Wild Clematis Fruiting
Wild Clematis (Clematis virginiana), also known as Virgin’s Bower and Old Man’s Beard, is one of our native vines. It is a member of the buttercup family and bears clusters of white to green flowers that mature into fluffy seedheads. Ellen Rathbone in the Adirondack Almanack delightfully refers to these seed clusters as “Truffula Trees” — if you’ve ever rad The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, you can appreciate how apt this comparison is.
Wild Clematis contains glycosides and is toxic, so shouldn’t be consumed, but it is a very dramatic sight to come across when the seeds are mature and have yet to be dispersed.
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Conifer Cones Developing
There are two kinds of seed-producing plants, flowering and non-flowering. Flowering plants are called angiosperms; their seeds grow inside tissue that is part of the plants’ ovaries, more commonly called fruit. Non-flowering plants that produce seeds are called gymnosperms. Conifers are gymnosperms; their seeds are “naked,” or unprotected by an ovary/fruit and are often located on the scales of a cone.
Some cones are male and some are female. The male cones produce pollen and the female cones produce ovules which, if fertilized, develop into seeds. The pictured tiny, magenta cones are this year’s seed (female) cones of White Spruce, (Picea glauca) which, when the time is right, open their scales to allow wind-blown pollen to reach and fertilize their ovules. The scales then close and will not open again until the seeds are fully mature. At this point the scales open a second time in order to release the fully developed seeds which are dispersed primarily by the wind.
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Sedges Flowering
Often it’s the spring ephemerals – Trout Lily, Red Trillium, Dutchman’s Breeches – that catch our eye as we walk through the woods this time of year. But there are other, more modest flowering plants which shouldn’t be overlooked.
Sedges, often found growing near wetlands but also in woods, are one of these inconspicuous plants. Related to grasses and rushes, they are wind-pollinated, and have no need for large, showy petals in order to attract insects. As a result, it’s fairly easy to miss their flowers, some of which are in full bloom right now.
Male and female sedge flowers are typically found on the same plant. The arrangement of the flowers, or inflorescence, usually consists of a cluster of male flowers on the end of a spike (see photo) with female flowers located on separate spikes. A dissecting scope is necessary in order to identify most species of sedges, but an easy way to know it’s a sedge is to feel the shape of the plant’s stem – sedge stems are three-sided — triangular in cross-section (unlike rushes which are round, and grass stems which are hollow). Hence, the saying “Sedges have edges, rushes are round.”
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Witch Hazel Pollinators
October through mid-November is the typical flowering time for Witch Hazel. The last of the blossoms of this fall-blooming shrub can still be seen in parts of the Northeast. Its long, bright-yellow petals and the presence of a sweet-smelling nectar tell you that Witch Hazel flowers are pollinated by insects. However, there are very few insects present this late in the year and its pollinators have been elusive to the human eye. With the exception of syrphid, or hover, flies, I have never seen any insects visiting these flowers.
It turns out that I was observing them at the wrong time of day. Naturalist Bernd Heinrich discovered that a group of owlet moths called winter moths are active on cold nights and regularly visit Witch Hazel. These moths have the ability to heat themselves by using energy to shiver, raising their body temperatures by as much as 50 degrees in order to fly in search of food. Solved is the mystery of what pollinating insects are still active this late in the year!
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Jack & Jill-In-The-Pulpit
There are both male and female Jack-in-the-Pulpits, and nutrition determines which gender a given plant is. For the first year or two, every Jack-in-the-Pulpit bears male flowers. Then the amount of nutrients the plant takes up begins to influence the sex of the plant. Females flowers produce seeds, and it takes a considerable amount of nutrients to do so. Thus, if there’s an abundance of nutrients one summer, a plant is female the following summer; a lack of nutrients produces male Jack-in-the-Pulpits the following year.
