This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we have our busy buzzy bicolored blossom buckling Bumblebees, of genus Bombus.
Here in the Lowcountry of South Carolina we have five species of Bumblebee. Each has that classic black and yellow coloration but they all vary slightly in the patterning it takes on. The Eastern Bumblebee (B. impatiens) is both our most common and our smallest species of Bumblebee, measuring one-half to three-quarters of an inch in length. It has a pastel yellow thorax with a small black spot in the middle, a single thin band of yellow around the waist, a yellow head, and a somewhat shaggy appearance. The Two-spotted Bumblebee (B. bimaculatus) [not pictured] is very similar to the Eastern Bumblebee but a skosh bigger, shaggier, and with a second partial waist band that is sometimes split into two spots. The Brown-belted Bumblebee (B. griseocollis) hovers around three-quarters of an inch in length with a similar pattern to the Eastern Bumblebee, except that it has no shagginess to its hairs, a black head, and a tan or brown, unbroken but partial second waist band. The American Bumblebee (B. pensylvanicus) is likely our second most common species. It’s up to an inch in length with yellow shoulders, two solid yellow waist bands, and sometimes a wash of ruddy-yellow on the lower thorax. The Southern Plains Bumblebee (B. fraternus) is our biggest bee of the bunch. It has a pastel-yellow thorax with a thick black band across the center and two solid, pale-yellow waist bands.
Like the domesticated Honeybee, Bumblebees are eusocial, colony forming bees. They have a queen who builds a hive and raises sterile daughters to help her run the colony. Unlike Honeybees, Bumblebee hives only last a year, they don’t build complex combs, and the colony can consist of a few dozen bees up to several hundred, depending on the species. Each spring, queens born the prior year emerge from hibernation and begin building their own hives. Bumblebees build their hives near, on, or under the ground. They’ll often build hives within a small burrow, stump, under leaf litter, or in a mound of dense grass. They build “pots” of wax which are either be filled with honey for storage or serve as cradles for baby bee larvae.
Like all bees, Bumblebees live on a diet of nectar and pollen they collect while visiting flowers. Our five Bumblebees are the powerhouses of pollination in the Lowcountry and, in concert with our other native bees, do the lion’s share of the work in spreading pollen between native plants. However, two of our native Bumblebees are on the decline. The American Bumblebee is listed as vulnerable and the Southern Plains Bumblebee is listed as endangered by the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Both species are being petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act. However, you can help out our native bees on Edisto Island with one simple trick, let your yard be messy! Bumblebees need more native wildflowers to find food and they need heavy vegetation and crevices to nest in. So if you let your yard and woodlot return to nature, you’ll be making space for our Bumblebees to thrive again, and you’ll be saving time and money on your landscaping bill!
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s a native warm-season grass of the southern savannas, Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans).
Indiangrass is a large native species of grass found throughout most of South Carolina. It’s sporadically found in savannas, prairies, roadsides, powerline cuts, oldfields, and other open habitats. It’s a bunch grass, meaning the plants grow as single large clumps. Foliage is about waist-level to chest-high and bluish-green. This grass flowers in September and October with small golden flowers in tight, narrow spikes held atop head-high stalks. These flowers mature into large, dense clusters of golden-brown, grain-like seeds. These seeds provide a valuable food source to small mammals and seed eating birds throughout the winter. It’s large, arching growth also provides great cover habitat for these small animals as well as nesting habitat for Bobwhite Quail. Indiangrass is an important ecological component of southern Longleaf Pine savanna ecosystems. It was once far more common in the Lowcountry than it is today. However, after centuries of habitat conversion and fire suppression, its abundance has dwindled across the landscape. However, it is a hardy and resilient species and, once it and fire are reintroduced to an ecosystem, it will prosper! It also makes a wonderful addition to yards with native plant landscaping.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we’re listening in to the haunting call of a diminutive raptor, the Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio).
