This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a trio of catawampus crustaceans and their four-cornered cousin: the Fiddler Crabs (Genera Minuca and Leptuca) and the Squareback Marsh Crab (Armases cinereum).
Here on Edisto we have three species of Fiddler Crab: the Red-jointed Fiddler Crab (Minuca minax), the Atlantic Marsh Fiddler Crab (Minuca pugnax), and the Atlantic Sand Fiddler Crab (Leptuca pugilator). We also have the Squareback Marsh Crab, a similarly sized common crab belonging to a different family and with a very different life-style. All four of these crabs are about two inches in width with an overall drab brown or grayish-brown appearance. Our three Fiddler Crabs have a deep, rounded but boxy body and eyes on pedestals that stick up well above it. Fiddler Crabs are distinctly sexually dimorphic, meaning males and females are clearly distinguishable. Male fiddler crabs have one massively oversized claw that they use for courtship and fighting amongst themselves. This claw is roughly half the size of their abdomen and they can often be seen waving it around to woo the ladies and scare off the other lads.
Male and female Squareback Marsh Crabs on the other hand look pretty much the same. They have a broad, flat, square body, wideset eyes on short stalks, and small even-sized claws. They all come in a uniform shade of pluffmud gray-brown. They spend their lives in the marsh fringes and can often be found running through lawns and clinging to garage walls, like a cockroach, at homes built near the high-water line.
Our three Fiddler Crabs can be a bit tricky to tell apart at a glance but they have a few key features and lifestyle differences we can identify them with. The Atlantic Sand Fiddler Crab is likely the one you’re most often to notice. They make their burrows in sand and are a common sight on salt flats in the high marsh. In summer, they can often be seen moving in huge herds through these salt flats. They have a fairly colorful appearance of an ash-gray back with a Rorschach-esque pattern embedded in it and occasionally a splash of royal-purple between the shoulders. The middle segments of their limbs are often a deep pink-orange too. The Atlantic Marsh Fiddler Crab, as the name suggests, prefers to live in mud. You’ll find them in the low-marsh making burrows in the pluffmud. They have a more reserved appearance, with a predictable gray-brown body to match their pluffmud abode and claws a bone-white or faded-yellow. The Red-jointed Fiddler Crab has, you guessed it, red joints. There are crimson patches on practically all of its joints as well as the edge of the carapace. Its appearance and lifestyle are somewhere in between the other two. Its back ranges from mud-gray to sand-white and its claw can be tan to reddish-brown. They’re notable for preferring lower salinities and are more common farther inland as well as in brackish systems.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s a tall frost-fractured fall flower found along forest fringes, Frostweed (Verbesina virginica).
Frostweed is a common fall wildflower here on Edisto Island. Its towering eye-high stems line many a semi-shaded road shoulder from September through October. Frostweed prefers damp soil and partial sun, so its natural habitat is forest edges and its less-natural habitats are road shoulders, field edges, and gardens. Frostweed is a perennial that spreads via its roots. In the right conditions, it has vigorous growth and a vigorous rate of spread. This makes it a great addition to most native plant gardens as what I call an “anchor plant”, one you can always depend on if nothing else blooms and one that you can’t uproot (or kill with neglect) once it digs itself in.
Speaking of blooms, that’s why we’re speaking about Frostweed. Frostweed is a fantastic nectar and pollen plant for bees, flies, butterflies, wasps, and more! It’s a member of the Aster family and the Crownbeard genus. Our three common Crownbeard species all look much the same: tall stems, large leaves dangling from that stem, and a small dome of flowers with an unkempt look. Our other species of Crownbeard are predominantly found in the upstate and both are yellow-flowered. However, Frostweed has snow-white flowers. As I alluded, the flowers of Frostweed and other Crownbeards are disheveled looking. Each individual flower head looks like a typical compound Aster flower, except that they all appear to be missing petals. Each flower-head is a little different, some have two petals, others five, and most have three or four. It’s very unorganized looking up close but not so noticeable from a few yards back. Regardless of their naturally gap-toothed appearance, the flowers are adored by pollinators and, when dead and dried, the stems of Frostweed provide nesting cavities for mason wasps, native bees, and ants and their thick growth creates cover for birds and small mammals.
