, but the vines on the deer fencing at the bottom of the Dunson Garden show little evidence of being eaten so far this year. We found a few small caterpillars and one chrysalis. The chrysalis was in the Nash Prairie at the edge of the path, a considerable distance from the deer fence and probably did not come from there. When a caterpillar is ready to pupate it usually leaves its host plant and searches for a suitable location. This may take it some distance away from the host plant, but normally it will travel nly a tens of feet before it forms a chrysalis. It is unlikely to walked the distance from the deer fence to the powerline RoW. I suspect that there are some passionvines hidden among the grasses on the hillside.
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| Lined Orbweaver (click to enlarge) |
Dunson Garden Deer Fence:
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| Gulf Fritillary caterpillar on Passion Flower tendril. (click to enlarge) |
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Smooth Spiderwort with Carolina Anole and syrphid fly (the fly is hovering to the right of the flower.(click to enlarge) |
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| Surprise or Hurricane Lilies (click to enlarge) |
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| Big Leaf Magnolia (click to enlarge) |
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| Cardinal Flower (photo compliments of Alan Cressler) (click to enlarge) |
American Beautyberry
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Callicarpa americana
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Bluestem grasses
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Andropogon virginicus
Schizachyrium scoparium |
Love Grass
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Eragrostis sp.
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Small-flowered Foxtail Grass
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Setaria parviflorum
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Red Buckeye
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Aesculus pavia
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Sweet Autumn Clematis
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Clematis terniflora
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Purpletop Grass
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Tridens flavus curpreus
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Spotted Beebalm
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Monarda punctata
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Tooth-leaved Croton
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Croton glandulosus
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Anchor Bug
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Stiretrus anchorago
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White Crownbeard
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Verbesina virginica
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Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
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Papilio glaucus
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Carpenter Bee
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Xylocopa virginica
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Beaked Pancgrass
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Panicum anceps
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Dog Fennel
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Eupatorium capillifolium
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Flowering Spurge
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Euphorbia corollata
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Green Lynx Spider
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Peucetia viridans
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Funnelweb Spider
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Araneae: Agelenidae
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Sensitive Brier
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Mimosa microphylla
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Bitterweed
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Helenium amarum
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Japanese Umbrella Mushroom
/Pleated Inkcap |
Parasola plicatilis
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Yellow Star Grass
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Hypoxis hirsuta
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Elephant’s Foot
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Elephantopus tomentosus
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Daisy Fleabane
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Erigeron sp.
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Rabbit Tobacco
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Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium
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Nodding Ladies Tresses
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Spiranthes cernua
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Gulf Fritillary
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Agraulis vanillae
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Lined Orbweaver
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Mangora gibberosa
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Purple Passionflower
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Passiflora incarnata
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Cedar Waxwings
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Bombycilla cedorum
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Hurricane Lily
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Lycoris sp.
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Big Leaf Magnolia
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Magnolia macrophylla
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Green Anole
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Anolis carolinensis
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Syrphid Fly
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Diptera: Syrphidae
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Mexican Sunflower
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Tithonia rotundifolia
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