If you google for images of the “cosmos” you’ll find pictures of outer space.
Way down in the list you might also find this.
Cosmos is a very pretty field flower, native to Mexico. Its colors are out of this world.
(photo by Kate St. John)
Category Archives: Plants & Fungi
Now Blooming: White Wood Aster
If you wait long enough mysteries reveal themselves.
In April 2012 I displayed this photo of squawroot and asked readers the identity of the green leaf on the left side of the picture. I thought it might be an invasive species.
Mark Bowers and Loree Speedy answered it was probably White wood aster (Eurybia divaricata) which grows in large patches and therefore might look invasive, though it’s not.
Last week I finally put the lonely leaf and its flower together when I found the asters blooming in the same place where the leaves appear in the spring.
And yes it was in patches, small and large. Small above, large below, in Schenley Park.
Mystery solved. …Unless I was fooled again.
(photos by Kate St. John)
Makes Birds Red
Amur honeysuckle is invasive but it produces a lot of fruit for wildlife.
These bright red berries make northern cardinals quite red if they eat them while they’re molting — which they are doing right now.
Unfortunately honeysuckle fruit is not as nutritious as our native red berries, such as dogwood, so the birds look great but they don’t get as much fat and protein as they’d find in native fruit.
Seeds from the bird feeder can round out their diet.
(photo by Kate St. John)
Now Blooming: Wingstem
Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia) is now blooming in sunny woodlands in western Pennsylvania.
It’s easy to identify by its ragged yellow flowers whose central disk stands up and whose petals look as if they’ve been blown back by a strong wind.
Failing that, you’ll be able to identify it by the stem which has several “wings” or flanges that run its length.
Wing. Stem.
(photos by Kate St. John)
More Jewels
Here’s a closeup of another plant whose leaves bear tiny jewel-like drops, but they aren’t benign like jewelweed.
This is slender-leaved sundew (Drosera linearis), a member of the Drosera genus of carnivorous plants whose mucilage droplets attract, trap and digest insect prey. The drops are so sticky that insects can’t escape. The tentacles are so sensitive to touch that at the footfall of an insect they bend to entrap the victim. The insect dies within 15 minutes.
It seems ironic that the plant also produces flowers and holds them high to attract pollinators. Isn’t it counterproductive to eat the insects it depends on for pollination? But it doesn’t. The pollinators aren’t attracted to the droplets so they don’t get hurt.
When the flower blooms the plant looks like this.
Two species of sundews bloom in spaghum bogs in western Pennsylvania from June through August. The slender-leaved sundew is relatively rare. Round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) is more common.
The flowers only open in strong sunlight. My favorite place to see them is at Spruce Flats bog at Laurel Summit State Park.
(photos by Dianne Machesney)
Experiments with Jewelweed
Tuesday dawned cool and clear with patchy morning fog and lots of dew. As I walked to work through Schenley Park I noticed that the jewelweed leaves were dripping with tiny round jewels.
Jewelweed gets its name from the way water beads up on top of the leaves but I’d never before seen jewels drip from the tips so I took a picture. Then I experimented.
What would happen if I touched a jewel?
It came off on my finger and stayed in its rounded jewel form. It wasn’t pure water. It didn’t roll off.
While I was experimenting with these tiny drops Art Schiavo, an avid birder from Hershey, PA, was thinking about jewelweed too (amazing coincidence!) and sent me this message:
“I’m sure you know that jewelweed is in the Impatiens Genus. I’m also fairly certain you know that its medicinal value is insect bite, stinging nettle exposure, and poison ivy relief, but did you know that the seeds are edible and taste similar to sunflower seeds?”
Wow. I had no idea you could eat the seeds. A little investigation uncovered this document that explains which parts of the plant are edible and how to cook them. There’s no need to cook the seeds but good luck catching them when the casing pops.
More experiments ahead!
(photos by Kate St. John)
Plant a Shrub, Start a Fight
The tall square hedge in this photo is the species that launched 17,000 complaints. It’s also been blamed for the decline of the house sparrow in the UK.
When a tree is implicated in the decline of a bird I’m compelled to find out why.