While the flowers themselves are very distinct (females are green knobs, males are threadlike and not green), it can be hard to see them, as the spathe (pulpit) wraps around the spadix (Jack) which bears the flowers at its base. You can often guess the sex of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit by the number of leaves it has. In general, female plants produce two leaves, whereas male plants usually have only a single leaf. If nutrients are really lacking, the plant typically produces a single leaf, but no Jack or pulpit. (Photo: female Jack-in-the-Pulpit on the left; male Jack-in-the-Pulpit on the right).
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American Basswood Fruits
American Basswood (Tilia americana) is known for the alluring scent and abundant nectar of its flowers, as well as its lightweight, odorless wood which lends itself to the production of food crates and boxes, musical instrument parts, yard sticks and cabinets. Equally distinctive are the nutlets that are borne on a stem bearing a persistent bract, or modified leaf, that aids in the wind dispersal of the fruit.
Most of the nutlets are eaten in the fall by chipmunks, mice, squirrels, porcupines and rabbits, but some persist until winter winds detach them from the tree and they fall to the ground. Basswood trees are not as dependent on seed germination as many other species due to their ability to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down or damaged (self-coppicing).
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Cardinal Flower Blossoming
You can’t get much redder than the red of Cardinal Flowers. Their petals act as brilliant red flags beckoning Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, who favor red, to come drink their nectar (and at the same time, pollinate them). Because their chief pollinator has wings and the ability to hover as it drinks, Cardinal Flower has no need for a landing platform, which most insect-pollinated flowers have.
Cardinal Flower has both male and female flowers. Above the red petals is a red tube, at the tip of which the reproductive parts of the flower emerge. First to appear are the male flowers, displaying pollen-bearing stamens. After they die, sticky, Y-shaped pistils extend from the flower, ready to receive pollen. The female flowers thus follow the male flowers (protandry). These flowers mature from the bottom to the top of the spike and you often see both male and female flowers on the same plant (just barely discernible in pictured flower spike).
Male flowers produce more nectar than female flowers, and hummingbirds seem to know this, as they spend most of their time at the youngest, and therefore male, flowers on the top half of the flower spike.
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Wintergreen Flowering
Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), also known as Checkerberry and Eastern Teaberry, is an aromatic, evergreen plant in the heath family (Ericaceae) that creeps along the ground. This plant loves acid soil, and you can often find it growing alongside Blueberry (Vaccinium sp.). Its single, white flowers develop into bright red berries which Ruffed Grouse consume with relish.
Not surprisingly, these berries taste like oil of wintergreen. The active ingredient in this oil is synthesized and used as a flavoring in chewing gum, toothpaste, breath fresheners, candy, and medicines, including Pepto Bismol. This same ingredient, methyl salicate, is related to aspirin, which explains why Native Americans chewed and made a tea from the leaves and berries of Wintergreen to alleviate pain.
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Red Elderberry Attracts Wildlife Year Round
The pollinated and fertilized white flowers of Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) have recently developed into the red fruit for which this plant is named. Many people are familiar with its relative, Common Elderberry (S. canadensis), which produces dark purple fruit that is used to make jams, jellies, pies and elderberry wine. While Red Elderberry fruit can be used to make all of these, its raw berries are toxic. Red Elderberry’s popularity is greatest with pollinators, birds and four-footed mammals.
The cyanide-producing toxins in its flowers, (raw) fruit, stems, bark, leaves and roots do not seem to discourage wildlife’s attraction to Red Elderberry. The odor of its flowers, its nectar, and its highly nutritious pollen attract many ants, bees, wasps and flies. At least 50 species of songbirds eat the bright red fruits, including red-eyed vireos, ruffed grouse, song sparrows, gray catbirds, brown thrashers, and thrushes. Squirrels, mice, raccoons, and black bears also eat the fruit. Porcupines, mice and snowshoe hares eat the buds and bark in winter. The foliage is usually avoided by herbivores, although white-tailed deer and moose browse on it occasionally.
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Tulip Trees Flowering
The Tulip Tree,(Liriodendron tulipifera), one of our largest native trees, is a member of the magnolia family. There may not be a more appropriately-named tree in all the land, for the likeness of its orange and yellow goblet-like flowers and the shape of its leaves to that of tulips is undeniable. Although large in size (2” in length) the flowers can go unnoticed because they are usually found high up on the 60 – 90-foot tree, and they don’t appear until the leaves are fully developed.
