The four-petaled, pure white flowers on this perennial vine may have been responsible for the common name of this plant, along with the fact that it grows upward, winding itself over bushes and trees to form a shaded shelter or bower. Virgin’s Bower, Clematis virginiana, is a member of the Buttercup Family. There are over 250 different species of Clematis in the world; this one is a native of North America. It ranges from Manitoba to Nova Scotia southward and from New England to Georgia. There are two other native Clematis in PA. Both have purple blooms rather than white.
The cascading seed heads of Virgin’s Bower.
This time of the year, you won’t find any pretty white blossoms or three-part leaves. What remains is very recognizable, however, along roads or low areas near streams where it likes to grow. It will be sprawled over the tops of small trees and thickets that have lost most of their leaves. The female flowers have morphed by now into cascading, snowball-like clusters of silvery-gray, feathery hairs, each holding a dry, one-seeded fruit that doesn’t split open at maturity – it just hangs on and floats away in the winter wind. Of course, Virgin’s Bower has received another common name from this characteristic, Old Man’s Beard! Itchy! Scratchy! Not the beard part of the plant, but rather, the fresh green foliage, which can cause dermatitis and blistering of the skin! And that, in turn, is very strange because the early settlers used the plant to treat itch and skin diseases!
Feathery haris each holding a single seed of Virgin’s Bower.Thank you to Evergreen Wealth Solutions for supporting the blog!
Growing up, I was lucky to have two Eastern hemlock trees
in my yard, much taller that our two-story house. One had lower branches for easy
climbing; the other, with high branches, provided places for swings. Kid
heaven! I learned the meaning of words like “evergreen” and
“conifer” from them.
Eastern hemlocks
As I travel the back roads near my home now, I try to
imagine what an entire forest of trees resembling the current state champion
hemlock in Cook Forest State Park would look like. It is 125 feet tall, 5 feet
in diameter and has a spread of 70 feet. Penn’s Woods was covered by
magnificent old-growth forests of pine, hemlock and different kinds of hardwoods
at the time of its settlement similar to this state champion tree. The loss of
these giants is well-documented in histories of the lumbering industry in this
area. I still like to see them in my mind, dominating the cool, moist,
north-facing slopes.
Unlike many trees, hemlocks grow well in shade with their
long, slender, horizontal branches drooping to the ground. Half-inch long green
needles with two white stripes underneath run up both sides of the bumpy twigs.
Cones are light brown and oval with short stalks holding tight to the ends of
branches. Although heavy cone producers when they reach fifteen years, the life
of their seeds is low due to infertility, lack of even temperatures, and the
moisture required for germination. Hemlocks are very slow growers and may only
get an inch and a half in height in their first year with a root of one-half
inch, making them very sensitive to the drying effects of higher temperatures.
They are considered fully established at three to five feet tall. Seedlings seem
to grow well in rotten logs, stumps, and mounds that provide a better moisture
supply, many times creating pure stands of hemlocks the same size and age.
Hemlock cones
These native giants are under attack by a very tiny
insect that attaches itself under the small leaves along their stems and causes
a loss of nutrients to the whole tree. Hemlock Woolly Adelgid females lay
white, woolly masses of sacks containing from fifty to three hundred eggs in
two generations per year. These insects insert their long, sucking mouthparts
directly into the food storage cells of the tree which responds by blocking off
the tiny wounds to disrupt the outflow of sap. This, in turn, cuts off the flow
of nutrients to the needles and twigs, leading eventually to their death.
Dieback to major limbs can occur within two years and generally progresses from
the bottom of the tree upward. Originally introduced from Japan in the 1950’s,
Hemlock Woolly Adelgid has spread to eighteen eastern states from Georgia to
Maine and now covers nearly half the range of native hemlocks, appearing to
spread about ten miles per year.
We need our hemlocks because they make the damp, cool,
shady environment required by many of the forest plants. They also keep it cool
for small streams and their inhabitants. They provide wonderful shelter and
nesting sites, nooks and crannies for dens, and food in the form of seeds and
greens for browse. As young landscape plantings, they soften the rigid outlines
of houses and sheds and cut be trimmed to create hedges. And, after all, they
are our Pennsylvania State Tree!
Thank you to Evergreen Wealth Solutions for your support!
The beautiful and very unique leaves of Rattlesnake Plantain
caught my attention as they peeked out from the leaf litter along a trail at
the WMWA.
