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Red Spiderling

03 Aug

Boerhavia diffusa

Nyctaginaceae

Every time John and George go to the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge calamity strikes.  Last time, we got the car stuck in the sand; today it was merely a downpour a mile from the car (parked safely on nice firm pavement).  We explored a dirt path immediately behind the seashore dunes, and marveled at the biodiverse lush dune  jungle .  Trying to compile a list of every plant species present would be a big effort because there are more species than I can count on my fingers and toes.  Interestingly, species associated with xeric habits (such as Cacti) are nearly adjacent there to others usually associated with wet feet (such as Fall Panicgrass).

Yellowtops (JB)

Yellowtops (JB)

The lion’s share of the biomass is legumes, probably owing to their ability to create nitrogen “fertilizer” on otherwise poor sand:  Nickerbean (the dominant species) along with Baybean, Bushbean, Coinvine, Coralbean,  Cowpea, an invasive Senna species, and assorted  weeds represent the Bean Family.  Looking beyond Legumes, especially beautiful were the Yellowtops, Devil Potato, and Bloodberry.  But let’s get to the point.  A curious little species not rare on sandy soils is Red Spiderling (Boerhavia diffusa).

Spiderling (JB)

Spiderling (JB)

It’s pretty if you look closely, with Bougainvillea-colored flowers.  The coloration is no coincidence, as the two are in the same family.

Spiderling flowers and fruits (JB)

Spiderling flowers and fruits (JB)

The Boerhavia flowers actually look like Bougainvillea flowers overall, but a point of clarification:  in Bougainvillea the flowers are small (not so different in size from Boerhavia) and white, the purple in Bougainvillea is in the bracts surrounding the flowers.

Garden Four-O-Clocks (Mirabilis) are likewise related with similar pigments, or to be more native-plant-oriented, likewise for Beach “Peanut” (Okenia hypogaea).

Okenia (JB)

Okenia (JB)

The fruits in B. diffusa have sticky Velcro-hairs, and they do get around, in part with help from migratory birds.

Sooty Tern with Spiderling fruits along for the ride. (By botanist Sherwin Carlquist)

Sooty Tern with Spiderling fruits along for the ride.  Sooty Terns are sea-faring birds.  (By botanist Sherwin Carlquist)

Variably defined, B. diffusa, or a complex of closely allied species, depending on how you split and lump,  is worldwide, including Asia, Africa, Hawaii, Australia, the Caribbean, and the U.S., with the point of origin unclear.  The relationships among the different interconnected variants is so unclear that estimates of the number of recognized species in the genus range from 10 to 40.  Or, worse, down through botanical history over 200 species names have been applied in Boerhavia.  In short, an extremely confusing genus where the species have not read the textbooks concerning species definition.

The plants have taproots, and these have served medicinally, including to prepare laxatives and expectorants.   Fact is, Boerhavias have served in many cultures worldwide in more medicinal capacities than Dr. Oz.   Alkaloids in the root, including an alkaloid called punaravine, are diueretic and raise the blood pressure.  The leaves are salad in some cultures, and the “seeds” have been ground into flour.  However, the alkaloids, bioactivity, and probable toxicity say do not eat this plant.

As as fascinating note added post-publication, Paul Rebmann at wildphoto.com (comments below) put the plant together with the Spiderling Plume Moth.    Click on the web address below to see flower and pollinator united at Paul’s site!  http://www.wildflphoto.com/species.php?k=a&id=300

 
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Posted by on August 3, 2013 in Red Spiderling

 

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Trashbaskets in the Trees

28 Jul

Southern Needleleaf

Tillandsia setacea

Bromeliaceae

Trashbaskets in the Trees

John and George decided to beat the heat yesterday by taking to the shady hammock at Rocky Point Hammock in Stuart, trading blazing sun for deep woods mosquitoes.  But well worth it to see a beautiful old well preserved hammock bustin’ with botanical diversity.  A strongly suggested destination (if you can tolerate the mosquitoes).

Among the joys is a Bromeliad called Tillandsia setacea, Southern Needleleaf.   Most of the Tillandsia species, including Spanish Moss, familiar to Floridians have variably curled leaves.  But Southern Needleleaf divergently has comparatively straight clustered leaves reminiscent of knitting needles.

