Ramble Report November 18 2021

Leader for today's Ramble: Dale 

All the photos in this report are compliments of Don Hunter, unless otherwise attributed. Here's the Link to Don's Facebook album for this Ramble

Number of Ramblers today:  40
Today's emphasis:  Seeking what we find on the Orange Trail and Orange Trail Spur
Reading:  Omitted due to time constraints

Show and Tell:

Kathy holding her Seminole pumpkin.

"       Kathy Stege brought a Seminole pumpkin, purported to have originated in Florida.  The Seminoles traded with the Creeks and Cherokees and the Seminole pumpkin found its way into Georgia. The flesh has a sweet taste and the seeds can be  roasted to make pepitas.  She also passed out seed packets to those that wanted them.

Richard's Climbing Milkweed seed pod.
The seds are black;
the white fluff the parachutes that allow the wind to carry the seeds away.

"       Richard brought a Climbing Milkweed seed pod.  The pod had split open and the seeds, with their silky white "parachutes," looked just like ordinary milkweed seedpods, except they had wing-like ridges that give it an alternative common name: Eastern Anglepod.

Germinating White Oak acorn
The white and brown structure is the first root.

"       Dale brought a plastic cup with sprouting White Oak acorns. The acorns had germinated three weeks ago and the rootlet was already about 2 ½ inches long.
"       Jim told us about his experience with a Blue Jay he saw with an acorn. It landed nearby and Jim watched carefully as the jay buried the acorn in the leaf litter. Jim waited until the jay flew off and then walked over to the spot where the acorn was buried. But he couldn't find it, no matter how he searched.
"       This prompted Dale to recall a study about Blue Jay seed storage behavior. When a jay with an acorn is being observed by another jay, it will perform a "sham burial" and then fly off with the acorn to another location where it can bury the acorn without being observed.
"       Richard told us that among indigenous peoples, white oak acorns were the most prized for eating.   He also quoted an ancient Roman aphorism.  

Announcements

Don told us about the partial, but nearly total,  eclipse of the moon beginning at 1:00 a.m., November 19, and reaching its maximal extent about 4:00 a.m.
 

Dr. Sher Ali's book is available for a contribution to the Al Huda Islamic Center of Athens.

Eve is leaving us.
Bon Voyage!

Eve, a regular Rambler over the last several years, announced that she is leaving Athens and moving to Hilton Head, SC. 

 

Today's Route:   We left the Pergola and headed towards the Heritage Garden using the sidewalk between the new museum and the Visitor Center.  We made our way to the Orange Trail Spur by taking the path between the Rose beds and the Flower Garden.  We took the Orange Trail Spur down to the Orange Trail.  After crossing the Bridge we turned left and took the Orange Trail up to the parking lot where we mingled a bit before breaking off the Ramble for the morning.

OBSERVATIONS:

Witch Hazel

 

Witch Hazel flowering

Witch Hazel flower clusters

Witch-hazel is now in glorious bloom near the entrance to the Children’s Garden. Each flower has four strap-shaped yellow petals. The flowers are open from fall through December and they produce nectar and sticky pollen, suggesting that they are expecting to be pollinated by insects.  But what insects? Here in the south we have warm days during November and December, but most insects have retired for the winter or are deceased. In the north, well you know what that is like. Bernd Heinrich, in his book, Winter World, suggests as pollinators a group of moths called winter moths. They emerge in winter and have the ability to raise their body temperature by shivering their flight muscles. This permits them to fly when it is too cold for other insects.

Visit this website for a wonderful photo essay that illustrates most of what is known about Witch Hazel.

Sourwood

Sourwood tree (right center) with rosy-pink foliage.
On the right, a Rambler leans against a Northern Red Oak trunk.

 

Sourwood and Black Gum lead the fall tree color change in our area. Sourwood can be identified by its twisty trunk that seems to have been bent in several different directions. You'll also find the leaves have a sour taste, as confirmed by Karen Porter today. The bark becomes more deeply furrowed with age.

The leaves are about twice as long as wide.

 

Looking toward the top of the tree you can see the remains of the flower stalks. They look like Lily of the Valley, without the blossoms.

Sourwood seed pods, all that is left of the flower stalk.

Chalk Maple

Chalk Maple leaf

One way to identify Chalk Maple is the shape of the central lobe. The lobe's base is wider than the rest of the lobe, moving toward the tip. The tree also usually has multiple stems (trunks).

Hook Moss growing on Chalk Maple.
It also grows on Musclewood.

 

Pear-shaped Puffball

Pear-shaped Puffballs

 Most puffballs are found growing on grassy soils, but these Pear-shaped Puffballs are associated with decaying wood, suggesting that they have a role in rotting it. As the puffball ages the interior transforms into a mass of spores while the exterior thins and becomes flexible. An opening appears at the top and the puffball is ready to puff. A tap from a human finger, or a falling rain drop will cause a cloud of thousands of spore to be "puffed" out and carried away by the gentlest of breezes. The luckiest will land on a piece of dead wood and germinate, forming a mycelium that digests (rots) the wood.

