It’s the middle of March and the first of my daffodils are up and blooming. Looking so lovely as they trumpet the arrival of spring. Don’t get too confident though you golden beauties. Mother Nature has a way of bringing surprises. Surprises like SNOW, even in the middle of APRIL!
There are so many awesome treasures to be found in the woods. One of those treasures that is right up there near the top of my list is Bear Corn (Conopholis americana). It’s a native to eastern North America.
This is a plant that doesn’t have a speck of the color green because Bear Corn has no chlorophyll. Normally plants use chlorophyll and light to make food. But this plant isn’t able to perform photosynthesis. It’s a parasite on the roots of oak trees and perhaps beech trees as well.
These pinecone looking arrangements are the flowering structures that are sent up after four years of taking in nourishment from the oak or beech roots.
Four years underground taking in sustenance. The flowers emerge in the spring and bloom in a similar manner to other flowers.
Bear Corn is pollinated by flies and bees and is also capable of self pollination. After pollination the blooms are replaced by fruit containing seeds.
In the Shenandoah and Smoky Mountains Bear Corn represents a surprising percentage of the diet of bears, ten to fifteen percent. Deer, raccoon and coyote also eat these plants.
By autumn the fruit which has not been eaten will wither and drop, leaving the seeds to return to the soil to again seek out the oak or beech roots. This Bear Corn plant will continue sending up flowers each year for as many as six years.
Along the trails here in the Blue Ridge, come April there will be green leaves peeking up through the earth.
Take your time as you hike. There’s so much out there to see. Like patches of Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense).
Each plant sends up two heart shaped leaves that split at the soil’s surface. At the axis of those leaves the plant’s single flower appears and reclines on the forest floor. You’ve got to really look for the flower to see it. It’s under the leaves.
These blooms are maroon and the aroma is more like spoiled meat than a blossom ought to be. The pollinators these flowers attract are flies that get the job done.
I’m looking forward to finding these flowers, and after their bloom, finding their seed capsules. My camera needs to capture an image of the seed capsule of a Wild Ginger.
I’ve written about Wood Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) before but I enjoy the native flower with its happy yellow so much I’d like to tell you more about it.
The deeply lobed green-blue leaves of Wood Poppy are poking up from the surface of the soil here in the Blue Ridge now, as the month of March approaches its midpoint.
By the beginning of April, I expect I’ll be seeing some woolly buds ready to reveal their four golden petals.
As the flower opens the two pale green sepals that protect the bud soon fall away.
The flowers of Wood Poppy provide pollen but not nectar to their visitors. Those flowers have many stamens that are topped with rich yellow anthers surrounding a pistil, style and stigma.
After insect or self pollination a seed capsule is formed which eventually hangs below the leaves.
Many seeds are released from the capsule. Seeds which are distributed in a process called mymecocory, or in simpler terms, seed dispersal by ants. These seeds have nutrient rich appendages called elaisomes. Ants collect the seeds so that their larvae can be fed the elaisomes and the remains of the seeds are tossed away in the ant colony’s “trash room.”
That trash room in an underground ant colony is the perfect place to start growing seeds. Of course the ants aren’t aware of it, but they are perfect little ant farmers. Starting a new cycle of Wood Poppies.
Two Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) in search of rental property.
One room nesting box would be perfect. Buffet complete with mealworms also desired.
This native perennial is found in southeastern Canada, eastern North America (as well as New Mexico and Colorado) and eastern Mexico. Wood Betony (Pedicularis canadensis).
The first time I ever saw this plant was along a trail here in the Blue Ridge. As is often the case, I took a picture of the flower, went home and found out what it was by paging through my wildflower books.
Wood Betony is an interesting plant, aside from looking like a collection of cute little turkey heads, it is a hemiparasite, meaning it is partly dependent upon other plants as a source of water and nutrients. If there are no plants available around it, it will get by using its own resources to obtain water and nutrients. Exactly which plants Wood Betony parasitizes is not known for sure but it is thought to be native trees such as oaks and native grasses.