Leyland cypresses (Leylandii) are an accidental hybrid of Nootka and Monterey cypresses, both from the Pacific Northwest. They hybridized on their own in the Leighton Hall gardens in northern Wales and were discovered in 1888. The hybrid is sterile but can be propagated by cuttings. It became popular in UK landscaping because the foliage is so thick it provides privacy from neighbors.
Leylandii are huge trees that grow three feet per year and can reach 130 feet tall. However, they’re used as hedges and therein lies the problem.
When people planted them as cute little shrubs, they thought their Leylandii might look like this.
But this tidiness requires constant trimming. Without it the hedgerow turns into this…
…and can engulf nearby buildings.
For instance, Snarestone Pumping Station was visible from the road in 1994 before Leylandii were planted at the perimeter. By 2010 only the top of the smokestack can be seen above the trees. (Notice the little red car at the right side of the right hand photo. These trees are huge!)
Leylandii block views and create very dense shade. Neighbors ask owners to trim them. Then the fights begin.
By 2005 there were 17,000 disputes, prompting Parliament to pass an “anti-social” law to settle them. When neighbors object to Leylandii they must first try to settle the dispute privately. If this fails they can ask local Council to intervene and pay a fee to begin. Council can rule that the trees be trimmed to 2 meters (6 feet). Failure to comply can result in a £1000 fine.
Here’s an example of a dispute in Plymouth, complete with a video that shows the neighborhood. The trees completely obscure the owner’s house. Interestingly, the neighborhood has no other trees and no plantings for birds.
How do house sparrows figure into this? House sparrow population studies have shown they thrive where there are deciduous trees, not evergreens. House sparrows are declining in the U.K. Leylandii are oppressive evergreens. Voilà!
(photos from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the captions to see the originals)
Tall Bellflower in Bloom
I almost forgot the name of this plant when I found it blooming last weekend.
Despite the fact that the flower is not bell-shaped, this plant is called tall bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum). The flowers are a pretty shade of cornflower blue and have an ornate pistil arrangement that looks like a stripped down version of the purple passion flower, also known as maypops.
Here are side-by-side close-ups of maypops and tall bellflower so you can see what I mean.
The stems in the first photo are in an unusual arrangement. They’re bunched because a vine wrapped the three together. Click here for a more typical view.
(tall bellflower photos by Kate St. John. Maypops from this page at Wikimedia Commons)
Up Close With Blue Vervain
Here’s an unusual look at blue vervain — a view from above at very close range.
Verbena hastata is one of my favorite flowers because of its color and size. The plant can grow five feet tall but its flowers are tiny, five-petaled and blue. They bloom in clusters that ring the flower spikes as they bloom from bottom to top.
Click here for a more typical view.
Blue vervain blooms from late June through September in western Pennsylvania. You’ll find lots of it at Jennings Prairie.
Visit the prairie with the Wissahickon Nature Club on Monday, July 29.
(photo by Kate St. John)
Metallic Green On…
Close looks reveal new wonders.
Until recently I had no idea that metallic green bees existed. Then I saw one on a chicory flower in Schenley Park and that started the ball rolling.
Soon I found another one, this time on spotted knapweed on the Montour Run bike trail. She’s a beautiful green color with huge yellow pollen sacks on her legs. (I don’t know the sex of this bug; just guessing.)
My searches on the web indicate she’s one of 11 species of Agapostemon sweat bees, bugs of the western hemisphere. If I had known what to look for I could have used this guide at Discover Life to identify her species.
Though sweat bees are sometimes attracted to sweat, the bees I found were only interested in flowers, especially blue and violet flowers like spotted knapweed.
Spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculosa) has a pretty flower but it’s an invasive species that’s consumed 7 million acres of North America. It gains a foothold in disturbed soil, then spreads through high seed production, toxins in its roots that inhibit other plants, and an unpalatable taste that prevents deer and other animals from eating it (alas!).
It’s identified by its distinctive thistle-like flower head with black-fringed bracts.
Spotted knapweed is blooming everywhere right now.
Look closely and you might find a native metallic green bee taking a sip.
p.s. Check the comments for a link to a cool close-up by Mike Vosburg!
(photos by Kate St. John)