This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a relict plant of our wild past, Heartleaf Ginger, AKA Little-Brown-Jugs (Asarum arifolium).
Heartleaf Ginger is a common forest dweller in the Carolinas, increasing in abundance with altitude. Yet it still has a presence in every county of South Carolina. There are over eleven species of wild gingers found between South Carolina and North Carolina. But Heartleaf Ginger is the only species you’ll find here in the Lowcountry. Beneath the umbrella of a forgotten hardwood grove one can even find Heartleaf Ginger on Edisto Island, nestled between tree roots, draped over leaf litter, and smothered with heavy shade. Heartleaf Ginger needs deep shade on moist but well-drained soils to thrive and most often persists below undisturbed hardwood forests. Here on the Sea Islands, it’s quite scarce due to our flat topography, high water table, and our extensively intensive agricultural history. Meaning when you find a grove of Little-Brown-Jugs here, you know you’re standing in a special place. A relict of our original sea island ecology, trapped on an Island since the last ice age.
Heartleaf Ginger is a perennial plant with a leathery triangular leaf which varies in shape from heart to arrowhead. These leaves are about three-inches long, a dark jade-green, and often patterned with blotches of pastel-green in between the leaf veins. (If you find yourself botanizing in the Appalachians, these blotches between the veins help separate Heartleaf Ginger from its rarer mountain relatives, who have variegation along the veins.) Each leaf is held just above the ground on a short petiole, with the leaves emerging directly from the soil. Heartleaf Ginger can spread by its roots to create an evergreen groundcover in ideal conditions. Yet, it also has an interesting means of spreading by seed.
The flowers of Little-Brown-Jugs are, little brown jugs. It’s in the name. Well, they’re more like little mauve or burgundy jugs, but we’ll let it slide this time. Heartleaf Ginger is a member of the Pipewort family, Aristolochiaceae, which is a plant family with some strangely shaped tubular flowers. Heartleaf Ginger’s flowers are fairly tame for this clade, but still unusual among our Lowcountry flora. Each flower is an inch long urn with three lobes at the mouth. They’re colored dark-mauve to burgundy over a base of cream-white. These flowers crop up from the soil near the center of each leaf cluster, poking through the leaf litter or staying buried beneath it. There’s usually roughly one flower per leaf. These flowers are pollinated primarily by beetles, as well as ants, flies, and other minute insects. Their method for seed dispersal relies on insects as well, specifically ants. Little-Brown-Jugs seeds have a tiny nugget of fat attached to them that attracts certain species of native ants. The ants then carry the seeds back to their nest, where the seed germinates underground and a new Heartleaf Ginger plant springs forth.
Heartleaf Ginger is in the same genus as Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense). Both species were used by Native Americans and European settlers of Appalachia in folk remedies. Folks even used to flavor candies with Heartleaf Ginger. However, modern medicine has discovered that both species contain aristolochic acid, a trademark of the family Aristolochiaceae. This compound is carcinogenic and causes permanent kidney damage. Suffice it to say, this is an herb best appreciated by eye, and not by taste!
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s our smallest salamander, the Coastal Plain Dwarf Salamander (Eurycea quadridigitata).
The Coastal Plain Dwarf Salamander is our smallest species of salamander here in the Lowcountry and one of our most abundant. They reside from the southern tip of North Carolina, throughout the Lowcountry of South Carolina, southern Georgia, and the panhandle of Florida. The Coastal Plain Dwarf Salamander has a sister species, the Chamberlain’s Dwarf Salamander (Eurycea chamberlaini), which was recently split off and is found in the midlands and foothills of South Carolina. The Dwarf Salamanders belong to the genus Eurycea, the Brook Salamanders, and are joined here in the Lowcountry by their congenerics, the Southern Two-lined Salamander (Eurycea cirrigera) and Three-lined Salamander (Eurycea guttolineata).