Tillandsia setacea foliage (by JB)

Tillandsia setacea foliage (by JB)

Beyond knitting, the leaves remind me of the roots on a beautiful Orchid I used to see occasionally, Grammatophyllum scriptum, named long ago and far away for its flowers with mysterious scripts.      Grammatophyllum scriptum is what’s called a trash-basket epiphyte.  TBE’s have roots and/or leaves growing upward like a sea urchin quills to capture debris either to serve directly in a built-in compost bin, or indirectly  to foster symbiotic ants.

Grammatophyllum with trash-basket roots (from laspalmas.ns)

Grammatophyllum with trash-basket roots (from laspalmas.ns)

I wonder if Southern Needleleaf is a TBE.  (Even if not all the leaves point upward.)  Interestingly and maybe relevantly, if there is a Southern Needleleaf of course there must be a Northern Needleleaf.  There is, and Northern Needleleaf (T. balbisiana) reportedly has symbiotic ants among its swollen leaf bases.  The ants get a home, and the Needleleaf gets nasty ant guards and presumably ant-fertilizer.  So then it isn’t such a broad stretch from NNL and symbiotic ants to SNL having its own trash-basket shenanigans goin’ on.  But let me be clear—I pulled that idea out of the air; it is not “fact.”

Northern Needleleaf with swollen base, the base reportedly sometimes home to symbiotic ants. (JB)

Northern Needleleaf with swollen base, the base reportedly sometimes home to symbiotic ants. (JB)

And while I’m making it up,  Southern Needleleaf has beautiful delicate violet flowers.  What pollinator would visit that blossom?  It is remarkable how little is known about the natural history of Florida Tillandsias!  The flower looks like something a hummingbird might enjoy.  Would sure love to know!  What else could probe that long narrow tube? (Well, yes, a moth could, but that does not otherwise have the look of a moth flower.)

Southern Needleleaf flower (JB)

Southern Needleleaf flowers (JB)

So here is a suggestion for Bromeliad enthusiasts.  Next time you see a Southern Needleleaf pretending to be a tree-dwelling Sea Urchin, climb up and poke your finger into the base to  see if any biting ants come forth to defend my theory.  Let me know, ok?

 
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Posted by on July 28, 2013 in Southern Needleleaf

 

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Wading in the Hypericum Marsh

23 Jul

CLICK for Hypericum

You can’t spend much time around South Florida natural areas without encountering species of St. Johnsworts, aka species of the genus Hypericum.  The same is so around much of the world.  You can’t spend much time around health food stores either without encountering Hypericum, and ditto for garden flowers.  Hypericum is a jumbo genus multi-linked with human affairs.  There are 400-500 species.  About 8 are in Palm Beach County.

Hypericum tetrapetalum by (JB)

Hypericum tetrapetalum by (JB)

You can recognize Hypericums generically by their opposite leaves,  tiny dots on the leaves, flowers with 4 or 5 yellow (in most species) petals, and central brushy tuft of usually more stamens than you can count.

Around here Hypericums inhabit habitats ranging from desert-like scrub to wetlands.   The slashpine woods are dotted with poorly drained depressions that depending on circumstances can be lakes, seasonal ponds, marshes, puddles, or places to step into mud.  Hypericums love those depressions.

You can visit a Hypericum pond now.   CLICK to navigate John’s gigapan panorama taken last Friday.  Pan around and zoom in.  The fern in the middle is Swamp Fern, Blechnum serrulatum.  The shrubby rim is mostly Hypericum fasciculatum, with additional SJWs hanging around too.

The chief marshy species is Peelbark St. Johnwort (Hypericum fasciculatum).   This is that beautiful rounded, yellow-flowered, slightly woody shrub so characteristic of local marshes.  Easy to recognize: look for showy peeling bark.  You seldom see it cultivated, although this and other native Hypericum species are in native plant nurseries (www.afnn.org).   Eye-pleasing non-native species, hybrids, and cultivars are garden flowers, groundcovers, and cut flowers around the horticultural world.    Most decorate cooler zones than ours, but we’re not excluded.  Gardenersin South Florida might start with Top Tropicals Nursery:  When marketed cut, the pretty parts  include the multicolored pods.   CLICK for pretty pods.

