This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we’ve got another common lawn and garden weed. We’re examining Carolina Desert-Chicory, or Carolina False-Dandelion, (Pyrrhopappus carolinianus).
Carolina Desert-Chicory is a native wildflower that blooms from early spring until late fall. It grows as a rosette of long, simple leaves that are sometimes lobed. It produces singular bright yellow flowers one to two inches across. These are a compound flower made of dozens of tiny ray florets. A ray floret is a small flower, unique to the Aster family, that has only a single long petal. Many of these ray flowers are combined to create a larger compound head-flower. These flowers are not the biggest pollinator magnet but they are a reliable and dependable source of nectar for bees and butterflies throughout the year. The fruit is a cluster of achenes. An achene is a dry fruit with a single seed inside a solid hull. Just like a Dandelion, each seed sports a fluffy sail-like tail that ensures the wind will carry them far and wide. Carolina Desert-Chicory is found in a variety of sunny habitats including lawns, fields, roadsides, meadows, forest edges, and glades. Their wind dispersed seeds make them one of the first species to establish on cleared land.
Carolina Desert-Chicory is often mistaken for the invasive Common Dandelion because the two species are quite similar. Luckily, there are a few features that distinguish them. The leaves of the two plants are the best distinguishing feature. The leaves of Dandelions are always lobed and look jagged along the edges, like a barbed spearhead. Carolina Desert-Chicory is either a simple elliptical leaf or a smoothly lobed leaf like a White Oak. Dandelions are low growing and their flowers only get about 6 inches above the ground. Desert-Chicory is typically taller and, although it will bloom relatively low to the ground, can reach up to two feet in height. This is because Dandelions don’t form stems. They flower directly from the rosette. However, Desert-Chicory does form stems and will often have one or more leaves below the flower. Also, the flowers of Desert Chicory are a paler yellow.
This week we’re looking at an oddball arthropod whose secretions are vital to modern medicine as well as shorebird conservation. This week we’re examining the Atlantic Horseshoe Crab (Limulus polyphemus).
Horseshoe Crabs are undeniably weird and interesting. They are living fossils that belong to the oldest surviving arthropod order, Xiphosura. They are more closely related to Scorpions and Spiders than Crabs and other Crustaceans. Their body is covered in a thick carapace that’s divided into 3 parts: the head, the abdomen, and the telson. In arthropods, the telson is simply the last segment of the body. In Horseshoe Crabs, the telson has developed into a long, tail-like spine on the back of the abdomen. Although it looks quite formidable, this telson is not used for defense. It’s merely used by the Horseshoe Crab as a rudder and to flip itself over on land. Horseshoe Crabs have 9 eyes in total, two large compound eyes on top and 7 simple eyes around the body. They also have the ability to regenerate lost limbs.
Horseshoe Crabs spend their days feeding on mollusks, invertebrates, and detritus on the sea floor of the continental shelf. Come summer and warmer waters, Horseshoe Crabs flood the beaches of the East Coast to spawn. The smaller males attach themselves to the abdomen of the female with a specialized claw and can remain like this for days or even weeks before spawning. Horseshoe Crabs produce a huge volume of eggs every year and the species breeds all up and down the east coast. Each female lays several thousand eggs before returning to the sea. This seaside bounty of arthropod eggs is a critical food source for migrating shorebirds, especially the Red Knot. The eggs that survive this shorebird buffet hatch a few weeks later as free swimming larvae. Like other arthropods, Horseshoe Crabs molt as they grow and you can often find the molted exoskeletons of young Horseshoe Crabs along the beach. It typically takes a Horseshoe Crab 10 years to reach adulthood and they can live to be almost 20 years old.
Horseshoe Crabs are also unique for having blue blood. Horseshoe Crabs, along with many Mollusks and Crustaceans, use Hemocyanin in their blood instead of Hemoglobin. Hemocyanin contains copper and is thus blue when oxygenated. The hemoglobin in our blood contains iron, which turns red when oxygenated. Horseshoe Crab blood is of great medical importance. This blue goo contains a chemical called Limulus amebocyte lysate, or LAL for short. This chemical coagulates when exposed to blood or cerebrospinal fluid that contains Gram-Negative Bacteria. In other words, it can be used to test both human and animal patients for bacterial infections. Because of the importance of their blood in the modern medicine, horseshoe crabs are collected from the wild each year and bled to extract this chemical. The Horseshoe Crabs are not killed by this process and are returned to the wild shortly after bleeding. Research indicates that they are able to totally regenerate this lost blood in 2 to 3 months.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we have a beautiful, and edible, wildflower. This week we’re getting a taste for Wild Sweet Potato (Ipomoea pandurata), also known as Man-of-the-Earth or Bigroot Morning-glory.