These four Brook Salamander species all share a common body plan, being small and skinny with short legs and a delicate head. The Dwarf Salamanders are best told apart by their small size, often only reaching two inches in length, and by only have four toes on their hind feet. Between the two Dwarf Salamander species, their diverging ranges are often sufficient for identification. But, in the hand, the Chamberlain’s Dwarf Salamander is often a straw-yellow in color. The Coastal Plain Dwarf Salamander by comparison is chestnut-brown along its back and flanked with sides of slate-gray peppered with flecks of quartz-white. Although a bit smaller, this Salamander’s shape and coloration are uncannily similar to our Ground Skink (Scincella lateralis), an abundant lizard in our Lowcountry forests.
The Coastal Plain Dwarf Salamander is found in a variety of shallow wetland habitats, from flatwoods and floodplains, to Carolina Bays, bluff seeps, coastal swale swamps, and even the margins of vegetated ponds and ditches. Here they spend their days worming through waterlogged leaf litter and squirming through Sphagnum capped seeps, hunting for miniscule invertebrates to devour. Like many of our salamanders and other amphibians, they lay eggs in the water, which hatch into, and spend the first several months of their life as, aquatic larvae before metamorphosing into more terrestrial adults. Dwarf Salamanders typically reproduce and lay eggs in winter, when water tables are highest in their wetland abodes.
I personally don’t associate salamanders with the Sea Islands. With our saltwater moats and three-hundred year history of intensive agriculture, which was followed swiftly by intensive coastal development on many islands, you wouldn’t expect for there to be much left in the way of salamander habitat. Especially for species sensitive to water pollution, temperature, and other environmental conditions, like the Brook Salamanders. And that is in fact the case. Yet, although few and far between, they’re still here! More terrestrial species, like the Marbled Salamander (Ambystoma opacum) and South Carolina Slimy Salamander (Plethodon variolatus), as well as fully aquatic species, like the Two-toed Amphiuma (Amphiuma means) and Sirens (Siren spp.), are more abundant and widespread. But in the untouchable backwaters and forgotten bogs, our delicate Dwarf Salamander still persists on Edisto Island.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have the wick of the savanna, the tinder of the timberlands, the powder keg of the pineywoods, Threeawn (Aristida spp.), aka Wiregrass.
Here in South Carolina we have a little over a dozen species of Threeawn. In the Lowcountry, that number dips to about seven decently common species. Four of the dozen species I want to highlight: Southeastern Slimspike Threeawn (Aristida longespica), Arrowfeather Threeawn (Aristida purpurascens), Southern Wiregrass (Aristida beyrichiana), and Carolina Wiregrass (Aristida stricta).
Southeastern Slimspike Threeawn is the most common species of Threeawn you’ll find on Edisto Island. It’s an annual species that grows most often in sunny sand barrens and other dry clearings. It has a compact and skinny growth form, sparse flower stalks that reach upright to about knee height, relatively small seeds, and narrow leaf blades that curl when they dry. Arrowfeather Threeawn is the most widespread species statewide but not as abundant on the Sea Islands. It grows on deep sands and dry ridges in pineywoods, barrens, and savannas. It’s a perennial bunch grass with an upright form, dense flower stalks reaching up to about waste height, fairly large seeds, a burgundy-purple wash to its upper foliage, and blade-like leaves that curl as they dry. Southern Wiregrass and Carolina Wiregrass are a package deal. The two species were recently split and look quite similar. Carolina Wiregrass is found in the northern Sandhills of South Carolina down our eastern border to and through the coastal plain of North Carolina, but not in the Lowcountry. Southern Wiregrass, however, is found throughout the southern point of South Carolina, from the Francis Marion National Forest to Aiken and down through the savannas to the Savannah River. The two Wiregrasses reside in frequently burned Longleaf Pine savannas and grow on deep sands. They’re a perennial bunch grass that spreads clonally, grows as a dome of thin wiry leaves, and bears narrow but dense flower spikes which may reach up to hip height.
