Broken Families, Underground Parasites, and Fruit-Stealin’ Stinkbugs

Graytwig

Schoepfia chrysophylloides (S. schreberi)

Schopfiaceae (Traditionally placed in Olacaceae, a DNA-splintered family)

Today as temperature plummeted, John and George strolled the Rocky Point Hammock near Port Salerno, Florida. Rocky Point is a small remnant of scrubby Coastal Hammock, fun to visit due to the ancient oaks and the diverse vegetation, including species we do not often encounter, such as the big beautiful sedge Cyperus tetragonus. The alpha species today was Graytwig in full bloom with jillions of tiny fragrant maroon-red flowers along the stems like holiday twinkle lights.

Except when in flower, Graytwig is a shy small tree or shrub recognized most readily by its namesake kinky gray twigs peeking out from under alternate, often-folded leaves with wavy margins.  The crushed leaves have a distinctive smell.  The pea-sized drupes go through a red phase before blackening.  Graytwig grows mostly along the southeast and central Florida coast, extending to the west side of the state to the south and into the West Indies and to South America.  There are 23 species of Schoepfia altogether around the world.

The flowers are tiny (1/8″ tall), fragrant, reddish-maroon cups clustered irregularly along the stems.  They are heterostylous.  That is, one strain has short styles and slightly elevated anthers, and the other strain has long styles and anthers positioned lower in the floral tube.  Readers interested in learning more about heterostyly as an adaptation to promote expanded genetic exchange are invited to an earlier Treasure Coast Natives article where we explored heterostyly in more detail in connection with Wild Coffee, another species abundant at Rocky Point. CLICK

So let’s jump ahead to another Graytwig oddity — it is a root parasite.  The roots make cone-shaped “suckers” (haustoria) able to penetrate and rob the roots of surrounding hosts of diverse species.  This is not rare in scrubby plants.  Other scrubish parasites include Love Vine, Black-Senna (Seymeria), Hog Plum (Ximenia), and Indian Pipes (Monotropa).  The parasitism in Monotropa is possibly significantly via mycorrhizal fungi,  and would be fascinating to know which additional plants swipe nutrients from each other via mycorrhizal (fungal) root connections.

In South Florida we see two extreme means of acquiring plant-life’s needs on our challenging soils:  parasitism and carnivory. Our parasitic plants tilt toward dry sandy habitats, and our parasites tilt toward wet marshy homes.  I guess the main problem in anoxic wet marshy mud is nitrogen, acquired by green carnivores ingesting bug-type victims.  The various gizmos and physiology flesh-eaters need to catch and digest wiggly prey may require ample water.  With dry-habitat plants (just speculating here) the main challenges can reasonably be assumed to be obtaining water and the benefits dissolved in it.   Wouldn’t it be interesting to know the details?  In any case, in dry places look for root parasites, and some above-ground ones too CLICK

Now here is something even weirder and more puzzling.  There seems to be a special relationship between stinkbugs and Schoepfia.  The Asian stinkbug Parastrachia japonensis is tied to Schoepfia jasminodora. Amazingly, the adult bugs lug the Schoepfia fruits back to their stinky nests. CLICK

Our own Schoepfia chrysollphylloides (as S. schreberi) is reported to be the host for stinkbug  Ramosiana insignis which consumes multiple organs, and for Vulsirea violacea, which specializes on the fruits.  We caught the stinkbug below in the act of messing with the Schoepfia fruits. (Note: According to Bugguide.net,  V. nigrorubra and V. violacea were interpreted as the same species until recently.  Our photo matches the photos of V. nigrorubra on that site.  It would be interesting for someone with time on their hands to explore fully the relationship between the bug and the bush.)

Graytwig can be cultivated, although the Institute for Regional Conservation website Natives for Your Neighborhood  lists it as” extremely difficult to grow,” which might explain why this eye-pleaser is so infrequently encountered in native plant gardens.

                                                        Stinkbug on Schoepfia (by JB)

 

Passion on the Bluff

Passiflora edulis, P. incarnata, P. foetida, P. suberosa

Passifloraceae

Yesterday John and George walked the Hawk’s Bluff Trail near Jensen Beach, Florida.  The Bluff is a coastal dune of white sugar sand overlooking a vast and lovely marshy area, essentially Savannas Preserve State Park.

As we set off downslope we noticed a fruit resembling a giant yellowish egg dangling from a distant tree. As we approached we found the hillside to be smothered Kudzu-style with a massive non-native edible passionfruit vine (Passiflora edulis) smothering all in its path.   So we took some photos of this overbearing plant and feasted on passionfruit like a couple castaways.

Passiflora edulis (by JB)

We all love passionfruits, but did you know some species have poisonous contents, even cyanide?  Bioactivity might explain the prevalence of passionfruit extracts in traditional medicines in various cultures.

Yellow Passionfruit (by JB)

There are about 11 species growing outside of cultivation in Florida, some native, some not.