Tulip Trees flower for only two to six weeks. Pollination must occur when the flowers are young, and they are often receptive only for 12 to 24 hours. The flowers produce large quantities of nectar for pollinating insects such as flies, beetles, honey bees and bumblebees, but they are not very efficient pollinators and many seeds do not develop. Those that do form cone-shaped seed heads that may remain on the tree after the leaves have fallen.
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Pussy Willows Peeking Out
Nothing announces the arrival of spring more than willow flowers peeking their silver heads out of the bud scales which have surrounded and protected them all winter. What we call pussy willows are, in fact, the soft, silvery hairs that insulate the emerging spike of flowers, or catkin, within a willow flower bud. Pussy willows are dioecious, meaning there are both male plants and female plants. A male willow has only male catkins; female willows have only female catkins.
An individual willow catkin consists of all male or all female flowers. The first catkins to emerge in the spring are usually males. The hairs, or “pussies,” that emerge when willow buds first open trap the heat from the sun and help warm the center of the catkins, where the flowers’ reproductive parts are located. This trapped heat promotes the development of the pollen (or in female flowers, the ovules) of the flowers deep within the hairs. Eventually the reproductive parts of the willow flowers – the stamens and pistils – emerge, but until they do, we get to enjoy their silvery fur coats.
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Beechdrops Flowering
Congratulations to “imachayes,” producer of wondermyway.com blog, for being the first (of many) readers to correctly identify the most recent Mystery Photo as a Beechdrops flower. A fairly inconspicuous brown stem produces two types of flowers, cleistogamous flowers that self-pollinate without ever opening, and chasmogamous flowers that open, but are often sterile. Those that are not sterile are pollinated by ants as well as other insects.
Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana) is a flowering plant that lacks chlorophyll and thus cannot photosynthesize and make its own food. Instead, this plant obtains nutrients from American Beech trees. It belongs to a family of plants (Broomrape) whose members live as root parasites. Beechdrops insert a root-like structure called an haustorium (see photo inset) into an American Beech tree’s root and absorb enough nutrition to sustain themselves and produce flowers between August and October. Being annuals, Beechdrops don’t live long enough to damage their host trees.
Because they lack chlorophyll and obvious leaves (their leaves are scale-like and pressed flat against their stem), Beechdrops are easily overlooked. Keep an eye on the forest floor near American beech trees for these 5 – 18-inch plants which are flowering right now. (Photo: Beechdrops at base of an American Beech tree; inset: root system of Beechdrops)
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Red and White Baneberry Fruits Maturing
While the flowers of Red (Actaea rubra) and White Baneberry (Actaea pachypoda) are quite similar (the flower head of Red Baneberry is more globular than the elongated head of White Baneberry), their respective fruits, the color of which gave them their common names, quickly distinguish these two species from each other.
White Baneberry produces white fruits commonly called “Doll’s eyes” due to the persistent remains of the flower’s stigma, which leaves a black dot on each fruit. Red Baneberry’s shiny red berries also have these black dots, though they are not as apparent. All parts of both species are poisonous, with the berries being the most toxic part of the plant.
Seed dispersal is carried out by animals that have enough tolerance to feed on the berries. These animals include various mice, squirrels, chipmunks and voles, as well as a wide variety of birds and White-tailed Deer.
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American Bur-reed Flowering
American Bur-reed, Sparganium americanum, is an aquatic, perennial plant that grows two to four feet high and looks a lot like a grass due to its narrow leaves (but isn’t). This member of the Cattail family grows in shallow water (up to a foot deep) in marshes and along muddy shorelines. The flower stem forms a zig-zag pattern with flower clusters at each stem juncture. The large, spherical female flowers are located on the lower part of the stem, with the smaller male flowers at the top.
