Dutchman’s Breeches (scientific name: Dicentra cucullaria). Dicentra cucullaria is dependent on bumblebees (especially Bombus bimaculatus, a common eastern North American species) for cross-pollination. In fact, the flower structure and mechanism by which it is pollinated indicate that it is adapted for bumblebees, which can separate the outer and inner petals of the flower. They will then use their front legs to expose the stigma, stamen, and anthers. Shortly afterwards, they will sweep pollen in a forward stroke by utilizing their middle legs, before leaving the flower to return to the colony with the pollen. In this way, Dicentra cucullaria is pollinated as the bees move from plant to plant, and the bumblebee meets its dietary needs. The effect of a hallucinogenic compound contained in the plant on livestock has led ranchers to refer to it as ‘Staggerweed’.
Dutchman’s breeches were likely introduced to cultivation in England when Philip Miller introduced it to the Chelsea Physic Garden. Miller likely received it from John Bartram. The species was, however, not mentioned in American horticultural literature until the early 19th century. Two clones with pink flowers have received cultivar names: ‘Pittsburg’, which turns pink under certain conditions, and ‘Pink Punk’, collected by Henrik Zetterlund on Saddle Mountain in Oregon, is more consistently pink.
Native Americans and early white practitioners considered this plant useful for syphilis, skin conditions and as a blood purifier. Dutchman’s breeches contain several alkaloids that may have effects on the brain and heart. However, Dicentra cucullaria may be toxic and causes contact dermatitis in some people.
Reference: Wikipedia “Dicentra cucullaria“
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Unidentified wildflower growing on limestone ledge with mosses on aporil afternoon. Fillmore Glen New York State Park, Moravia, Cayuga County, New York
Greater Bee Fly is reputed to be a nectar thief, making a cut in flower base to siphon off nectar without fertilizing the flower. This behavior is not in evidence here as it approaches this Carolina spring beauty on a late April afternoon along the South Rim trail of Fillmore Glen State Park.
Instead, what we see is this fly using a long rigid proboscis, found in the front of the head, to probe and feed nectar from the flower base as would any other respectable bumblebee that is resembles and is commonly mistaken for.
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Claytonia caroliniana, the Carolina Spring Beauty, is an herbaceous perennial in the family Montiaceae. It was formerly placed in family Portulacaceae. Its native range is eastern and central North America. It is most found in the New England area of the United States, but its habitat extends from Ontario and a northern limit in the Cape Anguille Mountains of Newfoundland and south to Alabama.
It grows approximately 6 inches tall in forests of the Appalachian Mountains and piedmont.Claytonia caroliniana is a flowering, woodland perennial herb. It grows from March though June and is one of the earliest spring ephemerals. The plant grows from spherical underground tubers in light humus. They sprout and bloom before the tree canopy develops. Once the area is shaded, the plants whither leaving only the tuberous roots underground.
The flowers consist of five pink and purple petals. Dark pink veins accent the petals and give them a striped appearance. The carpels are fused together. I have heard the flowers are white when first opened, have not experienced this myself. They grow on a stem 3 – 10 inches tall that bears a single pair of broad leaves. There are two green leaves that grow opposite each other on a node. The leaf has no teeth or lobes and a prominent central vein. They grow up to three inches long and 1/2 to 3/4 inches wide.
In the photograph, Carolina Spring Beauty flowers bracket the leaves just visible under leaf litter.
Edible
The plant is edible, but its usability is limited due to difficulty harvesting and the small quantities each plant produces. Its tuberous roots are edible and rich in starch and can be cooked or eaten raw. The leaves can be eaten as well. The tuberous roots are eaten by eastern chipmunks and white-footed mice.
History
The plant was named after John Clayton. Clayton was an early collector of plant specimens.
Source: Wikipedia”Claytonia caroliniana. Direct quotations are in italics.
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Bombylius major (commonly named the large bee-fly, the dark-edged bee-fly or the greater bee fly) is a parasitic bee mimic fly. Bombylius major is the most common type of fly within the Bombylius genus. The fly derives its name from its close resemblance to bumblebees and are often mistaken for them.