Threeawns are remarkable both physiologically and ecologically for their seeds and foliage. The seeds of Threeawns have three conspicuous awns. That’s where they get the common name. Awns are a long pointed projection of the leaf-like bracts that surround a grass’s flowers and often sheath the seeds. (Recall a head of wheat or barley. Those pointy bits are the awns.) The three awns of Threeawns are notable for twisting around each other, like a basket in a wrought fence, before then bending at a right angle. It’s a shape that’s hard to describe. Imagine an umbrella without the fabric and only three arms, but with a spiral twist in the middle. This twisted tripod of a seed has some innovative properties that enhance its chances of finding a good home. Firstly, that umbrella like shape helps the seed catch the wind and float further than it would just falling straight down. Although, they’re too heavy to float indefinitely. Second, the awns catch on the fur of passing mammals or pants legs of hikers, letting the seeds hitchhike to a new home. Saving the best for last, the awns are a compliant machine that operates as a drill fueled by humidity. These three awns are grown with an asymmetrical composition; one side of each wiry awn is denser than the other. When these awns dry, their difference in internal density causes one side to shrink more than the other, twisting and bending the base of the awns like a clock spring. When rain or heavy dew wets the seed, the awns absorb the water and stretch back out into their original straight shape. As sun dries the seeds, they twist back up. This acts on the same principal as an analog hygrometer, used to measure humidity. You can even grab a seed off a plant on a dry day, breathe heavily onto it, and watch the thing spin in your hand! This hydrated helical spin has an important function, drilling the seed into the soil. When the seed falls to the ground, the heavier seed side lands pointed down. If it’s lucky, it will land on bare soil, but it might be blocked by debris or duff. That’s when the drilling begins. Even in the driest of climes at the driest of times in the Lowcountry, our air is still sopping wet with water. That water condenses and drenches the ground as dew every night. Then, the scorching suns evaporates it all back into the air. This process repeats every day, spinning and shifting our little Threeawn seed. When the awns straighten, their tips anchor into the substrate as they twirl and push the seed forward, deeper towards the soil. When they dry and curl back up, the awns smoothly slide against the litter like a free spinning one-way ratchet, preserving the progress of the seed’s downward spiral. This cycle repeats daily, until the seed strikes pay dirt and sets roots in the sandy soil below. It’s a truly amazing adaptation!
Yet, spinning seeds ain’t the only trick this grass has hidden up its leaves. The foliage of Threeawns is built to burn. When old leaves dry, they do so thoroughly and then twist like a corkscrew together into a ball of tinder. This effect is most evident in the annual Slimspike Threeawn. However, both the Wiregrasses take this strategy to the extreme. Wiregrass is an ecosystem engineer. It combines its flammable foliage with its dome-like shape, its deep and expansive root system, and clonal nature to dominate the understory of the Southern Pine savanna. Hand in hand with Longleaf Pine it turns the forest floor of the pine savanna into a web of fuses, linking the ring of pitch plastered pine needles around each Longleaf Pine into a continuous carpet of fuel. The foliage of Southern Wiregrass in particular is so flammable, it will purportedly still burn in wet conditions. Through this smoldering smothering of the understory, Wiregrass fans the flames of renewal brought by natural and controlled fire. When Wiregrass’s prescription for fire is met, it is astounding how stable an ecosystem Longleaf Pine and Wiregrass have forged, its beauty jaw-dropping and biodiversity awe-inspiring. I’ve even read research suggesting the mycorrhizal fungi living in the sands of these fire-ravaged lands have a third hand in the conspiracy for conflagration, supporting the growth of the pyrophytic plants, promoting the flammability of their duff, and suppressing fire-phobic plants and fungi. The interwoven complexity of the southern pine savanna is an intoxicating realm to ecologists, extending above the pine boughs and below the tortoise burrows with a breadth wider than the Wiregrass roots that tie it all together.
If you’d like to get a gander up close at the glory of our southern pine savannas, SCDNR’s brand new Coosawhatchie Heritage Preserve in Yemassee, SC is a prime site to see a proper Wiregrass savanna. Or if you ever find yourself upstate cruising down HWY-1 through McBee, SC, Carolina Sandhills NWR is unforgettable detour!
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a cryptic mammal with some crazy physiology, the Southern Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina carolinensis).
