science-and-nature-blogs

Spring Has Sprung...Part Duex

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:16:21 +0100

Yesterday, on my way home from school, I specifically noticed one yard near the school that was super green. Today on my way home from school, I noticed that same yard except in one 24 hour period it went from being super green to blanketed with the light blue hue of hundreds if not thousands of scroph plants. It occured to me then, that it was time to do another flower blog as I have noticed over the last week other things beginning to bloom such as the daffodils and maple trees. So here we go with the second installment of spring in my backyard.

Family: Amaryllidaceae   Genus: Narcissus    Common Name: Narcissus or Daffodil

Family: Violaceae    Genus: Viola    Common name: violet
Characteristics of the violaceae family are usually purple, white or yellow zygomorphic (assymetrical) flowers, heart shaped leaves (as shown the picture directly below) and a spur on the back of the flower (as shown in the second picture directly below).

Heart shaped leaves of the violaceae family

The spur is the part between the stem and the green sepals (attached to the petals). It sort of looks like a heel. It is kind of hard to see in this picture, so why don't you venture into your own back yard, find a violet and observe for yourself!!

I know, from the shape and look of the leaves that this plant is in the family apiaceae, but I am not sure of the genus because it is not in flower yet. Do the leaves look similar to something you might have in your refrigerator?! That is because carrots are in the apiaceae family as well! If your family does not buy loose whole carrots, the next time you are in the grocery store find some in the produce section and observe what the leaves look like.

Family: Scrophulariaceae    Genus:? I know this is in the scroph family, and I know it is probably the same genus but a different species from the scroph I included in my "Spring Has Sprung....Almost" blog. I am not sure of the actual specific identity however and to my dismay, I realized as I took these pictures this afternoon, my "Guide to the Vascular Flora of the Carolina's" book is in my classroom at school, so I can't even attempt to identify it this afternoon.

Hmmm.....purple, zygomorphic flowers.......opposite leaves........and.......

square stem?!   sound familiar?! Those are easy to define characteristics of the mint family!
Family: Lamiaceae    Genus: Lamium     Species: amplexicaule       Common name: ?

Forsythia...I am pretty sure this is an ornamental and not native to this area....but it is pretty all the same.

I LOVE how this picture turned out! This is the maple in our front yard. It has really inconspicuous flowers and I would say most people never even notice that the maples are in bloom. Maples are usually one of the first trees to turn in the fall and most definitely one of the most beautiful as we get some amazing reds, oranges and yellows before the leaves drop for winter.

A small branch with partially opened maple flowers.

Family: Geraniaceae    Genus: ? It is not in flower yet, and flowers are the easiest way to get the specific identification of a plant. However, I know what family it is in because the geranium family, geraniaceae, has two easy to define characteristics. The first is deeply cleft leaves as you see in the picture above. The second characteristic is that when the flowers go to seed, the ovary of the flower extends outward sometimes as long an inch or so. These two characteristics make it very easy to identify plants that are in the geraniaceae family.

I walked past our ornamental prickly bush and it was buzzing loudly. Our ladies LOVE this plant!!! They were out of the hive and collecting in full force today since the temperature was above 55 F. If you look really closely, you can see the pollen on this lady's left hind leg. Bees have special hairs on their two hind legs so they can pack themselves full of pollen to take back to the hive. Bees eat pollen and they also store it in their honeycomb along with honey. Pretty soon I am going to devote an entire blog to bees, because they are just simply amazing and super cool organisms!!!

Spring has Sprung...Mostly

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:59:06 +0100

Every year, when Mother Nature gets that spring in her step again, I think to myself, "I should make a record of when I see plants blooming for the first time this year," not only because it would be interesting to have a time line of what flowers show their heads first....but also because, well, I'm a dork when it comes to things like that. : ) So, after years of thinking this but not bothering to do it, I am going to try and accomplish it this year. This blog then is a visual representation of the first few flowers that I have noticed peeking their heads out to soak up some of this fabulous early spring sunshine as well as the usual first signs that spring has arrived. I took all of these pictures in my backyard just a few days ago.

