BBC Foray - the flowers

While attending the Brooks Bird Club Foray I had the opportunity to see a few flowers I had never seen before. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

I found this pretty flower at Olson's Bog. I believe it might be a Pogonia ophioglossoides.

  Also in the bog there were many Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia purpurea).

Poke Milkweed, Asclepias exaltata. Notice how the flowers are on long stems and not tightly packed like the Common Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca.   The leaves are very different as well.

 You can't tell very well but this flower is really big, the entire plant is about 4-5 feet tall.  It is a Canadian Lily, Lilium Canadense, and yes it is a native plant.

This Greater Purple Fringed Orchid, Habenaria grandiflora, was the flower highlight of my trip. It is a member of the Orchidaceae family and a perennial. It is very tall and I just noticed it at eye level on the side of the bank. Each individula flower looks like a tiny lavender angel.

Be sure to visit other great flower blogs at Todays Flowers by clicking here.

Planaria to Phantom midge in the Pond

Update on me: It's been awhile since I last blogged, I have still been active and out and about seeing the wonders of nature but I have not been writing. I needed to give my writs a rest.

To take up where I left off I wanted to show some more of the critters I found in the water. While there are a lot of microscopic animals that live in the water and can only be seen with a compound microscope, today I want to focus on those that can be seen with a simple magnifying glass and even without the aid of such devices.

Planarian are one of those animals you read about in text books, study in school and then forget about them but I found one in my sample and was fascinated watching it. Its crossed eyes made it even more endearing. Actually they are ocelli that detect the intensity of the light since they don't like to be in the spot light and prefer the dark side of things.

I think this one just ate.

Planarian are a non-parasitic flatworm in the Turbellaria class and are common in many parts of the world. It reminded me of a snail as it glided along the side of the tank, with ear like projections (auricles) similar to the  snail that shares this tiny tank.   They are famous for the extraordinary ability to regenerate lost body parts and even a whole other self when cut in half.  I didn't have the heart to experiment on it.

This one is next to a scud.

Next up is Hydra shown below. This one is stretched out get grab some food swimming by but they can also go from this half inch long size to the size of a pin head. The tentacles surround the mouth and bring the food to it. Attached to the tentacles and parts of its body are tiny stinging cells used in defense and killing its pray. The other end is a foot with sticky secretions used to hold it to twigs, the underside of the water surface and in this case to the side of the tank.

They reproduce by sex and by budding like a plant but usually during different seasons.  The buds appear when it is well fed. You can see one on the side of the hydra below. Eventually it will break away and have it's own independent life. There has been much written about hydras and I encourage you to find some to observe. Collect some pond water with a few plants and wait.  Usually they will appear in a day or two.  You can see them without a hand lens and are good things for kids to see.

Hydra

I noticed the critter below one afternoon when I saw a lot of wiggling in the water.  I suspect it was trying to break free and go on to it's next stage of life.  I have not confirmed what it is but I believe it is the pupa of the midge Chironomus. I don't know what happened to it because I never saw it again after I took the photo. Perhaps it just flew away.

Midge Pupa

The next two photos are of Daphnia, members of the order Cladocera commonaly called water fleas because of their jumping motion swimming style. They are between 0.2mm and 5 mm in length; very tiny indeed yet I could still see them without a hand lens and take these photos with my point and shoot Cannon G11.  Like other insects this one is divided into segments but they are almost invisible. The head is fused and bent down towards the body and the rest of the body is covered by a carapace. You can see the brood-pouch in this one.

Daphnia

Daphnia

Pictured below is a Phantom midge larva commonly called a glassworm because of its transparency. It will eventually pupate into a small non-biting midge. They feed on other small aquatic larvae such as Daphnia. This one is facing left and the dot farthest to the left is one of its eyes. The next set of dark spot are air sacs that they use to enable it to migrate up and down the water column in response to atmospheric pressure. When it is low (during the night), they move to the surface. They are fairly common and can be found in lakes all over the world. They can grow up to 2 centimeters in length.

Phantom midge larvae (Charborus sp.)

So that is it for the pond water, I had a fun and learned a lot from this late winter activity.


Check out the other critters at Camera Critter by clicking here.