My first awareness of Hypericum was in Michigan, where I remember  conversation about “Klamath Weed” (H. perforatum) and others as a livestock poisons.  Klamath Weed was introduced from Europe (followed by beetles as biocontrols), and we have plenty of our own species too.  A symptom of livestock poisoning is skin sensitivity to sunlight.

That is why the labels in the health food stores warn users to shun the sun.   The main medicinal use of St. Johnswort is to counter anxiety or depression.  Does it work?  I am extremely leery of herbal remedies,  but let’s see what the University of Michigan Health System where they evaluate herbal products on-line says.    For depression they assign a 2-star rating, which means, “contradictory, insufficient, or preliminary studies suggesting a health benefit or minimal health benefit.”   There is some evidence of positive effect, and negatory evidence also, plus a warning that SJW is likely to interfere with other medications and possibly cause drug interactions.  Note added Feb 2014:   A health column in the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers  Feb. 23 014 7E mentioned eye problems plausibly attributed to extended use of SJW to counter depression.

Hypericum remedy

There is one 100% safe and effective way to apply Hypericum against depression:  Go visit a Hypericum wetland on a sunny day, savor the sunshine, look for those yellow blossoms, and don’t worry.

 
4 Comments

Posted by on July 23, 2013 in Johns'-Wort, St. Johns Wort

 

Great News for Sufferers from Sexual Irritability!

18 Jul

Spatterdock (Spadderdock)

Nuphar advena

Nymphaeceae

Visited Grassy Waters Preserve off of Northlake Blvd. this week, and the Spatterdock water lilies made the trip as pretty as a picture.  So did seeing ripening persimmons on the trees.  There are plenty of persimmon trees around, but it has not been my common experience to see the almost-mature fruits.

Everyone has seen these lovely “lilies.”  The leaves float, or may rise from the water surface, and the flowers are yolk-golden and cup-shaped.  These and Pickerelweeds take me back to childhood fishing trips  and boat trip picnics.

Young flower with the triangle door. Careful it might slam behind you. (All photos by JB)

Young flower with the triangle door. Careful it might slam behind you. (All photos by JB)

Scattered in the plant world are flowers known to imprison their pollinators temporarily,  then parole the buggy inmates to continue their symbiotic services.  Such flowers include some Orchids, Aristolochias, Aroids, and today’s Spatterdocks.  When the Spatterdock flower is young, the stigma is pollen-receptive and the pollen-making  stamens are inactive.  The young flower is closed except for a triangular opening between the petals;  insect visitors can enter the triangular portal and dust any pollen they carry off onto the stigma, which they touch upon entry.  The triangular opening closes at night, trapping the pollinators until the hole reopens the next day.  By then the stamens have released pollen, re-dusting the visitor.  This repeats over a series of days until the flower becomes fully open.  Pollination is by beetles, bees, flies, and (if you can believe it) reportedly aphids.  Aphids?  Maybe they are drawn to easily available sap in the nectar-producing petals.

Nuphar (Click for more photos)

As an  odd tidbit, the fruits float and disperse the sinking seeds, like zeppelins dropping bombs.  The sunken seeds have a problem—mature plants have floating or emergent leaves at the water surface.  This is similar to a problem of the young stages of a tree-top vine’s seedling on the ground.  In Nuphar, the first leaf is strap-shaped, the second leaf is expanded, and it is not until the 4th or 5th leaf that the foliage looks proper.

The plants make big starchy rhizomes.  These along with fruits and seeds were food to Native Americans.  But not so fast!  The plants also make alkaloid drugs, so the rhizome-eaters must have known what to do about that, just as ancient peoples in the Old World knew how to brew an intoxicating beverage from the flowers.  The alkaloids are of modern interest to destroy various cancer cells and an ability to cause apoptosis (programmed cell death relevant to cancer treatments).  More curiously, a reported use for Nuphar root tea to treat “sexual irritability.”  Not exactly sure what that is, but I have a lively imagination, so let’s cure S.I. in our lifetime!

Victims of S.I. (identities disguised for privacy)

Note:  Some of the info here comes from a 2007 Monograph of Nuphar by botanist Donald Padgett.

