New Inspiration in an Old Garden

In these Coronavirus-19 days, with more time than usual, I wandered down the hill in our back yard to see what spring had brought. Though well past retirement age I have maintained a way-too-busy volunteer life (herbs, native plants, plant conservation). I enjoy every minute of the time I devote to these efforts, but my garden has suffered from my absence–or so I thought.

Carya ovata, Shagbark hickory

Making my way into the old herb garden, which was a lovely place with edged pathways, trellis at the entrance, assorted shrubs at the corners, and filled with ordinary and unusual herbs. In addition to volunteer work, a bad knee kept me from the garden. A gentleman regularly mows the grassy areas for us, but the herb garden collapsed, overrun with weeds and nature’s decisions about what should be there. As I wandered through, I happened to look up and realized there is a Shagbark hickory growing in one corner. The color of the bud break caught my eye.

As the leaves break through the tip of the bud, the scales fall back, revealing their pretty orangey-pink color. The emerging leaves look almost like the anthers in the center of a flower. This tree must have appeared as soon as I left the area, for it appears to be about 7 years old, standing about 10 feet tall. There were 5 or 6 of these “flowers” showing on the tree. A Redbud (Cercis canadensis) was in bloom nearby, making the old garden a lovely spot with an entirely different look.

Symphytum species, Dwarf comfrey

I can’t really call the old garden a natural area now, for a few things survive, including the dwarf comfrey above. It seems quite happy on its own and has spread a bit but stayed generally within its original bounds. This one is not native here, but we do have a native comfrey, Cynoglossum vulgatum.

Ophioglossum vulgatum, Southern Adders tongue

Another delightful surprise was a small colony of Southern Adders tongue, a small single-leaved fern which looks nothing like what you expect of a fern. As you see above, the fern has a fertile spike that grows from the base of the leaf. When the spores are ready, they drop to the ground where they begin the process of creating a new fern if the soil is moist. These were in an area invaded by English ivy (Hedera helix) from a neighbor’s yard. I pulled away what ivy I could and will go back to work more on removing the ivy from my yard. I anticipate a long, arduous task, but the surprises brought by nature are worth the effort. This one will get no bigger, remaining about 6 inches tall. It may not be spectacular or flashy, but is a joy to see.

Erythronium species, Trout-lilies

Trout lilies bloom cheerfully, brought in following a plant rescue from a site that was bought by the County and filled to serve as a reservoir for drinking water. The area was loaded with typical Piedmont North Carolina wildflowers and I was privileged to make several visits, bringing plants for local public gardens and a few for my own.

Staphylea trifolia, American bladdernut

Another beauty brought home from the plant rescue (10+ years ago) is the tree above, an American bladdernut. The delicate bright green leaves are a perfect foil for the pure white bell-shaped flowers that bloom in great abundance. Those flowers are followed by inflated seed pods, also a bright green and about 1.5 to 2 inches long, that will eventually turn tan when the seeds are ripe. A beautiful small tree that isn’t fussy about soil or moisture.

Take some time to explore your yard or garden. Nature may bring some surprises for you, too, if you look closely.

Seed pod of the Bladdernut tree.

Glade Wild Quinine

Glade Wild quinine, Parthenium auriculatum, is a member of the Asteraceae Family and a wonderful perennial plant for dry, sunny spots, but it will tolerate some shade.  It has quite a presence, with bright green leaves that grow to 10” long and 4” wide that are held on stems with a hint of red.  In flower, it reaches 24-30” tall. Flowers form in multiple flat-topped clusters (corymbs) at the tops of stems.  Axillary clusters can arise from the upper leaf axils.

The flower clusters are composed of individual, complex, tiny white flowers, each about ¼” across.  Each flower has a central disc containing up to 35 disc florets.  With the eye, the disc florets look like a tiny snow ball.   Looking at the flowers under a 100x microscope reveals a beautifully woven pure white bed of shimmering “fibers,” little balls covered with a mucilaginous-appearing substance that shimmers in the sunlight.  The outer edge of each flower is surrounded with 5 small white fertile pistillate (female) ray florets that are widely spaced.  The disc flowers are staminate (infertile) and on maturity give the appearance of the disk being speckled with dark brown.

Close up of an individual flower

The leaves are auriculate (clasping and lobed) at the leaf bases, and slightly lobed at the leaf base with winged petioles. Leaves are stiff and covered with short hairs, and the mid-vein is often reddish.

