Week five just passed and I am caught up at last!

For 8/13/13


The four species to highlight this week are Virgin's bower, mild water pepper, American hazelnut and yellow bumble bee. All photos are finally mine either taken on my iPhone or iPad.

Virgin’s Bower

Clematis virginiana

This vine is a member of the Buttercup Family.  It has opposite, compound leaves. Leaflets are coarsely toothed. This species has white flowers with four sepals in a cluster, but there are others with purple and blue flowers.. The distinctive fruit is a cluster of feathery hairs called “Old Man’s Beard”. It climbs by twisting their leaf stalks around other vegetation for support

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Mild Water Pepper

Polygonum hydropiperoides

In the smartweed family, this plant is considered weakly erect at 6-36” tall.  The tiny purple flowers are clustered in a spike on jointed stems. Immediately above each joint, the stem is surrounded by a membrane called a sheath. These appear dark brown on the plant. They can grow in shallow water as well as in very moist soils.

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American Hazelnut

Corylus americana

This is a shrub with broad, double toothed, alternate leaves, and very distinct fruits – filberts.  However, when the fruits are maturing, they are hidden in some curious looking, ragged-edged husks. Nuts are not only sought after by humans, but by a plethora of other animals including squirrels, deer and birds.

The shrub only gets about 10 feet in height and is usually found in thickets along forest edges.

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Yellow Bumble Bee

Bombus fervidus

These large, fuzzy bees are intimidating but not aggressive. You can get right up close to them.  Their dense, hairy coats help warm them and “bubbles” can often fl in cooler weather than many other insects. Tehir hairy coats aslo make the;m extremely effective pollinators: as they visit floweres, the pollen adheres to their fuzziness and gets transferred to other plants.

They usually build nests in underground burrows and only young queens survive the winter to start new colonies the next spring. 

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References

Corylus americana Fact Sheet. (n.d.). VT Forest Biology and Dendrology. Retrieved August 11, 2013, from http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=208

Hoagman, W. (1998). Great Lakes Wetlands: A Field Guide. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.

McCormac, J., & Kagume, K. (2009). Great Lakes nature guide. Auburn, WA: Lone Pine Pub..

Newcomb, L. (1977). Newcomb's Wildflower guide: an ingenious new key system for quick, positive field identification of the wildflowers, flowering shrubs and vines of Northeastern and North Central North America. Boston: Little, Brown.

Petrides, G. A. (1972). A field guide to trees and shrubs; field marks of all trees, shrubs, and woody vines that grow wild in the northeastern and north-central United States and in southeastern and south-central Canada, (2d ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

APA formatting by BibMe.org.

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Question of the week: What are some non-native species and invasive species you have found in your ecosystem and how do you think they are influencing the ecosystem dynamics of your ecosystem?

Creative pieces:  photos and poetry

Jewels and weeds

Is that the way out?

The Great Blue in Haiku

Humongous heron
tall, gray, white, blue, sleek, long, proud
fishes, flies and flaunts