The Southern Short-tailed Shrew is native to the Southeast and found throughout the Atlantic Coastal Plain from Virginia to Texas as well as up the lower Mississippi River Valley into Kentucky. Shrews are an odd family of creatures belonging to the mammal order Eulipotyphla, the true insectivores. This order also contains moles and hedgehogs. Shrews share several traits with moles, notably a dense coat of soft fur, a soft pointed snout, and tiny poorly formed eyes that render them practically blind. Shrews, at a glance, look a lot like a mouse or vole, being about the same size and shape. But even a cursory up close examination reveals just how different they are.
Here in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, we have three species of shrew: the Southeastern Shrew (Sorex longirostris), North American Least Shrew (Cryptotis parvus), and the Southern Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina carolinensis). The Southeastern Shrew is about two-inches long with a tail half that length and ruddy brown fur. The North American Least Shrew is a little over two-inches long with a tail a third of that and gray-brown coat. (Meaning the Southeastern Shrew is actually smaller.) The Southern Short-tailed Shrew is by far the most common shrew you’ll find on the Sea Islands and throughout the Lowcountry. It averages three-inches in body length with a tail somewhere between a quarter to third of that length and with fur a dark-gray often peppered with silver. In the upstate and mountains can also be found the Northern Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina brevicauda), which is very similar overall to its Southern sibling but about an inch longer and double their weight. The Northern Short-tailed Shrew is the largest Shrew in the United States.
Shrews, for the most part, lead a predominantly fossorial lifestyle, rooting around in leaf litter or digging tunnels underground that protect them from predators, keep out the elements, and facilitate hunting. A Shrew’s wedge-shaped face, dense fur, and strong legs enable its subterranean homebuilding. This makes Shrews quite cryptic critters. They are rare to encounter in the wild by chance. Unlike moles, they don’t leave obvious tunnels and molehills on the soil’s surface to track them. So most often people find them deceased lying atop the ground somewhere or by chance unearth them while gardening.
Southern Short-tailed Shrews inhabit a variety of habitats from forests to fields to floodplains but seem to most prefer habitats underlain by productive, moist soils which support relatively healthy and diverse plant communities. That’s not because they eat those plants though. It’s because they hunt the herbivores and detritivores that subsist on those plants. Shrews are ravenous predators with an insatiable appetite. They have an absurd metabolic rate, meaning they need to eat year-round, day in and day out, both day and night and throughout the dead of winter just to stay alive. Their heart rate clocks in around 900 beats-per-minute, about 75% that of a hummingbird and over ten times that of a human! To sustain this hyper fast metabolism they hunt nonstop and subsist on a diet of earthworms, slugs, snails, insect larvae, arthropods, and fungi, alongside just about any other small animal they can sink their teeth into. That’s possible because Short-tailed Shrews are venomous. You read that right. This mammal packs a neurotoxic venomous bite that’s strong enough to paralyze mice and other small vertebrates. A Shrew’s venom is secreted into its saliva. So it has to chew that venom into its prey, rather than inject it like a viper or spider would. This venom isn’t fatal to humans but is reportedly quite painful. The Northern Short-tailed Shrew, with its larger body, is the most accomplished small game hunter among all the North American Shrews. Yet, you can still add small reptiles, mammals, and amphibians to our smaller Southern Short-tailed Shrew’s menu. As a defense mechanism against its own predators, the Southern Short-tailed Shrew has musk glands, which it uses to exude a nauseating stench to ruin the appetite of would-be Shrew eaters. Often times the Shrew doesn’t sense the threat until it’s already mortally wounded, which is likely why we find dead, uneaten Shrews lying about the place. Although it doesn’t help that particular now deceased shrew, it might keep that particular Bobcat or Gray Fox from bothering other Shrews going forward.