Yet, the snow-white flowers of Frostweed are not how it got its icy alias. That common name originated from a serenely beautiful quirk of its stems, a phenomena we rarely get to see on Edisto Island. At the first hard frost of the year, the stems of Frostweed will split at the base. Through the thin slits split into the stem will grow gossamer ribbons of ice. As the moisture in the stem freezes and expands, it pushes outward. As the stem dries it pulls water from elsewhere in the stem and will continue to growth the ribbon of ice for several inches or more until it exhausts its water. The ice ribbons have a silky smooth, finely striped appearance, like shining white locks of hair. They last but a morning and melt away as the sun rises. A common sight in late fall in much of the upper south but an infrequent and short-lived sight here on Edisto Island.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s a theocratic trio of insects native to our state, the Carolina Mantis (Stagmomantis carolina), Brunner’s Mantis (Brunneria borealis), and Grizzled Mantis (Gonatista grisea).
As alluded, we have three species of mantis native to South Carolina. Each with their own unique appearance and behaviors. There is also a fourth non-native species, the Chinese Mantis (Tenodera sinensis) that can occasionally be found in our county but is usually limited to the upstate. As a whole, Mantids are easily identified by their long, thin bodies, triangular heads, and their arm-like forelegs that are specialized for grasping rather than walking. Mantids earned the common name of Praying Mantis due to their style of ambush hunting that involved standing motionless with their arms folding up and held to their chin, like someone deep in prayer. Each of our three Mantids employ this same style of ambush hunting, lying in wait in a likely spot and praying something tasty comes along, but each has their own habitat specialization.
The Carolina Mantis is our most common Mantis by far. During the early fall, adult Carolina Mantises can often be found clinging to handrails, car windows, and tree trunks as they go about searching for mates or places to lay eggs. They come in two primary colors, emerald-green and blotchy ash-gray, as well as intergrades between the two. Males are smaller and narrower with well developed, rectangular wings. Females are larger with a large, teardrop-shaped abdomen and stubby wings. Carolina Mantises can be found in a wide array of open and brushy habitats and are particularly well suited to living in yards, gardens, parking lots, and fields.
The Brunner’s Mantis is much less common and markedly different in appearance than the Carolina Mantis. The Brunner’s Mantis has an elongated, spindly body and legs with dainty arms and a small head. At first glance they’re almost indistinguishable from a stick-bug. Brunner’s mantises come in a shade of lime-green or hay-tan, sometimes with accents of the other. They primarily inhabit meadows, fallow fields, and grasslands where they cling to flowers and ambush pollinating insects.
The Grizzled Mantis is more similar in body shape to the Carolina Mantis but with notable exceptions. Their body is flat and broad, legs splayed, and they hold their arms to their sides. They come in camouflaged coat of grays, browns, and pale greens and often resemble pine-bark or lichens. Grizzled Mantises are found in forests where they lie in wait on tree bark. They will occasionally hang out on houses as well, lying in wait beneath porch lights for misguided moths.
If you’re curious, the Chinese Mantis will either be lime-green or a flat-brown but will always have a vibrant green streak exposed down the edge of the forewing with a fine white border and the females will have wings that extend well beyond their abdomen, unlike the Carolina Mantis. Males of the two can be a little trickier to tell apart but Carolina Mantis males tend to have dark gray wings and usually do not to have the exposed green forewing edge. The Chinese Mantis shares a similar habitat to the Carolina Mantis but is most often encountered in urban areas in the Lowcountry, where it gets reintroduced but does not do well in our hot and humid climate.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday blooms a winding purple pendant hung upon the nape of the forest, Spurred Butterfly Pea (Centrosema virginianum).
Spurred Butterfly Pea is a common sight in fall here on Edisto Island. Its thin vine is often spotted draped across a small shrub or twined around a flower stem atop a sunny, sandy tree line. Its sparse three-fingered leaves and delicate stem do little to hinder the growth of its host. Spurred Butterfly Pea is a member of the legumes and can fix nitrogen. It also has a very large and very pea-like flower that’s nearly two inches around and a soft pastel-purple with a snow white streak down the center.