Now let’s get one thing straight, the passion in passionflower has nothing to do with lust.  We’re talking about the Passion of Christ.  According to legend, the Conquistadors interpreted the flower somewhat self-servingly as divine sanction of their conquest.  I’m not going to repeat the interpretation of the blossom with respect to the Crucifixion here, as that account is all over the Internet.

But John and I didn’t contemplate religion or cyanide—we just enjoyed a little passionfruit and mosied along the trail.  We did, in fact, discuss religion very soon thereafter,  however, when we came upon this preview of Hell at the bottom of the hill. (For a more graphic preview you might enjoy Scaremare at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.  CLICK LIKE HELL)

Twisted souls in Hades. (Well, okay, really Saw Palmetto stems after a fire at Hawk’s Bluff.)

Now before we go any further, let’s lighten up and get friendly with the basic construction of a passionflower.   They are unique, they are complex, and they are diverse.  We’ll use John’s side view of the non-native Passiflora foetida to explore the structure.  The white (purple-tipped) fingers above the sepals and petals are called the corona (crown); these are appendages on the petals and sepals apparently responsible for advertising,  and may help control access to the flower.  The pedestal in the floral center is called the androgynophore;  it  elevates the stamens and stigmas.  Look closely:  the five stamens in this species spread from the top of the pedestal, and the three stigmas are just above the stamens.

Passiflora foetida (by JB). Note the pedestal, with 5 stamens near the top and three stigmas.

To make it all more interesting, the parts move (not necessarily the same ways in every species).  The best-known movement is that the stigmas start out well above the anthers, so that the visiting insect pushing under the anthers is merely dusted with pollen.  Later, the stigmas descend to the level of the anthers or below and brush pollen off the visiting insect.  In John’s photo above, the stigmas have dropped to nearly the anther level.      More intriguingly, there are reports—in just one species known to me—of the entire pedestal tipping toward a visiting bird.

And who does visit?  The diversity of pollinators matching the diversity of Passionflowers is dizzying:  bees (mostly), wasps, hummingbirds, moths and butterflies, bats, and probably more.

Corky Stem PV (by JB)

We started our hike with the big imposing Edible Passionfruit, and ended it with the  modest native Corkystem Passionflower, favored among native plant gardeners as larval host for Zebra Heliconian, Gulf Fritillary, and Julia butterflies.  Maybe that tough corky stem limits the larval devastation, which can be considerable.   But what pollinates Corkystem Passionflower?  This is one of the few species known to be compatible with its own pollen, which may help explain how it became an invasive exotic pest on the other side of the world.   At least in some places wasps are the reported main pollinators.  Butterflies visit the flowers too, and bees no doubt  buzz in, although I can’t claim to have witnessed it.

Native Passiflora incarnata (by JB)

 

Dreamy Drifts of Pink

Mexican-Clover

Richardia grandiflora

Rubiaceae (Coffee Family)

Returning reluctantly to my office just now from Tropical Smoothie with my Limey Blimey smoothie,  heavenly meadows of pink in the athletic field soothed my troubling mind, thanks to a member of my favorite Dicot family, the Coffee Klatsch (aka the Rubiaceae).   Typical of life here in Misnomer Meadows, “Mexican-Clover”  is no Clover and it is not natively Mexican.  Thus for the sake of accuracy some call it Fairy Cups.  If you live in South Florida you have seen the pink cloud in the median strip.  Some observers say it looks like snow, but those must be Floridians who have never actually seen snow.  And just like snow, this weed’s not native to South Florida.  South America is home.

Richardia grandiflora Fairy Cups by John Bradford

The genus Richardia consists of about 15 species ranging naturally from the Southeastern U.S. to Argentina, with some escaped in the Old World.  The original native U.S. representation is a messy question beyond the scope today.  Some of the species can be tough to distinguish, even in our normal “Treasure Coast-ish” botanical radius.  (Handy notes below.)

Any fool can distinguish Richardia grandiflora at 70 mph in the highway median.  Seems like cars, lawn mowers, and Global Warming might be expanding its range northward, at least as far as arctic Gainesville, and motivated searchers could probably pinpoint more-northerly patches.

How does one pretty weed take over vast areas of lightly maintained turf as a monoculture?  I have no single answer, but here is a bundle of silly notions:  1. The Coffee Family is a talented weed family.   2. The mat sprawls low.  I dug one up this morning.   The underground rhizome bears roots all over itself, and it sprouts, sprouts, and sprouts near or even below  the ground surface.   Mowing clearly prompts branching from way down low,  allowing this Dicot to pose as a Grass.   3. The weed is mighty drought-tolerant,   happy on sterile soils, and probably nematode-proof (just guessing based on a related species).   4. Each fruit splits into a variable number of bumpy little “seeds.”  The “seed” production of a single patch is infinite, and all those little crumbs build up a seedbank.  5. And the big question, are Richardias alleleopathic?  That is, do they make natural herbicides to suppress competition?    I do not know.  They look like it, and seem like a study waiting to happen, along with the dormancy characteristics of the fruit segments.

