Ramble Report October 13, 2022

 

Leader for today's Ramble: Linda

Authors of today’s Ramble report: Linda, Bill, and Don. Comments, edits, and suggestions for the report can be sent to Linda at Lchafin@uga.edu.

Gall, fungi, and animal identifications: Bill Sheehan, Don Hunter, Heather Larkin

Link to Don’s Facebook album for this Ramble. All the photos that appear in this report, unless otherwise credited, were taken by Don Hunter. Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Number of Ramblers today: 10

Today's emphasis: Seeking what we find on the Orange and Purple Trails

Reading: “Fall” by Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019)

the black oaks fling
their bronze fruit
into all the pockets of the earth
pock pock

they knock against the thresholds
the roof the sidewalk
fill the eaves
the bottom line

of the old gold song
of the almost finished year
what is spring all that tender
green stuff

compared to this
falling of tiny oak trees
out of the oak trees
then the clouds

gathering thick along the west
then advancing
then closing over
breaking open

the silence
then the rain
dashing its silver seeds
against the house

Announcements:  Linda reminded us that the UGarden has resumed their Thursday afternoon organic vegetable sales, 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Turn off South Milledge at the next driveway south of the Garden’s entrance.

Today's Route:  After convening this morning in the upper parking lot, we headed down the Orange Trail and took the boardwalk across the beaver marsh, then turned uphill on the Purple Trail and returned by way of the new garden behind the Porcelain Museum.

OBSERVATIONS:

We headed down the wet and slippery Orange Trail under cloudy skies.

Aborted Entoloma mushrooms
(left photo by Don Hunter, right photo by Bill Sheehan)

Crossing the foot bridge at the head of the ravine, we noticed several Aborted Entoloma mushrooms growing out of the soil beneath a downed and rotting Northern Red Oak. These are also known as Shrimp-of-the-Woods and are choice edible mushrooms. Bill writes: “For over a hundred years, it was believed that the lumpy masses of tissue represented an ‘aborted’ form of the Entoloma – like a mushroom that never happened – as the species name suggests. In the seventies, however, mycologists suggested that the masses of tissue might result from parasitizing action on the part of the mycelium of Honey Fungus (Armillaria mellea). But more recent research has turned this idea on its head, suggesting that Entoloma is the parasite, and Honey Fungus the victim!"

Japanese Lady Fern frond (left, photo by Don Hunter)
and distinctive sori on lower surface of frond (right, photo by Connie Gray)
This invasive species is established below the first foot bridge on the
Orange Trail; Gary has targeted it for removal.

Curtis’s Goldenrod (aka Mountain Decumbent Goldenrod)
It is one of only a few Georgia goldenrods to hold its flower heads in small clusters at the leaf axils. 

Globular Root galls on a White Oak sapling stem (right) and the Cynipid Wasp adult inside (photos by Bill Sheehan)

Globular Root galls look like ripe Muscadine fruits but are actually one of the many galls we see on oaks in the Piedmont. They are caused by female Cynipid Wasps injecting their eggs into stem tissue.When the egg hatches and the larva begins to develop, it secretes chemicals that cause the plant tissue to form a gall around the larva, providing protection and food for the larva while it matures into an adult. We dissected several galls, and Bill found an intact and living adult Cynipid Wasp in one gall. Bill reports that “Cynipid Gall Wasps emerge as adults in late October and early November, according to gallformers.org. The original description notes that these galls are found on roots or slightly above the ground, but these were 1-3 feet above the ground, as is often the case, judging from 177 observations on iNaturalist. Globular Root Gall is an alternate-generation gall, with a sexual generation of both males and females alternating with an asexual generation of only females. The different generations usually look different and sometimes use different plant species or plant parts.”

White Turtlehead in flower beside the upper stretch of the creek
along the Orange Trail

Moving down the trail, we were completely surprised to find a lushly flowering White Turtlehead growing beside the trail just below the foot bridge. This is pretty far upstream of the large population in the marsh, described below.