Spurred Butterfly Pea is a decent pollinator plant that’s appreciated by smaller butterflies but adored by one in particular, the Long-tailed Skipper. The Long-tailed Skipper is a medium sized butterfly with a pair of long tails on its gray-brown wings and a brilliant iridescent-turquoise back. Its caterpillars eat various species of legume including, garden beans, but most relevant is Spurred Butterfly Pea. It’s rare to find a patch of Butterfly Pea that doesn’t have a colony of Long-tailed Skippers in tow. The caterpillars of Long-tailed Skippers can easily be spotted by their handiwork. They’re leaf rollers who’ll fold a rectangular flap of leaf atop themselves to eat in privacy and relative safety until they’re large enough to fold a whole leaf over. Many of you gardeners may know them instead as Bean Leafrollers, as they’re a common pest of Garden Beans and Cowpeas. However, in the wild, Spurred Butterfly Pea is the palate’s preference.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a minute mosquito munching minnow, the Eastern Mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki).
The Eastern Mosquitofish is native to the southeastern United States. Here in the Lowcountry, it can be found in practically ever permanent freshwater body of water, from the largest lake and the widest swamp to the shallowest woodland pool and narrowest wet ditch. They can be found everywhere and easily found. A quick scan of a pond edge will almost certainly uncover a half dozen Mosquitofish lazily swimming just below the surface. Mosquitofish are only an inch or two in length with the profile of an elongated teardrop from above. From the side they have a mostly rectangular shape with an upturned mouth and a slight pot-belly. Their coloration is a drab mix of translucent gray and greenish-brown, sometimes with a black bean-shaped spot at the back of the abdomen. They’re a very no non-sense fish. They provide a very clear ecosystem service, mosquito control. Mosquitofish primarily eat algae and plant detritus but, when afforded the opportunity, they’ll eat their fair share of aquatic invertebrates.
As you know, mosquitoes lay their eggs in stagnant pools of water. They do this so their larvae can avoid predators. Those eggs hatch into free swimming larvae that feed on plankton until metamorphosing into blood-sucking annoyances. Well, Mosquitofish just so happen to love living in stagnant water bodies. So a large reason as to why mosquito populations aren’t any worse than they are is because of today’s dear old Mosquitofish. Mosquitofish are specially adapted to life in shallow, hot waters with dangerously low oxygen and pH levels as well as other water chemistries that are deadly to many fish. Mosquitofish seek out these inhospitable wetlands for their own safety, as few other fish will follow them here. However, Mosquitofish are still very common on the fringes of large water bodies as their small size allows them to stick right up against the water’s edge and out of harms way.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s another pollinator approved native wetland wildflower, Clustered Bushmint (Hyptis alata).
Clustered Bushmint is a perennial wildflower found all throughout the Southeastern coastal plain, including the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Edisto Island. Its favorite places to populate are the sandy slopes of sunny dirt road ditches or saturated swales sunk in beside the highway. It loves wet acidic sandy soils and full sun. Clustered Bushmint grows to about chest high with a narrow woody stem and a sparse collection of small leaves. Sometimes they bare a single straight stem, other times it branches broadly. However, that stem is not as barren as it sounds as it will soon be ringed in flower-heads from the first foot above the ground all the way to its tip. The flower-heads of Clustered Bushmint are pale green and spherical with a whorl of bracts collaring them from below. Atop this flower-head poke out individual flowers, tiny and white with magenta polka-dots. Clustered Bushmint blooms from August through September and is adored by pollinators of all shapes and sizes. Its tiny flowers are easy for flies, beetles, and wasps to sip from but their clustered presentation creates a perfect landing pad for larger and heavier butterflies and bumblebees to clamber onto.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have our one and only North American marsupial, the Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana).
The Virginia Opossum is by all measures a strange beast. Just like the Armadillo, there’s no way I can cover all its unique traits in one post, so I’ll give you some highlights. But first, we’ll start with a description. Our Opossum is a medium sized mammal about the size of a cat. Their fur is thick, short, and frizzy, blending from an ivory white on the face to a dingy brownish-gray highlighted by bright white bristles across the body and then darkening down around the knees to a charcoal black. Their body is bulky and their head large and pointed, with small black ears, forward facing eyes, and little pink nose. On the reverse their tail is thick and hairless and held outstretched as they saunter through the forest. Opossums are not a creature in a hurry. Their gait is short and their pace is relaxed, as if they’re simply out for an evening stroll. One of the unique things about our Opossum is that they are the only marsupial native to North America. Marsupials give birth to under-developed live young. Those young then spend the next stage of their life sleeping and nursing in their mother’s pouch on her belly until they’re big enough to survive the elements. Mother Opossums can often be seen with her litter of little ones clinging to her back as she strolls through the understory.