Mexican-Clover has opposite leaves, and between their bases is the hallmark of the Coffee Family, an “interpetiolar” (between the petioles) stipule.  The stipule is fringed on top, and basally forms a cup around the node where new buds form.  Although often in the Coffee Family the stipule functions to draw symbiotic ants, or to protect the terminal bud, my guess is that in Mexican-Clover the stipule catches water and coddles the sprouting buds nestled like baby kangaroos in the stipular pouch.   The stipule is so fancy, I took a picture of one today for reader stipular titillation.

The stipule is fringed on top, and encases the lateral buds (future branches). Rising at 45 degrees on each side are the petioles (leaf stalks).

The fairy cup flowers look like classic butterfly-pollinated blossoms, and butterflies visit, along with bees and other insects. A big patch of MC can be bug-lively.  Each flower head is a sponge in a cup, with the maturing fruitlets embedded deep in the moisture.  The flowers are packed together tightly with their sepals rising vertically as a collective water trap in the center, reminiscent of some Bromeliad tanks.  Bringing a specimen in this morning after a wet night, the flower heads left puddles of water on the microscope stage.

Being a lawn weed, Mexican-Clover raises the boring question, over and over, about  “what do you spray on it?”  Now please understand, as a pesticideophobic, lunatic fringe nature-nut, this question is not my cup of tea.  TC Natives is not for squirt-gun how-to-garden advice.  Yet turf herbicides interest me from the dark side.  Noodling around Google reveals many recommendations to use Atrazine to get those ugly Fairy Cups out of your lovely yard.

Two bumpy fruit segments. The structure below the twin segments is the semi-persistent calyx (set of sepals).

So now a moment on the Atrazine soapbox.  That is bad stuff unless you like deformed amphibians.  Atrazine is one of the most-used turf herbicides in the U.S., although alternatives might replace it.  Perhaps you thought the U.S. had already pretty much eliminated chlorinated pesticides, such as DDT, Chlordane, and Lindane.   Well, is an herbicide a pesticide?  I’d like to know, because we still have plenty of chlorinated herbicides, the two main examples being lawn poisons we pay technicians to infuse into our personal environments, 2-4-D, and Atrazine.  2,4-D is a chlorinated (auxin) hormone mimic.  And Atrazine has a slight molecular similarity to the fertilizer material urea.  Plants take up Atrazine from the soil as they might take up urea.  (Where does the rest of the Atrazine go?)  Atrazine is so water-soluble it contaminates waters worldwide.  And it is implicated ominously in environmental-health issues.  Rather than rant, I’ll pass the buck:  see what (the controversial) Professor Tyrone Hayes at the University of California has to say on this topic.    CLICK

Call me Bud.

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Notes:

Distinguishing the species of Richardia in our normal activity radius, especially R. scabra and R. brasiliensis, can be a pain in the grass.  By the way, the “handbook” features don’t hold much water.  Professor Alexander Krings in North Carolina had the same pain, and did something about it, compiling a guide to this problem.  Paraphrasing his work, try this:

Richardia grandiflora is easy: It is the only one with the (usually pink) flowers over 12 mm long.

Richardia brasiliensis:  Stems bristly evenly from tip to base, top of leaf evenly hairy,  and the inner face (narrowest face) of the fruit segment is broadened (Brazil is a broad country).

Richardia scabra:  Stem becoming more or less bare toward base.  Top of leaf hairy primarily near the edges.  The smallest face of the fruit segment  narrowed to a narrow groove.

(The kangaroo pic was stolen from Down Under.)

 

Toothpetal False Rein Orchid

Habenaria floribunda

(aka H. odontopetala in some interpretations, not a question to explore here)

Orchidaceae

Habenaria floribunda. All Habenaria photos today by JB.

Habenaria is massive genus of some 600 species, with about three or four in our usual radius of bioactivity.  One locally occurring species, Habenaria repens (Waterspider False Rein Orchid), can exist oddly as a floating mat.  But we’re here to talk about one to enjoy with dry feet, Habenaria floribunda, blooming abundantly in a pine woods near you.  We went to Halpatioke Park in Stuart yesterday.

I’m reluctant to rattle on about the intricate pollination mechanisms of orchids, for a couple reasons, one is that that topic is documented to a farethewell  elsewhere, so why bother here in our little “take a stroll and know the flowers you see”  series?  Thing is, this is one you DO see, so it is one to stop and contemplate and sniff, if you have good eyes and a good nose.

A wee bit of Orchid background.  Orchid flowers deviate from “normal” flowers in certain specializations.  Most Orchids have their pollen grains packed into masses called pollinia, so that pollination is not by single grains as in most flowers, but rather by Fed-Ex delivery of up to millions of grains all clumped together.   These pollinia are variably “glued” onto the pollinating insects as they visit to probe for nectar.  Although research is sparse, it is a good bet that most (but not all) Florida Habenaria pollination is the work of moths.

Habenaria floribunda, looking into the alien’s face.

