Milkweed pods bursting open (photo by Kate St. John)
At this time of year milkweed pods burst open and the seeds disperse, carried on the wind by sprigs of fluff.
The fluff doesn’t look aerodynamic so how does the the seed stay airborne for so long? Recent studies explaining the flight properties of dandelion fluff may provide a clue for milkweed. Let’s look at dandelions.
Each dandelion seed is attached to parachute-like bit of fluff called a pappus. They look like this before they leave on their journey.
When a seed lets loose it dangles below the pappus and floats on the breeze for seven (7) feet or several miles. The goal is for the seed to land far from the parent plant.
Empty black walnut shell with holes (photos by Kate St. John)
This nutshell is empty and carved with large holes. Their shape and placement tell us who made them.
In the autumn black walnuts ripen and fall from the trees. They’re covered in yellow-green husks that exude a black stain when you open them.
Black walnut in husk, Schenley Park, 27 Sep 2019 (photo by Kate St. John)
Squirrels don’t care about the stain. They chew off the husk and gnaw the wooden shell.
Fox squirrel chisels a black walnut (photo by Donna Foyle)
They make four holes, two on each side of the shell. The side that opens quickly is gnawed into one large hole. By their shape you can tell that a squirrel ate the nutmeat.
This fox squirrel gnawed a black walnut in Donna Foyle’s backyard in 2014. Find out how long it took him in How To Open A Black Walnut.
(photos by Kate St. John and Donna Foyle, per the captions)
Asters, Raccoon Creek State Park, Lake Trail, 27 Sep 2019 (photo by Kate St. John)
It’s late September and asters are blooming throughout western Pennsylvania. I found several patches of purple asters yesterday on the Lake Trail at Raccoon Creek State Park.
These two may be the same species. They have similar leaves and their colors matched in real life though the camera shows them differently. It’s a trick of the light. Cameras are notorious for distorting purple / blue.
Asters, Raccoon Creek State Park, Lake Trail, 27 Sep 2019, 12.18p
I haven’t identified these flowers. My Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide has 10 densely packed pages of asters and that’s not all possible species.
Do you think fall warblers are confusing? Asters (and goldenrods) are the last frontier!
Shaggy mane mushrooms at Black Moshannon State Park, 11 Sept 2019 (photo by Kate St. John)
Last weekend my friend Debbie and I traveled to Williamsport for the annual Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology (PSO) meeting. Along the way we stopped at Black Moshannon State Park where we found these mushrooms disintegrating near the parking lot. Mushrooms are a mystery to me. An expert at the meeting told us what they were.
Shaggy mane mushrooms, also called shaggy ink cap (Coprinus comatus), are a common mushroom in lawns and waste places. Their caps begin as white cylinders, turn shaggy and bell shaped, liquefy into black ink and drip from the edges, eventually disintegrating into an inky blob.
The shaggy manes at Black Moshannon were all dripping black ink so we had no idea they went through the life stages shown in the Wikimedia photo below.
When they’re disintegrating shaggy manes look very unappetizing but according to Wikipedia they are edible when young. However they are frequently confused with a poisonous North American mushroom called the ‘vomiter’ mushroom Chlorophyllum molybdites. Enough said!
p.s. PSO‘s annual September meeting is a great opportunity to go birding in a new-to-you place in Pennsylvania. The outings are led by local birders who know the area well. I visited Montour Preserve and Ricketts Glen State Park last weekend. It was well worth the trip. Next year’s meeting will be in Lancaster County.
Goldenrod is going through its paces this month. Here are a few of the stages you’ll see in a native of Pennsylvania, Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis).
Buds like these may be hard to find in September because …
Ragweed season officially began August 15 and runs through September. I’m not allergic to it, but those of you who are may want to know the enemy and learn how to avoid it.
First, a primer on what is NOT ragweed.
Goldenrod is not ragweed. Ragweed (Ambrosia sp. on left) is a wind-pollinated plant with green flowers on thin spikes. Goldenrod (Solidago sp. on right) is a bee-and-butterfly pollinated plant with yellow flowers in a feathery plume. Don’t worry about those yellow flowers. Goldenrod is not busy spreading pollen; it’s busy attracting bees.
Ragweed (on left) and goldenrod (on right), photos from Wikimedia Commons
Ragweed (Ambrosia genus) is a member of the Aster family native to the Americas but now spread to Europe. The most common species in Pennsylvania, common ragweed Ambrosia artemisiifolia, grows easily by the side of the road and in disturbed places. It doesn’t stand out.
Common ragweed’s female flowers are nearly hidden in the leaf axils and pollinated by the wind.
The male flowers are the ones to worry about. Perched on spikes, facing downward, and loaded with pollen, a slight tap is all it takes to release a cloud of pollen. Imagine what the wind can do!
A single plant may produce about a billion grains of pollen per season, and the pollen is transported on the wind. It causes about half of all cases of pollen-associated allergic rhinitis in North America. … Ragweed pollen can remain airborne for days and travel great distances, affecting people hundreds of miles away. It can even be carried 300 to 400 miles (640 km) out to sea
It’s hard to avoid these pollen grains because they’re so pervasive, but you can be forewarned of a bad pollen day at pollen.com. On the other hand, your nose might know before the website does!
Ironically the genus name of ragweed is Ambrosia, meaning “food or drink of immortality” in Greek or “something very pleasing to taste or smell” in English. For those of you who suffer ragweed allergies there is nothing pleasing about it!
Know your enemy.
(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
(*) Different species of goldenrod have different flower cluster shapes — it’s not always a plume. However tall goldenrod, pictured above, is the one most often called ragweed by mistake.
Fringetree fruit, 31 August 2019 (photo by Kate St. John)
One advantage of botanizing the same place over and over again is that you get to know what grows where. You remember a plant that draws attention in the spring, forget it in the summer when it’s boring, then notice it again in fall. Because it’s in the same location, you know what it is.
The identity of this dangling blue fruit was a puzzle until I remembered that it’s hanging from the fringetree that put on a floral show in May.
One flower of a fringetree in Schenley Park, 18 May 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)
Mountain deathcamas, Cedar Bog, Ohio (photo by Dianne Machesney)
Any flower with the word “death” in its name is probably poisonous and deceptively beautiful. This one fits the bill.
Mountain deathcamas or alkali grass (Anticlea elegans) is a threatened native plant found in limy sandy soil, in fens, wet meadows, beaches, on hillsides and canyons in the Great Lakes area and western North America. A member of the trillium family (Melanthiaceae) it blooms in June through August so today, August 31, is probably too late to see it.
Dianne and Bob Machesney visited Cedar Bog, Ohio in July to catch up with the plant in bloom. (Dianne’s photo above.) Here’s another look at it from Wikimedia Commons, photographed at Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada.
Dodder at Jennings Prairie, 4 August 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)
This yellow vine — called dodder (Cuscuta sp.) — wraps itself around other plants, inserts its “teeth” into a host, and sucks out water and nutrients. Yes, dodder is a parasite but it doesn’t kill its host. It might even be performing a service.
Learn how dodder finds a host, benefits from fungi, and may help the hosts protect themselves in this 13 minute video by Adam Haritan at Learn Your Land.
(photo by Kate St. John, video by Adam Haritan at Learn Your Land)
