This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s the streaky sneaky inquisitive wide-eyed owl of copse and glade, the Barred Owl (Strix varia).
Barred Owls are one of our four resident species of Owl. We have another four vagrant species who drop into the state every now and again but let’s ignore them. Barred Owls are our second largest and most numerous species of Owl here in the Lowcountry. They are common throughout forest habitats, particularly bottomlands. They perch in trees where they scan the shadows of the dimly lit dusk for scurrying mammals and creeping amphibians. Swiveling their head to hear for the jostling of leaves and pitter-pattering of little feet.
A Barred Owl’s plumage is barred below and banded behind in ashen-gray and chocolate-browns. Their eyes are an empty black glass, large and set deeply into a flat, pale gray face. Their thin bone-yellow beak is buried below a bushy moustache that blends smoothly into their strong nasal bridge. About their face rings two arches of brown that run from their jowls around to their forehead. One of these “eyebrows” always sits slightly higher than the other, giving Barred Owls a wide-eyed and skeptical expression.
That asymmetrical forehead is a deliberate adaptation. Just like our ears, the feathers of an Owl’s face are concave to focus sound towards the center. Many species of owls have asymmetrical ears. The Barred Owl is one such species, although its asymmetry is certainly not as pronounced as others. This cock-eyed cranium allows Owls to better pinpoint the elevation of prey. An adaptation like this is advantageous because Barred Owls rely on their amazing sense of hearing to hunt. Those ears, in combination with their sharp eyesight and the unmatched night-vision of an owl, lets them nimbly meander between trees through the forest understory during the dead of night to drop like a brick onto a shrew shivering 20 feet below under the leaf litter.
Owls, like many raptors, are prone to tunnel vision. A state of hyper-focus that many predators enter when pursuing prey, losing their situational awareness in the process. This is a double-edged sword in the modern world as young Barred Owls are at risk to become roadkill. Barred Owls like to hunt along roadsides, perching on limbs and power lines to spot prey crossing over causeways and roadways. If an Owl spots a mouse in the headlights of an approaching car, it won’t hesitate to dive onto the blacktop, putting itself directly in harm’s way without a chance to react. Red-shouldered Hawks encounter the same problem in the daytime. It’s a sadly ironic fate for birds as keenly perceptive as Barred Owls.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have the South Carolina state flower: Yellow Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens).
Yellow Jessamine is an evergreen perennial vine common throughout our forests, thickets, hedgerows, and wetlands. Jessamine climbs both high and low on thin but sturdy twining vines of mauve and burgundy. Although it does not climb so high as some other woodland vines, it makes due in the midstory of our forests. Where Jessamine really shines is on the wood line and fencerow. In sunny scrub, Jessamine thrives to smother shrubs and saplings. It’s narrow tangle of stems crisscrossing and ensnaring their woody victim in a net of leaves. But Jessamine is not so vigorous as to suffocate, just to stifle as it makes up lost time in winter with its year-round greenery. What is spectacular about Yellow Jessamine is its spring outfit.
As the soil begins to warm and the bugs begin to stir, so does our plant. Its web of wiry vines blister and burst forth into a glow of golden flowers. Five-lipped trumpets of saffron belch out the scent of spring in their cloud of sunlit song. Among the first to bloom, Yellow Jessamine feeds our Bumblebees as they stir from hibernation. A gift of color and a break of fast from an otherwise stingy vine. You see, Jessamine is miserly in its ways. It does not grow its own trunk but clings to that of its neighbors. Its growth is greedy as it gleams the solar succor between the leaves of its captive ladder. It does not lower its leaves in fall, holding them dearly through the cold to wring out the trickles of soft sunlight. Nor does it freely give that foliage to passersby, filling its flesh with neurotoxins to repulse other freeloaders. Yet, on winter’s eve it invites in insects on golden trays to share, just briefly, in a banquet; the profits of its penny-pinching.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s a secretive spectral serpent of southern swamps: the Rainbow Snake (Farancia erytrogramma).
The Rainbow Snake is a widespread but seldom seen snake throughout the southeastern coastal plain. They’re partial to blackwater swamps, rivers, cypress bottoms, and other forested wetlands with freshwater flow. They spend their lives hunting underwater for eels and amphibians, swallowing their prey whole. They’re nonvenomous and totally harmless to people. They rarely, if ever, bite when handled.
