Leader for today's Ramble: Linda
Link to Don's Facebook album for this Ramble. All the photos in this post are compliments of Don Hunter, unless otherwise credited.
Link to Don's Facebook album for this Ramble. All the photos in this post are compliments of Don Hunter, unless otherwise credited.
Number of Ramblers today: 30
Today's emphasis: Learning to identify grasses
Reading:
Linda read the entry for September 23 from An Almanac for Moderns, by Donald Culross Peattie:
Today's emphasis: Learning to identify grasses
Reading:
Linda read the entry for September 23 from An Almanac for Moderns, by Donald Culross Peattie:
How much of any landscape is due to the grasses is a quality in scenery that the best descriptions rarely admit. Orchard grass lends to any land that it inhabits something ample and light and gay. To the marshes the reed, Phragmites, gives long slant rainy-looking lines, and from their grasses the pampas and the steppes must surely take full half of their contour.
It is in autumn that the grasses hereabout come forth in their full beauty; they fill the meadows like some fluid till they are become wind-swirled living lakes. But above all they give the meadow scene its dominant color. There is not one of our sterile upland fields or abandoned farms where the beard grass, Andropogon, does not show its soft terra-cotta sheaths, its glaucous blue stems, and woolly gray puffs of downy seed half bursting from the spike. The misnamed redtop troops across the fields, its purplish stems standing rank to rank, the panicles turning a dull gold as the seeds fall, reflecting the mild sunlight of hazy Indian summer mornings. In the woods and old fields the Indian grass has begun to bloom-as enchanting as any flower that, can boast calyx and corolla, with its golden brown spikelets, its dangling orange anthers, the whole plant turning to a sun-burnished bronze in its old age.
It is in autumn that the grasses hereabout come forth in their full beauty; they fill the meadows like some fluid till they are become wind-swirled living lakes. But above all they give the meadow scene its dominant color. There is not one of our sterile upland fields or abandoned farms where the beard grass, Andropogon, does not show its soft terra-cotta sheaths, its glaucous blue stems, and woolly gray puffs of downy seed half bursting from the spike. The misnamed redtop troops across the fields, its purplish stems standing rank to rank, the panicles turning a dull gold as the seeds fall, reflecting the mild sunlight of hazy Indian summer mornings. In the woods and old fields the Indian grass has begun to bloom-as enchanting as any flower that, can boast calyx and corolla, with its golden brown spikelets, its dangling orange anthers, the whole plant turning to a sun-burnished bronze in its old age.
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| Sandra and her sisters made a surprise appearencel |
Special Visitors: Sandra Hoffberg, a former Nature Rambler who is a post-doctoral researcher at Columbia University, paid us a surprise visit this morning. Sandra received her Ph.D. from UGA in 2017, studying invasive species like Wisteria and Kudzu. She continues to work on invasive plants, this time on amaranths, at Columbia. Her last Ramble with us was on July 20, 2017, so we were surprised and delighted to see her today.
Show and Tell:
Halley brought some "first of season" Georgia Asters from her yard
Today's Route: We left the arbor and headed into the Lower Shade Garden via the sidewalk nearest to the Visitor Center. We exited the Shade Garden and headed up the White Trail Spur connecting the paved road and the ROW. We worked our way up the ROW via the two-rut road for a bit then turned around and headed all the way down the ROW to the paved road. Once we were at the road, we took a left and headed back to the Visitor Center via the road, stopping briefly at the Passionflower vines on the Dunson Garden deer fence.
OBSERVATIONS:
Arbor:
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| The first of Halley's Georgia Asters to bloom this year. |
Halley brought some "first of season" Georgia Asters from her yard
Today's Route: We left the arbor and headed into the Lower Shade Garden via the sidewalk nearest to the Visitor Center. We exited the Shade Garden and headed up the White Trail Spur connecting the paved road and the ROW. We worked our way up the ROW via the two-rut road for a bit then turned around and headed all the way down the ROW to the paved road. Once we were at the road, we took a left and headed back to the Visitor Center via the road, stopping briefly at the Passionflower vines on the Dunson Garden deer fence.
OBSERVATIONS:
Arbor:
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| This Joro on its web is illuminated to show the arrangement of the capture threads. |
Don is trying to understand how the Joro webs are built. Here's what he thinks, so far:
- First, a wide, square or rectilinear based grid of silk threads is laid down. It is on this silk framework that the sticky capture thread is attached. As the spider walks across the framwork she keeps a constant distance from the center of the web so the capture thread is laid in a circle, or would be, if the spider completly walked around the web.
- Insterd, she only walks about 3/4 of the way and then reverses her path but lays the silk a short distance outside the first line she just finished producing.
- She continues this pattern, reversing her direction four or five times, after which she begins to lay another set of silk threads, but starting just a little fit further outside the previous group. (Look at the photo above and pick one thread. Follow it and you will find where she doubled back on her path. You may be able to find more reversals or other variations in the silk patterns.
- In many of the webs, the upper quarter lacks capture threads due to the spider reversing her direction.
- In addition to the two dimensional capture orb there are chaoticly organized, three-dimensional strands of silk that surround the area within which the orb is located. Don say's he doesn't yet know how and/or when these messy strands of silk fit into the construction of the capture web proper.
