Leader
for today's Ramble: Emily Carr
Authors of today’s Ramble report: Linda and Don. Comments, edits, and suggestions for the report can be sent to Linda at Lchafin@uga.edu.
Animal identifications: Don Hunter, Dale Hoyt
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. Photos may be enlarged by clicking them with a mouse or tapping on
your screen.
Number
of Ramblers today: 32
Today's
emphasis: Spring in the Dunson Native Flora Garden: flowers, fruits, and seeds (and an invertebrate or two)
Readings:
Terry read from “Syntax of the River, The Pattern Which Connects,” by Barry Lopez in conversation with Julia Martin, an extended dialogue spanning three days when "Lopez reflects on years of watching the McKenzie River near his home in Oregon. He describes the quality of attention he learned from intimacy with the place itself: a very fine distinction between silence and stillness, the rich complexities of the present moment, and the syntax of interrelationships between living things."
Emily read "Spring: the stirring of tree leaves emerging from their buds," written by Dale in April 2014.
"Gazing in the distance you will now see a long-awaited green mist, the stirring of tree leaves emerging from their buds. Soon we will be able to hear them rustling in the wind and this soft sound signals a change in the short life of the ephemeral flowers on the ground below. The closing of the canopy deprives them of sunlight and they must rush to produce their fruits and seeds and then retire until next spring."
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| "Green mist" in the Bot Garden woods (photo by Linda) |
Roger brought several River Cane flowers from a small patch blooming in his yard. This is a happy/sad event: happy that it is blooming, but also sad because the flowering of the patch is its death knell. River Cane is “monocarpic,” meaning a plant or, in the case of River Cane, a clonal patch of plants that flowers once in its lifetime, then dies. This can be dramatic when a large clonal patch of River Cane flowers then dies or when a single large plant like an Agave (aka Century Plant) sends up its massive flower stalk then dies. If all goes well and fertile seeds result, life will go on in the form of a genetically unique offspring.
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| River Cane flowers |
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Richard passed around a small clump of flowering Wood Rush (Luzula echinata), a spring ephemeral that is easy to overlook. |
Announcements/Interesting Things to Note:
Friday was Emily's birthday and we were happy to celebrate it with enthusiastic singing.
"Gardeners, Hikers, Birders: Know
Georgia Snakes!" Learn about snakes at the April meeting of the Oconee Rivers Audubon Society, 7:00pm, Thursday, April 6, at Sandy Creek Nature Center, 205 Old Commerce Rd. Berkeley
Boone, zoologist and Education Supervisor for GA DNR's Charlie Elliot Wildlife Center, will talk about
reptiles of Georgia and share live examples. Free for all ages!
Emily urged us all to drink more beer! Not just any beer, but a Trail Hopper Ale, a beer created by the brewers at Athentic to celebrate Sandy Creek Nature Center's 50th anniversary. Ten percent of all purchases go the nature center. Athentic Brewing Company is located at 108 Park Avenue, in Normaltown, more or less behind the space once occupied by Allen's.
Today's Route: We left the Children’s Garden and headed down the Shade Garden walkway to the Dunson Native Flora Garden. We circled through all of the paths in the garden, returning more or less the way we came.
OBSERVATIONS:
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| Piedmont Azalea at the entrance to the Shade Garden, Flame Azalea in flower in the Dunson Native Flora Garden.  |
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| Another recent wind-thrown Northern Red Oak, this time along the Shade Garden pathway. It sometimes seems that the Garden is losing its old Northern Reds week by week (see Rambler report of March 16). In other parts of its range, Northern Red Oak is considered a wind-firm tree, but here they are too shallowly rooted to resist high winds and heavy rain storms. |
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| One of the earliest wildflowers to bloom in the Dunson Garden, Chattahoochee Trillium flowers are now beginning to wither. |
Three-parted Violet is so named because its leaves are deeply divided (lobed) into three segments, photo below. Plants with undivided leaves were once considered a mere variant but are now regarded as a unique species, Southern Wedge-leaf Violet. This newly recognized species is distinguished from other yellow-flowering violets by its leaves, which are unlobed, longer than broad, uniformly green (no silver patches), and slightly toothed near the top.