Rainbow Snakes are sizable serpents that can exceed five feet in length while retaining a stout diameter. Their features are soft, smooth, and rounded, hinting at their aquatic nature and a capacity for burrowing. This species is hard to find in the wild as they typically don’t sunbathe and rarely leave the water, except to commute between wetlands. They often go unnoticed, slithering through shallows or floating between flotsam, in spite of earnest efforts put forth by herpetologists to find them. Yet, the Rainbow snake is every bit as spectacular as it is secretive. That common name is no misnomer. This snake is streaked in smoldering scarlet over a back of greasy black and belly of glowing golden-yellow, all while blanketed in scales bearing subtle iridescence. It’s a species that’s hard to get a hold of but difficult to ignore!
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday our secret ingredient is a mean, tart, tangle of a plant: the Blackberries of genus Rubus.
Blackberries are a diverse genus of perennial vine-like shrubs that belong to the Rose family, Rosaceae. Here on Edisto we have four common species, two very common and two not as common. Sawtooth Blackbery (Rubus argutus) and Southern Dewberry (R. trivalis) are in the common camp. Sand Blackberry (R. cuneifolius) and Northern Dewberry (R. flagellaris) are in the latter. All share great similarity but differ in the details. Sawtooth Blackberry is tall and fierce with great streams of corrugated, serrated stems that swallow up wood lines. Southern Dewberry is sprawling and electric with long ribbons of ruby-red stems that snake their way through field and forest, enveloped in full by a halo of the finest prickles to guard against even the tiniest of attacks. Northern Dewberry is much the same but less red with anger; its thin green stems wind along the woods armed with a sparring set of spines. Sand Blackberry is sparse and short; its stem stiff over sandy barrens with waxed lime leaves upholstered below by ashen suede. Southern Dewberry is the common species you’ll see worming through lawns and woods. Sawtooth Blackberry prefers to build thickets along fields. Sand Blackberry is best seen in sand barrens and pine savannas where fire is prominent and Northern Blackberry in forest openings less prone to combustion.
Just like Roses, Blackberries form a tangled mess of vines and limbs that smother and stab the world around them. Great arches and chains of barbs and hooks that instruct an unforgettable lecture to those who boldly march into their iron maiden embrace. Blackberries detest trespass and vandalism. They advertise that innocuously with an armory of prickles, needle sharp protrusions across the full sum of their surface. The only places they’re approachable are their at flowers and their fruits. Blackberries bloom through March and April. Their flowers are white and bushy, with five petals as white and delicate as tissue paper affixed below a burst of brush-like anthers. Each flower an inch across and discrete on its own stem. Blackberries are a special favorite of honey bees, as their prolific pollen-packed flowers are one of the first to bloom each season as the bees stir from their hives. What’s best known and most attractive about Blackberries are their black berries. (Who’d a thunk?) Blackberries are a productive and delicious fruiting plant, thanks to most vegetarians leaving its foliage be. All species have edible berries that age from green through red into a glistening black. Each berry is really a tightly packed cluster of fleshy drupelets, each with a tiny seed at their center. In my opinion, the Dewberries are the tastiest and easiest to collect. Sand Blackberry only produces few and small fruits. Sawtooth Blackberry is by far the most prolific per unit of plant but not as flavorful, and requires more of a blood sacrifice to acquire.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s a snowy crook-billed critter who’s not afraid to get its feet wet: the White Ibis (Eudocimus albus).
Breeding birds are an icy-white with a rosy-red face and strong bubblegum-pink legs. In flight their wings show tips of contrasting black. Immature birds are a patchwork of warm mocha-brown, cold snow-white, and soft gray. Their body has a streamlined profile and their neck is long and sinuous. Their eyes are a clear sky-blue and their long, drooping bill is dripping with that same bubblegum hue. Ibis are both compact and lean which gives off an athletic vibe. We have a second species of Ibis regularly seen on Edisto Island, but never commonly, called the Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus). A gorgeous bird of oily-black draining away from a cinnamon neck with dark beady eyes bordered by shining Xenon lines. Ibis are most closely related to our Roseate Spoonbills, outside of other Ibis.
The White Ibis is a common wading bird throughout the coastal plain of the Southeastern United States and Central America. They’re here year-round but their numbers ebb and flow as birds cycle between seasonally preferred habitats. In winter our populations peak as the birds chase warmer weather and better forage. White Ibis love wetlands. Stagger stepping while stabbing through stagnant stands of sedge or sod they forage and feed their way over the shallow waters of our state. They’re ever present every winter in our ephemerally flooded forests and fields as they descent in flocks upon the soggy soil. They’re partial to marsh lands as well and regularly plop down beside our Egrets along the pluffy tidal creeks. White Ibis are rarely seen alone, usually being accompanied by at least two if not two dozen compatriots. Occasionally, mass flocks of hundreds of birds will appear on farm fields following seasonal flooding. I’ve seen them in waves of thousands on the fields surrounding Russell Creek!