Bigroot Morning-glory is a perennial twining vine in the Morning-glory family, Convolvulaceae. They prefer partial shade but can tolerate full sun and heavy shade. Everything about Bigroot Morning-glory is big. Bigroot Morning-glory climbs up shrubs, bushes, and trees and can reach over 25 feet in height. Their leaves are quite large and heart-shaped on a thin vine. The best way to recognize this vine is by its flowers. In the summer, it bears huge, white, funnel-shaped flowers with a magenta center. These flowers are often over 6 inches in diameter and provide nectar to both bees and butterflies. In the winter, the vine dies back to its roots and then returns in mid-spring. These roots form large tubers that can weigh over 20 pounds!
Wild Sweet Potato belongs to the genus Ipomoea, which contains most of our native species of Morning-Glory. Ipomoea also contains most of our exotic and ornamental Morning-Glories, including the real Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas) which is a native to South America. Just like true Sweet Potato, Wild Sweet Potato has edible, tuberous roots. However, they don’t taste nearly as good and require some more preparation to be palatable.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we have another little bug with a bad rap. This week we’re talking about Tent Caterpillar Moths (Malacosoma spp.), or what’s commonly known as Tentworms.
There are two species of Tent Caterpillar Moth in SC, the Eastern Tent Caterpillar Moth (M. americana) and the Forest Tent Caterpillar Moth (M. disstria). The two species are easy to tell apart. Eastern Tent Caterpillars build tents, their caterpillars have a solid white stripe down their back, and the Moths have white stripes on their wings. Forest Tent Caterpillars don’t build tents, their caterpillars have white spots down the back, and the Moths have dark lines on their wings. However, both species have similar life histories. In summer, adult moths deposit eggs in dense masses surrounding a small hardwood tree branch. These eggs masses turn dark and shiny as the eggs overwinter. The following spring, caterpillars emerge and begin to feed on leaves. Caterpillars of both species live in colonies but in a different way. Eastern Tent Caterpillars form a tent where the caterpillars can rest and molt, protected from predatory insects and birds. Forest Tent Caterpillars forgo the tent and form a silk mat lower down on the tree’s trunk or larger branches. This mat affords little protection but, being deep in the canopy, is much less visible and obvious to predators. By midsummer, the caterpillars have finished growing and descend from the trees en masse to pupate. The caterpillars eventually find a place to pupate and spin a silken cocoon. In a few weeks an adult moth will emerge, reproduce, and die. Restarting the cycle.
Eastern Tent Caterpillars are the species with the bad rap. A lot of people find their large silk tents and the leafless branches they leave behind unsightly. Many believe their eating habits are harmful to the host tree but that’s really not the case. Tent Caterpillar damage is superficial and they are no more harmful to the tree than a seasonal pruning. In fact, most trees typically regrow any lost leaves before the end of the summer. However, the Eastern Tent Caterpillar does have a preference for Cherries, Apples, and Peaches, where excessive leaf damage can reduce yields. Despite any perceived slight to human aesthetic preferences, Tent Caterpillars are an important link in the food chain. They are a prolific herbivorous insect, making them a large part of the diet of many wasps, lizards, and birds in the summer. In fact, they’re the primary food source of our Yellow-billed Cuckoo in summer. Cuckoo’s use their long, stout beak to reach into their tents and pluck out the larva inside.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we’ve got another wetland wildflower. This week we’re looking at the Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis).