Whilst walking within woods in waning twilight, a whistling wraith-like whinny wrings a shiver up your spine and haunting pulsing laughter incites paranoia amidst the dark. The song of the Eastern Screech Owl creates an indelible memory in the minds of all who first hear it and strikes a chord of fear and fury in the hearts of many of our native songbirds. The Eastern Screech Owl is found year-round throughout the eastern and central United States. They inhabit woodlands and small groves of mature trees in open regions. Our Screech Owl is downright tiny for an owl. In fact, they’re practically songbird-sized and about the same heft as a Mourning Dove. They have all the trappings you’d expect of an owl, large eyes, broad face, hooked bill, upright posture, and talons, but condensed down into the size of just your outstretched hand! Eastern Screech Owls come in three primary color morphs: red, gray, and brown. Yet, all three flavors of our Owl share similar characteristics, to include pale-brass colored eyes, an ivory bill, a dark ring framing the lower face, darker vertical stripes down the belly, and prominent “horns” that they can lift up from their “eyebrows”. These features together lend themselves to giving Screech Owls some incredibly human-like expressions, which our brains can’t just can’t help but see! The Eastern Screech Owl has several distinct and unmistakable calls, each more haunting that the last. Their primary song is a bone-chilling, high-pitched, horse-like whinny. Their alternative song is a pulsating, monotonous, windy trill, like the echo of disembodied laughter. Lastly, their calls are a chaotic utterance of resonating puppy-like whines. Each will certainly leave an impression the first time you hear it!
Eastern Screech Owls, like all our other owls, are nocturnal predators. They hunt in the dead of night using their fantastically sensitive hearing and eyesight, swooping in to ambush unsuspecting prey on silent wings. Their diet consists largely of insects but also includes lizards, treefrogs, small mammals, small birds, and practically anything else they want to catch. Songbirds are particularly sensitive to the presence of Screech Owls and will mob and pester them in daylight hours if they catch wind of an Owl in the neighborhood. Screech Owls hunt both in open habitats and woodlands but are dependent on mature woodlands for nesting. Screech Owls are cavity nesters and depend on old nest holes carved in trees by our larger woodpecker species. The loss of mature tree snags suitable for nesting has caused Screech Owls to become scarce on the landscape. However, Screech Owls are a resilient species and have adapted to new opportunities in the modern world. They’re most common in mature hardwood forests but they’re not above moving into suitable woodlots amidst farmlands and suburban areas. Here in the Lowcountry, Screech Owls have also taken to commandeering Wood Duck boxes for nesting. So even if you don’t have any wetlands, you may want to consider putting up a duck box, but for owls!
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s a wiry, weedy, winding vine, Tievine (Ipomoea cordatotriloba).
Tievine is a native species of Morning-Glory found throughout the Lowcountry. It prefers open, sunny, disturbed habitats, like roadside, fence rows, wood lines, and old fields. It’s an annual herbaceous vine with fine twining lines of stems that grow up and over grasses, shrubs, and fences. Although thin, its stems are remarkably tough. It tolerates a wide array of soil fertilities and can become rather aggressive on moist, fertile soils. If you have a volunteer Morning-Glory coming up in a flower pot or garden bed in the Lowcountry, more often than not it’s a Tievine. Tievine’s leaves are a little less than palm-sized, are heart-shaped, and often three-lobed. Its peak bloom time begins in September and continues well into October. Tievine flowers are an inch-and-a-half wide trumpet that’s either round or a pentagon when viewed from the front. They’re a soft pink on the outside of the petals which funnels down into a deep magenta center. Flowers open one at a time at each node and each only lasts for a day, often closing by the time the midday day heat arrives. Tievine and other Morning-Glories are decent nectar plants for Hummingbirds, bees, and larger butterflies. It also helps create cover for mammals and birds in fields and other open areas, by growing like a net cast over nearby shrubs and structures.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we’ve got a veritable grab-bag of mud-molding insects to appraise, the Mason Wasps, Potter Wasps, and Mud-daubers of the Eumeninae subfamily and the Sphecidae and Crabronidae families.