(Left photo) Tiny, brown Neuroterus gall in the upper half of the circled area; white leaf miner cocoon in the lower half of the circle on the skeletonized leaf tissue. This leaf mine is of the "blotch" type rather than the winding trail type.
(Right photo) Close-up of the leaf miner cocoon and the upper leaf epidermis left after the larva ate the inner leaf tissue.
Photos by Bill Sheehan

Bill reports: “Someone picked up a White Oak leaf from the ground, and I noticed traces of two of my tiny friends: a micro-moth cocoon and a tiny gall wasp gall. The white ribbed cocoon is probably that of a leaf-mining moth like the ones that have been so abundant this year on White Oaks, and was probably responsible for skeletonizing this leaf. The little brown gall is one I have seen a lot of this year. The gall in this photo is empty; there was an exit hole on the top side of the leaf. It belongs to the genus Neuroterus in the gall wasp family Cynipidae. Cynipid Gall Wasps are highly diverse on oaks, with more than 1000 described species. They are fascinating both in the diversity of gall shapes, as well as in the fact that, like the Globular Root Gall, most species alternate between a sexual generation (with males and females) and an asexual generation (with only females).

Once you train your eye to look for these things, they're easy to spot. They only look small to us if we're used to looking at flowers and big bugs. It's interesting to contemplate that these two critters are in fact giants in relation to other organisms and lifeforms living on and in the leaf. There are even smaller wasps, called fairyflies, that could fly through the eye of a needle; and I see teeny mites crawling around the leaves I collect. And of course you've got fungi and other microorganisms living inside the leaf!”

 

Native ferns are abundant along this section of the Orange Trail

Broad Beech Ferns aka “Fox Head Fern” to Nature Ramblers

Christmas Fern

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar clinging to the mossy bark of a Musclewood tree. Those amazing false eyespots are on the thorax. The real eyes are on the head of the caterpillar which is small and tucked up under the thorax.

In spite of weeks of drought, a diversity of fungi are flourishing along this ravine.

Coral Tooth Fungus
photo by Linda Chafin

Silky Parchment Fungus: upper surface (left) and
smooth lower pore surface, with coffee-and-cream-colored bands (right)

Two flushes of a False Turkey Tail species,
same species with two different color patterns

Thin-walled Maze Polypore - upper surface (left), lower surface (right)
photos by Bill Sheehan

Gilled Polypore fungus. This is one of the relatively few
species of polypore fungi with gills.

Following the trail along the creek, we entered the “Hepatica Zone” where we saw the first of many Round-lobed Hepatica that grow in this area.

Hepatica leaves overwinter, using the sunlight that shines through the leafless winter canopy to produce and store the carbohydrates that fuel their early bloom. Soon after the  plants  flower, these leaves will turn maroon, then wither and be replaced by a new set. Two of the original Nature Ramble leaders, Hugh and Carol Nourse, would always go on “Hepatica watch” in late December, trying to catch the first flowers of the new season. They reported the first blooms as early as December 28 one year and always said you could reliably start looking for first flowers soon after the new year, though sometimes it may be mid-January before they appeared. The “Hepatica Zone” starts just below the Orange Trail Spur bridge connecting the Orange Trail with the Flower Garden and extends northward up the creek for several hundred feet. We now and forever affectionately refer to this bridge as the “Hugh-patica Bridge.”

 

Down and dead tree excavated by a Pileated Woodpecker

 

Gary explained how he knows that the holes in this dead tree were made by Pileated Woodpeckers. They are the only woodpeckers that feed on the ground, excavating stumps and downed legs in search of Carpenter Ants and beetles. 

The holes they excavate are distinctive: they are more or less oblong or square in shape because their muscular necks and heavy beaks enable them to excavate deep into the wood, loosening large chunks that follow the grain of the wood.