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday the subject is a flammable, fragrant foliage: the Southern Wax-Myrtle (Morella cerifera).
The Southern Wax-Myrtle is one of those inescapable fixtures of Edisto’s flora. A shrub found on every causeway, woodlot, lawn, and hammock. It is quick to grow almost anywhere thanks to its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen and tolerance of flooding, drought, and salinity. It’s unkempt, swelling body of leaves hovers above the ground on gnarled, twisting trunks of gray ringed in white. The leaves are simple and plain of shape but more unique in their details. Those piney, evergreen leaves wear a dull sheen pocked by minute dimples while radiating an aura of yellow. That appearance is belayed by a trait of Wax-Myrtle, its fragrance. Wax-Myrtle has a spicy, pungent scent produced by a cocktail of chemicals found in the yellow pinprick resin glands that pepper its leaves. These chemicals ward off herbivores of both the six and four-legged varieties. Yet, Wax-Myrtle has use for the two-legged types.
Wax-Myrtles are a dioecious plant, having both male and female trees. Its flowers are a twisted affair of green and red nodules that arise from its stems. Male flowers are larger and more open but both sexes rather innocuous. Female Wax-Myrtles come to bear a buffet of berries as we enter autumn but these teeny blue-gray berries are not sweet, they’re greasy. Or more precisely, they’re waxy. The berries of the Southern Wax-Myrtle are the staple in the winter diet of the Myrtle Warbler. These normally insectivorous birds have developed a mutualistic relationship with the Wax-Myrtle. The fatty fruits provide an easily digestible, calorie dense bounty for the warbler to survive on through the winter. In return these petite songbirds spread the seeds of the Wax-Myrtle throughout every inch of South Carolina. The berries are also of use to people as they can be gathered and boiled to yield wax for candle making. This is where the wax for bayberry candles comes from. This waxy coating also extends to the leaves of Wax-Myrtle making them both drought resistant and highly flammable. So I wouldn’t recommend planting them next to your fire pit or propane tank.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a gelatinous, spherical, planktonic animal who gets eaten in interesting ways: Cannonball Jelly (Stromolophus meleagris).
The Cannonball Jelly is the most common Jellyfish in the tidal rivers surrounding Edisto Island. The Cannonball Jelly, like most Jellyfish, is planktonic. They are totally subject to the whims of the ocean’s currents. From summer through fall, their numbers surge along the coast. They can often be seen floating past in blooms of dozens to hundreds or washed up en masse on beaches after storms.
Their common name accurately describes their simplistic shape, a helmet-like dome trailed by stubby, frayed tentacles. They can reach up to ten inches across and are quite drab in color, with only a washed-out burgundy belt to accent their translucent milky-gray complexion. Their stumpy, fluffy tentacles are rather unassuming as well and indeed lack pretty much any punch. They mainly feed on microscopic animals, including all manner of larval crustaceans, molluscs, and fish. Cannonball Jellies are still toxic but rather than wielding explosively venomous nematocysts, they only exude a poisonous slime. They’re difficult to get stung by and the effects are usually just mild irritation, to both parties.
The Cannonball Jelly is probably best known for getting eaten. They are a staple in the diets of the endangered Leatherback Sea Turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). Leatherbacks are specially adapted to eating Jellyfish and our rotund Jelly is quite the appetizing meal. Jellyfish are also eaten by people, just usually not Americans. The Cannonball Jelly fishery is a developing economy here in the Southeast and a potentially profitable export to Asian countries, where re-hydrated Jellyfish is a regular menu item. At the moment the business is exclusive to Georgia. Compared to most Jellyfish the Cannonball has a rather solid constitution, feeling more like rubber than Jell-O in the hand. This makes them well suited for harvest, drying, and subsequent eating!
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a miniature, multicolored, floating fern: Eastern Mosquito Fern (Azolla caroliniana).