Rattlesnake Plantain
This native terrestrial orchid is a member of the second
largest plant family on earth with over 28,000 species. Sixty are native to
Pennsylvania, many of them rare and threatened in the wild. I found these
plants growing on a slight incline among mixed hardwoods and conifers. They do
well in dry, sandy to moist soils, but cannot thrive in water-logged soils that
do not drain – hence on an incline! Physical characteristics lead to the naming
of many plants. In this case, fine, downy hairs on stems, rhizomes, and leaves
gave the scientific name, Goodyera pubscens. The checkered, silvery
pattern on the leaves that look like the scales of a snake’s skin and the shape
like the sole of a human foot gave the name Rattlesnake Plantain (Latin –
planta).
Once a year, sometime between May and August, a mature
plant (four to eight years of age) will send up from its basal rosette of
leaves, a leafless stalk of small white flowers that look similar to those in
the photograph of Nodding Ladies’ Tresses in an earlier post during the week of
September 27. After flowering, the fleshy rhizome of the plant will grow one to
three offshoots which will live on after the original rhizome dies. Rattlesnake
Plantain’s seeds are minute and abundant like dust. Charles Darwin thought if
all the seeds of a single orchid would live and grow into plants, the
great-grandchildren of that single orchid plant would “cover the earth in
one continuous carpet.” He was not aware that those plentiful seeds need
some help to grow. With no energy reserve in the tiny seeds, orchids require a
special relationship with a mycorrhizal fungus or symbiont (AKA body buddy)
that will provide the carbon needed to grow. The more, the better the growth!
Some established orchids will continue to get nutrients from fungi as adults
which can also help them tolerate stress.
The creeping rhizomes grow in a colonia pattern
There are two other species of Goodyera that grow
in Pennsylvania, Dwarf and Checkered. Both are rare. The leaves of Rattlesnake Plantain
have white, silvery lines on both sides of the center mid-rib. That is what
helped me Identify them!
Thank you to Evergreen Wealth Solutions for the support!
…and will the real coral fungus please stand up! Do you
remember the old television show that used that line? So, which one would you
pick as a photo of coral fungus?
Which is the real coral fungus???
There is a fungus that grows in North America on the
ground under mixed hardwoods and conifers. It is not your ordinary mushroom
that resembles an umbrella. This one looks like coral, the kind that lives in
warm, southern waters, and may, depending on its species, build up large coral
reefs of calcium carbonate.
White coral fungus has an upright growth pattern not
unlike its undersea look-alike. Its spreading branches are white on its many
tiny, flat, tooth-like tips. Its middle part can be beige or pinkish before
returning to white near its base.
The one I discovered near Essick Heights is Crested Coral
Fungus or Clavulina coralloides. There are several different species of
fungus in PA that resemble coral – white crowns with cone-shaped points, yellow,
violet to purple, deep pink, with some stems pointing up and some down, growing
singly or in bunches. The lovely white color of coral fungi can become gray to
black at the bottoms of their branches when they are parasitized by another
type of fungus growing in the soil around it. With a hand lens, you can see the
little black dots as they invade their way upward on the stems.
(The real Crested Coral Fungus is #1)
Crested Coral Fungus or Clavulina coralloidesThis installment of Underfoot is brought to you by Evergreen Wealth Solutions
When asked to write articles for NPC, it didn’t take me
long to come up with the title “Underfoot.” My habit of looking down
as I walk along is my way of exploring for what’s there – plants, ants, fungus,
rocks – consistently searching out little mysteries on the ground. A wise
person, my mother, kept a saying on the bulletin board next to the phone as I
was growing up. The thought evidently stuck with me, as did the paper it was
printed on, which is now thumb-tacked next to my desk: “Thank heaven for
the happy touch of getting joy from nothing much.” That’s me, down to the
ground. Pun, intended!
Which brings me to this week, when I was presented with another
totally different and equally appropriate definition of “underfoot.”
As I readied the upper back porch for winter, there, between the folds of the
curtains was something “present and in one’s way” – a little brown
bat! I certainly didn’t want to remove the curtain and dislodge it. My
curiosity was aroused as to why it was there.
A close-up of the sleeping bat on the curtain.
Here’s what I discovered: this little bat is Myotis
lucifugus, Little Brown Myotis, or as its scientific name explains
“mouse-eared and “light-shunning.” It certainly didn’t like the
flash of my camera. I suspect it did enjoy being close to Muncy Creek in warmer
weather where it could catch up to 1,200 insects in just one hour.
According to the PA. Game Commission, this microbat (3.1
to 3.7 inches) is one of the most common state-wide. I couldn’t get a look at
its belly fur, but its back fur – dense, fine and glossy, pale tan to reddish
to dark brown – fits the description for its species. According to one source,
they can live to thirty years in the wild.
The bat was just over 3 inches long.