Let’s now use John’s beautiful close-up photos.  Look first at the view straight into the blossom.  And now we must resort to highly technical jargon:  The blossom looks like an alien wearing a hood.  The alien’s eyes are the pockets where the pollinia (pollen packets) lie in temporary storage.  On either side of the alien’s white two-lobed lower lip are two small dark spots.   Those two dark spots are sticky tabs that attach to the insect visitor.  As the visitor probes for nectar those two sticky dots take hold on the bug’s face.

The nectar probing takes the form of the moth inserting its long needle-like proboscis into the alien’s mouth and downward into the alien’s long narrow chin where the nectar hides.  As the moth pushes in, its face kisses the Orchid flower, coming into contact with those sticky pads.

Side view, with projection, thread, and sticky pad.

The sticky pad now super- glued to the moth-face links to the polonium by a thread, so as the insect’s departure yanks the polonium free.  Look closely at John’s side view photo.  The thread connecting the pollinium with the sticky pad extends along a projection jutting out on either side of the alien’s two-lobed lower lip.  The projection holds that sticky pad out there to punch the moth in the face.  In the side view photo you can see the projection, the thread, and the sticky pad.  (The polonium is up inside the hood not visible from the side.)

A pollinator-visitor arriving with pollinia glued to its face deposits the pollinia on the stigmatic surface (pollen-receiving surface).  That surface has already been described as the alien’s two-lobed white lower lip just below the open mouth between the two sticky pads.

Pollinia on pencils (see below for credit).

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Vocabulary notes.

For readers preferring a more technical approach than made-up aliens, here is a photo of an actual Martian taken this week by the Curiosity.  To repeat, the eye contains the pollinium.   The orange sticky pad is called the viscidium, and the gray thread is called the caudicle.   The open mouth leads to the nectar in the alien’s chin, also called the spur.  The organ in Orchid flowers where the stamens, stigma, and style are fused into one is called the column.

Actual Martian, with pollinia, threads, sticky pads, and mouth opening into spur. (See below for credit.)

(Martian photo source: http://droidloot.spreadshirt.com/yip-yip-alien-hoodie-chest-burster-A8895804.  Pollinium on a pencil from http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=F800&viewtype=text)

 

Climbing Aster builds its own retirement plan

Climbing Aster

Ampelaster carolinianus (Symphyotrichum carolinianum, Aster carolinianus)

Asteraceae

Everyone who savors the native outdoors treasures personal fond experiences, often rooted in earlier memories.  Something I’ve always loved in varied northern locales is wild Asters as the days grow cold and as the tree become stark branch silhouettes against the gray sky.  Asters take me back to hikes on November days in Michigan where the Asters as the last wildflowers standing, say “hey, it’s not all that bleak.”  A parallel experience applies more subtly on refreshingly cool November days around here.  That took place last week on a class outing to the Grassy Waters Preserve with one of my all-time favorite species, Climbing Aster.  Today, November 26, it is blooming with gusto in the Palm Beach State College Medicinal Plant Garden.

Climbing Aster (by JB)

[Now a disclaimer, the name “Aster” used informally here embraces multiple genera in the Aster Family.  Asters, including today’s species, tend to have complex nomenclatural histories.]

Capable of blooming some all year, in late autumn this species self-asserts with hundreds of fragrant flower heads near-white to pale violet, the younger heads with a yellow eye, and the older one dark-purple at the center.   (The topic of changing eye color came up about a year ago in our article on Allapattah Flats and White Pine Barren Aster.)

200 little flowers (by JB). Ray flowers lilac. Disc flowers yellow.

Botany 101:  what a flowering head in the Aster Family is all about.  What looks like a single flower at first glance is a “composite” of many tiny flowers collectively disguised as a single bloom.  But why?  Here is one answer:  A single pollinator visiting a “blossom” actually pollinates a hundred little flowers all at once.  The tiny flowers come in two basic types:  those “petals” around the periphery of the head are ray flowers.  The eye is made up of numerous itsy bitsy “disc” (or disk) flowers.  If you bust apart a flower head, and if your eyes are sharp, you can discern those individual flowers, complete with petals making a tube, stamens joined edge-to-edge into a tube, two stigmas, and an (inferior) ovary.  The sepals are modified as the “pappus,” usually bristles or scales.  The bristles become the parachutes familiar on the dispersing “seeds’ of many members of this family, such as Dandelions and Thistles.

This will help. (By Illinois Natural History Survey).

The heads generally start out functionally male (pollen producing) before entering their female (pollen-receptive) phase.  Glance at the diagram.  The anthers form a tube, and they release pollen to the inside of the tube.  The stigmas rise through the anther tube, plunging the pollen upward until it spills forth.  Thus the pollen emerges from the tube before the stigmas pop out; they spread apart after emergence to begin the female phase.

To return to the species of the day, Climbing Aster is limited to the Southeastern U.S. in moist habitats from Florida to South Carolina and sort of North Carolina, where it may now be extirpated.  (And yet is available commercially, so it may be secondarily un-extirpated as a domesticated native species yielding to the call of the wild.)