P. auriculatum grows in Mecklenberg, Guilford, Rockingham, Person, Orange, Durham, and Warren counties in North Carolina, blooming until late summer. Seeds are wind disbursed.

It is listed as Vulnerable in NC (State Rank S3), but does not appear on the NC Plant Conservation Program protected species list.

Parthenium auriculatum, Glade Wild quinine

 While reading about this species, I read that it can cause serious cases of dermatitis.  Further reading, always a good idea, revealed the true culprit to be Parthemium hysterophorus, which causes serious airborne contact dermatitis, a huge problem in its native India.  This species is not native to U.S. but has been found growing from New York to Texas and is an aggressive spreader. It is easily distinguished by its finely divided leave. Parthenium auriculatum has been well-behaved in this garden for the past 5 years.

P. integrifolium, common wild quinine

More common in North Carolina is P. integrifolium, common wild quinine, which grows across the State.  This one blooms earlier, is a bit shorter, and its leaves and stems are conspicuously hairy. Grows 2-3′ tall and blooms May-July.

                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Along the Lolo Pass between Montana & Idaho

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  Following the Lochsa River

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  Western red cedar in DeVoto Memorial Grove

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  Ragged robin, a Clarkia spp.

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  Cornus canadensis, a creeping groundcover of dogwood

One of the great drives (admittedly there are many) in Montana and Idaho is Lolo Pass, which follows the Lochsa River. It is a place of great beauty and, at least at the time we visited, not a lot of people. While walking in Devote Memorial Cedar Grove we did not encounter any other visitors. The trees are magnificent, as they are all along the 40 drive (Highway 12) that averages about 5200 feet in altitude.

Meadows of fresh green and brilliant wildflowers, mountain peaks soaring above, cold water rushing alongside the roadway, birds of all sorts all make for a drive you want to turn around and do again. There are plenty of places to pull over, which you will want to do. Don’t expect this to be a quick drive….if it is, you missed a LOT.

There are also places to be out of sight of the road and enjoy peace and solitude, often lacking in our busy suburban lives.

Spigelia marilandica, Woodland Pinkroot

If you want to attract hummingbirds, this native plant is a good choice and it is carried in many nurseries.

It grows to about 18″ in my garden, is perennial and somewhat clump forming, and grows in full to partial shade.

Emerald green lance-shaped leaves support upward facing brilliant red tubular flowers, as you would expect for a hummingbird plant. The flowers narrow toward the tip, then flares out to show a bright yellow inside.

Though not common, it is found in the wild in mostly southeastern states. It is not rare, either, and has found favor with nurseries as an ornamental.

Indigenous peoples used the roots to treat for worms; they contain spigiline which can induce heart actions, veritgo, convulsions, and death. It should not be used unless under the guidance of a physician.

This is a beautiful plant that deserves space in your garden. It likes moist, slightly acidic soil, and survives drought reasonably well. I had one plant that did not appear for 3-4 droughty years, but after the deluge of rains over our winter and spring, it came up and is growing with vigor.

Remembering John

John Preston Karr, front row on the left, was killed in Vietnam 50 years ago today. He was my younger brother by about two years, and dear for the 21+ years that we had together. Our father walks behind him, and the three others in the photo I know longer remember. I love this photo, as it shows him doing what he loved best: exploring the Shenandoah Valley, especially the mountains that line it.

We were lucky in many ways: there were six siblings which meant boisterous holidays and vacations. Our father, raised on a farm in Iowa, loved to get out and explore the countryside and our mother, born in Denver, CO, appreciated a little quiet time when Dad took us out on an adventure for the day. For a few years, we lived very close to the Blue Ridge Parkway, giving us lots of opportunities for hiking and, at the right time, blueberry picking. Dad loved to make blueberry pancakes for us while we scrambled across boulders and looked for fish in creeks. John actually once caught a mountain trout in his bare hands! He let it go, but not before we all witnessed his feat.

Our love of nature was shared by all siblings, some more than others, and for me has been a passion that led to working (on a volunteer level) in the field of plant conservation. Our older brother, Eldon, was an architect in Roanoke, VA, and lived on Poor Mountain outside of town. He loved the land he acquired and spent the last few years of his life encouraging the development of sustainable energy production without windmills that would mar the countryside. He fought mightily against allowing windmills along the ridges of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which would have been visible from the Parkway.