Taylor Island walk

Recently I took a few days off to visit the eastern shore of Maryland. While staying on Taylor Island, my friend, Trillium and I took the opportunity to explore the Nature Conservancy trail nearby. The narrow trail took us back into a Chesapeake Bay tidal marsh where we were surrounded by Loblolly Pines, the dominate tree species.

Toward the end we came to a pond with a yurt like structure where we explored a little and found a familiar tree called Diospyros virginiana or Persimmon tree.

We tasted one but they are not like the big plump persimmons we buy from the store, these were full of large seeds. If you eat one before it is fully ripe, as we did, it will taste bitter and cause your lips to pucker and suck all the spit right out of your mouth. They are fully ripe when they are very soft, almost to the point of not being able to pick them up. Bruni wrote me that they don't need to be fully ripe to loose the pucker power but rather they need to have gone through a frost.

On our return trip to the car we found muskrat scat containing Persimmon seeds so some things must love them. The genus Diospyros is Greek for “food of the gods” which probably refers to fact that they contain 34 percent fruit sugar, making it one of the sweetest of plants. Persimmon wood is very hard and shock resistant making it a good choice for the heads of driver golf clubs. But I doubt if the creatures of this area care about that.

Walking back to the car I was very excited to spot a little frog as it hoped off the trail. It was very cooperative and stood still while I got down on all fours to take a close up photo.

At the time we didn’t know what species it was, only that we had not seen one like it before. Later, when we were visiting a Nature Visitor Center gift shop I was able to look it up and discovered that it was a Southern Leopard Frog (Rana shenocephala). The Genus Rana is the Latin word rana meaning frog. The species name is Greek for sphenos (wdegeshaped) and kephale (head) referring to its triangular head. The little white area in the center of the eardrum (tympanum) is one characteristic that distinguished it from the Northern Leopard frog we have in my part of West Virginia. Seeing that little frog was a nice treat.

Check out more good stories and photos at My World Tuesday.

Carnivorous Plants in Cranberry Glades

Recently I had the joy of photographing two very interesting carnivorous plants at Cranberry Glades Botanical Area in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. The area is located in the high Allegheny Mountains within the Monongahela National Forest -- I highly recommend a visit. (Be sure to click on the photos for a closer view, especially to see the insect on the Sundew.)


The first carnivorous plant I came to was the Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea venosa) a native perennial which may live up to 20-30 years. They have adapted to the acidic bog water with roots that now function mainly as support. The nutrients normally obtained from the soil come from insects, amphibians and snail prey. The red veined lip of the “pitcher” is apparently attractive to insects and guides them downward to fall into the rain water and a digestive enzyme. These enzymes, along with a community of bacteria living in the vase of the pitcher, slowing dissolves the victim so the nutrients can be absorbed by the plant’s cells.



There is no escape once inside. The fine hairs along the way are all pointing inward, like the spikes that pop up behind your tires when you leave some parking lots. There is just no backing up. No second thought about how good that nectar was on the way down.



The flower is solitary and rises one to two feet above the rhizome. It is suspected that this arrangement keeps the bee pollinators from falling victim to the vase below.


The other really cool carnivorous plant I captured in my camera was the Crosera, commonly known as the Sundew. They are perennial, most are small and some live up to 50 years. The species I saw at Cranberry Glades was Drosera rotundifolia, federally protected and classified as threatened or endangered in some states. I have also seen them at Cranesville Wetland and a few other high elevation bogs in West Virginia. They are so small they are easily over looked but when you do see their delicate glistening tentacles you are amazed. With a good imagination you can see a little fairy sitting next to one gossiping about last evening’s firefly party. They are just that magical.



Like the Pitcher Plant they rely on insects for nutrients. Their strategy is to trap insects with stalked glands that secrete sweet mucilage that both attract and ensnare their prey. Sort of a double whammy!



These sparkling red “dew” drops at the tips of the tentacles also digest the unsuspecting. I guess you might call them the “Dew Drop Inn” sign posts and like Hotel California they can “check out but they can never leave”. Death usually takes 15 to 60 minutes. (If you look closely you can see an insect in the photo below.)
Like Darwin, who studied these, I have found them fascinating and hope these photos and brief descriptions will encourage you to learn more about the Pitcher Plant and the Sundew, two carnivorous plants found in Cranberry Glades. Bon appetit!




ABC Wednesday

For more informaton on this area and these plants check out Trillium Travels here.