 
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Posted by on July 18, 2013 in Spatterdock

 

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Evolutionary Flip-Floppers

13 Jul

Kyllinga odorata (Cyperaceae)

Ludwigia species (Onagraceae)

Today John and George sweated through Halpatioke Park in Stuart, Florida.  With resort-quality lakes deep in the forest, Halpatioke is always a beautiful source of botanical surprises from “northern” species near their southern limit, such as Partrideberry (Mitchella repens) to “tropical” species near their northern border, such as Lax Panicum (Steinchisma laxum).  But what made an impression today were the weird flowers—the ones not playing by the usual rules.

Fragrant Kyllinga, white and fragrant.

Fragrant Kyllinga, white and fragrant. (by JB)

First, in the lawn there was the native Fragrant Kyllinga (Kyllinga odorata).   We all know the vast majority of grasses and sedges to be wind-pollinated, no showy flowers and no floral fragrance.  Florida wildflower enthusiasts know an exception to this to be the species of Rhynchspora called Painted Sedges, with white bracts at the top simulating petals.  (Some may have learned these under the name Dichromena, two-toned.)  We are not talking about those today.

Fragrant Kyllinga is an inconspicuous little sedge, often a turf weed, providing a less familiar case of an insect-pollinated sedge.  In most Kyllingas the flower cluster is green, odorless and typically sedgelike.  But in Fragrant Kyllinga the thimble-shaped flower cluster is nearly white and sweetly fragrant.  Evolution works in weird ways.  Wind-pollinated plants are generally regarded as having abandoned creature-mediated pollination.   Exceptional fragrant or colorful plants in a wind-pollinated family thus seem to have “reinvented” insect pollination.  With petals gone, the white color must be on modified leaves under the flowers in the Painted Sedges and Fragrant Kyllinga.

Ludwigia maritima (JB), a yellow-petal species.

Ludwigia maritima (JB), a yellow-petal species.

Not long after sniffing the Kyllinga  we came upon a lake shore patch of what we took to be Small-Fruited Ludwigia,  Ludwigia microcarpa, another head-scratcher.  Most of us probably tend to think of Ludwigias as having conspicuous yellow blossoms, such as the showy Peruvian Primrose-Willow rising bright yellow from roadside ditches.  Yet a number of Ludwigia species have done away with petals or nearly so. (What look like petals in the photos below are sepals.)   Examples of petal-less Ludwigias (by JB) are illustrated below:

ludwigia lanceolata Ludwigia microcarpa Ludwigia suffruticosa JB

These obviously differ dramatically from the yellow-petal Ludwigias. Maintaining any unnecessary structure is a biological liability and waste of energy, sort of like maintaining an unused residential swimming pool, but petals not needed?

Are those petal-less species self-pollinated, or able to make seeds without pollination?   Those abilities are not rare in the plant world, but I doubt that explains the absence of petals.  The flowers without petals have otherwise well-formed open flowers, the sepals have a slightly petal-like appearance, even becoming creamy or tinted rather than the usual sepal-green.   The flower centers can be colorful as well.

Now we go to pure speculation.  Here is a guess.   Maybe the genus has divided its pollination between bees drawn to the big bright petals on some species, and other insect visitors not particularly drawn to big yellow petals.   Losing petals genetically is probably a minor change, basically “instant evolution.”  What’s striking is that the petal-less species are not all most closely related to each other.   Some have species with petals as their closest relatives, implying that that petals were lost more than once as separate events.    There must indeed be something “good” about petal loss.

If I can beg your credibility a little, the petal-free Ludwigia flowers are not terribly different from flowers of roughly similar sizes and colorations encountered in many other plant types in similar marshy or shoreline habitats, for instance,  Swamp Hornpod (Mitreola sessilifolia),  Herb-of-Grace (Bacopa monnieri), Buttonweeds (Diodia species),  Bartonia (Bartonia verna),  Bedstraws (Galium species), Water Pimpernels (Samolus species), and others.

Below are several species not related to Ludwigia.  The petal-less Ludwigias are more similar to these than they are to their yellow-flowers relatives.  They are all roughly in the same size range.