My younger sister and I are the last surviving of our large family and she, too, has developed a passion for native plants and their conservation. Our parents instilled our love of nature, for which I am grateful.

I only wish John were still here to enjoy adventures with us. A word for Randall and Darlene needs to be said as well, though they, too are gone.

Recently, I re-read William Wordsworth’s Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798. A section of it seems fitting as a remembrance for John, who I here substitute for Wordsworth’s sister:

Therefore let the moon 

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; 

And let the misty mountain-winds be free 

To blow against thee: and, in after years, 

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind 

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place 

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, 

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, 

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance— 

If I should be where I no more can hear 

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams 

Of past existence—wilt thou then forget 

That on the banks of this delightful stream 

We stood together; and that I, so long 

A worshipper of Nature, hither came 

Unwearied in that service: rather say 

With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal 

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, 

That after many wanderings, many years 

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, 

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me 

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake! 

Tintern Abbey, from Victoria & Albert Museum

John at age 5-6; John about a year before he left for Vietman; John sas a member of the Angry Skippers (radio call sign for Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry (Airborne), 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)) in Vietnam (he is on the right). I recently met the members of the group and am proud that they now include my sister and myself as Angry Skippers.

Buzz Pollination

Buzz pollination is a fascinating process employed by bumblebees and specific solitary bees. They enter the flowers, grab on, and rapidly move their flight muscles to release pollen from the flower’s anthers. Only 8% or so of the world’s flowers require buzz pollination, and one of the more charming instances I have observed was a bumblebee making valiant efforts to enter a Gentiana villosa: Crawling in head first and shaking his/her little body, it tried repeatedly to reach its’ goal. Finally succeeding, with his body nearly invisible, his presence was still obvious from the buzzing sound and oddly vibrating flower. Somewhere I have a photo of his attempts, but can’t find it at the moment. Will post that later.

In the meantime, I see that “pollen thieves” is becoming a topic of interest. Following is an abstract of an article, “High incidence of pollen theft in natural populations of a buzz-pollinated plant,” by Lislie Solís-Montero , Carlos H. Vergara, Mario Vallejo-Marín. The full article is available on Springer Link:
Pollen thieves article

More than 20,000 angiosperm species possess non-dehiscent anthers that open through small pores at the anther’s tip. These flowers are visited by bees that use vibrations to remove pollen, a phenomenon known as buzz pollination. However, some floral visitors fail to transfer pollen efficiently, either through a mismatch of flower and insect size, or because they are unable to buzz-pollinate. These visitors collect pollen, but provide little or no pollination, behaving as pollen thieves. Although pollen theft is widespread in plants, few studies have quantified the incidence of pollen thieves for buzz-pollinated plants. We use observations of natural populations and floral manipulations of Solanum rostratum (Solanaceae) to investigate the incidence of pollen theft, find morphological and behavioural differences between pollinators and thieves, measure the pollination efficiency of visitors, and characterize the reproductive ecology of this herb. We found that most visitors act as thieves, with <20 % of all bees contacting the stigma. Insect visitors that regularly failed to contact the stigma (illegitimate visitors), included buzzing and non-buzzing bees, were significantly smaller, visited fewer flowers per bout, and stayed longer in each flower than (legitimate) visitors that regularly contact the stigma. Few flowers visited solely by illegitimate visitors set fruit. Our results show that S. rostratum requires insect visitation to set seed and natural populations experience moderate pollen limitation. We conclude that insect size, relative to the flower, is the main determinant of whether a visitor acts as a pollinator or a pollen thief in S. rostratum.

Economic Impact of native bees

Brett Blaauw and Rufus Isaacs recently published  their paper “Flower plantings increase wild bee abundance and the pollination services provided to a pollination-dependent crop” in the Journal of Applied Ecology, doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12257

Promoting our native bees as efficient pollinators has been underway for a while, but these Michigan State University researchers have some data that should be of interest not just to native plant and native pollinator enthusiasts, but to farmers as well.

As part of the study, marginal lands surrounding productive blueberry fields were planted with a mix of 15 native perennial wildflowers.  “The results weren’t immediate, which implied that landowners would need to be patient,” Isaacs said.