The terms “mason”, “potter”, and “mud-dauber” are generalized terms used to describe several groups of wasps belonging to multiple families, there being three major families found in South Carolina. As their three-fold common names all imply, these wasps are renowned for their defining feature of working and shaping clay. These wasps either chew up soil or slurp up mud to create a clay paste. They then carry the clay to a suitable workshop where they form it into whatever shape they desire. These three generalized common names refer to the style and architecture of their ceramic creations but, ultimately, they’re all solitary wasps building earthen cradles for their offspring. The clay shelters the baby wasps from the elements and protects them from predators.
Mason Wasps and Potter Wasps both belong to the subfamily Eumeninae. Mason Wasps are cavity nesters. They don’t build free-standing nests and instead build nests in small holes or cavities, typically hollow stems and holes left behind by other insects. After they pack the nest full of food and lay their eggs, they cap it off with a plug of mud and start the next nest. Sort of like how a mason fills the gaps between bricks with mortar, Mason Wasps seal gaps in cavities with mud. It’s an efficient and simple strategy but ultimately the Wasp is dependent on existing holes to make nests. Thus this is a highly diverse group with each member specialized in taking advantage of all manner of food sources and cavity types.
Potter Wasps, on the other hand, build free-standing nests. These nests are spherical and look like a crude earthenware urn, complete with a flared neck, spun on a potter’s wheel. They generally build these nests on the bottom of leaves or the shaded side of a building. They then stuff this urn full of paralyzed caterpillars before laying an egg within and sealing the top. The Fraternal Potter Wasp (Eumenes fraternus) is our prototypical Potter Wasp and widespread across the state. They’re less than an inch long with a round thorax, narrow waist, dark wings, and white markings on a black body.
Mud-dauber Wasps also build free-standing nests but they adhere them to the side of vertical structures, like trees, rocks, and buildings. They also build large compound nests, generally with dozens of chambers. They daub mud slowly into a complex structure, just like how wattle and daub was used to build primitive houses. Mud-daubers stuff their nests full of spiders they’ve stung and paralyzed. I’ll highlight three common Mud-dauber Wasp species found throughout the state, each about an inch to inch-and-a-half in length. The Common Blue Mud-dauber (Chalybion californicum) has a metallic dark blue-green body and iridescent blue-black wings. They build disorganized mound-like nests, often with a lumpy, patchwork appearance. The Yellow-legged Mud-dauber (Sceliphron caementarium) has a black body, thread-waist, lemon-yellow legs and markings, and amber colored wings. They build boxy dome-shaped nests full of stacked cigar-shaped egg chambers. Both the Common Blue and Yellow-legged Mud-daubers belong to the Sphecidae family. The third belongs to the Crabronidae family, the Organ Pipe Mud Dauber (Trypoxylon politum). The Organ Pipe Mud-dauber is solid black, except for its iridescent blue-black wings and pale hind feet. They build rows of long tubular nests, all parallel to one another and each containing multiple chambers stacked on top of each other. These tubular nests resemble the array of pipes in a pipe organ.