Opossums can be found throughout the Eastern United States in woodland habitats. They’re predominantly nocturnal and split their time between the forest canopy and its floor. They have several unique adaptation for life in the tree tops, including opposable rear thumbs and a prehensile tail, both of which can easily wrap around tree branches. Opossums are true omnivores and they will eat just about anything, including fruits, frogs, crabs, seeds, insects, carrion, eggs, and, most notably, ticks and snakes. Opossums have a nose and a taste for ticks and will scarf down any they encounter as they wander the woods. Opossums are also extremely resistant to snake venom and can be a major predator of young vipers. They also have quite the taste for chicken, both chicken eggs and the hens themselves, and they can be a major nuisance for folks keeping chickens. As those folks likely know, Opossums have an interesting defense strategy. When cornered, Opossums tend to just sit there and hiss, head low and mouth agape. Opossums also hold the title for the most teeth of any mammal in North America, so it’s not an unimpressive bluff. They’re not really aggressive and they’re pretty much the opposite of nimble. If their initial bluff fails, they sometimes go all in instead of running. Opossums are known for playing dead. When assaulted, they can go limp with their eyes wide open, lips curled back, and while releasing a horrid aroma, all of which is pretty convincing to most unenthusiastic predators that said Opossum actually kicked the bucket a week ago and is not fit for eating. It doesn’t work out for the Opossum all the time but it works often enough that’s it’s worth them trying.
The Edisto Island Open Land Trust has received a $171,512 grant from the Department of Interior, National Park Service (NPS) funded through the Historic Preservation Fund and African American Civil Rights grant program, for the restoration of the interior of the Hutchinson House. 53 of these grants totaling $15,035,000 were awarded for projects across the United States. With these funds, organizations and agencies conserve significant U.S. cultural and historic resources, which illustrate, interpret, and are associated with the great events, ideas, and individuals that contribute to our nation’s history and culture.
“This competitive grant program is just one of the many ways the National Park Service is working to preserve and interpret the lesser-known facets of our nation’s shared history,” said NPS Deputy Director Shawn Benge. “From physical restoration projects to surveys, documentation, and education, this years’ grant funds will help many of our State, Tribal, local, and non-profit partners advance their preservation goals.”
The Hutchinson House represents one of the oldest houses on Edisto identified with the African American community after the Civil War. In 1885, Henry Hutchinson married Rosa Swinton, and according to oral tradition, he built what is now known as the Hutchinson House as a wedding gift for her. He constructed the house with his half-brother Jack Miller and their uncle John Pearson Hutchinson, a self-taught architect who built Central Baptist Church in Charleston. Henry acquired the property the house is built on from his father, James “Jim” Hutchinson.
Jim Hutchinson was born into slavery at Peter’s Point Plantation on Edisto Island. After serving in the Union Navy during the Civil War, Jim became a political activist. He served as the Republican precinct chairman on Edisto Island, facilitating the election of Black legislators and registering Black voters in large numbers. He perpetually advocated for the economic empowerment and fair treatment of African Americans while promoting Black land ownership. Jim thrust himself into civil rights activism during a very difficult transitional period in our history, and it may have cost him his life. He was murdered on the Fourth of July, 1885, by a white man from Wadmalaw. Many people at that time believed Jim was murdered because of his advocacy for Black equality.
The Hutchinson House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, and today, stands as an important example of the strength and resilience of an African American family on Edisto Island. The house represents the high level of craftsmanship and design that African Americans were able to achieve in their own homes once out from under White suppression. After Henry and Rosa passed away, two more generations of the Hutchinson family lived in the house and the property remained under their ownership from 1875 to 2016. It is a testament to the Hutchinson family’s success and represents the perseverance of formerly enslaved people in the decades following the Civil War.