Bumblebees are a major pollinator of Wood Betony. And after the flowers fade, seed capsules grow in their place. Seed capsules that burst open explosively to scatter the seeds across the nearby landscape.
Since my first sighting of Wood Betony I have found a nursery that propagates its own Wood Betony. And now I’ve added a few plants to my garden. I’m looking forward to seeing them in bloom again come the middle of April.
That bobbing of the tail and saying its name makes identification of the Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) mighty easy. Many bird songs baffle me, but this one is easy. Just think “fee-bee” (Phoebe) and you’ve got it.
I was delighted as I was refreshing my memory about what Phoebes eat to see that they not only eat flying insects which they capture in mid-air but they also eat spiders, millipedes and TICKS! Yay Phoebes! I can’t find a specific reference to it, but now I’m wondering if they also eat brown marmorated stink bugs. Too bad that they are such solitary birds. I’d love to have a big flock of them around.
Not as exciting as the Phoebe eating ticks and BMSBs but they do sometimes even eat small fish from shallow water. Such a talented bird.
As I look through my images thinking of which to include I see this photo of a Phoebe at one of my birdbaths. This reminds me to mention that as a pair goes through the process of selecting a site for breeding, one of their considerations is having a source of water nearby. That is something that I always try to provide in every season. You’ll get many more birds stopping by to see you with that birdbath set up. All four seasons.
The first tree I remember getting to know. Growing right next to our patio. As a little one I’d listen for its “heartbeat” and give it “injections” though now I’m sure it was totally healthy. Back then I had the title of “Tree Doctor” and would take care of it. A Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera).
Here, my Mom on our patio and that tree, my “patient”, in this image slightly left and behind her.
One of many common names, Tulip Poplar, is confusing since the tree is not closely related to true poplar trees or to tulips.
Another name from long ago comes from Native Americans using the wood for dugout canoes. It was called Canoewood by early settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains.
The bark of the Tulip Poplar as a young tree has a smooth appearance.
As the tree ages, the bark becomes beautiful with deeply interlaced furrows. The tree can grow as much as three feet per year but as it ages that growth rate slows. Under near optimum conditions a Tulip Poplar can live to be three hundred years old and reach a height of 200 feet.
The “tulip” in the common name Tulip Poplar comes from the look of the flowers of the tree. Since the trees are so tall, often the blooms aren’t even visible.
After the bloom comes the fruit which is a cone-shaped arrangement of winged seeds called samaras.
And of course if one were to be in a parade the leaves would make a perfect banner to carry.
Here in the Blue Ridge depending on your elevation you’ll be seeing Rue Anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides) beginning to bloom around the middle of April.
This spring ephemeral is native to deciduous woodlands of eastern North America. So small, you must really look for them along the trail. They grow to only four to eight inches high.
Also known as Windflower, the flower’s thin stems give way to their waving in the tiniest breeze.
The flower itself has no actual petals, but is a circle of white or pink sepals with a dense cluster of small green pistils in the center. Those pistils are in turn surrounded by stamens with white filaments and soft yellow anthers. In summer each of the blooms are replaced by four to fifteen pale green turning to dark brown achenes, which is a fruit containing a single seed.
In May, trailside with another native flower, Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea).
And in the middle of August as things begin to shut down, take a rest, slow down and recharge for next spring.
Visitors to my feeders every now and then. Always arriving in pairs. The Mourning Dove (Zenáida macroúra).
For a while my granddaughter’s favorite bird, I think in part because of the soft coo-oo that the male makes. Good for her that she knows a bird call at the age of 6. I doubt I knew any at that age. Still at THIS age I know very few.
Another sound associated with these Doves is the fluttering sound the feathers of the wings make as the bird takes flight and lands. And that flight is impressive, up to 55 miles an hour.
These Doves generally mate for life and when they have a brood it usually consists of two squabs (young). In warmer areas they might have as many as six broods per year. Whew!
The Mourning Dove is a ground feeder and its diet is almost entirely seed. They’re part of my little community of birds here at Snow Mountain Observatory and Frog Farm.