Mason Wasps and Mud-daubers can both be a nuisance in their own right. (Potter Wasps not too much.) Mason Wasps love to build nests in vent tubes, drain lines, and bolt holes. Driving untold number of mechanics and technicians to madness. Organ Pipe and Common Blue Mud-dauber nests built on the side of houses can be an eyesore to many and are a pain to clean off of stucco. Yellow-legged Mud-daubers cause the same issues but they also have a special proclivity for ceiling fans and engine bays where they unbalance things that are supposed to be balanced and stuff dirt into things where dirt should not be stuffed. However, despite the nuisance and the several concussions I’ve nearly sustained from a Mud-dauber nest dislodging from a radiator fan at 3,000rpm, these Wasps play a critical role in our local ecosystems and provide several invaluable ecosystem services. First, these wasps drink nectar as adults and are stellar pollinators. Wasps are second only to bees in South Carolina in terms of pollination volume. Second, they hunt other insects. Potter and Mason Wasps generally hunt caterpillars. Moth caterpillars eat plants, for the most part, and are prone to large population swings. A ballooning caterpillar population can have radical impacts to its host plant’s population and can upset an ecosystem. Birds and reptiles can take advantage of these population swings, but they can’t grow their populations fast enough to control them. Yet, wasps can. So Potter and Mason Wasps play a critical role in controlling moth populations and stabilizing ecosystems. The same can be said for how Mud-daubers hunt spiders. Spiders eat a lot of pollinators and so they keep pollinator populations in balance. Mud-daubers in turn hunt the spiders, keeping spider populations in check and ensuring most pollinators can carry on their business as usual. Lastly, Potter Wasps and Mud-daubers make research easy for many entomologists. If an entomologist wants to study the local spider or moth populations, they can often just go find a fresh Mud-dauber of Potter Wasp nest, pop it off the wall, and crack it open in the lab like a creepy-crawly filled Kinder Egg. The arachnids and insects within the nest are alive but paralyzed by venom and are usually perfectly preserved specimens for study. This technique provides a wholly unique sampling method from anything researchers can replicate manually and has aided in the study of an untold number of arthropods!
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we have an upland weed that fills a pollinator need, Poor-joe (Hexasepalum teres).
Poor-joe, also called Rough Buttonweed, is found on high, dry, upland soils all across South Carolina. It does best where little else grows, even on parched sands and gravel roads. Poor-joe is what’s called a pioneer plant, a species that is the first to re-colonize a heavily disturbed ecosystem. It grows in all manner of dry and sunny habitats, from eroded mountainsides in the Appalachian foothills, over top the Sandhills in the midlands, down to the sand dunes of our coastal barrier islands, and on every similar site in-between. Poor-joe usually grows about six inches high before branching and falling back down onto the ground around it. It repeats this patter and grows like this across the sand into a loose, limp bush or groundcover a foot or two across. Poor-joe’s leaves are held opposite and are narrow with a pointed tip and a prominent fold down the center. Its stems are sparsely hairy and usually a prominent burgundy color. It blooms in summer, peaking in August and September, and bearing a single flower at a time on each stem node. The flowers of Poor-joe are tiny and pastel-pink with four-pointed petals and white anthers. Although not particularly showy and despite their small size, Poor-joe is a great pollinator plant. Its flowers are often frequented by native bees and small butterflies where it provides a reliable source of life-giving nectar on the hottest of days in even the most barren of landscapes.
Our biggest, boldest, and most “beautimous” Gossamer-Wing butterfly, the Great Purple Hairstreak (Atlides halesus).
The Great Purple Hairstreak is an interesting member of the Hairstreak subfamily, Theclinae, and a butterfly that’s just as stunning to look at as it is scarce to see. Despite the name, Great Purple Hairstreaks are not purple, at least not in a clearly obvious way. The wing undersides for both sexes are a vaguely iridescent coal-black with burnt-orange to crimson spots at the wing bases. Their head and thorax are a deep black with scattered white spots. The abdomen is a rich orange below and a brilliant metallic sky-blue above. Both sexes boast brilliant blue colorations on both upper wing surfaces but the male has more extensive coloration of a generally darker, more sapphire-blue sheen. Males also sport a central blue patch, towards the body on the underside of the forewing, which often peaks out above the hindwing when perched. The hindwings of both sexes are tailed and studded with insets of topaz and turquoise. Some females have an additional flourish near the tails in the form of an extra burst of orange. The Great Purple Hairstreak is an unmistakable butterfly, not just because of the brilliant, one-of-a-kind coloration, but also because they’re the largest Hairstreak in North America.