All bats have taken a big hit from White Nose Syndrome
(WNS).This one was one of the first bat species documented with the disease,
and one of three types of bats to lose a total of 90% of their combined
populations. I was worried because it was all by itself, as little brown bats
are colonial. I did find out that adult males and non-reproductive
females will roost by themselves.
According to an article in Journal of Mammalogy,
before WNS only 1.6% of little brown bats hibernated singly; after WNS, the
percentage grew to 44.5% hibernating singly. Smart little dudes! The bat equivalent
of social distancing? So that has put my worries to rest.
Needless to say, the curtains are still up and will
remain that way until the little brown bat stops hanging around here!
Thank you to Evergreen Wealth Solutions for sponsoring this month’s blog!
Virginia
Creeper is a native, woody vine belonging to the VITACEAE, or Grape Family.
Surprised?
You have
probably seen many of them clinging to the sides of trees. They are versatile,
growing in any kind of soil, partial shade to full sun, in fields, woods, or
flood plains, from Maine to Florida. Virginia Creepers are good cover for
erosion control as they…well…”creep” along on the ground. But, if
there are trees around, up they go, growing to fifty feet in a year.
Virginia Creeper beginning its journey upward.
Their leaves
are compound, made up of five, coarsely-toothed, six-inch leaflets that meet in
the middle resembling fingers spread out on the palm of a hand. Small white
flowers blooming in late spring may be difficult to see among the leaves.
Fleshy, purple berries grow from the pollinated flowers and hang on red stems
in branching clusters, remaining hidden until after their bright red to purple
autumn leaves fall.
Fall red leaves of Virginia Creeper.
How do Virginia
Creepers hold on to the trees as they climb? The answer to this question is a
clue to their identification. They have many branched tendrils with adhesive
disks or holdfasts produced on the plants’ stems opposite from the leaves. I
carefully removed a piece of stem to investigate and found the tiny,
three-sixteenth of an inch disks pushed down in the cracks and craters of tree
bark in such a way, they were difficult to pull off. There were eight small
disks on the tendrils, and with them came small hunks of bark. I read somewhere
that allowing Virginia Creeper to grow up the side of a house can ruin painted
surfaces, damage stucco, and the mortar between bricks. Those holdfasts are
small, but mighty. Before checking out this feature for yourself, make sure the
plant you are examining has five leaflets per leaf. Poison Ivy of “leaves
of three, let them be” fame are climbers, too. Their holdfasts are more
like hairy rootlets, however.
And just
because Virginia Creeper is a member of the Grape Family, don’t think that you
can eat the berries or leaves. You cannot – they are toxic, containing calcium
oxalate crystals. Let them for twelve species of songbirds, squirrels,
raccoons, opossums, and skunks to eat!
This blog post sponsored by Evergreen Wealth Solutions
Bright standouts amidst the autumn colors are our native
Sassafras trees. They can grow to a height of least sixty feet. One in Kentucky
is one hundred feet tall. Look for them growing in hedgerows, forest
openings, and on roadsides. If traveling on foot, do a close check on
their variable leaf shapes, having zero to three lobes. They look like mittens
to me…a left-handed one, a right-handed one, and a mitten with the pinky
finger and the thumb sticking out on each side. There are some plain oval
leaves with no lobes at all, too. I keep looking for one shaped like the
Star-Trek “Live Long and Prosper” shape. No luck yet.
Notice the mitten shaped leaves
Sassafras is a member of the Laurel Family along with
Spicebush (last week’s post), Sweet Bay (source of bay leaves for flavoring soups
and stews), and Cinnamon (provider of ground cinnamon that makes just about
everything taste better). Not to be outdone by its aromatic relatives,
Sassafras has been used to flavor tea, root beer, toothpaste, chewing gum,
tobacco, and soap. Its dried leaves are finely ground to make Filé Powder used
as a thickener in Creole cooking. Since the 1960’s, its strong oil has not been
used internally because it may cause liver and kidney damage.
Sassafras may have been one of the first medicinal plants
sent to Europe by the Spanish from their colony in Florida. It was a major
export because explorers and colonists at the time thought of it as a
cure-all. They saw Natives using it for treating fevers, rheumatism, and as a
blood purifier. My grandparents used Sassafras wood chips boiled in water as a
spring tonic.
Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) is THE native
shrub I love to find while taking nature walks with kids, especially in the
fall when its leaves are starting to turn yellow and its spicy berries (drupes)
have ripened to a bright red. The squeezing and the sniffing of berries,
leaves, and twigs make for a great multi-sensory experience.
Early fall berries before the leaves turn yellow.
The Laurel Family, of which Spicebush is a member, also
gives us Sassafras, locally, as well as tropicals like Cinnamon and Sweet Bay.
