… Throw-Back-Thursday: What does a hummingbird see in here? …
Facebook has Throw Back Thursdays (TBT *) and now, so do I.
I’ve been writing Outside My Window since November 2007 and accumulated more than 2,320 articles. Many of them are great information that I’ve almost forgotten, so today I’m starting my own Throw Back Thursdays to reprise some really cool stuff.
Let’s re-explore the inside of a nasturtium. Did you know it has a special structure just for hummingbirds?
On June 14 Karen Lang and I looked for fledglings at two peregrine nest sites along the Ohio River. When we got to Monaca Karen pulled into an open area between a house and an old industrial site on the upriver side of the Monaca-East Rochester Bridge. All around us the edges were blooming with bright blue flowers.
Ohio spiderwort, Tradescantia ohiensis or bluejacket, is a native perennial that’s often cultivated. It’s tall and showy but each flower lasts only a day. According to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, “When touched in the heat of the day, the flowers shrivel to a fluid jelly.” (Click here for another view.)
The flowers were also blooming in the homeowner’s garden so my hunch is they spread on their own to the river’s edge.
It’s fitting that Ohio spiderwort grows next to The Ohio.
The delicate flowers of Bowman’s Root (Gillenia trifoliata) have five petals, but they’re arranged irregularly as you can see in Tom Potterfield’s photo above. When the flower fades each petal falls alone leaving three and four-petaled flowers to confuse us amateur botanists.
I took a (poor) photo of the profuse flowers and drooping stems. They look as if the rain beat them down but this perennial just won’t stand upright.
Gillenia trifoliata has two scientific names because there was a big disagreement about its first one. Conrad Moench named it Gillenia in honor of German botanist Arnoldus Gillenius, but another of Gillenius’ fans later named a completely different plant Gillena in his honor. Professor Britton decided that the single letter “i” was not enough to distinguish the two names so he renamed Bowman’s Root Porteranthus trifoliatus in honor of his friend, Thomas C. Porter.
Which name is right? In scientific naming there’s a rule that the first name takes precedence unless, of course, the organism is reclassed. As we have seen with warblers, the Dendroica genus name completely disappeared when American Redstarts, Setophaga ruticilla, were reclassed into the Dendroica genus. Because Setophaga is an older name the American Ornithologists’ Union declared that Setophaga replaced Dendroica. (Don’t get me going on how much I hate this!) Apparently botanists made no such pronouncement on Gillenia so both names continue.
Bowman’s Root has another common name, Indian Physic, because Native Americans used the powdered root for an emetic (bleah!) and other medicinal uses.
Four names are a heavy load for these ethereal flowers. I like to call them Bowman’s Root.
(Top photo taken at Longwood Gardens by Tom Potterfield. Click on the image to see the original. Bottom photo by Kate St.John)
(*) Life Flower: I’m borrowing a term from birding to describe the first time I’ve ever seen this species.
My neighbors will tell you I am not a gardener. When the growing season arrives I spend all my time birding. Around Memorial Day I glance at the garden and think, “Something must be done!” I go out there with my Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide and identify what’s growing, pull out the noxious weeds, and leave everything else in place.
That’s how I got King Devil.
Also called Field Hawkweed (Hieracium pratense), it’s a perennial creeping plant whose yellow flowers cluster at the top of a tall, hairy stem. The leaves are basal, thin, hairy, untoothed and hardly noticeable compared to the flowers.
I find the flowers interesting in all their phases.
I left the King Devil where it sprouted.
Wikipedia says, “This species finds its habitat where the soil has been neglected.” That’s a pretty good description of my gardening efforts. The birds are luring me away from home.
Yesterday morning I helped count birds at the Emerald View BioBlitz with David and Colleen Yeany and Eva Simms. Eva showed us the new trails in Olympia and Mt. Washington Parks. What a lot of work to build them — but well worth it! Check out the trail map.
Above Route 51 in Mt. Washington Park we found unusual flowers three feet tall with daisy-like heads, thin leaves, and long puckered buds. I used my photos to identify them when I got home.
Yellow Goat’s Beard (Tragopogon dubius) is an introduced annual (or biennial) from Eurasia so I’m not surprised we found it growing in a sunny area reseeded by PennDOT several years ago. It’s distinguished by the green bracts that show around the edge of the flower. Fortunately we were there in the morning. This flower closes in late afternoon.