Now, the astute among you may be wondering how a stinky nearly blind furball, the size of your thumb, with the heartrate of a hummingbird, venomous or not, can even find enough food to survive. Thank you for that perfect segue my dear hypothetical reader, now I can talk to you about the senses of the Short-tailed Shrew. Our shrew has a fantastic sense of smell, allowing them to sniff out food both underground and on the forest floor by the trace scents animals leave behind. They also have a well-developed tactile sense, allowing them to feel vibrations underground to further hone in on prey. Their sense of hearing is similarly well developed. Oh, and they can echolocate. Yeah, you read that one right too. This venomous, bloodthirsty mammal can echolocate. Their acute hearing affords them the capability to utter clicking noises, which bounce off the surrounding landscape like radar, and permit Shrews to perceive nearby objects by listening for the echoes. Their echolocation ability isn’t nearly as well defined as a bat’s, but it certainly gives the Southern Short-tailed Shrew another tool in the toolbox. Shrews need all the help they can get after all. They’re burning the candle at both ends and it’s a shrew eat mouse world out there.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have the pine of the high hills, Shortleaf Pine (Pinus echinata).
Shortleaf Pine is found throughout the Southeast, including all of South Carolina. In the Lowcountry, it’s most often found on hilltops, old dune ridges, and sandhills where it grows on well-drained and often droughty soils. It’s more common inland than it is on the Sea Islands, but still appears reliably on our highest sand ridges on Edisto. You’re as likely to find Shortleaf Pine mixed in with hardwoods as you are with other pines and rarely is it ever a dominate species this close to the coast. However, further up the state, it can often be the predominant pine on certain types of sites. Shortleaf Pine is a fire adapted species and often found growing amidst Longleaf Pine Savannas and along Oak-Hickory ridges. It is not as fire dependent as some other pines but does benefit greatly from fire on the landscape.
Shortleaf Pine is one of the easier pines to identify here on the Sea Islands. It has a character clearly distinct from all our other pines. It’s small for a pine, rarely exceeding one-hundred feet in height or two feet in diameter. Overall it has a thin trunk, straight shape, densely compact crown, and few trailing branches. Upon closer examination, it has key features that help identify it. Its pine cones are small and compact, on average the smallest of all our pines, and often persist upon the branches for several years. Its needles are short and straight, rarely longer than finger length, and generally grown in fascicles of three. The fascicle, the sheathed bundle containing individual needles, is an important feature to examine when identifying pines, especially in the Upstate between young stems of our other short needled pine species. But here in the Lowcountry, we have just one other short needled pine, the Spruce Pine (P. glabra). However, it’s easy to discern from the Shortleaf Pine, with Spruce Pine having twisted needles in fascicles of two most often. (Additionally, Spruce pine grows in floodplains and has uniquely smooth twigs and silvery bark.) Further, Shortleaf Pine has distinct bark from our other pines. Overall, its bark appears smoother with larger, flatter plates compared to Longleaf (P. palustris), Slash (P. elliottii), or Loblolly Pines (P. taeda). But, when you look up close, it reveals the trademark signature of the species, resin pockets. The bark of Shortleaf Pine is peppered internally with resin pockets, which weep resin when the bark exfoliates and leave behind birdshot-sized dimples across the surface of the bark. This is a unique trait of Shortleaf Pine and makes it an easy pine to identify when mature.
Shortleaf Pine is a boon for biodiversity and for bird watchers in the winter months. In my experience, I’ve found it to be particularly attractive to songbirds for a pine. Shortleaf Pine’s dense crown of needles and prolific little cones produce a bounty of seeds and attract insects seeking shelter. These in turn make it a favorite year-round hunting ground for Nuthatches, Chickadees, Titmice, Goldfinches, and Pine Warblers. This effect is further enhanced by its resilience to growing alongside hardwoods in mixed forests.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we’re glancing up at our ever present warbler of the evergreens, the Pine Warbler (Setophaga pinus).
From year to year and season to season no other warbler is so consistent a sight and sound as the Pine Warbler. Throughout the Deep South and in every corner of South Carolina pines abound. And in them, Pine Warblers are found. Large for a warbler, male Pine Warblers glow with lemon-yellow from beak to breast, fading to straw-yellow in winter and grading to a dingy shade towards the tail. Females shroud themselves in that same dingy straw yellow year-round. Dull steel-blue wings bear two strong wing-bars of white. A light eyebrow, dark eye-stripe, broken eye-ring, and dull, darkened cheek faintly mark their faces. The song of the Pine Warbler is simple, one to two-dozen sharp and upward notes trilled in quick succession. Yet, subtly inconsistent in its pitch and varied in rate from bird to bird. This inconsistency helps separate their song from the similar sounding Worm-eating Warbler (Helmitheros vermivorum) and Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina). The Pine Warbler’s call is a single “chet” note, harsh in tone with a sucking ring and the faint bass of a bigger warbler.