Once the restoration of the Hutchinson House is complete, it will be open to the public as a museum and heritage center. Funds are still being raised to complete the replication of the three-sided porches and rear room that was original to the house. To find out more about this important heritage project, you can visit the EIOLT website at www.edisto.org. For more information on this project please contact EIOLT at 843-869-9004. For questions regarding the Historic Preservation Fund and African American Civil Rights grant program, or to comment on this or any other proposed Historic Preservation Fund grant project, please contact the State, Tribal, Local, Plans & Grants Division, National Park Service, at 202-354-2020 or stlpg@nps.gov.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a secretly parasitic plant with a conspicuous flower and often under attack by butterflies: Purple False-Foxglove (Agalinus purpurea).
Purple False-Foxglove is a common wildflower in the Lowcountry. It’s found in fallow fields, meadows, overgrown roadsides, and other sunny, grassy habitats. We have five other species of False-Foxglove found in the Lowcountry, some rare and some common, that all have similar appearances and life histories. However, Purple False-Foxglove is by far the most common I encounter. So I’ll just be talking about that species specifically today. Purple False-Foxglove grows about three feet tall with thin, wiry stems and narrow, opposite, needle-like leaves. It’s best identified by its flowers, which blossom profusely across the plant in late summer and early fall. The blooms are a stubby five-petalled trumpet steeped in vibrant magenta with a pale-pink mouth lined by two ivory stripes and a scattering of purple spots. Its flowers are well loved by bees, of all shapes and sizes, and one particular species of butterfly. False-Foxgloves are a preferred host plant for the caterpillars of the Common Buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia). Buckeye caterpillars are covered in dark branching spines over a body mottled in black, pearl-white, and burnt-orange. They can often be found feeding on the leaves of False-Foxglove plants. However, the Buckeyes are not the only ones mooching off a neighbor.
False-Foxgloves are interesting in that they’re parasitic. More precisely, they’re what’s known as hemiparasitic. Hemiparasites are not totally dependent on a host and can survive on their own if need be. This is why Purple False-Foxglove still has green leaves, as it is fully capable of feeding itself with photosynthesis. However, when given the chance, Purple False-Foxglove will tap into the root systems of its neighbors to siphon off nutrients. Usually, it will leach off of grasses but can parasitize most plants, including trees. Purple False-Foxglove’s love for sunny, sandy soils and ability to parasitize grasses has allowed it to carve out an interesting niche here in the Lowcountry. Fallow fields often become dominated by non-native grasses over time and hayfields are generally managed for non-native hay grasses. These habitats are very difficult for all but the hardiest of native plants to recolonize by brute force. Only a few species like Dogfennel, Nuttall’s Thistle, and Field Aster can outcompete a hay grass directly. However, Purple False-Foxglove is able to circumvent this obstacle by stealing from the grasses it’s competing against. So the better its host does, the better it does. This often makes Purple False-Foxglove the only wildflower able to overtop the hay and a welcome splash of color to the eyes in an otherwise uniform sea of green-brown grass.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a tiny long-leaping woodland amphibian: the Southern Cricket Frog (Acris gryllus).
The Southern Cricket Frog is an abundant amphibian found throughout the Lowcountry of South Carolina, including Edisto Island. They can be found in and around most every permanent freshwater wetland on the Island but especially in swamps and other wooded wetlands. They spend more time on land away from the water than most frogs. Our Cricket Frog is tiny, the size of a fingertip, with a pointy mouth and warty skin. Their skin is mottled in drab grays and browns with a thick stripe, usually brick-red or neon-green, running up the back, splitting around the forehead, and merging at the nose. Cricket Frogs are also easily identified by their voice. The call of the male is a distinct series of high pitched chirps that speed up as the song progresses. I can best describe it as a glass marble dropped on a tile floor, slowly bouncing to a steady beat that never quite reaches the crescendo. This song has a very insect like quality, sounding like a Cricket or Katydid. Like most frogs, they require moisture to stay hydrated and standing water to breed. So they’re rarely seen far from some source of water yet are commonly seen hopping from underfoot on dry land in the forest surrounding wetlands. Cricket frogs eat small arthropods and, due to their diminutive stature, are themselves eaten by a wide array of predators. Cricket Frogs lack any weaponry but they are masters at evasion. Cricket Frogs have a massive jump for their body length. They’re able to jump about 50 times their body length, four feet or more, at a time. Their small size, long leaps, and shrill song all come together to make their common name of “Cricket Frog” quite the accurate moniker.