Considered an important plant for conservation purposes, American Bur-reed has the ability to remove nitrogen and phosphorus from wetlands. It can help prevent eutrophication by lessening the buildup of nitrogen (often from agricultural land) and phosphorus (households, industry) from runoff.
American Bur-reed spreads rapidly through its underground root systems of rhizomes, and is relied upon by many birds as an important source of food. Waterfowl, including Mallards, Redheads, Ring-necked Ducks, Greater Scaup, Buffleheads, Canvasbacks, American Wigeons and Blue-winged Teal, consume the seeds, as do Soras, Virginia Rails and Wilson’s Snipe. Muskrats eat the entire plant. (Thanks to Kay Shumway for photo op.)
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Mystery Photo: Young Eastern Black Walnuts
Congratulations to “Deb” – the first person to correctly identify the subject of the most recent Mystery Photo as young Eastern Black Walnuts!
Eastern Black Walnuts (Juglans nigra) produce abundant tiny male flowers on long, dangling, finger-like catkins. Female flowers, located on the same tree as male flowers, are fewer in number and are slightly larger. Being wind-pollinated, Black Walnut produces female flowers with stigmas (the top-most, pollen-receiving structures) which have a large surface area designed to catch pollen drifting in the wind. (These are the “rabbit ears.”) The stigmas often persist while the fruit matures — they are barely visible on the left walnut in photo.
By September, the walnuts will have matured. They then fall to the ground where their outer husk slowly decays. The fruits are well-known for leaching chemicals into the soil that inhibit the growth of other plants, an interaction known as “allelopathy” (literally meaning “making your neighbor sick”).
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Indian Cucumber Root Flowering & Fruiting
Indian Cucumber Root, Medeola virginiana, lives up to its name, as its rhizomes have a mild cucumber taste. Equally as enticing are its flowers — delicate and oh so intricate.
This member of the Lily family has one whorl of leaves if it isn’t going to flower (too young or without enough energy to reproduce), and two if it is. If there are two whorls of leaves, look under the top whorl and you will find flowers unlike any other you have seen. The pale petals fold back and from the center emerge three long reddish styles and several purple stamens (reproductive parts). Occasionally the flowers are above the topmost leaves, but typically they are below.
The change in position that Indian Cucumber Root flowers undergo as they develop into fruit is as fascinating as their appearance. The pedicels, or stalks, of these flowers become more erect once the flowers have been pollinated and fertilized, to the point where the dark blue berries mature above the upper whorl of leaves. You can see both stages in this photograph (styles have yet to fall off the developing fruits).
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Lady Slippers & Resupination
There is just as much learning, or more, going on at my end of this blog as there is at the readers’. A Vermont naturalist recently sent me a photograph of an upside down Pink Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium acaule). Over 50 years in the field and I have never come across this phenomenon, nor was I familiar with the process that produced it.
Some flowers, including many orchids, are “resupinate.” While the flower is developing, the flower stalk does a 180 degree twist, bringing what would be the bottom of the flower to the top. With lady’s slippers, the labellum, or lip, is inverted, so that it ends up not above the other two petals, but below them. This modified petal, or pouch, serves to attract pollinating insects and acts as a landing platform for them. For some unknown reason, the stalks of the pictured Pink Lady’s Slippers never twisted, allowing us to see the original position of the labellum in both flowers. (Photo by Sue Wetmore)
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Showy Orchis Flowering
Showy Orchis (Galearis spectabilis), one of the earliest orchids to bloom in the spring, produces a short stalk that rises between two large, glossy, green leaves and bears between two and fifteen flowers. A hood of pink to deep lavender sepals and petals protects the reproductive flower parts; the lower petal is white and spurred, providing a landing pad as well as nectar at the tip of the spur for visiting bumblebees (their main pollinators), butterflies and moths.
Like other orchids, Showy Orchis produces small seeds with no energy reserves. The germinating seedlings need to develop a relationship in their roots with a fungus in order to obtain nutrients for growth. Only certain fungi will develop this relationship, and for Showy Orchis they appear to be only fungi in the genus Ceratobasidium. (Thanks to Erla Youknot and Virginia Barlow for photo ops.)