 

Beech Drops, a non-photosynthetic plant, parasitizes the roots of Beech trees, but in such low numbers it does not harm the trees.

Beech Drops flowers in late summer, producing small, white, purple-dotted, solitary flowers along their upper stems. These are visited by a variety of insects but are probably most often pollinated during visits by the Winter Ant (Prenolepis impairs). The plant also relies on self-pollinating flowers that occupy the lower half of the stems to produce seeds if pollination fails in the upper flowers. The plants are annuals and must have some way of producing seeds if they are going to persist. They regularly return here year after year and are abundant throughout the Garden wherever there are Beech trees. The dead, dried stems are seen all through the winter.

Virginia Jumpseed’s slender stalks are lined with small, white, nearly closed flowers in the summer. Later in the fall, the flowers are replaced by two-sided fruits with a conspicuous hook – the persistent style – at the tip. When the seeds are mature, they “jump” off of the stem when disturbed, flinging themselves up to 12 feet away. Such moderate-distance seed dispersal reduces competition between parent plant and offspring while ensuring that the seeds are likely to land in suitable habitat.

Ramblers reached the beaver marsh as the sun finally broke
through the morning cloud cover.

Large stand of White Turtlehead near the southeast corner of the marsh, just south of Ben’s Bridge.

White Turtlehead stems are known to reach 7.5 feet but this is the first time I’ve ever seen them anywhere near that tall nor so loaded with flowers. Perhaps growing in the sunny, consistently wet marsh fosters this extravagant growth and flowering. Several Ramblers asked: how are these seemingly closed flowers ever pollinated? This question has been recently researched and the results published here and here. The flowers of White Turtlehead may occasionally self-pollinate but only cross-pollinated flowers will set seed. The flowers produce copious quantities of nectar that attract at least 20 species of insects, but cross-pollination is effected mainly by the Half-black Bumble Bee (Bombus vagans), a species of bee that is large and strong enough to push open the nearly closed lips of the flower. Some bees rob the flower of its nectar by chewing a hole in the base of the flower and extracting nectar but do not aid in pollination since they bypass the anthers and the stigma.

 

 

The beaver marsh is dominated by Rice Cutgrass, a native species that is well armed against browsing and grazing animals: the leaves and stems are lined with stiff, sharp hairs that slice bare skin and act like Velcro on your shirt.

Other conspicuous species in the marsh  include (clockwise from upper left): Bur-cucumber, Dotted Smartweed, Climbing Hempweed, and Arrow-leaved Tearthumb.

Crossing the boardwalk, we paused to admire a Common Elderberry shrub
sporting galls of the midge, Neolasioptera pierrei.

Gall nearly enveloping the Elderberry stem (top left and top right).
Dissected gall (lower left). Midge larva (lower right).
(All photos by Bill Sheehan)

We left the marsh and turned uphill onto the Purple Trail and into the Oak-Hickory forest, where a large Chalk Maple was showing off its close relation to its northern cousin Sugar Maple. 

 

Further up the Purple Trail ridge, we found a Common Box Turtle, its red eyes and indented plastron (lower shell) indicating that it is a male. Box Turtles in the South remain active through the winter. Box Turtles typically live 25-35 years; Heather pointed out the ridges on this turtle’s shell are worn nearly smooth, a sign of advanced age. (Photos by Linda Chafin)

We made our way back to the Visitor Center by way of the new garden behind the Porcelain Museum. This garden features more than 200 Swamp Milkweed plants donated by Chuck and Susan Murphy. The success of this planting for supporting Monarchs is attested by the abundance of defoliated plants and the presence of empty chrysalides. (Photos by Heather Larkin)

Sweet Bay Magnolias, now in fruit, were also planted around the Porcelain Museum to attract Tiger Swallowtail, Palamedes Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly, and Sweetbay Silkmoth that use its leaves for larval food.
(Photo by Linda Chafin)

 

Carolina Anole soaking up the noonday sun outside the Porcelain Museum.
(Photo by Linda Chafin)