Climbing Aster is the only species of the genus Ampelaster, the genus name  coming from Greek for vine-Aster.  And this brings us to perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this species.  Early in life it scrambles over other vegetation, making a mound of Climbing Aster on top of host plant(s).   The Aster is not twining, and it has no tendrils.  Instead, it rambles and sprawls.  Aiding the climb, the vine makes lateral branches that tie the vine to the host and weave the mound together.

Oh yes, I promised something remarkable.  Once the mound is formed, the Aster becomes woody.  The wood and the intertwined branches become a self-supporting  scaffolding, making the underlying host no longer necessary.  We could re-name it “Strangler Aster.”  To be redundant, this Aster makes its own trellis, hard, woody, reinforced by interlacing branches, and indestructible, perfect for its flood-prone riparian natural habitat.

Unter der Aster, with woody self-built living trellis (by GR)

 

Roquette Science

Cakile lanceolata

Brassicaceae (Cruciferae)

Today the lively Lakelas Mint Chapter of the Native Plant Society, John, and I walked the narrow dune-hammock between the sea and the highway on Hutchinson Island.  Such botanical bounty!:  Baybeans and Railroad Vines in blossom, Christmas Berry in berry and bloom,  Stoppers, Blolly, and by golly plenty more.  An odd little standout is Sea Rocket…and of course question number 1 is why “Rocket”?

On this Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary sez: From Middle French, “Roquette,”  for arugula  or “any of several plants of the Mustard family.”

Another name for the Mustard Family is the Cruciferae (crew-SIF-eh-ree),  as in “eat your cruciferous vegetables,” the crux of the matter being the four petals forming a cross (crucifix).   There are, incidentally, 6 stamens—four long and two short.  So you can always tell any old Crucifer, from Cabbage to a Wallflower by the same basic flower construction.  They all look alike.

(Or at least they all used to.  DNA study is gerrymandering the family boundaries.)

Sea Rocket (by JB)

The Mustard Family is a pungent bunch.  You may notice there’s low P.U. until you mash the leaf.  Then “mustard gas” rises assertively.  They work like one of those light sticks for rock concerts and flat tires, with two key components stored separately and no reaction until smashing the inner glass  capsule mixes the stuff and lets there be light, or in our case lets there be wassabe.

The succulent beanlike fruits separate into two segments, one segment remaining anchored on the mother plant, the other segment breaking free carrying one or few seed(s) in a protective corky padded space-capsule to blow and drift in wind, sand, and waves to a new start.  Thus they get around, and Cakile species extend up and down seashore and freshwater-inland coasts from Santa to St. Tropez.

Sea Rocket fruits. Look closely and note that these rockets have two stages. (Photo by Wayne Matchett)

What’s more subtle and mysterious is the short-distance migratory cycle.  Now please be patient with redundancy for emphasis:  the fruit breaks into two segments: one goes and sows wild oats, and the other stays home.  Sound like the beginning of a parable.  Maybe the parable helps answer the question of how this delicate-looking wildflower occupies stormy, salty, eroding, windswept beaches where so little grows.  We better take a closer look at their habitats. There are actually two habitats, generally speaking:  the actual beach and the beachside dunes.

Remarkably the beach individuals reportedly grow more rapidly and make more seeds than their dune neighbors, and this matches my limited observations.  Reasons to prefer beachfront property seem likely to include natural fertilization by decaying seaweed on the beach, and more competition up on the dune.

Now let’s work in a fact of life well known to any coastal dweller or CNN viewer attuned to the ravages of the aptly named Sandy.  At stormy times the natural action of wind and waves is to relocate things that begin on the beach onto the dunes.  So how do Sea Rockets manage to hang on and repopulate the beach?  Here are three scenarios to keep Cakile on the beach:

1.  The Apron Strings Scenario.  Recall the fruit segment attached to Mama Rocket.  Most Cakile repopulation is within spitting distance of the mother plant.  Cling, be fruitful and multiply, building up a self-replenishing clump, until a hurricane rearranges the sand (and even then the rearranged sand will likely have Cakile segments in it).

2.  The YoYo Scenario.  An uphill-downhill cycle from harsh but fertile beach up to a safe but crowded dune,  and then back to the beach is nice to imagine. What goes up must come down.  Fruit segments and entire uprooted tumble-weeds with the clingers could erode back down to the beach cyclically.

3.  The Gilligan’s Island Scenario.  That upper fruit segment breaks free to roam.  They drift  ashore and establish new clumps.  By the way, who pollinates a lone castaway?  At least some Cakiles can self-pollinate.

To sum it all up, part of what makes Sea Rocket so extra-pretty is its indomitable will to look like a delicate wildflower in the face of sand-blasting and cyclones.

Better a rockette than a wallflower.

 

Blazing Stars (and blazing buccal lining)

Liatris species

Asteraceae

Today John and George became so perplexed identifying sedges time flew in sunny Jonathan Dickinson State Park (CLICK), where we encountered Mudfish alive and in person, familiar to some readers from blog commentary and fishing fame.