Bombylius major exhibits a unique flight behavior known as “yawing” and plays a role in general pollination, without preference of flower types. The fly does not bite, sting, or spread disease. However, the fly uses this mimicry of bumblebees to its own advantage, allowing close access to host solitary bee and wasp nests to deposit its eggs. After hatching, the larvae find their way into the nests to parasitically feed on the grubs.
Flight
It has been discovered that the fly is capable of a unique behavior, which was discovered with the use of a high speed camera. In this behavior, the flies are seen to rotate around a vertical axis as they fly (this action is known as “yawing”). However, it is still unknown what can cause this behavior to be triggered and what purpose it serves, but a proposed explanation includes mating habits. Here is an illustration of “Yaw” in the context of an airplane…substitute the fly body with head facing forward (to left).
The Bombylius major bee-fly is a common, generalist floral pollinator, meaning that it does not give preference to one flower over another, instead pollinating a wide variety of plant families and species. The fly uses its proboscis to carry and transfer the pollen. The species is a dominant pollinator within its community, sometimes even pollinating up to two thirds of the local flowers. In addition, Bombylius major will visit and pollinate plants that attract few other species. Some types of flowers, for example Pulmonaria officinalis, will be almost exclusively pollinated by Bombylius major, with other species contributing a negligible amount to that plants pollination. Some flower species, such as Delphinium tricorne, are even specifically adapted to the fly in terms of color, shape, and form. If given the choice, Bombylius major will have a consistency in plant choice.
Flower Attraction
Long distance floral attraction is governed by optical sense, with color being the most important factor. The flies are typically more attracted to blue and violet colors, and occasionally yellow, over orange and pink. However, short distance floral attraction is based on the fly’s olfactory sense.
Sunbathing Activity
The fly is mostly active during day hours when the weather conditions are warm and sunny. Bombylius major is attracted to sunnier places and is more likely to pollinate these areas, with a larger average of flower visits in areas of higher amounts of sunshine. The fly will hide in the trees during the night and usually dart away from a cast shadow and occasionally hide in clean washing brought in fresh from the washing line and fly out causing unsettled behavior in the discoverer.
Flower Description
Claytonia caroliniana is a flowering, woodland perennial herb. It grows from March though June and is one of the earliest spring ephemerals. The plant grows from spherical underground tubers in light humus. They sprout and bloom before the tree canopy develops. Once the area is shaded, the plants whither leaving only the tuberous roots underground.
The plant is edible, but its usability is limited due to difficulty harvesting and the small quantities each plant produces. Its tuberous roots are edible and rich in starch and can be cooked or eaten raw. The leaves can be eaten as well. The tuberous roots are eaten by eastern chipmunks and white-footed mice.
Source: Wikipedia “Bombylius major ” and “Claytonia caroliniana. Direct quotations are in italics.
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Last Friday the grandsons and I had an outing to the hills above Moravia in Cayuga County, there we visited the birthplace of Millard Fillmore. The site is a rather steep, rocky hillside near where the future President was born in a log cabin. He was not the last future President thus born, James Garfield in 1831 was born fatherless in Ohio in a log cabin. The future 20th President and the last to be so born. Nine years after Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln was born, February 12, 1809 in the same residential circumstance and was the first future President born west of the Appalachian Mountains at Sinking Springs Farm, Kentucky. At least seven (7) future USA Presidents were born in log cabins, the others are: Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur.
There is quite a bit to do at this open air museum: educational signs, split rail fencing from that time, a pavilion build from concrete, steel I-beams and a metal roof with picnic tables where we played games.
On the way to Fillmore Glen New York State Park to visit an actual log cabin from that time, we stopped at the Lickville Cemetery on Lick Street. Opened a few years after Fillmore’s birth, 1807, 180 headstones are still standing. We practiced sounding out words from the large carved letters on the stones.
After visiting the log cabin our day was interrupted by symptoms of a stomach flu that has been terrorizing all our families. Fortunately, I escaped. Our plan is to continue to explore Fillmore Glen at a later time.