 

 

 

 

Postscript from Bill: “On Thursday, I peeled off from the Ramble to look for galls on oak and hickory trees. One thing I love about this pursuit is all the other things I find when looking under leaves. Caterpillars and other insects are often striking, but every now and then I stumble on real mystery and I cannot rest until I solve it. I found such a thing on Thursday. In a square inch on the underside of a White Oak leaf there were about 20 tiny, shiny, black things standing erect, with a similar number of even tinier clusters of yellowish balls nearby. My first thought was aliens for the shiny black things and fungi for the tiny clumps. Actually, I realized the black things were pupal skins of insects, but I had no idea even what order. I ran my photos through iNaturalist and to my surprise its first selection was "Eulophus" with photos that had similar aggregations AND the yellowish lumpy clusters. Then, googling "Eulophus" I came to beautiful, clear photos from the Maryland Biodiversity Project.

It turns out that I had stumbled on the scene of a murder. The murder victim (a caterpillar) had disappeared, along with the murderers. But the murderers – 20 identical twins (the mother parasitoid deposits a single egg which divides into numerous embryos that eat the living host) – left smoking guns: their pupal skins. The yellowish lumpy clusters are the excrement that the parasitoid larvae evacuated before pupating. Solving this mystery so readily using the Internet made me appreciate how naturalists a century or two ago would have had to use books and specimen collections, which would severely limit the number of people who could participate! And they would have to make drawings of what they found to share it with the world.”

 

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES

Bess Beetle or Horned Passalus Beetle     Odontotaenius disjunctus
Aborted Entoloma fungus AKA Shrimp-of-the-Woods     Entoloma abortivum
Japanese Lady Fern    Deparia petersenii
Mountain Decumbent Goldenrod     Solidago curtisii
White Oak     Quercus alba
Globular Root Gall cynipid wasp     Disholcaspis globosa
White Turtlehead     Chelone glabra
Christmas Fern   Polystichum acrostichoides
Broad Beech Fern     Phegopteris hexagonoptera
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (caterpillar)     Papilio glaucus
Musclewood    Carpinus caroliniana
False Turkey Tail mushroom     Stereum lobatum
Gilled Polypore mushroom     Lenzites betulina
River Cane     Arundinaria gigantea
Flamed Tigersnail    Anguispira alternata
Round-lobed Hepatica     Hepatica americana
Northern Red Oak    Quercus rubra

Pileated Woodpecker (visual evidence of activity)      Dryocopus pileatus   
Silky Parchment fungus     Stereum striatum
Jumpseed     Persicaria virginiana
Golden Rain Tree     Koelreuteria paniculata
Yellowroot     Xanthorhiza simplicissima
Marbled Orbweaver     Araneus marmoreus
Dotted Smartweed     Polygonum punctatum
Blue-stemmed or Wreath Goldenrod     Solidago caesia
Curtis’s or Mountain Decumbent Goldenrod    Solidago curtisii
Rice Cutgrass     Leersia oryzoides
Japanese Stiltgrass     Microstegium vimineum
Climbing Hempvine     Mikania scandens
Arrow-leaved Tearthumb     Persicaria sagittata
Purple Beautyberry     Callicarpa dichotoma
American Dagger Moth (caterpillar)    Acronicta americana
Box Elder     Acer negundo
Bur Cucumber        Sicyos angulatus
Elderberry    Sambucus canadensis
Elderberry gall midge         Neolasioptera pierrei
Chalk Maple    Acer leucoderme
Northern Red Oak    Quercus rubra
Twin Flagged Jumping Spider        Anasaitis canosa
Common Box Turtle    Terrapene carolina
Swamp Milkweed    Asclepias incarnata
Carolina Anole    Anolis carolinensis
Monarch Butterfly, adults, chrysalis    Danaus plexippus
Sweet Bay Magnolia    Magnolia virginiana
Eulophus sp.