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| Heather found a tiny Keeled Treehopper on goldenrod. |
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| You can barely see the spindly legs of this Daddy Long Legs hiding in the Rattlesnake Master seed heads. |
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| Yellow Garden Spider waiting on its web for an insect to blunder into the web. The dense, white zig-zag is the stabilimentum. |
Lower Shade Garden:
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| Just before leaving the Lower Shade Garden, Halley pointed out a single Jackson's Slender Caesar mushroom, an amanita, popping out of the duff. |
White Trail Spur (paved road to ROW):
Linda wrote at beginner's guide to identifying grasses for Tipularia-Journal of the Georgia Botanical Society in 2014. It's available for downloading as a pdf file here.
With that guide in hand this report will not repeat all the things Linda told us about grasses today. Grasses not mentioned in the article are shown and discussed below.
Linda wrote at beginner's guide to identifying grasses for Tipularia-Journal of the Georgia Botanical Society in 2014. It's available for downloading as a pdf file here.
With that guide in hand this report will not repeat all the things Linda told us about grasses today. Grasses not mentioned in the article are shown and discussed below.
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| Bowl and Doily spider web made visible by dew. |
Because of the heavy dew this morning, spider webs were especially prominent.
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| Big Top Love Grass |
Big Top Love Grass and its close relative Purple Love Grass are especially noticeable on dewy mornings.
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| Eastern Fork-tailed Damselfly, chilled and hanging from Purple Top Grass seeds. (Damselflies don't eat seeds; they eat other flying insects.) |
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| An immature insect on Purple Top Grass seeds. |
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| Northern Yellow Sac Spider ?? |
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| Split-beard Bluestem |
Split-beard Bluestem stems are red and the leaf sheaths are blue-green, creating a two-tone barber-pole effect.
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| Split-beard Bluestem with "split" seed head |
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| Rabbit Tobacco |
Rabbit Tobacco is scattered over much of the ROW. The flower heads are barely open even at maturity.
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| Horseweed |
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| Horseweed stem and leaves |
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| Horseweed flowers |
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| Horseweed flower heads as open as they will ever be. |
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| Beaked Panicgrass with its pointed ("beaked") seed heads |
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| Saw Greenbrier is common in open sunny areas. |
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| Grasshopper with "Summit disease" |
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| Infected grasshopper closeup The white encrustations are fungal spore-producing structures. |
Heather found two examples from a grasshopper horror movie. The grasshoppers were dead but clinging tightly to the stems of grasses, head upward, as if the they had been trying to reach the top. This is the symptom of "summit disease," in which grasshoppers infected by a fungus (Entomophaga grylii) climb up a grass stem or other vertical vegetation and die, tightly gripping the stem. The fungus emerges through the thin cuticle between the body segments and leg joints, dispersing its spores. Visit this website for more details.
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| Blue Mistflower in the Nash Prairie |
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| A low hairy ligule and patch of long hairs mark the transition from the leaf blade to leaf sheath of Silver Plume Grass |
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| Stand of Silver Plume Grass at the edge of the woods.. |
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| Mature Thimbleweed seed head in the Nash Prairie |
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| Decomposing Thimbleweed leaves |
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| Maturing Thimbleweed seed pods |
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| Brilliant Jumping Spider hunting on Rabbit Tobacco |
" Linda….share the wire grass story… I missed most of it.
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| Dog Fennel; a natural bug repellent?! |
Roger, who grew up in south Georgia, told that when he was working outside he would grab a handful of Dog Fennel and put it behind his ears as a bug repellent.
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| Clasping Aster in the Nash Prairie |
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| Maryland Goldenaster in the Nash Prairie |
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| Yellow Indian Grass in the restored prairie |
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| Coral Bead twining on Dog Fennel |
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| Blazing Star in the Nash Prairie |
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| Lined Orbweaver? |
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| Hibiscus Scentless Plant Bug nymph |
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
Joro Spider Trichonephila clavata
Spinyback Orbweaver Gasteracantha cancriformis
Keeled Treehopper Entylia carinata
Goldenrod Solidago sp.
Daddy Longlegs/Harvestmen Arachnida: Opiliones
Rattlesnake Master Eryngium yuccifolium
Yellow Garden Spider Argiope aurantia
Jackson's Slender Caesar mushroom Amanita jacksonii
River Oats Chasmanthium latifolium
Bowl and Doily spider Frontinella pyramitela
Big Top Lovegrass Eragrostis hirsuta
Purple Top Grass/Grease Grass Tridens flavus
Eastern Forktail damselfly Ischnura verticalis
Northern Yellow Sac Spider (tentative) Cheiracanthium mildei ?
Splitbeard Bluestem grass Andropogon ternarius
Rabbit Tobacco Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium
Horseweed Conyza canadensis
Beaked Panicgrass Panicum anceps
Saw Greenbrier Smilax bona-nox
Grasshopper (no ID) Order Orthoptera
Blue Mistflower Conoclinium coelestinum
Silver Plume Grass Saccharum alopecuroides
Thimbleweed Anemone virginiana
Brilliant Jumping Spider Phidippus clarus
Dog Fennel Eupatorium capillifolium
Maryland Goldenaster Chrysopsis mariana
Clasping Aster Symphyotrichum patens
Purple Fountain Grass Pennisetum setaceum rubrum
Fescue Festuca sp.
Yellow Indian Grass Sorghastrum nutans
Carolina Moonseed AKA Coral Bead Vine Cocculus carolinus
Dense Blazing Star Liatris spicata
Lined Orbweaver Mangora gibberosa
Passionflower Vine Passiflora incarnata
Hibiscus Scentless Plant Bug Niesthrea louisianica