Hooray for this fragrant family! There is also a similar species of Spicebush
(with finely hairy twigs) growing in the southeastern U.S., where it is
endangered from habitat loss.
Spicebush leaves turn yellow before they fall.
Our Spicebush is three to seven feet tall and commonly
found in moist woods or in the understory along stream banks. To identify it in
the spring, look for clusters of tiny, one-eighth inch yellowish flowers,
attached directly on the twigs, usually during March and April. They begin
blooming before the two to five inch, egg-shaped leaves appear. In the
autumn, look for peeks of red shining through the leaves to find the berries.
Sometimes this can be a difficult task because Spicebush is dioecious with male
and female flowers on separate plants, requiring the pollen to move quite a
distance to pollinate the female flowers. If it doesn’t get there, no berries.
You may have to identify it by the lemony fragrance of a crushed leaf…not an
unpleasant task!
Spicebush has many culinary and medicinal uses, like the
rest of its family – tea from leaves and twigs, spice from dried and ground
berries, extract from leaves and bark for inducing perspiration to break a
fever or as liniment for rheumatism and bruises or a tonic for colds.
In the 1800’s, Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American poet and philosopher, wrote that weeds are just plants whose virtues haven’t been discovered yet. I do try to be thorough as I learn about various plants, but researching Tearthumb did not turn up many virtues. It is edible, cooked or raw; berries, too. Birds and ants like the seeds and disperse them; chipmunks, squirrels, and deer eat it. However, since its accidental introduction in northeast US in the 1930’s, Asiatic Tearthumb has thrived so well that it’s been designated as a noxious, aggressive, highly invasive weed in many states, including ours.
Mile-a-Minute’s slender, reddish stems can grow up to
thirty feet a year. Its triangular green leaves have barbed mid-ribs that along
with its prickly stems, help hold it while climbing towards the light, shading
out, and killing other plants as it goes. Do not grab onto Devil’s Tail with
your bare hands as it will live up to its other name and tear your thumbs.
Better double glove!
Look for Giant Climbing Tearthumb along roads, crawling
and sprawling in thickets, and uncultivated open fields resulting from both
natural and human causes. This member of the Buckwheat Family (Polygonaceae)
loves the things we do to the soil – the digging, the clearing, the farming,
the dumping – and will move right in. Another identifying feature of Asiatic
Smartweed are its fruits which can be all different colors – green, blue, red –
hanging together on the stem ends like tiny bunches of grapes. Since Persicaria
perfoliata likes moist soils, too, you can find it frequently hanging over
waterways where it will persist until after the first frost. Its pretty fruits
are buoyant, able to float for up to nine days, providing another seed
dispersal method.
Did you find all of the common and scientific names of Tearthumb in the text! If you did, Bravo! Maybe its virtue is to show that plants can have many names!
Here are the common names of Persicaria perfoliate: *Tearthumb *Mile-a-Minute *Devil’s Tail *Giant Climbing Tearthumb *Asiatic Smartweed
Thank you to Pennsylvania American Water for sponsoring the NPC blog during October!
When I find Nodding Ladies’ Tresses, it makes me want to
twist and shout! In thanks for the plant being there, growing
– AND – in honor of a very special movement each little white
flower on the stem has to make in order to bloom.
The labellum or lip which is attached above, actually
twists down and around so that it is now below the other petals as it opens!
This action provides a landing place for visiting insects and may also allow
the lip to get more sunlight, showing patterns and nectar guides better.
Orchid flowers that do the twist are called
“resupinate”. Yes, this plant is an orchid, native to Eastern North
America. While it is not an uncommon plant, it is picky about where it lives
and with whom. I found these in partial shade, along a dirt road where
the soil was wet and acidic.
Nodding Ladies’ Tresses will spread slowly by underground rhizomes to form colonies. They can reproduce by seed, too, but their seeds lack the store of starch and nutrients necessary for successful germination. Therefore, they require the help of mycorrhizal fungi to provide fixed carbon and mineral nutrients for the growth of seedlings…a specific species of fungus. Picky!
Look for them. They will keep blooming until the first
frost. The single stem, about sixteen inches tall, holds a six-inch flower
spike with a coiled spiral of white or ivory flowers, each one being held
by a bulbous bract that is green and covered with minute hairs that spread
about halfway down the stem. You may find two or three really thin leaves
tightly clasping the lower stem. A basal rosette of leaves will be gone by the
time the plant blooms. The tongue-shaped lower lips of the flowers are thin and
lacy.
At least ten species in the genus Spiranthes can
be found in Pennsylvania in various forms and locations.