Bartonia verna (JB)

Bartonia verna (JB)

Bedstraw (Galium, by JB)

Bedstraw (Galium, by JB)

Hornpods (by JB)

Hornpods (by JB)

Diodia (by JB)

Diodia (by JB)

 
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Posted by on July 13, 2013 in Fragrant Kyllinga, Primrose-Willow

 

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Nature Deficit Disaster

10 Jul

Nature-bugs like me avidly bemoan nature-deficit-disorder, the concept that today’s children grow up in a nature vacuum sucked dry by video games, sterile air conditioned gated communities, and overly structured  upbringings.  

All true of course, but thinking back to my own childhood in industrial Wheeling, West Virginia followed by Detroit, I don’t recall childhood companions terrifically fascinated with spiders and warblers.    I do recall adult concerns about kids getting too soft and indoorsy, but then again in my recent readings of 1920s nature writings,  they worried back then too about the kids losing their grip on nature.    That worry must go back all the way to the transition from a land of farmers to the Industrial Revolution, and I kinda suspect 19th Century farm kids were more interested in the attractions of the big city than in wildflowers and butterflies.  The hippies talked about “back to nature” in the 60s, but that was mostly some silly affectation with no substance.  Were the ancient Romans interested in nature?

But even if it is long-standing human nature to ignore Mother Nature, things seem extra screwy to me when I teach a botany class with students afraid to touch a flower because it might house a bug.   When the Boy Scouts seem more concerned with silly exclusive policies than in bringing kids outside.   When lightning bugs and salamanders decline and nobody notices.   When “outdoor activity” becomes golf and soccer.   When fishing became more expensive than leisurely.  When to see butterflies I go to “Butterfly World.”  And when a college can’t teach ecology without flying everyone to Costa Rica.

Something has even happened to gardening.    Forever, hasn’t gardening been more about beauty, flowers, soil, fresh air, exercise, wind, and worms?   A personal experience, or a family experience, often multigenerational.   It was for everybody.  So when did gardening become “landscaping”?  When did ostentation loom large?  When did ego creep in?  Who in the world ever thought there’d be “garden celebrities.”  Oh come on!   Let’s dig the dirt and plant some flowers.

I don’t think it is as simple as, “when I was a kid we played outside in the hills and meadows, and now we don’t.”   (Although that may often be quite true.)    What worries me more is a slightly different shift in values, a lost ability to enjoy basic simple pleasures, nature or whatever it may be.   Life has gotten so fast, so specialized, so complex, so competitive, and so driven by some sort of new values coming at us electronically.

Enviornmentalists are fond of explaining attitudes about nature in terms of World View.   Seems to me that collectively our big World View has homogenized around an unnatural core through the electronic media bath in which we live:  giant TVs, WWW,  cable news 24/7,  pundits, gurus,  satellite radio, political polarization,  stock reports,  sports fixation.   Reminds me of my college days ca. 1970 when Marshall McLuhan with the “medium is the message” was hot classroom fodder.    I just looked him up on Wikipedia and found a comment that seems to say so much:  “Key to McLuhan’s argument is the idea that technology has no per se moral bent—it is a tool that profoundly shapes an individual’s and, by extension, a society’s self-conception and realization.”

It isn’t that our “self-conception and realization” is anti-nature, but rather merely a narcissistic cyber-world ever-evolving away from the small tangible pleasures, individual pursuits, and the values they engender.    Even our conversational social lives meld into Facebook, texting, and Twitter.  Celebrities tell us what to value.   Nature is not in the back yard—it is on the Discovery Channel.

And here I sit on a beautiful Florida summer afternoon with my face buried in a laptop computer.

 
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Posted by on July 10, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

Sea Blite and Castaway Plight

29 Jun

Sea Blite

Suaeda linearis

Amaranthaceae (Chenopodiaceae)

John, I TOLD you to turn right.

John, I TOLD you to turn right.

Yesterday John and George mired the car hopelessly in the seaside sand lost in the remote reaches of the Hobe Sound National Refuge, all in a day’s work for fearless adventurers.   It happened right as I said, “that sand looks firm.”  We became stranded castaways deep in a mangrove jungle unvisited by humans since Jonathan Dickinson.  While we stressed over who might find our buzzard-picked remains, we kept our spirits up by exploring the salty-marly mangrove lowland behind the dunes and singing marching songs from the Boer War.  We looked for esculent native plants to mitigate our stranded plight.  There wasn’t much to hunt and gather, but Black Mangrove was lovely in flower, and no, that wasn’t a skunk, it was White Stopper.