Just as its namesake pines remain a static and verdant fixture of our landscape, the Pine Warbler’s place in the Palmetto State is equally constant. Yet, their behavior and diet fluctuates with the seasons. In winter, they forage the treetops both above and beyond the savannas, feasting on any arthropods they can find alongside the pine seeds they pluck and the occasional fruit. In spring, they descend readily from the pines to scavenge fields and fencerows for waking insects and to collect pine straw, incessantly singing all the while. In summer, they continue their singing as they raise their young within the pineywoods, who’ll soon leave the nest to curiously and clumsily explore the wide world of pines. In fall, they fall silent as they fatten up for winter, using their mouths to eat rather than to sing for once. Despite this seasonal cycle, throughout the year Pine Warblers are always here, shifting about the pines, as surely as shadow hang beneath their needles.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a festive forest fern, Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides).
Christmas Fern is a species of evergreen fern found across the eastern United States and practically all of South Carolina. Its deep, jade-green fronds are divided once, giving the frond a feather-like appearance. The pinnae that make up the frond are glossy, lightly toothed, have a characteristic lobe at the base that points back to the ground, and sparse, orange hairs along the stem. The spore-bearing sori on the underside of the frond present predominantly as two parallel lines of cinnamon spots. The fronds of Christmas Fern are roughly forearm length, emerging at an angle from the ground and held low like a shallow basin shin-high above the ground. Christmas Fern is perennial and will spread slowly through its roots underground, most often forming loose clusters of clumps. Christmas Fern gets it holiday name from its evergreen foliage, which stays green throughout winter. This makes it a favorite addition to festive wreaths and arrangements over the holiday season.
Christmas Fern is a denizen of deciduous forests, damp soils, and deep shade. I most often find it around South Carolina growing in creek valleys, above stream banks, on north-facing slopes, along hillside seeps, between the buttresses of oaks, and just uphill of wetlands. Here around the Sea Islands, I mostly see it in the ecotone, the transitional band of land between ecosystem types, where mixed-hardwood upland forests grade downhill into swampy bottoms, especially when downhill faces to the north. That north facing slope is important. Here in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, the sun is always in the southern half of the sky. Meaning slopes that face south get more sun, and slopes that face north get less. The soils of those north facing slopes thus stay in shade for much of the year and dry out less. Perfect conditions for our shade tolerant, moisture loving Christmas Fern. This effect is far stronger in the Upstate. Yet here in the Lowcountry, where elevation is measured in inches, it can still have a significant impact within a forest. Christmas Fern is a species that doesn’t tolerate disturbance well. It prefers established, mature, deciduous forests. For me, as an ecologist, that makes it a useful indicator species for intact forest ecosystems. Where I find Christmas Fern in the Lowcountry, I know I’m in a healthy forest, a place worth protecting, and to be on the lookout for rarer plants and animals.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we’re looking and listening for a pair of wonderfully weird water birds, our Loons (Gavia spp.).
Here on the Sea Islands, two species of Loons frequent our tidal waters, the Red-throated Loon (Gavia stellata) and the Common Loon (Gavia immer). Both species breed in the arctic, with the Common Loon also breeding across Canada and Alaska. They return to South Carolina each year to ride out the winter. Both of our Loons have a fairly duck-like silhouette but with a body sitting lower in the water, a long neck, round head, and a sharp and dagger-shaped bill. Loons prefer deep, open waters and aren’t afraid of swift currents or choppy seas. Loons need deep water because they hunt by diving, sinking beneath the waves to dart like a torpedo after fish, shrimp, and other sea life, or frogs and crawfish in freshwater lakes. They also need wide open water so they can take flight. Loons are built for swimming and consequently have legs pushed so far back on their body that, practically speaking, they can’t walk on land anymore. They pretty much have to slide and flop around like a seal. (This is why you rarely see them on land.) It also means taking flight is a struggle, as they have to take a running start, like a Cormorant or Anhinga would, but with less range of motion at their disposal. So they need a longer runway than most water birds to get airborne.