Despite the bright, contrasting colors and considerable heft for a Hairstreak, this species is not often seen. The Great Purple Hairstreak is not so much rare as it is hard to find. Part of that is due to their host plant, Oak Mistletoe (Phoradendron leucarpum). Oak Mistletoe is a parasitic shrub that grows in the canopies of oak trees by tapping into the tree’s vasculature to siphon off water and nutrients. If you look up into the crown of an oak tree in winter and see a big green ball of foliage in the middle of the tree, that’s Mistletoe. Given this fact, Great Purple Hairstreaks spend much of their lives in the treetops, both while caterpillars and pupae and again as adults when searching for mates or laying eggs. So it’s harder to chance upon one than other butterflies. The first brood’s flight time peaks around the end of March and a second flush flies from late July into October. They’re most common along the edges of moist hardwood forests and usually encountered nectaring in edge habitat and gardens. They’re not a skittish butterfly by any means and, when they descend from on high to mingle among us, they’ll often let you get good up close looks at them.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have one of our most widespread and easily identifiable edible mushrooms, the Chanterelles (Cantharellus spp.).
Here in the Lowcountry we have two common species of Chanterelle, the Red Chanterelle (C. cinnabarinus) and the Smooth Chanterelle (C. lateritius) and about a half-dozen more uncommon species around the state, to include the Golden Chanterelle (C. cibarius). Chanterelles in general are yellow and orange in color, have a funnel shape with irregular, wavy margins when mature, a smooth, but not shiny, upper surface, and fleshy vein-like false-gills underneath. The Red Chanterelle is a deep orange-red in color with deep false-gills and a fairly delicate shape. The Smooth Chanterelle has a pale to rich yolk-yellow color and distinctly shallow false-gills, which slowly melt away as the cap transitions into the stalk. It has a fairly robust build and can grow a palm-sized cap, often with a highly irregular, wavy margin.
Chanterelles fruit in summer, usually peaking in August and September on Edisto Island, but the annual timing can vary based on that year’s weather. Smooth Chanterelle is by far the most common species you’ll find on Edisto Island and around the Lowcountry. I often find Smooth Chanterelles growing beneath Live Oaks in open forests and old lawns. Chanterelles are mycorrhizal fungi. This means that they survive by forming a mutualistic relationship with plants and by breaking down decaying organic matter in the soil. The plant feeds the fungus sugars and in exchange the fungus supplies the plant with nutrients it extracts from the soil. Chanterelles mainly associate with oak trees, and some other hardwood species, and breakdown decaying plant matter to extract the mineral nutrients those oak trees crave. This means you’ll never find Chanterelle mushrooms emerging out of a log or stump or springing up out in an open field with no trees around. You’ll only ever find them beneath, or nearby, hardwood trees. It’s also why Chanterelles, Morels, and Truffles are not practical to cultivate commercially, unlike the common culinary staples of Portobello, Shiitake, and Oyster mushrooms that are saprophytic and only need rotting wood to survive, rather than a whole tree to feed them.
All members of the Chanterelle genus are edible and are a highly sought after seasonal delicacy by folks who like foraging in the forest. The Golden and Red Chanterelles are considered the most flavorful of our local species, with the Smooth being similar in taste but less flavorful. However, there is a toxic imposter, the False Chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca), that lurks within its range. Although not deadly, you don’t want to eat it. It is pretty easy to pick out from our locally common Red and Smooth Chanterelles, given that it is neither red nor smooth, and it is also a saprophyte, often sprouting from rotten logs, but it does look very similar to other common species of Chanterelle found across the country. So if you’re thinking about foraging for fungi, please consult a reputable field guide before you start picking mushrooms.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we have our common compact wader, the Green Heron (Butorides virescens).