“In the first two years as the plantings established, we found little to no increase in the number of wild bees,” he said. “After that, though, the number of wild bees was twice as high as those found in our control fields that had no habitat improvements.

Once the wild bees were more abundant, more flowers turned into blueberries, and the blueberries had more seeds and were larger. Based on the results, a two-acre field planted with wildflowers adjacent to a 10-acre field of blueberries boosted yields by 10-20 percent. This translated into more revenue from the field, which can recoup the money from planting wildflowers.”

The authors do not suggest replacing honey bees, but demonstrate that adding wildflowers to attract native bees can be profitable and insures good pollination.  That requires an initial investment to establish the wildflowers, but there are sources for assistance with those costs, including the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program. 

In addition, the resulting increase in crop yields is cash in the pockets and a more secure future for native bees. 

Rusty patched bumble bee photo from The Xerces Society.

 

 

Groundwater problems

The following is a quick, easy-to-follow representation of the status and future of the Colorado River and the people who are dependent on it, which includes millions of us. It’s worth a look:

Groundwater Depletion in the Colorado River Basin – These are the general facts and findings of a soon-to-be-published paper on groundwater depletion in the Colorado River Basin by UCCHM’s Stephanie Castle (coauthored by UCCHM’s Jay Famiglietti, Brian Thomas, JT Reager, NASA Goddard’s Matt Rodell and Sean Swenson of NCAR). Surface water in the basin has been closely monitored for years, while groundwater (an equally important resource) is slowly disappearing.

Information graphic: http://www.ucchm.org/infographics

Thanks to Tom Baugh for sending the information along :
http://hidden-springs.blogspot.com

Missing bobwhite

Photo  © Roy Brown, GA, Birdsong Plantation, Grady County, October 2010 – from the Cornell Lab or Ornithology website All About Birds.  http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/northern_bobwhite/id

 

Amazingly, disturbingly, there are no reported sightings of northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) around my town in the Piedmont Triad of NC, though plenty have been spotted in surrounding towns.   Maybe no one in this area bothers to make reports, myself included.

The last I heard them here was several years ago.  Early one spring morning, when the windows were open, I was awakened by a couple of them in the back yard.  Haven’t heard them again since, and wonder if the resident hawks got them.  More likely, they decided the habitat wouldn’t support a family.

I was up visiting my brother outside of Roanoke (just shy of 4000 ft.) recently, taking photos of skunk cabbage.  While walking around, we startled 3-4 of them, who ruffled their feathers at us and flapped off.

This morning, I noticed an article on the decline in Science Daily:

Project hoping to end alarming decline of bobwhite quail

Full story:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140312181915.htm

One of the most prized American hunting birds, and a cultural icon among outdoor enthusiasts, the bobwhite quail has undergone a mysterious decline that has been documented for more than 50 years. Once present by the millions in the Midwest, South and Southwest, bobwhite numbers are down as much as 80 percent in some areas.    Photo Credit: © José 16 / Fotolia

A little further research turned up some suggestions from the NC Cooperative Extension Service for improving bobwhite habitat:

General:

• Manage small areas of grass, brush,shrub, and woodlands in close proximity to one another
• Thin pine stands frequently
•  Favor wide tree spacing allowing sunlight to reach the forest floor

Regeneration:

• Make regeneration cuts in irregular shapes to maximize edge
• Favor Longleaf Pine over other pines
• Allow small hardwood patches to grow within pine types
• Favor hardwood species that produce small, hard mast

Intermediate Treatments:

• Keep pine stands as open as possible by thinning and burning
• Favor berry and seed producing species along stream bottoms

Prescribed Burning:

• Frequently burn to renew herbaceous vegetation
• Use burns to maintain natural openings
• Do not burn mast producing areas
• Limit burns to winter months

This all seems like a small price to pay to bring bobwhite back.

 

 

 

Germany’s Future Without Fossil Fuels Is Leaving Its Largest Power Producer Behind

Experiencing a $3.9 billion loss in 2013, RWE (Germany’s largest power producer) is finally waking up to the negative impact on their bottom line of clinging tightly to the old fossil fuel ways. With only a small renewable fleet, CEO Peter Terium  said “we were late entering into the renewables market—possibly too late.”

Read the story:

http://qz.com/183781/rwe-germany-post-fossil-fuel-future-is-leaving-its-largest-power-producer-behind/