Our destitution gave us time to ponder convergent evolution.  (That is when unrelated species develop similarities due to similar adaptations.  Sharks and Porpoises are not related but they look similar.)  We saw no sharks nor porpoises, but we did see how salty-place plants have a convergent tendency toward succulent leaves that look like fingers.  The fat-finger-foliage species include Batis maritima (Saltwort, Batidaceae),  Salsola kali (Amaranthaceae), Sesuvium portulacastrum (Sea-Purslane, Aizoaceae), Salicornia bigelovii (Glasswort, Amaranthaceae), and Suaeda linearis (Sea Blite, Amaranthaceae).

Yes, the foliar similarities can confuse identification.  And yes, they confuse common names.  The common names for these species are intertwined and contrived.  For example, Batis maritima and Salsola kali (and undoubtedly others) get called “Saltwort,” hence the silly misleading name “Russian Thistle” to differentiate Salsola.  My personal outlook—never get too fixated on the English names for non-prominent plants.

The main succulent finger species yesterday was Suaeda linearis,  representing  the mostly saline genus Suaeda which has over 100 species.   As is often true of coastal species, the distribution is wider than you think.  Suaeda  linearis extends from Maine to Mexico and southward.  Such species keep us from getting too hung up on latitude.

Suaeda linearis (JB)

Suaeda linearis (JB)

Suaedas inhabit saline desert areas in North Africa, where  Beduins burn the foliage to obtain soda-ash (sodium carbonate)  for laundering,  dying clothing, and fine-tuning the pH in their pools.  And speaking of burning  Suaeda, North Africans burn the plants also to generate smoke for asthma relief.  Suaeda is an ancient Arabic name.

Close-up (JB)

Close-up (JB)

Closer to home, Native North Americans appreciated the seeds as a staple grain, which was a comfort to John and me as we despaired of rescue yesterday.  As we roasted fiddler crabs on burning Suaeda and tried to invent a solar desalination still using our shoes, John suddenly remembered we had cell phones.  The miracle of Verizon brought a nice man named Bill with a big truck to yank us out of our sandy Hell to explore and blog another day.

[Note—that isn’t really John’s car. His car isn’t that cool.  But we did get quagmired and rescued deep in the jungle.]

 
6 Comments

Posted by on June 29, 2013 in Sea Blite

 

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Showy Rattlebox – You Get Three Wishes

26 Jun

Showy Rattlebox

Crotalaria spectabilis (not native)  CLICK

Fabaceae

What wild-growing flower is the most eye-grabbing?    Showy Rattlebox is on the good-looking list.  It is as big and colorful like a garden flower, and I always assumed that it’s a garden escape, but a little Google research indicates this nitrogen-fixer to owe its Florida presence to services as a green manure and cover-crop.

Showy Rattlebox

Showy Rattlebox

Not really a great crop, because the foliage and especially the seeds bear a toxic alkaloid lethal to livestock.  The poison renders feeding  butterfly larvae toxic to their predators, and serves in some folk medicines against varied complaints, such as intestinal worms. (Poisons are useful for that!)

Crotalaria is a big genus (over 500 species), well represented in Florida by several native and introduced species.  Look for yellow pea-type flowers and inflated pods with rattly seeds inside.  Rattlesnakes come from the genus Crotalus.  Showy Rattlebox has especially large striking flowers and simple (not compound) leaves.  It is the only large imposing local Crotalaria with simple leaves.

Showy Rattlebox is native to India, Pakistan, and neighboring regions, and has become a widespread weed  warm-climate-globally.  This is one tough cookie—full blazing sun, thin soils, sand, marl, rocks, and roadsides.    It may be a weed, but railroad tracks would be uglier without it.

One thing I like about Showy Rattlebox is the way the big easily manipulated flowers demonstrate a pollination mechanism found in many legumes having pea-type flowers.  Such blossoms have 5 petals: one is the showy banner rising above and behind the others; two side-petals are called wings, and they look like two hands clasped in prayer.  To the inside of the clasped hands are two more petals fused into a vertical envelope called the keel.  The pollen-bearing stamens and female pistil lie inside the keel like the letter in an envelope.

Here are two great drawings of a similar flowers:  CLICK

And  CLICK again.