Red-throated Loons are often scarce in the Lowcountry. They prefer to whittle their winters away in the choppy, windswept waters of our beaches. They’re most often spotted along river inlets, beaches, or just offshore, bobbing on and diving under the surf in search of their next meal. They have a slender build and are about three-quarters the size of the Common Loon. Their bill is shorter, thinner, and sharper than their common cousin. This narrow bill and svelte physique give them a more streamlined appearance overall. Their winter plumage is a neutral-gray across the back speckled with white, like stars in the night. This gray extends up the nape of the neck, over the top of the head, and to end at the bill. Their throat and sides of their neck are pure snow-white, their bill a silver-gray, and eyes ruby-red. Here in South Carolina, Red-throated Loons rarely display their breeding plumage, which colors their bill black, head phosphate-gray, and their lower throat a rust-red. They also rarely ever vocalize outside of their breeding grounds in the Arctic Circle.
Common Loons are by far the more common of our two Loons. They’re also the most generalist in their habitat usage. Common Loons are abundant in lakes, inlets, sounds, tidal rivers, and major tidal creeks, particularly those close to the ocean and near confluences. They are heavy-bodied with a robust bill. Their winter plumage is quite drab, a dark-gray back running up the back of the neck to the bill, contrasted by a white throat and cheeks and with the only flash of color being their red eyes. On occasion, we’re lucky enough on Edisto to see one fully in its breeding plumage before it departs in spring. Their drab winter garb is replaced by a hood of iridescent black-green, a collar of white bars, and a black-green back studded thoroughly in small squares of pearl-white. Their calls and songs are equally beautiful and utterly captivating. An unmistakable holler that is equal parts harrowing and hallowed. The tune of the Loon echoes off the water, inundating the landscape and resonating deep in the soul of all who hear it; a call of the wild. A ringing wail, half mourning cry and new morning’s sigh, a requiem for our wilds of past and an exaltation for those that still last.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we’ve got a pair of native clumping grasses, Saltmeadow Cordgrass (Sporobolus pumilus) and Sand Cordgrass (Sporobolus bakeri).
Both Saltmeadow Cordgrass and Sand Cordgrass are perennial native grasses found along the extreme coast of South Carolina, to include here on Edisto Island. Saltmeadow Cordgrass is a widely distributed plant, being found across the entire eastern seaboard of the United States. Sand Cordgrass is far more limited, mainly residing in Florida northward to Charleston, SC. The two species look very similar. Both spread through their roots but grow as clumps rather than individual stems. They form large, three to five foot high, dome-shaped clumps with their arching grass blades, which have emerald-green foliage fading to straw-yellow with age. Even the flowers of these two species are similar in appearance, a dozen branches of florets stacked tightly like books on a shelf, similar to other Cordgrasses (formerly members of Spartina). One of their few easily described physical differences is that these floral branches in Saltmeadow Cordgrass tend to be more perpendicular to the stem, whereas those of Sand Cordgrass are held upward to nearly parallel. But of course they vary and overlap! In my experience the two are best told apart by their differing preferred habitats and the gestalt of the whole plant.
I find Sand Cordgrass to be a bigger plant overall, often growing chest to chin-high as a well-defined clump with more yellow foliage. Sand Cordgrass is more of an upland plant, growing on banks, dikes, and wetland edges on sandy, moist soils. It also doesn’t tolerate regular saltwater intrusion all that well, preferring to grow in the brackish and freshwater reaches of tidal systems. Here on Edisto Island, I mainly see it on the northwestern corner of the Island, where the freshwater influence of the South Edisto River and the plethora of old dike-works create pockets of suitable habitat. It is far more abundant west of Edisto Island, in the heart of the ACE Basin and around Beaufort. Sand Cordgrass is a wonderful native landscaping plant and does well in wide array of use cases in coastal towns and neighborhoods, but prefers subtropical climes.