White Prairie Clover (Summer Farewell, Dalea pinnata) filled a distant meadow with a white we did not recognize from afar.   Below the snowy heads on the stem are glistening blister glands reminiscent of poison ivy on your ankle.  After scratching and sniffing the glands, the odor perfumed my hand for an hour.   Not nose- nasty really, sort of like the essential oils of mints, pines, or eucalypts.

Summer Farewell. See the blister glands? (By JB)

Then came the part I regret to confess.  The dumb move went down thusly:  “Those glands must be loaded with a feeding deterrent; might be interesting to see how it tastes.”    Nibble nibble.    Okay, this was on a maturity level with a four-year-old poking a coathanger in a wall socket.  You can’t describe the blister gland taste, because taste is not the primary sensation.  Rather, the entire lining of my mouth experienced oral shock and awe in one nanosecond.  The oral mucosa turned to superglue.  It wasn’t merely unpleasant—panic is a better word.   John asked demurely if I was experience poisoning.  (And please, it might be best not to mention this incident to my mother.)

Liatris sports jaunty upright magic wands of (usually) purple flower heads sufficiently spectacular and durable to  sell as cut flowers and garden plants.  Blazing Stars! Gayfeathers!  We don’t need to buy any around here though, because we are naturally endowed.   About five species beautify our usual flower-peeping radius.   Florida claims about 14 species, three limited to our state, most in dry habitats including scrub.  Altogether there exist almost 40 species.

The Liatris adaptations to harsh above-ground hazards are noteworthy.  They are Armageddon-proof with safe underground structures called corms.  Corms are short, broad, vertical subterranean stems (not roots) shaped like a child’s top or a beet.  Not that many everyday garden plants have corms:  think gladiolus, cyclamen, crocus, and edible Aroids.

Liatris corm (by JB)

Another adaptation is more subtle.  As background, Florida Rosemary (Ceratiola ericoides) is allelopathic, that is, it spews natural herbicides to suppress vegetative competition or neighbors that might invite fire.  Guess what’s resistant to that allelopathic attack?  Among others, a species of Liatris in Florida scrub has rosemary-proof seeds according to ecologists Molly Hunter and Eric Menges.

Conspicuous in the Park was a dichotomy in the dominant flower displays.  One party had broad flat-topped  horizontal clusters in white, yellow, or purple.  The other party, by contrast, elevated their white, yellow,  or purple flowers on narrow vertical spikes.   Liatris is in the latter staunch spike group.

Granting flat-topped clusters their own virtues, today it is all about Liatris, so what are the pros to posies on a pole?  And now we speculate.  Disclaimer: The following may be BS, but big boo hoo.  First of all, I haven’t done the engineering math, but a tall wand seems to allow for extra-many flowers in a growing season, and some spikes have leaves among the flowers and thus flower and photosynthesize at the same time.   A broad flat inflorescence offers a “big bang” of flower power, a show with a big peak moment.  But a vertical spike can “burn like a 4^th of July sparkler,” spacing out flowers over time, catering to “trap-lining” (repeat-visitor) pollinators.  Ditto for “seed” dispersal, parsing the seeds (achenes) out, not just in space but also in time.

And, to end on silly notions run wild, if there’s physical damage to a spike, such as being eaten by a deer, the lower levels may live on in.  And as one final plus of the skyscraper approach, enjoy this YouTube (CLICK) showing how a high-rise condo accommodates a lot of residents at once.

A vertical spike spacing flowers out in time (stolen from Google Images)

 

Cryptic Invaders, Elephant Salad, and the Africanization of American Grasses

Pennisetum purpureum (Elephant Grass, Napier Grass)

Phragmites australis (Phragmites, Reedgrass)

Saccharum giganteum (Plume Grass)

Tall and showy in the breezy autumn sun are those super-sized grasses rising from the marshes, shores and roadside ditches.  Three striking grasses of local wet habitats may rise together in the hot Florida weather, but they don’t have much else in common.  Time for a nod to Elephant Grass, Phragmites, and Plume Grass.

This trio is easy to sort out visually (and see notes at end of article for more details).   The flower clusters of Elephant Grass look like bristly tan hotdogs.  That’s a gimme.  The Phragmites inflorescence in Florida is a bushy panicle with droopy feathery side-branches.  The Plume Grass inflorescence resembles that of Phragmites but is nearly leafless below the inflorescence; the inflorescence branches are stiffer; and the spikelets have awns (needlelike wires at the tips), which are missing in Phragmites.

Each of the three has its own peculiarities:

1. Phragmites is a scary example of subversive bioinvasion.

2. Plume Grass has a double-habitat secret identity.

3. Napier Grass may propel your great-grandchildren’s monorail.

Phragmites. (I have forgotten who took today’s grass photos.)