Buttonbush is a resident of our freshwater marshes, ponds, riverbanks, and swamps. It’s well adapted to sunny wetland habitats and is most often found growing in standing water. It’s a common sight along riverbanks and ditches or poking up above the sedges and rushes of freshwater marshes, where it can bask in full sun. It typically grows as a short shrub but can reach over 10 feet in height. It has somewhat large, simple, and oppositely arranged leaves. Its stems are a reddish-pink and the leaves usually have a prominent midrib of a similar color. In early summer, Buttonbush begins to flower. At the end of each branch, it produces a cluster of white spherical flowers. Each one of these flowers is actually a ball of dozens of smaller flowers. These flowers are a massive draw for pollinators. Eastern Tiger and Palamedes Swallowtails are particularly fond of Buttonbush, along with many other species of butterflies and bees. Once their flowers are pollinated, fruits begin to form. As the fruits mature, they turn red and bumpy before drying out and turning a dark brown. Each bump is a tiny nut that is eventually shed and may float to dry ground or a hummock of grass and sprout. Others, not so lucky, get eaten by ducks, rails, and sparrows as they float on the water. Buttonbush is a deciduous perennial, shedding its leaves each winter and leafing out again in spring.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we have an interesting mammal on the docket and one with quite the poor reputation. This week we’re talking about the Nine-banded Armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus). The Nine-banded Armadillo is very unique among our mammals. I don’t think I can cover all the weird facts in one post, but I’ll try and hit the high notes.
Nine-banded Armadillos are a medium sized mammal that specializes in digging. Armadillos belong to the superorder Xenartha, which also includes Anteaters and Sloths. Members of this group have extra protrusions on their vertebrae that stiffen and strengthen the spine and greatly facilitate their digging ability. Their front claws are massive and put to good use in digging up food. They are insectivorous and feed mainly on worms and subterranean insects. Armadillos use their strong sense of smell to detect prey through the soil. Armadillos have a pretty good sense of hearing but their eyesight is abysmal. (I’ve stood in a field and had them step onto my boots on more than one occasion.) They make up for being practically blind by being covered from head to toe in armor. This armor is actually some of the most impressive in the animal kingdom as it shares the best features of fish scales and turtle shells. Their overlapping, interlocking bony scutes form a flexible yet rigid series of plates and bands along their back. These bony scutes are then covered in a layer of flexible, waterproof keratin. The same stuff that makes up horns, nails, and hair. This makes the armor impervious to all our predators except the powerful teeth and jaws of the American Alligator. However, the belly of the armadillo is unarmored and, unlike some other species, the Nine-banded Armadillo can’t roll into a ball. When attacked, the Nine-banded Armadillo launches forward, its shell deflecting both teeth and claws, and barrels into the nearest thicket. Armadillos are primarily nocturnal and sleep in burrows during the day. Here, female Armadillos raise their young. Nine-banded Armadillos are unique in that their litters are always identical quadruplets.
Armadillos in South Carolina are considered invasive pests by many. Their burrowing damages berms and foundations. Their hunt for worms often draws them into flower beds, where they wreak havoc night after night. They are known to carry leprosy. Their near blindness, nocturnal nature, and defense mechanism of launching themselves forward and upward sends them careening into wheel wells and radiators by the hundreds every night. However, this rate of roadkill doesn’t even make a dent in their population as they lack natural predators in SC. Just like the Coyote, the Nine-banded Armadillo falls into a gray area where they’re not quite exotic but not quite native. Their range has been naturally expanding northeast from Mexico for over a century and, I’m sure as many of you know, they’ve only established themselves SC in the last two decades. However, unless we develop a taste for possum-on-the-half-shell, I can say for certain that, just like the Coyote, the Armadillo is here to stay. Whether we like it or not.
This week or Flora and Fauna Friday, we have a lavish lavender limbed local shrub to discuss. We’re shining a spotlight on the American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana).
American Beautyberry is found throughout South Carolina. From the Appalachian foothills to the barrier islands of Edisto. Its appearance is open and spreading with large, opposite, simple leaves. The bushes can reach head height but are usually about chest high. Beautyberries are often found growing along forest edges or beneath trees in open forests, yards, and fields. In the early summer, American Beautyberry produces clusters of small, pale pink flowers at the nodes below the bases of its leaves. By late summer, these nodes are bursting with rich lavender berries.
American Beautyberry is a hardy native shrub that makes for a great ornamental. Their flowers, while small, do attract a number of pollinators. The vibrant purple fruits remain on the plant for weeks, providing not only a treat for the eye but a treat for many species of birds. Northern Mockingbirds are a particular fan of the berries and a major disperser of their seeds. When crushed, the leaves of the plant release the chemicals callicarpenal and intermedeol, which can act as a mosquito and tick repellent.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we’ll be talking about an insect from an order that we’ve yet to discuss, but you’ll hopefully be seeing more of them in the future. This week we’ll be looking at our first Dragonfly, the Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis).