I bet none of you know that I am an amateur beekeeper! This is inside our hive in our backyard. There are two "deep" boxes below this one where the queen lays eggs and the bees store their honey to make it through the winter. This top "deep" is empty and we use it to feed the bees when necessary, like this time of year when they may not be getting enough nectar on their own to feed the hive. We feed them a mixture of sugar water in an upside down jar in which the solution drips out of. Bees will not fly if it is under 55 degrees Fahrenheit, so this time of year, they are only out and flying around on certain days that are warmer. Bees are absolutely amazing creatures!! They work almost as a single entity instead of thousands of individuals and everything they do is completely unselfish and for the good of the hive. Honey bees are actually pretty docile. As you can see in the upper left corner of the picture is my hand with two bees crawling on it. Stinging is a last resort for them. I can simply shake my hand and they will fly off. Last year I was only stung twice, once because I stepped on one as I was walking barefoot through a patch of clover (honeybees love clover flowers!) and the other time because I squatted down while working with the hive and squashed one in my knee pit. It is an amazing feeling to open the hive and have hundreds of bees fly out at you and crawl on you and not be afraid of it, but after working with them for a season you learn how to be comfortable with them. We did not rob our bees of honey last fall, as this was our first year with them and we wanted to make sure they had enough honey to feed themselves through the winter. This fall, we will definitely harvest honey though so stay tuned for more pictures of that endeavor!

Lamium sp. When you see a genus written with a "sp." after it, that means I am not sure of the exact species. A lot of plants that are in the same genus look very similar and it is sometimes hard for me identify the exact species. This is definitely the Lamium genus though and it is in the Lameaceae family, which is the mint family. Being in the mint family does not automatically mean it will taste like mint OR is even edible.

All plant families end with "aceae" and most of them have easy to identify defining characteristics. Those defining characteristics of the mint family are:

**opposite leaves: This means the leaves on the stem are directly opposite each other, as opposed to alternate or whirled.
**purple or white flowers
**zygomorphic flowers: This means they are asymmetrical, you can't draw a line through them and have mirror images.
**square stem: If you feel the stem, you will feel four distinct sides.

Not sure of the actual genus and species on this one, but I do know the family is Scrophulariaceae. I call this flower scroph. Characteristics of the Scrophulariaceae family are:

**mostly blue flowers
**four chambered ovary: you can observe this by dissecting the flower or by observing the ovary after it has gone to seed.

I know this as sedum. I have never bothered to identify its scientific name. It is a succulent (thick watery leaves like a cactus) and is drought resistant. This is an excellent plant to have in your landscaping as it does not require you to water it even in the heat of the summer.

common name: peppercress. This plant belongs to the mustard family, Brassicaceae. Brassicas have unique seed pods that make it very easy to identify them. As the flower falls off and the ovary develops seeds, they extend into long tubelike seedpods such as the maroon ones in the picture above. When they are ready to release their seeds, one side of the seedpod tightens and creates tension. Even the slightest brush past one of these and the tightened side of the seedpod slings open and the seeds fly out. It is quite fun to run your hand through a batch of peppercress when they are ready to release seed.

Stellaria media: common name chickweed. It appears that this flower has 10 petals, but in actuality, it only has five. Stellaria media belongs to the Caryophyllaceae family. Flowers in this family have deeply cleft flower petals, which make it look as if one flower petal is actually two. However, if you look closely, you can see the "two petals" are actually joined at the base of the cleft.

Taraxacum officinale: common name dandelion Dandelions are in the Asteraceae family. To read more about this family, read through my blog entitled "Eddie's Point." Dandelions, while the bane of existence for most suburban, green grass loving, monoculture enhancing Americans, are actually one of our native wildflowers.

One of our gals sipping nectar from an ornamental prickly bush in our front yard. Whatever this plant is, our bees love it!!

One of two blueberry bushes in our backyard. Blueberries are in the Ericaceae family. Flowers in this family have "urn" shaped flowers. If you don't know what an urn shape is, think of an egg with the end chopped off. These blueberry bushes have buds that have not fully opened yet. Other common plants in the Ericaceae family are Rhodedendron and Mountain Laurel. Both of these plants will be highlighted in my next blog "Cloudland Canyon" that will be about a hike I took this afternoon actually.

Last but not least, I had to throw in the privet. If you remember, when we talked about invasive/exotic species, I expressed great frustration to you all about the privet (introduced from England) in my yard that I cannot get rid of. This is privet. (insert furrowed eyebrows and frown here.)