None of the flowers had gone to seed so we didn’t see the reason this plant is called Goat’s Beard — its huge fluffy seed head.
Goat’s beard seed head (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
This is not the only “Goat’s Beard” and for a moment I was excited by the thought of another one, Aruncus dioicus, which hosts the rare Dusky Azure butterfly (Celastrina nigra). Though similarly named they are unrelated and don’t even resemble each other. Aruncus dioicus is a native in the Rose family and grows in shady and moist deciduous woods.
One of many goats’ beards, this one is yellow.
(photo of seed head from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original. All other photos by Kate St. John)
Back in the late 1990’s I bought a Newcomb’s Guide and learned how to key out wildflowers in Esther Allen’s class at the Rachel Carson Institute. Pretty soon I thought I could key out almost anything.
Hah! I found this flower blooming at Raccoon Creek State Park Wildflower Reserve in early June of 1997. I couldn’t figure it out. Is it keyed as an irregular flower with opposite, divided leaves? Or a 5-petaled flower? No matter where I looked it wasn’t there.
Eventually at a Wisshickon Nature Club meeting I asked Esther about this mystery. She immediately knew what I was describing. “That isn’t in the book,” she said. “It’s Few-flowered Valerian, Valeriana pauciflora.”
I learned its common name from Esther’s translation of its scientific name — pauciflora means “few-flowered” — but on most plant databases it’s called Large-flowered Valerian.
Whatever the “flowered,” I drew it on page 286 of Newcomb’s in the section for 5-petaled flowers with opposite, divided leaves.
Look for it at Raccoon Wildflower Reserve in early June.
Here’s a flower that’s amazingly difficult to photograph.
Last weekend at Cape Cod I found many starflowers blooming in the woods. They ought to be easy to photograph, right? Wrong! The flower’s whiteness engulfs its depth. My photos made them look like two-dimensional blobs. Thanks to Dianne Machesney we can see the details.
Starflower (Trientalis borealis) is a northeastern plant that ranges from Labrador to North Carolina. It prefers cooler climates so you’ll find it at higher elevations the further south you go.
It blooms at the end of May along the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail in Pennsylvania … and at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Jack in the pulpit, Schenley Park, 2014 (photo by Kate St. John)
28 May 2014
When I found this Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) blooming in Schenley Park, he begged for an opportunity to explain himself.
Go ahead, Jack. What’s on your mind?
First off, I’m not always a guy. I’m both male and female but not at the same time. What you call “Jack” is my spadix whose base is covered in tiny male or female flowers. I can make my flowers either male or female depending on my age and environmental conditions. Sometimes I’m male. Sometimes I’m female. Call me Jack or Jill.
I’m pollinated by fungus flies so I smell like a mushroom.
My pulpit is called a spathe — rhymes with bathe. My hood looks like a garden spade if you open it up. Be careful if you do that. Don’t hurt me.
Botanists cannot decide whether I am one species or three. My photo, above, shows that I’m all green inside but some of us are striped.
Striped flower of Jack in the pulpit (photo by Kate St. John)
My trifoliate leaves start near the ground and sometimes look separate from me, but they’re mine. Yes, they look like “leaves of three.” No, they’re not poison ivy.
Trifoliate leaves of Jack in the pulpit (photo by Kate St. John)
When I’m female I’m quite pretty in the fall. I drop my spathe and develop a cluster of bright red berries on my spadix. Check back in a few months and I’ll look like this … if I’m Jill this year.
Jack in the pulpit gone to seed (photo by Kate St. John)
And finally, don’t eat me. I’m full of calcium oxalate. Native Americans had recipes for my use but you have to know their special preparations or you’re in for nasty burning sensations, possible sterility, or poisoning.
This plant is hard to look up if you say it the way I do: sass-pa-rilla. My pronunciation eliminates two critical letters at the beginning of the word. Fortunately Google anticipated my mistake and offered sar-sa-pa-rilla when I spelled it without the additional “R” and “A.”
Wild sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) is common in rich woods in northeastern North America. Even when it’s blooming you’ll notice its leaves first. They’re more than a foot tall and grow on a long stem that splits into three compound leaves. (Click here to see.)
The flowers are arranged as an echo of the leaves but because the flower and leaf stems grow directly from the ground they appear to be unrelated plants. Follow the stems and you’ll see.
In a typical year wild sarsaparilla would be blooming today but in this cold spring it’s probably delayed. Look for it in the Laurel Highlands.