Eastern Pondhawks are one of our most common and widespread dragonflies here in the lowcountry. They can be found along almost every quiet body of fresh or brackish water. I’ve seen them along ditches, ponds, lakes, wetlands, rivers, lawns, creeks, floodplains, retention ponds, impoundments, ephemeral wetlands, and marshes. Eastern Pondhawks are a medium-sized dragonfly. Larger than our Dashers and Dragonlets, smaller than our Skimmers and Darners, and somewhere in the middle of the size range for our Pennants. Males are a powdery blue throughout the body and females sport a lime green thorax with a black and white striped abdomen. Both sexes share the characteristic clear wings, green head, and white abdomen tip of the species. The species also has a habit of landing on the ground or as low as they can on vegetation. This makes them an easy species to identify.
Like all dragonflies, the Eastern Pondhawk has an aquatic nymph. A wingless first stage of life for living underwater. Dragonfly larvae are accomplished hunters. They possess a hinged, extendable lower jaw that they use to grab prey. Once the nymph is fully grown, they climb up a stem, branch, pole, or wall near the water and begin to molt. From the shell of this nymph will emerge an adult dragonfly. This process may take an hour or more to complete. Dragonflies are ancient and accomplished hunters. Their aerial agility is surpassed only by Hummingbirds. During the day, Eastern Pondhawks feed on flying insects like mosquitoes, flies, moths, butterflies, lacewings, and even other dragonflies.
Surprise! I’ve got a biology bonus post for ya’ll. It doesn’t pair with tomorrow’s Flora and Fauna post at all but it was too cool not to share.
Last Friday out at the Hutchinson House, I noticed something strange poking through the brush pile in the front field. There was a Crape-Myrtle blooming in the middle of it! The strangest part about that is there was never a Crape-Myrtle planted in that spot. It was a regularly disked and bush-hogged field before we acquired the property. When the EIOLT began cleaning up around the Hutchinson House we piled the woody debris we cleared in the middle of the field, so it would be out of the way of construction and could eventually be disposed of. Last fall, we cleared a strip out in from of the house so the footers for the cover could be poured and the boom lifts would have level ground to work on. On the far end of that strip was a large Crape-Myrtle stump that had been choked by Chinese Wisteria until it was just barely clinging to life. The inside of the stump was totally rotten and what was left of the tree was too far gone to make a proper recovery. So we had it removed and it ended up in the brush pile with the other debris. Eight months later, that same nearly dead stump, ripped out of the ground and left in a pile in the middle of a hot sandy field, is not only still alive but doing well enough to bloom! On top of that, what’s left of its old root system is putting out shoots where the stump was torn out. You just can’t kill a Crape-Myrtle.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, we’re looking at another common wildflower of SC. This week we’re examining Meadow-beauties, genus Rhexia.
Meadow-beauties are a genus of low growing, wildflower shrubs common to the savannahs, fields, roadsides, glades, and meadows of the south. Each of our common species are similar in appearance. They sport four wide magenta petals and eight finger-like anthers of pollen above opposite, simple leaves. Meadow-beauties produce very little nectar, so they don’t draw in many butterflies or wasps, but their ample pollen supply is a magnet for native bees. Their flowers are rather ephemeral and only last a short while before their petals are shed. Beneath the flowers, an urn-shaped capsule full of miniscule seeds forms.
Around these parts, I’ve stumbled upon three species of Meadow-beauty: Maryland Meadow-beauty (Rhexia mariana), Handsome Harry (R. virginica), Maid Marian (R. Nashii), and Savannah Meadow-beauty (R. alifanus). Maryland Meadow-beauty is by far the most common and can be found across Edisto and SC as a whole. It loves roadsides, fields, and meadows. It grows as a short, open shrub and can also be found as a white-flowered variety. Handsome Harry is more suited to pine savannas and shows up more inland. It’s just as short a shrub as the others but with much fuller foliage. Maid Marian is mostly coastal and prefers wetter soils. It looks a lot like Maryland Meadow-beauty but is given away by special hairs on the back base of its petals. Savannah Meadow-beauty is easy to pick out from the others because of its smooth, blue-green leaves held upwards against its stem. Its flowers are a little larger and more vibrant than the others and the plant thrives in sandy Pine savannas.