Oyster mushroom

Oyster mushroom is another wood rotter that is a favorite edible mushroom. It can be grown at home on a bag of sawdust. Google "growing oyster mushrooms at home" and you'll find a wealth of information.

Round-lobed Hepatica

Round-lobed Hepatica. We always stop at the bridge that goes over the Orange Trail creek to the Flower Garden to check on the Hepatica that grows nest to the west end of the bridge. The original leader of the Nature Ramblers, Hugh Nourse, always checked on this plant to see when it first bloomed. The Nourses moved to St. Louis five years ago and are greatly missed. We've informally named this plant "Hughpatica" in his honor.
Although Hepatica is often called a spring ephemeral it really isn't ephemeral. A true spring ephemeral appears in spring, flowers, sets and disperses seed, and then the above ground parts wither and die, leaving only the below ground storage organs, the corms, bulbs, rhizomes, etc. There is no evidence of the plant above ground until the following spring.

Wild Ginger

Wild Ginger, like Hepatica, produces new leaves in fall, taking advantage of the open canopy during the winter. It doesn't bloom as early as Hepatica, which is known to bloom in early January here in the garden. Wild Ginger blooms later in spring, from April to May.

Wild Ginger is a member of the birthwort family, Aristolochaceae. Like other birthworts, it contains aristolochic acid, a poisonous compound. This poison is acquired by the caterpillars of the Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly. The poison is passed from the caterpillar to the butterfly, making it distasteful to predators. Some botanical sources list Wild Ginger as a food plant for the Pipevine Swallowtail, but the butterfly literature doesn't support this claim. Next spring we should be on the lookout for caterpillars to see who's correct.


 

 

False Turkey Tail

False Turkey Tail is a common wood rotting mushroom found on most of the downed wood that we see in the garden. It can be distinguished from the "true" Turkey Tail mushroom by having pores on its undersurface. Turkey Tail mushrooms appear to have a smooth undersurface.

Bulbous Honey Fungus

 

Multicolor Gill Polypore, upper surface

Multicolor Gill Polypore, lower surface, showing gills.

Multicolor Gill Polypore seems like an oxymoron. How can a polypore have gills? It seems that modern DNA evidence shows that this fungus is closely related to the polypore mushrooms and not the gilled mushrooms.

Aborted Entoloma
(AKA Shrimp-of-the-Woods)

Aborted Entoloma is a mushroom that can be either a wood rotter or a parasite of other mushrooms, commonly on Honey mushrooms, Armillaria sp. But there is a twist. The armillaria mushrooms can parasitize living trees, thus making the entoloma a predator of a parassite. The following two links present some of the evidence that led to the discovery of this parasitic relationship.
https://www.mushroomexpert.com/entoloma_abortivum.html
https://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/sep2006.html

Gall of Wool-bearing Gall Wasp
(on White Oak leaf)

Wool-bearing Gall Wasp. Tom Shelton found the gall of a Wool-bearing Gall Wasp on the undersurface of a fallen White Oak leaf. The spherical gall was attached to the leaf mid vein and was about ¼ inch in diameter and had a fuzzy, light brown texture and color. This gall is caused by a tiny wasp in the family Cynipidae. The female cynipid wasp is very tiny and inserts an egg into the plant tissue, usually in a species-specific location. When the egg hatches the larva begins to feed on the plant tissues and the plant reacts to this disturbance by producing the gall - an abnormal growth of plant tissue. The mystery is that most galls are species specific in appearence - the same wasp species produces the same shape, texture and color gall on all trees of the same species. How this occurs is unknown. Meanwhile, the larva feeds on the gall tissue and grows, molting its exoskeleton several times. Finally it pupates inside the gall and, in the following spring, the new wasp emerges from its pupa and chews its way out of the gall, seeks a mate and the cycle is repeated.

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

American Witch-hazel            Hamamelis virginiana
Paper Bush                            Edgeworthia sp.
Pineapple Sage                     Salvia elegans
Sourwood Tree                      Oxydendrum arboretum
American Beech                    Fagus grandifolia
Beech Drops                          Epifagus virginiana
Chalk Maple                           Acer leucoderme
Hook Moss                             Leucodon sp.
Pear-shaped Puffball             Apioperdon pyriforme
Oyster Mushroom                  Pleurotus ostreatus

Wild Ginger                            Asarum canadense
Round-lobed Hepatica           Anemone americana
                                               (=  Hepatica americana)
Golden Reishi                        Ganoderma curtisii
Globose Button Snail (?)        Mesomphix globosus
Broad Beech Fern                  Phegopteris hexagonoptera
False Turkey Tail                    Stereum lobatum
Honey Mushroom                   Armillaria gallica
Multicolor Gill Polypore          Trametes betulina
Aborted Entoloma                  Entoloma abortivum 

Shrimp-of-the-woods             
Wool-bearing Gall wasp        Andricus quercuslanigera