Eddie's Point Fall 2009

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:09:02 +0100

These pics are from a hike I took on Signal Mountain one beautiful day last fall. The hike is roughly a 7 mile loop from Signal Point down over Middle Creek and up to Eddie's Point including the return. It had rained for several days before this hike and so I was lucky to get some really nice pictures of mushrooms along the trail. Unfortunately, I am not well versed in the subject of mycology, so I will not be able to accurately identify what these mushrooms are, like I can with plants, but I do have a fabulous (and large) dichotomous key for mushrooms called "Mushrooms Demystified" and I will at least give it my best guess at what they are. : )

Swinging bridge over Middle Creek

BEST GUESS?!: Fungi on left: Collybia acervata?
Fungi on right: Armillaria mellea?

yeah, not even a best guess on this one!!

I believe this is Polytrichum, but I am not positive. It is definitely a Bryophyte (moss) though.

This flower is in the family Asteraceae, one of the largest plant families in North America. Other flowers included in this family are sunflowers, dandelions and black eyed susans. While the flower in the picture above might appear as one single flower, it is in fact a flower head with numerous flowers on it. One major defining characteristic of the aster family is that the flower heads have two types of flowers, disc and ray. The purple petals are actually what are called ray flowers and the yellow ones in the middle are called disc flowers. You can remember this because the "rays" of the sun radiate out from the middle. Think of a dandelion that has gone to seed. When you pick it up and to your parent's dismay blow on the flower head and send those little furry things flying, you are dispersing seeds....many many seeds, from many different flowers on that flower head!

This picture to me just completely represents fall. A beautiful and colorful, but quiet time of year, where nature slows down, drops all the unnecessary stuff and tends to her roots. To me, fall is a time of reflection on the past year and time to slow down and pay more attention to myself.

Lichens: a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae and/or cyanobacterium. Remember fungi must absorb their nutrients from other organisms. Algae are protists that are photosynthetic, as are some cyanobacterium. The fungi get energy from the algae or cyanobacterium and the algae or cyanobacterium get protection from the fungus as it is better at holding on to moisture and can obtain nutrients from the substrate they are latching to. Sometimes, lichens can be a tripart symbiosis with all three of the above organisms together. Fascinating examples of symbiotic interactions!

Yet again, I do not know much in terms of mycology, so my BEST GUESS is that this is something in the genus Lactarius?

It was a beautiful hike (as it always is) and one of my favorite as it only takes a quick drive up Signal Mountain and an hour or two of your time to complete. This is the turn around point, Eddie's Point. It has a beautiful view of the Tennessee River and the Chattanooga Valley and without a doubt requires a nice 10 minute sit to soak it all in, before you depart on the return portion of the loop!!

The Southwest

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:15:16 +0100

In 2003, about a year before I decided that teaching would be my path in life, I saved up some money, quit my then job as an environmental specialist for a consulting company and traveled out west for three months. I left Tennessee and went west through Arkansas and into the grand old southwest visiting Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada before trekking through Death Valley and into California. On my trip, I tried to go to every national park I passed and the result was a circuitous route through 13,000 miles of driving, 17 states and 23 national parks. Below are pictures from some of the parks I went through in the southwest that included, Sunset Crater NM, Chiricahua NM, Saguaro NP, Arches NP, Canyonlands NP and Grand Canyon NP.

This is a picture of the San Francisco mountain range, taken from Sunset Crater NM. In the foreground you can see the ground is black. This is an old lava deposit!! The San Francisco mountains used to be one big super volcano that blew its top a long time ago. If you look at the peaks you can imagine how they were all once different sides of the same giant mountain!

Sunset Crater is a pretty desolate place with a lot of old lava deposits, but it is beautiful and very cool all the same!

Saguaro NP. Saguaros are bat pollinated, so their flowers will open at night and die back pretty quickly once the sun comes up. You have to get up early to see them, which is not a problem because your tent is 100 degrees as soon as the Arizona sun hits it at 6:30 a.m.!!

Driving north through Arizona to reach Utah, you drive through Monument Valley. It is not hard to understand why it is called Monument Valley. This is an amazing example of what wind can do to sandstone. The monuments that are still standing are portions of the old rock layers that were harder and more resistant to weathering and so they stand as everything around them has weathered away....monuments to the power of Mother Nature.

I stayed for several days in Moab, Utah. This is where I camped, right next to the Colorado River.

Arches NP, Utah. Arches is by far one of my most favorite places in the world. These arches are formed from the weathering of wind and water, like the monuments in Monument Valley. They are even more monuments to the awesome power of Mother Nature!

Arches, NP. Yes, that is me sitting on the edge of the world.

Balance Rock, Arches NP....again, not hard to understand why it is named that.