Mosquito Fern is much like Duckweed. It’s a tiny planktonic plant found in stagnant wetlands around the Lowcountry. Wooded ponds and marshes are where it makes its home. It sets no roots, only drinking nomadic nourishment from the surface of a swamp. Mosquito fern ranges from an emerald-green to a brick-red glowing in a halo of pink. Mosquito Fern turns red when exposed to excessive sunlight. This is sort of like tanning in humans. Many plants do this but not as obviously. This red color comes from pigments in the plant that act to block sunlight from entering its cells. Typically, plants are trying to get as much light as possible but there’s also an upper limit to how much they can photosynthesize. If more light enters the plant than it can use, the plant could overheat and cook. So Mosquito Fern, which might find itself in the center of a shallow sunny pond in summer, has a tendency to don a protective ruby sunscreen.
Duckweed is always verdant, which makes the often blushed Mosquito Fern easy to spot from a distance. Upon closer examination, Mosquito Fern has stems and leaves with a central set of roots. It takes on a jagged, branching shape in a circular arrangement with age where duckweed sticks to two or three ovular leaves. The least obvious but most significant difference between the two is that Mosquito Fern can fix nitrogen. This gives them a distinct niche apart from Duckweed which must rely on water borne nitrogen for growth. It also means Mosquito Fern is extra-rich in proteins, making it a great alternative livestock feed. Lastly, Duckweed is a flowering plant and Mosquito Fern is a true fern, if that wasn’t already obvious. The two fill similar niches but are vastly different physiologically.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s our whistling, crested, creek duck: Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus).
Beneath the rushes a flash signals a distant splash upon the creek. A convoy of murky birds putter into view. Bright flags of untainted white painted on glistening coal-black flap and flare amidst more modest walnut wigs. Dingy gray and varnished chestnut trim these swimmer’s hulls. A golden glance cuts your way as unease ignites across the water. Explosive splashes and whistling wings send the murky birds off to collect upon another creek corner.
The Hooded Merganser is an average-sized duck that’s anything but average. Mergansers as a group are odd ducks. They’re one of many species diving duck, ducks who actively dive beneath the water to feed, yet they’re also piscivorous. In order for these ducks to catch fish, they’ve developed a long, thin, hooked bill with serrations, much like a Cormorant’s. Hooded Mergansers are extra odd when it comes to their appearance. Females are overly drab. Their plumage is a muddy walnut-brown across with only an orange lower lip for accent. Males on the other hand are quite the showstopper. Their flanks are a vibrant chestnut, belly snow-white, and back and head a pure, deep black. That back is streaked with scant but heavy white lines and their head bears a centurion’s crest filled with brilliant white that tapers to a shining topaz eye.
Hooded Mergansers are a common cold-weather sight throughout the tidal creeks and impoundments of Edisto Island. They’re rarely ever alone and usually in groups of up to two dozen. They can often be spotted repeatedly diving over deep pools in search of shrimp and fish. Hooded Mergansers are practically mute, issuing no quacks or grunts. However, in flight their wings release a steady pulsing whistle, just like a Wood Duck.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday is the strangler of drainage, fallower of fields, and perforator of heels: American Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua.
Sweetgum is a fast growing tree. It doesn’t often reach monstrous proportions but can attain a good size. Its bark is pale with thick corky bark in thin vertical strips. Sweetgum leaves are five-lobed and about four inches wide. Spring through summer their leaves are lime-peel-green. In fall they display a palette from lemon-yellow, through mandarin-orange, into the deepest grapefruit-purple you’ve ever seen on a tree. Sweetgum is best known for its fruit: a spherical woody deal full of holes and covered in spikes. This fruit is a multiple of capsules. Each hole contains a single tiny seed with a tiny wing. Sweetgum seeds are a favorite food of Chickadees, Goldfinches, Titmice, and House Finches.
Other than the lovably lumberable Loblolly Pine, the Sweetgum is the most unavoidable tree of the Lowcountry. If the soil is poorly drained, or even just a little damp, there will be a Sweetgum within a stone’s throw. They’re like wet on water in our low lying lands. As you could imply, Sweetgum is highly tolerant of saturated soils. Not as much as say Red Maple or Blackgum but enough to give it purchase most places. This affinity for moisture puts it in direct dispute with drainage. Sweetgum loves ditches and will clog them as quick as you can blink.
In forest ecology, Sweetgum is what’s known as a pioneer species. It’s one of the first trees to return to a fallow field or a clearcut forest. Those small-winged seeds scatter easily on the wind and their sheer volume improves their odds. Once germinated, Sweetgum does well in full sun, grows fast, and outcompetes most grasses. This lets it establish in fallow fields and meadows and quickly grow above the grasses and forbs to begin the process of reforestation. As pioneer tree species take hold and spread, they facilitate the introduction of longer lived, mature forest trees.