Is Phragmites native?  Now that’s a loaded question…with no simple answer.  Contrary to some assertions, some Phragmites is native to North America.  Preserved U.S. remains are thousands of years old.  Looking more broadly, Phragmites occurs around much of the world as a mind-boggling species complex revealed in its intricacy by DNA studies.  Botanist Kristin Saltonstall has documented what’s going on here.  (CLICK for details)  There are 27 genetically distinct Phragmites strains, 11 of them endemic to North America.  The most common U.S. strain, known as “M,” probably invaded the U.S. from Europe via southeastern seaports after around 1910, and has snuck quietly but aggressively throughout much of the original North American Phragmites range and beyond.  This is the main invasive strain pestering Europe.  Another strain, the one in Florida, is known as “I” and occurs additionally in South America and in Asia/Australia.  Its original nativity and ultimate classification are not clear, although Saltonstall clearly suspects it to be an old non-native introduction in the U.S.  So, to draw upon some elegant DNA work, is the Florida Phragmites native?   Probably not.  (There are additional taxonomic notes at the end of the article.)

Phragmites stems are straight and strong, giving them ancient and modern uses, with applications as diverse as hut construction, mats, reed boats,  flutes, bagpipe components, “cigarettes,” and arrows.   I make primitive bows and arrows, and have tried Phragmites shafts, which are lightweight and fragile.  Although I have not looked into the matter seriously, I think pre-European Phragmites arrows were generally fitted with reinforcing wooden tips, as shown in Primitive Archer Magazine, from which this photo came:

Ranging from Long Island to Texas and Central America, Plume Grass is elegant in the autumn, looking like a garden species.  Well it actually DOES look like a garden species, especially the related Eurasian horticultural selection Ravenna Grass.  It is likewise related to and similar to Miscanthus known to some as pretty garden grasses and to others as loathsome bioinvaders.  Miscanthus sinensis has shorter flower stalks and longer leaves (the leaf tops reaching the bases of the flower clusters.)

Plume Grass pluming

Where does Plume Grass grow?  To a Floridian, the answer is it swims with the gators. (CLICK for a dandy Gigapan by John.  Find the Plume Grass.)  But what about to a hillbilly like me?  There’s Saccharum giganteum near my parents’ old home in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, in Smoky Mountain National Park, and down the other side into Tennessee. (To be honest though, it is not fond of high elevations.)

This is getting long so we better hurry along to our third super-sized grass, Napier Grass or Elephant Grass.  This African species, reportedly munched by elephants, likes South Florida.  Driving from Jupiter to Stuart along I-95 yesterday I lost count of the clumps.  Any Floridian who drives a car has seen this jungle-maker.  You could hide an elephant in it.  Brought here as a fodder, Napier Grass threatens to take over the state as one gigantic rhizomatous lawn 15 feet tall.   And what a complex relationship with humans:  if you think it may help feed the world you might be interested in the named and improved pasture selections.  If you think it may take over the world you might like to burn it.  Good idea!  As biofuel of course.  This stuff makes Switch Grass look wimpy.

Napier

Setting aside arguments having to do with ethanol per se, why not put all that green to good use before it smother us?  Then use the corn to make corn flakes.  Even better,  Napier Grass takes up nutrients, including notably phosphorus, from eutrophic waters and from contaminated soils.  One objection to this approach is that, hey, don’t plant an evil invasive weed, but isn’t it too late to worry about that?  We can harvest all the Napier Grass we want from what’s already with us.

After the article was posted, my friend Mary Hart sent this winter wonderland photo of Phragmites near her home in Worcester, U.K.,taken in 28 degrees in January 2012, reminding us that the species has become in places a critical nesting site and food source for water birds.

Phragmites across the Pond (and across the canal), in Worcester, U.K., January 2012, sent by Mary Hart.

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Notes:  Phragmites has the ligule small (1 mm vs. > 2 mm in Saccharum), leaf blades not auriculate (as opposed to Arundo and Hymenachne) and without the light basal coloration characteristic of Arundo. The internodes are pubescent (vs. glabrous in Neyraudia) and the lemmas are glabrous (vs. pubescent in Neyraudia).

This is no place for a pseudo-taxonomic revision.  But for a thumbnail:  According to Bernd Blossi at Cornell, several characteristics distinguish the several endemically native Phragmites strains (collectively subsp. americanus) from the introduced “M” (subsp. australis).  Subspecies americanus has deciduous (vs. persistent) leaf sheaths, ligules > 1mm long (vs. shorter), smooth shiny stems (vs. dull and rough),  reddish or other-colored  (vs. tan) stem bases, low rhizome density,  slow colony expansion (vs. rapid), and round rhizomes < 15 mm in diameter (vs. thicker and flattened).  Type I (subsp. berlandieri) of uncertain nativity and unsettled taxonomy shares shiny stems with subsp. americanus, but has the persistent leaf sheaths and short ligules (< 1 mm) associated with subsp. australis.  Subspecies berlandieri has been lumped into a broader segregate species  P.  karka in some interpretations.

 

Bluestem Grasses – Andropogons

Bluestem Grass

Andropogon, several species

Poaceae

Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Work Obligations thwarted the usual Friday trip this week.  A little alter in time, this morning dawned cold and brightly sunny, and I visited the Sweetbay Natural Area near the Palm Beach North County Airport.  One of John’s and my favorite wet sites with a civilized paved sidewalk.  The cold was compensated by the striking beauty of the horizontal sunbeams lighting up the silvery beards on the various Bluestem (Andropogon and Schizachyrium) grasses.  Those fireworks alone justify an early start.