Crotalaria banner (top), wings (sides), and lamp-shaped keel (bottom). The opening is at the tip of the neck on the keel.

Crotalaria banner (top), wings (sides), and lamp-shaped keel (bottom). The opening is at the tip of the neck on the keel.

In some legumes, including Crotalaria, the keel looks like Aladdin’s lamp, completely sealed except for the genie exit-hole at the end of a narrow neck.  The style and stigma (pollen-receiving surface) are in the form of a narrow fuzzy shaft.  The stigma is the tip of the shaft just above the fuzz. Contained within the keel, the anthers deposit their pollen onto the fuzzy region on the style.

Keel removed to show stamens and fuzzy style. The style is the long shaft jutting to the right. The stigma is its tip.

Keel removed to show stamens and fuzzy style. The style is the long shaft jutting to the right. The stigma is its tip.

When a pollinating insect lands on the top edge of the keel the bug’s weight causes the style and stigma to pop up like the genie rising from the lamp.  The protruding stigma snags any pollen on the underside of the visitor, and the fuzzy brush “paints” new pollen onto the insect.

The style (and stigma on its tip) isolated and magnified to show the fuzz.

The style (and stigma on its tip) isolated and magnified to show the fuzz.

 
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Posted by on June 26, 2013 in Showy Rattlebox

 

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The Quiet Invaders—Death by a Thousand (Literally) Cuts

19 Jun
Shoebutton elliptica. It has been mistaken for the native Marlberry. By JB.

Shoebutton Ardisia. Once popular in gardens, this Ardisia is related to and has been mistaken for the native Marlberry. (By JB)

In Palm Beach County:

Grasses: 135 total vascular plant species growing wild, 45 species non-native, 33% non-native

Sedges: total 83 total, 13 non-native, 16% non-native

Asteraceae: 95 total, 18 non-native, 19% non-native

Rubiaceae: 23 total, 7 non-native, 30% non-native

All Florida Vascular plants: 4289 total, 1421 non-native, 33% non-native

(Data from USF Atlas of FL Vascular Plants)

Every nature enthusiast decries the invasive exotic bioinvasion of Florida and worldwide. Brazilian Pepper and Climbing Fern make us cuss. We battle unwelcome Laurel Figs and Java Plums on public lands. We grouch about those who love their beachside Casuarinas. And then come the Pythons, Walking Catfish, Cane Toads, Cuban Treefrogs, and snails that look like tennis balls. (Are these good for Limpkins?) Invasive microbes and arthropods are a scourge. We know, we know.

But it is even worse than it looks. For every invasive species we know many more sneak in virtually unnoticed .

A quick and approximate survey of species growing “wild” in Palm Beach County makes the point painfully. Looking at four large plant families—the grasses, sedges, composites, and coffee family, the percentages of non-natives species are 33, 16, 19, and 30. Eighty three non-native species in Palm Beach County alone. Or statewide 1421 non-native species accounting for 1/3 of the flora. We have more invasive exotic species growing loose in Florida than the number of native species in Hawaii!

Cuban Bulrush forms floating mats.

Cuban Bulrush forms floating mats. (JB)

I don’t have data, but 1/3 of a diverse flora being non-native begs unanswered questions concerning crowding, allelopathy, competition, hybridization with native species, alterations to the soil ecosystem, impacts on wildlife, altered fire patterns, collateral pests and diseases, and more. Is Global Warming a factor?

So it’s not all Melaleuca. And, by the way, Melaleuca’s close relative, a garden favorite, Weeping Bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis) is adding its red beauty to certain natural areas in Florida. Why don’t we just dub it Bloody Melaleuca?

Some of the invaders are pretty, or novel, and interesting. The other day I waded into a canal for a better look at an overhanging branch bearing what I thought was Skunk Vine (Paederia foetida) in a new locale. Wrong! (I hate being blind.) But you might not have to wait long to enjoy Skunk Vine on a branch near you. The flowers are showy. And even more fun nomenclaturally, and so far limited to the Miami Area, is Sewer Vine, Paederia crudasiana, which, I’m sorry to say, makes me wonder what a crud-ass looks lie. (Sorry, blog-writer’s license)

Skunk Vine is prettier than its name. (by GR)

Skunk Vine is prettier than its name. (GR)

Speaking of runaway vines, Mile-a-Minute Vine (Mikania micrantha) is pondering the possibility of over-running Florida from a start in Miami. Why has it remained localized so far?