Saltmeadow Cordgrass trends more toward a knee to waist-high clump and is more prone to forming loose clumps and monocultures. Saltmeadow Cordgrass is highly tolerant of irregular saltwater intrusion but can’t persist in the true saltmarsh. I most often encounter it on marsh islands, tidal ditch banks, tidal floodplains, and wetland swales where a shallow water table flows into the marsh. Think of it as growing within the king tide line. Places that see a high salty tide once a month or less, but not with daily consistency. Here on Edisto Island, these places, and consequently Saltmeadow Cordgrass, are generally few and far between, but fairly common on Little Edisto Island. Overall in the Lowcountry, Saltmeadow Cordgrass does well as a landscaping plant on the banks of brackish ponds, floating wetland islands, tidal wetlands, and sandy marsh edges.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s the Lowcountry’s local marsh sparrow, the MacGillivray’s Seaside Sparrow (Ammospiza maritima macgillivraii).
Within the winter’s salt marsh the blackbirds linger and grackles gallivant, rails scurry and wrens bound, all beneath the watchful eye of hovering harriers and ospreys. But between them all resides a trio of songbirds, scarcely seen and rarely heard, who call this cordgrass kingdom home, the marsh sparrows: Seaside Sparrow (Ammospiza maritima), Saltmarsh Sparrow (A. caudacuta), and Nelson’s Sparrow (A. nelsoni). Within their ranks one can find a special lineage, the subspecies MacGillivray’s Seaside Sparrow (A. m. macgillivraii), who calls the marshes of the Sea Islands home year-round.
The MacGillivray’s Seaside Sparrow is a large sparrow with a heavy bill and tattered tail that’s dyed in dusky, dark plumage. Soot-stained gray shades its body, dark walnut-brown colors its wings, an occasional chestnut wash livens its breast and flanks, while a white patch under the chin and a lemon-yellow eyebrow add the only sharp contrast to its feathers. Their call is a high metallic “tink” and their song a three-part verse, first a cricket-like chirp, then a lower two note warble, and finished with a dry, trailing buzz. Their vocalizations are made softly and steadily, easily becoming buried in the cacophonous din of a windswept spring marsh, already saturated in blackbird song. MacGillivray’s Seaside Sparrows live their lives within the saline and brackish marshes of South Carolina. There they forage on seeds, insects, and other invertebrates. In spring they head up river to nest in higher, more tidally stable marshlands. In winter, they head towards the coast, to hunker down on marsh islands in the thermal stability by the sea.
Seaside Sparrows, of all subspecies, and the Saltmarsh and Nelson’s Sparrows are facing tremendous pressure. The Saltmarsh Sparrow is currently under review with the US Fish & Wildlife Service for listing under the endangered species act as threatened. The MacGillivray’s subspecies of the Seaside Sparrow was petitioned for listing in 2018, but ultimately not protected. The Dusky subspecies (A. m. nigrescens) of Florida already went extinct in 1987. Historic wetland draining and alteration, ongoing coastal development, more extreme tide cycles, and rising sea levels are squeezing marsh sparrows from all angles to dwindle their populations. Here in South Carolina, all three species overwinter in our salt marshes and rely heavily upon marsh islands and hammocks for refuge during king tides. As seas rise and the number of king tides increases, these marsh islands become ever more critical, and ever more scarce.
This underscores the priceless value of the protection, restoration, and management of tidal wetlands in the Lowcountry of South Carolina for the survival of these three sparrows, as well as every other species that depends upon our estuaries. Protecting marshlands, marsh islands, and the marsh migration spaces abutting them ensures the highest quality marsh habitat will persist into the future. Restoring historically drained or bermed marshlands will improve the condition of marsh migration space and offers the opportunity to create future marsh islands. Smart management and maintenance of existing tidal impoundments, particularly rice impoundments, will provide bastions of stability and refuge during tumultuous times and tides. Although the futures of our marsh sparrows look bleak, we’ve pulled species back from the brink under bleaker circumstances. Here at the Edisto Island Open Land Trust, we’re doing our part, and we’re always looking forward to how we can forge the brightest future we can on Edisto Island, one plan, one person, or one parcel at a time.