More about Millard Fillmore from Wikipedia
Millard Fillmore was born on January 7, 1800, in a log cabin, on a farm in what is now Moravia, Cayuga County, in the Finger Lakes region of New York. His parents were Phoebe Millard and Nathaniel Fillmore, and he was the second of eight children and the oldest son.
Nathaniel Fillmore was the son of Nathaniel Fillmore Sr. (1739–1814), a native of Franklin, Connecticut, who became one of the earliest settlers of Bennington, Vermont, when it was founded in the territory that was then called the New Hampshire Grants.
Nathaniel Fillmore and Phoebe Millard moved from Vermont in 1799 and sought better opportunities than were available on Nathaniel’s stony farm, but the title to their Cayuga County land proved defective, and the Fillmore family moved to nearby Sempronius, where they leased land as tenant farmers, and Nathaniel occasionally taught school. The historian Tyler Anbinder described Fillmore’s childhood as “one of hard work, frequent privation, and virtually no formal schooling.”
Over time Nathaniel became more successful in Sempronius, but during Millard’s formative years, the family endured severe poverty. Nathaniel became sufficiently regarded that he was chosen to serve in local offices, including justice of the peace. Hoping that his oldest son would learn a trade, he convinced Millard, who was 14, not to enlist for the War of 1812 and apprenticed him to clothmaker Benjamin Hungerford in Sparta. Fillmore was relegated to menial labor, and unhappy at not learning any skills, he left Hungerford’s employ.
His father then placed him in the same trade at a mill in New Hope. Seeking to better himself, Millard bought a share in a circulating library and read all the books that he could. In 1819 he took advantage of idle time at the mill to enroll at a new academy in the town, where he met a classmate, Abigail Powers, and fell in love with her.
Later in 1819 Nathaniel moved the family to Montville, a hamlet of Moravia. Appreciating his son’s talents, Nathaniel followed his wife’s advice and persuaded Judge Walter Wood, the Fillmores’ landlord and the wealthiest person in the area, to allow Millard to be his law clerk for a trial period. Wood agreed to employ young Fillmore and to supervise him as he read law. Fillmore earned money teaching school for three months and bought out his mill apprenticeship. He left Wood after eighteen months; the judge had paid him almost nothing, and both quarreled after Fillmore had, unaided, earned a small sum by advising a farmer in a minor lawsuit. Refusing to pledge not to do so again, Fillmore gave up his clerkship. Nathaniel again moved the family, and Millard accompanied it west to East Aurora, in Erie County, near Buffalo, where Nathaniel purchased a farm that became prosperous.
Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.
Here is the third waterfall in the Fillmore Glen Gallery of Waterfalls, shaded by hemlocks, below bridge eight (8) on an early spring morning of high-water volume.
A high dynamic range rendering from several exposures from a Kodak DSC Pro SLR/c with a Canon EF 50 mm f/1.4 USM all mounted on a very stable Manfrotto 468MG tripod with Hydrostatic Ball Head.
Fillmore Glen State Park Moravia, Cayuga County, New York.
Portrait orientation of the waterfall beneath the dam reveals the length the water takes across a cliff face. A shattered Hemlock destroyed over previous winter is in foreground.
A high dynamic range rendering from several exposures from a Kodak DSC Pro SLR/c with a Canon EF 50 mm f/1.4 USM all mounted on a very stable Manfrotto 468MG tripod with Hydrostatic Ball Head.
Fillmore Glen State Park Moravia, Cayuga County, New York.
The high waterfall flowing from the outlet from the dam of Dry Creek on a spring morning just after the solstice. A shattered Hemlock destroyed over previous winter is in foregound. Fillmore Glen State Park, Moravia, Cayuga County, New York
The upper portion of a high waterfall flowing from the outlet from the dam of Dry Creek on a spring morning just after the solstice.
A high dynamic range rendering from several exposures from a Kodak DSC Pro SLR/c with a Canon EF 50 mm f/1.4 USM all mounted on a very stable Manfrotto 468MG tripod with Hydrostatic Ball Head.
Fillmore Glen State Park Moravia, Cayuga County, New York.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 