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American Hophornbeam Fruiting
The fruits of the Hophornbeam tree (Ostrya virginiana), also known as Ironwood for its strong, hard wood, are drooping clusters of papery, bladder-like sacs each containing a nutlet. The “hop” portion of its name refers to the resemblance of these fruits to those of true hops that are used in the production of beer. Hornbeam refers to a related European tree whose wood was used to yoke oxen; therefore, its American counterpart wood was also used as a “beam” with which to yoke “horned” beasts of burden.
Bottle Gentian Pollination
Getting inside the flower of Bottle Gentian or Closed Gentian (Gentiana clausa), one of our latest flowering plants, in order to collect nectar and pollen is a monumental task that few insects, other than fairly large species of bumble bees, attempt. The petals are closed so tightly it takes even bumblebees several seconds of pushing, shoving and cramming to push the petals aside and get through the miniscule opening at the top of the blossom.
Pollen is the primary bumblebee attractant, as the sugar concentration of Bottle Gentian’s nectar is fairly low. Some bumble bees take a short cut – they chew a hole to gain access to the reproductive parts of the flower. The hole is often two-thirds of the way up the blossom, directly opposite the pollen-laden anthers within the flower. Look closely at the hole in the lefthand blossom in the photograph and the adjacent, dissected blossom, and you will see that the bee’s aim was dead on. You can even detect a portion of the anther through the hole.
Nodding Ladies’ Tresses Flowering
Nodding Ladies’ Tresses (Spiranthes cernua) are flowering in wetlands throughout New England. This diminutive orchid is described to perfection by Minnesotawildflowers.info as a “spiraling stalk of closely clustered, crystally translucent white flowers thrusting their twisting trumpets out at right angles to the stalk.” The downward “nodding” curve of its tubular flowers and the vague resemblance of the flower stalk to a braid may account for its common name. The flower stalk is anywhere from four to twelve inches high and the lightly fragrant delicate flowers, like those of most orchids, are resupinate. That is, they twist during their development into an upside-down position.
Boneset & Honey Bees
Pollinators of the plant known as Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) are too many to list. The nectar and pollen of its fragrant flowers which bloom in late summer and fall attract many kinds of insects, including bees, flies, wasps, butterflies, and beetles. Being a member of the Composite family, Boneset’s flower structure is such that the nectar is very accessible and therefore a popular feeding site, especially for Honey Bees (see photo) which are reliant this time of year upon the flat-topped clusters of small, white flowers for nectar which they convert to honey and store for their winter supply of food.
Beaked Hazelnuts Maturing
Beaked Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta), a multi-stemmed shrub, is named for its fruit — a nut with a tubular husk (a modified leaf known as an involucre) that extends at least an inch beyond the nut, resembling a beak. The surface of the involucre is covered with fine filaments that can irritate the skin. The fruit grows individually as well as in clusters. There are two species of hazel in the Northeast. The other, American Hazel (Corylus americana), lacks the prolonged husk and instead has a short involucre with fringed edges.
The nuts of Beaked Hazelnut may be roasted and eaten — they ripen in August and September. One must be quick to harvest them, however, as they are highly sought after by Ruffed Grouse, Hairy Woodpeckers, Blue Jays, White-tailed Deer and squirrels, due to being rich in protein and fat. Most (99 percent) of the hazelnuts consumed by the U.S. are from a European species of hazel and are grown in Oregon.
Buttonbush Flowering
At this time of year Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) is studded with one-inch diameter white or pale pink globular flowerheads. Each “button” consists of many individual flowers, each of which has an extended pistil, giving the flowerhead a starburst appearance, and a striking resemblance to a pin cushion. Bees, hummingbirds and butterflies all flock to this bountiful nectar provider. Once seeds have formed, waterfowl and shorebirds feed on them. Often found near swamps and wetlands, Buttonbush’s mid-summer flowering period lasts for about a month.
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