Trying to figure out which ferns are truly native is next to impossible. If you think otherwise, compare every source you can find dealing with the genus Nephrolepis. If you get it figured out definitively and with consensus, please let me know. And to make it worse, fern spores blow long distances on the wind, and ferns are especially good at hybridizing.

Native Boston Fern? No, invasive Asian Sword Fern. Mighty similar! (Boston Fern has light tan shagginess sticking out on the leaf stalk.)

Native Boston Fern? No, invasive Asian Sword Fern. Mighty similar! (Boston Fern has light tan shagginess sticking out on the leaf stalk.)

So what can you do? Bulldozers, machetes, brigades of volunteers and herbicides are not enough. I heard someone say recently, “sometimes all we’ve got is resignation.” Just like crime and reality TV, we’ll never shed the curse, but at least there is one little thing we could do:

Abandon the 19th Century social cachet attached to “I have an exotic plant you don’t have,” and mature to a 21st Century preference for the native species that belong in our own back yards. Oh yea, right, I’m preaching to the other preachers.

"Mexican Petunia" is not Mexican, and is not a Petunia. It remains popular in landscapes despite being a Category I Invasive Exotic invader.

“Mexican Petunia” is not Mexican, and is not a Petunia. It remains popular in landscapes despite being a Category I Invasive Exotic.

 
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Posted by on June 19, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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The Disappearing Native Bird

27 May

“The Florida Scrub-jay is one of North America’s most endangered birds” – that’s the opening line of the Jay Watch Volunteer Training Manual.  Every year in the middle of June volunteers monitor jay populations at more than 40 conservation sites from northern Volucia County to Palm Beach County in the southeast and Sarasota County in the southwest.  In the year 1992 there were 11,000 individual Jays counted and by 2011 only 6,500 were found.  What is most disturbing is that there was a 26% decline on protected lands.

Greg Brown, Ranger at the Savannas Preserve State Park, calling the Jays.

Greg Brown, Ranger at the Savannas Preserve State Park, calling the Jays.

At a yearly Jay Watch meeting volunteers are taught monitoring procedures and are encouraged to become familiar with particular sites.  Since Scrub-jays are territorial, each monitoring site is visited 3 times over a one month period, at varied times of the morning.  This schedule increases the likelihood that all birds will be counted.  A CD of Jay scolding calls is played in 4 directions at least 3 times in hopes of bringing the Jays close enough to identify individual birds.

Chris Vandello, Biologist at the Savannas Preserve State Park, identifying the Jays.

Chris Vandello, Biologist at the Savannas Preserve State Park, identifying the Jays.

By July, fledglings will still have their brown heads and previously banded adult birds will have rings of color on their legs.  The different colors allow volunteers to ID specific birds and follow them if they move to other territories.  Many Jays stay in their home territory for several years and help raise the next year’s babies as well as protect the borders from Jays trying to move in.  Unbanded adult birds are also noted and will eventually receive special training to ready them for the bander.

When volunteers play the scolding call, the Jays come quickly, ready to defend the borders from interlopers.  Volunteers document flight directions as well as colored leg bands.  These bands fade or are lost over time and become difficult to read correctly.  Several people working together can help to verify the colors.

Each banded bird carries 2 colored bands on their right leg as well as a uniquely numbered aluminum US Fish and Wildlife band on the left.  A colored band is also placed on the left leg for a total of 4 bands.

Adult Scrub-jay with purple over red and red over silver bands.

Adult Scrub-jay with purple over red and a silver band. One band is missing.

All Scrub-jays do not live in state parks.  There are many hanging on in small scrub areas where development has encroached on their territory.  You can help by:

  • Reporting any Jays found outside of a park. Call the park or preserve closest to you.  It is also helpful to report any bands on their legs.
  • By securing your cats on your own property.  Many fledglings are killed by cats allowed to roam.
  • Educating your friends and family about the plight of Florida’s Disappearing Native Bird.  Maybe, just maybe we can stabilize the numbers that remain.
 
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Posted by on May 27, 2013 in Florida Scrub-Jay, Scrub-jay

 

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