Buried between the buckling branches and broken boughs on the banks of a backwater bottomland stalks our Green Heron. Green Herons are a small, stocky wading bird with proportionately shorter legs than most of our other herons and egrets and a neck tucked tight against the body. They’re about the size of a crow. Despite the compact body plan, the Green Heron still sports that trademark long serpentine neck of the herons. Which, fully extended, is as long as its whole torso. Green Herons are an easy bird to identify just by their size and shape. However, their plumage is also distinct; Golden eyes, golden legs, dark bill, a neck and breast saturated with a rich burgundy-brown broken only by a jagged white streak down the center, all capped off with a mantle, wings, and crown of inky iridescent-green. The Green Heron’s call is a staple sound of the dog days of summer along our marshes, a sharp, ringing “Skyow!” that trails off as it soars overhead or a short burst of harsh growls and clucks as it jettisons itself from a creek bank.
Green Herons are most abundant on Edisto Island in the summer, after they’ve returned from a spring of nesting in the rookeries. However, juveniles and a few resident birds can be spotted around the Sea Islands year-round. Green Herons are generalists and can be found in most permanent wetland habitats. From the backwater lagoons of the barriers island, up the pluff-mud banks and into the cordgrass along the tidal creeks, along the rice field dikes, into the cypress swamps and bottomlands, and around the oxbow lakes, canals, reservoirs, and ponds, they can be found all across South Carolina. Green Herons are ambush hunters. They prefer to nestle onto a promising cove, snag, mat, or hummock positioned over standing water to wait for passing prey, rather than to wade for prey like our larger herons and egrets. From there they use their extra-long neck to strike through the surface of the water. Green Herons feed mainly on small fish but also a wide variety of little critters, including crayfish, insects, and frogs.
This week for flora and fauna Friday we have a common cosmopolitan colony fern, Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum).
Bracken, also called Eagle Fern, is a widespread fern in the southeast and an extremely successful genus with a worldwide distribution. Its spores are very lightweight and so it has been able to distribute itself globally through wind dispersal. Bracken generally grows in woodlands, beneath the forest canopy. It prefers more acidic soils and is both drought and fire tolerant. Thus it can be found at home practically everywhere in the Southeast. It is a vigorous colonizer and will spread laterally to form huge colonies of densely packed fronds. The fronds of Bracken are large, triangular, and often wider than they are long. They are also generally held upright, with the blade bending at a forty-five degree angle from the stalk. Each frond emerges as a single wiry stalk sent up from the earth and its leaf blade is usually divided into seven leaflets, or pinna to be technical. Each pinna is again divided into a dozen or two pinnules, which themselves each have another dozen or so lobes on them. The key things to look for to identify Bracken are these pinnules and how the lobes of those closer to the tip of the pinna start to merge together, with the terminal pinnules being narrow and un-lobed. This characteristic, along with the broad triangular frond, make Bracken easy to pick out in the southern woodlands.
Another major reason for Bracken’s success is that its foliage contains a chemical called Ptaquiloside, which is toxic to nearly all mammals. This chemical causes hemorrhagic diseases and tumors in cattle, deer, pig, rabbits, rodents, and other mammals. It is also a carcinogen in humans and can cause gastro-intestinal cancer when eaten. This means that, although Bracken can be found nearly everywhere, it is rarely eaten by herbivores and can thus grow in peace, un-browsed.
Here on Edisto Island and across the Lowcountry, Bracken is often used as an indicator species for quickly delineating wetland boundaries. Bracken is one of our few colony forming upland ferns and it grows almost exclusively on upland soils. Because of this and its ubiquitous presence on the landscape, it can serve as a rough boundary of wetlands for ecologists and land managers. Bracken will often grow right up to the edge of a permanent wetland or into the margin of regular ephemeral wetlands, but not into it. Within the wetland can be found many of our other common colony forming ferns, like Chain Ferns (Woodwardia sp.). This creates a sort of no-ferns-land on the boundary which neither the wetland ferns nor Bracken can successfully colonize. On dry years Bracken gain grounds in this boundary but then retreats inland in wet years. Thus it is not a perfect means of delineation but, in the field, it can give a good idea by eye of the area where a wetland’s boundary falls.