Splitbeard Bluestem with its split beard (don’t recall who took the pic)

It is not my purpose now to be schoolin’ ya about how to distinguish the Andropogon species.  John and I tried that, and the results are a click away at  floridagrasses.org.

Some readers might agree that locally the Bluestem Grasses can be tough to differentiate.  Whenever you see reference to a “species complex,” watch out for a puzzling network of funny business.   Most of our nearby species belong to the “Andropogon virginicus complex,”  which seems to be diploid, comparatively free of apparent hybridization, and yet often with subtle visible differences between species.

One of the prettiest and most distinctive species is the Splitbeard Bluestem, Andropogon ternarius, which is a tetraploid (has 4 sets of chromosomes) and has a particularly delicate appearance:  tall and slender with big long silvery-white bunny ears (spikelet clusters) displayed on wirelike wands.  It looks like a work of art, and  I always enjoy encountering this exquisite bit of creation.  Gardeners agree.  I recently saw this species for sale at approximately $40 per cell tray.  A seedy variant developed in Florida chiefly for habitat restoration is called “Ft. Cooper.”

The plant world is full of fluffy-puffy feathery wind-dispersal units, but Andropogons are  the ZZTops of the flora.  In fact the name Andropogon means dude with a beard.

You could scarcely design a species more appropriate to wind-dispersal.  The bunny ears bust apart at the slightest whisper, separating into parachute-bearing “seeds” (spikelet clusters) to blow hither and thither.  The microscope view shows what they bust apart into.   The feathery parachute hairs in the photo are of obvious function.  The two long threads (awns) visible in the picture are less obviously useful.  The awns probably catch the wind or bump against adjacent plants and help the bunny ears bust apart.   Also interesting are the two small vertical “daggers” you see flanking the main spikelet.  Those are sterile (seedless) spikelets.    Who knows—maybe they’ve lost their function but the genes that make them have not quit altogether, sort of like the human canine teeth.

Andropogon ternarius spikelet cluster. Center-left is large fertilie spikelet with long awn. Smaller sterile spikelet “dagger” is vertical just center-right. Another awn is visible tilted to the right.

The natural distribution of Andropogon ternarius is roughly the southeastern 1/3 of the US from Florida to New Jersey, Indiana, and Texas.   At least that was where it was is was yesterday.   Sandy may redistribute some bunny ears today.

Split-bearded dudes

 

Bay Bean

Canavalia rosea

Fabaceae

Bay bean flowers in front of sea grape leaves (by JB)

Today John and George played hooky in the coastal dune-hammock strand on Hutchinson Island at Beachwalk-Pasley.   This restored strip is a living museum of maritime species.  The treat is seeing all together in glorious flower at once:  Bay-Cedar, Bloodberry, Buttonwood, Corky Stem Passion Vine, Cowpea, Crownbeard, Fiddlewood, Native Lantana, Marlberry, Nickerbean, Purple Morning Glory, Railroad Vine, Sea-Rocket, and more.  The star fruit-laden species were Sea-Grapes and Fiddlewoods.  The most magnificent display was the Baybean, trailing on the ground, festooned over upright plants, and dangling from overhead limbs like a party decoration.  Flowers, fruits, seeds—the whole works.

Dangling Canavalia pods (by JB)

Baybean beans are easy to spot with their blotchy surface pattern.  To me they look like engorged ticks on a dog’s neck.

The dangling pods are the size of a flattened sausage, and made of tough stuff. The big pea-type flowers are a rich rose color.   You can find on-line reports of the blossoms drugging their pollinators, but I’m skeptical of that.  (Would be fun to investigate though.) Something bay-beany with a bigger blog presence is smoking the big tough fibrous  Canavalia pods or leaves for a “Woodstock” experience.  Sometimes they are in the false marijuama sold as “bath salts.” The blog world has lots of of chatter on this topic, yet they all seem to miss one minor point: YOU’D HAVE TO BE CRAZY!?!

Here is why I would never ever ingest Canavalia in any format: I enjoy life.   Canavalia is the namesake of one of the world’s most fascinating poisons, canavanine.  Canavanine occurs in Canavalia, although I do not know about C. rosea specifically.  It is present in other pants too, such as alfalfa.

Here is how canavanine works.  It is wickedly insidious, and pardon the Biochemistry 101. Living things are all about proteins.   Proteins have precise structures and precise functions.  Proteins are chains of amino acids, just like sentences are chains of words.  Alter an amino acid, and you have the effects of a mutation, not good.   An amino acid impotant in protein building is arginine.  You can buy it in the health food store.  Now here is the important point—Canavanine resembles arginine.  Canavanine sabotages proteins by becoming built into them disguised as arginine.  This is the equivalent of saboteurs secretly replacing ball bearings with rubber balls in the airplane factory.  Kaboom!  Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

[Note: The chemical structures come from the Universite Pierre & Marie Curie, Paris]