Canyonlands NP. The desert soil in this area is extremely fragile. It is covered with what is called a cryptobiotic crust, which means a living crust. Everywhere that you walk on this cryptobiotic crust you damage and possibly kill a fragile ecosystem of microscopic organisms that are vital to the health of this desert biome! If you are ever lucky enough to go to Canyonlands or Arches NP you will notice signs everywhere that ask people to stay on the already designated trails for this reason.

Canyonlands NP, Utah.

Grand Canyon NP, north side of the park

Grand Canyon, taken from backpacking spot, standing about 40 feet from the rim of the canyon.

The southwest as you can see is quite beautiful. I would have to say that Utah is my favorite of this batch of states. It is just so big, and flat, but at the same time you feel like you are at the top of the world. The rock formations from weathering of wind and water leave wonderous remains from the beautiful and graceful arches, to large and sometimes peculiarly balanced rock monuments and deep canyons that riddle this lonesome and epic part of the country. There is definitely something to be said about riding west into the desert sunset!

The Pacific Northwest

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:46:39 +0100

When I was in college, working towards my bachelors in Environmental Science, I had the opportunity to spend a summer in Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington State, working as a biotech. It was an amazing job that consisted of hiking and backpacking around the park doing surveys for terrestrial (land dwelling) and aquatic (water dwelling) mollusks. I also sampled the water quality of the aquatic sites we visited. The pacific northwest is an absolutely amazing place with a beauty that is different from anywhere else in the continental U.S. Mt. Rainier itself is a dormant volcano that is 14,400 ft. high. It is the most heavily glaciated mountain in the continental United States which means it has the most glaciers at 22. The native wildflowers there are big, bold and beautiful and in numerous places around the park there are huge fields of nothing but wildflowers. Below are some of my favorite things about Mt. Rainier:
Mt. Rainier

Carbon Glacier on the northwest side of the park. This area is unique because the glacier backs up to a temperate rainforest.

Alpine Lily

Glacier Lily

Indian Paintbrush

Lousewort

Anemone....these are my favorite because they remind of the little guys from Fraggle Rock.

During my off-time I took advantage of being in such an amazing place and I traveled around the state. Mt. St. Helen's is only about 100 miles south of Mt. Rainier and was a very cool place to see. Mt. St. Helens erupted in the spring of 1980. It was not a big lava eruption, but one of tremendous pressurized gasses that blew outward from the side of the mountain. The resulting pyroclastic flow, a moving cloud of superheated dust and air, flattened everything within it's path. To this day, there is very little life within the blast zone and all of the trees there on that fateful day in 1980 are crumpled in one direction and blanket the earth. It is quite impressive to see the effects of such a powerful blast!

Ground zero blast zone

Down in the middle of the crater, there is another cinder cone building. Scientists monitor Mt. St. Helen's very closely as it is quite possible it may erupt again. Mt. St. Helen's is considered an active volcano, versus a dormant one like Mt. Rainier.

You can't hike too far up the side of the mountain, for safety sake, but it is what I imagine it would feel like to be on Mars....quiet, lonely and eerie yet beautiful all the same.

Spirit Lake at the bottom of the mountain rose about 200 ft. because of all the sediment that flowed into it. If you look on the north side of the lake there, you can see a giant logjam. These are trees that ended up in the lake from the blast and have made a tree carpet on the top of the lake.

Further out from the blast zone, beyond the blanket of crumpled trees, the trees stand as burned monuments to the awesome power of Mother Nature.

I also spent some time in Seattle and the Washington coast. The pacific coast, at least in Oregon and Washington is quite different from what our east coast looks like. The water is cold, it is quite often dreary and rainy and there are huge sea spires riddling the coast line. If you have ever seen The Goonies (and if you haven't you need to rent it today, because it is the best kid adventure movie ever!!) then you should know they have to line up the sea spires, the restaurant and lighthouse with the deblume to find the treasure. That is true to what the Pacific Northwest coastline actually looks like and in fact, The Goonies was filmed in Oregon I believe. Below are some pictures of the Washington and Oregon coastline as well as two pictures from the Hoh rainforest in Olympic National Park.

Oregon Coast, sea spires

Marine life in the tide pools, Oregon coast

Gorilla or sea spire?

Washington coast sea spires

Hoh rainforest, Olympic National Park

Buttressed tree, Hoh rainforest. Buttressed trees occur when you have a downed tree that is decaying and other plants and trees start to grow on top of it. Eventually their roots grow over the tree and into the ground. When the downed tree eventually decays, you have buttressed tree roots like in the above picture.