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| Southern Wedge-leaf Violet leaves are wedge-shaped. |
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| Dwarf Crested Iris |
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| Dwarf Crested Iris has 3 petals, 3 petal-like styles, and 3 colorful, crested sepals. The sepals attract and guide pollinators to the nectar produced deep within the flower. |
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| Spanish Bluebells are native to southwestern Europe and
northwestern Africa and have become difficult to control in the native flora garden. Their ability to spread by seed, bulb division, and runners has led to their being classified as invasive in several states. They are also resistant to common herbicides. |
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| Perfoliate Bellflowers are pollinated by bees and beetles. |
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| Snails have been hard at work on the benches in the Dunson Garden, their grazing trails creating interesting patterns. Using a tongue-like structure composed of thousands of tiny teeth, they scrape up
the carbohydrate-rich algae that grows on the benches. If you find "thousands of tiny teeth" hard to believe, check out the photos at this link. |
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| Eastern Red Columbine Both the common name and scientific name for this plant refer to the spurs that form the upper half of the flower. "Columbo" is the Latin word for dove, and the spurs reminded someone of a group of long-necked doves. The genus name Aquilegia derives from the Latin word for eagle; those same spurs reminded someone else of eagle talons. Specialized cells at the tips of the spurs produce nectar, tempting hummingbirds and long-tongued moths and butterflies to probe deeply into the flower, picking up and transferring pollen in the process. |
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Early Meadow Rue has female and male flowers on separate plants; neither have petals though the sepals are sometimes colorful. The female flowers (above) have green sepals and two showy (relatively speaking) styles per pistil. In the photo below, male flowers have lavender sepals and yellow anthers on orange filaments. There is no floral fragrance to attract pollinators – the flowers are wind-pollinated. |
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| Wood Poppy flowers are beginning to wither and produce their fuzzy fruits. We dissected a fruit, below, to look at the seeds, each of which bears a tiny fat- and protein-rich blob called an elaiosome. On these very immature seeds the elaiosome is barely visible, but when a Wood Poppy seed matures, it turns dark brown, and the elaiosome becomes a conspicuous white fringe. |
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| Mature Wood Poppy seed with elaiosome Photo by Samuel R. Brinker |
This type of seed dispersal is called "myrmechory," from the Latin roots "myrme" for ants and "chory" to spread. Though it largely happens unseen by humans, it is an important driver of plant evolution, occurring in at least 11,000 species worldwide, and is a classic example of mutualism between plants and animals. Nearly all of our spring ephemeral wildflowers are dependent on ants for seed dispersal. Luckily there are a lot of ants out there – twenty-quadrillion to be exact!
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| Atamasco Lily seeds also bear elaiosomes |
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| Immature Dwarf Pawpaw fruits Potentially they reach 2.5 inches in length but it's rare to see them mature–squirrels usually get them before they fully ripen. |
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| Croomia flower A species we had not seen in Dunson before this year, Croomia is a rare plant found only in southwest Georgia, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle. Botanical Garden records indicate that it was planted here in 2016, but perhaps it went dormant from transplant shock for a few years and is only now recovered enough to flower. The flower is less than 1/4 inch wide, so it's easy to overlook. |
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| Foamflower |
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| Goldenseal flowers lack petals. The white structures are stamens. |
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| Lance-leaf Trillium, with its narrow leaves and slender, twisted petals, is easy to distinguish from the other sessile-flowered trilliums in Dunson. It naturally occurs in parts of Georgia with limestone bedrock. |
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| Pale Yellow Trillium is aptly named. Its flowers are unusual among the trilliums in that each petal has a tiny tooth at the tip. Its native range is the Savannah River watershed. A good place to see Pale Yellow Trillium (and many other wildflowers) in its native habitat is the Stevens Creek Heritage Preserve, a two-hour drive east of Athens in Clarks Hill, SC. |
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| The Springtime Blues: Dwarf Crested Iris and Blue Phlox |
The Nature Ramblers would like to thank Joey Allen, curator of the Dunson Native Flora Garden, and the volunteers who assist him, for their hard work, creativity, and in depth knowledge of native plants. We visit this garden many times each year and always find something new and amazing to enjoy and learn.
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
Piedmont Azalea Rhododendron canescens
Flame Azalea Rhododendron calendulaceum
Northern Red Oak Quercus rubra
Yellow Archangel Lamium galeobdolon
May-apple Podophyllum peltatum
Atamasco Lily Zephyranthes atamasca
Dwarf Crested Iris Iris cristata
Three-parted Violet Viola tripartita
Southern Wedge-leaf Violet Viola tenuipes
Chattahoochee Trillium Trillium decipiens
Sweet Betsy Trillium Trillium cuneatum
Edna’s Trillium Trillium persistens
Allegheny Spurge Pachysandra procumbens
Perfoliate Bellwort Uvularia perfoliata
Solomon Seal Polygonatum biflorum
Golden Ragwort Packera aurea
Spanish Bluebells Hyacinthoides hispanica
Early Meadowrue Thalictrum dioicum
Eastern Red Columbine Aquilegia canadensis
Sensitive Fern Onoclea sensibilis
Shooting Stars Dodecatheon meadia synonym Primula meadia
Hairy Spiderwort Tradescantia hirsuticaulis
Dwarf Pawpaw Asimina parviflora
Small-flowered Croomia Croomia pauciflora
Foam Flower Tiarella cordifolia
Coral Bells Heuchera americana
Goldenseal Hydrastis canadensis
Lance-leaf Trillium Trillium lancifolium
Celandine Wood Poppy Stylophorum diphyllum
Mountain Doghobble Leucothoe fontanesiana
Pale Yellow Trillium Trillium discolor
Decumbent Trillium Trillium decumbens
Woodland Phlox Phlox divaricata
