Tag: New York State

Treman Millipede

Visitors to Robert H. Treman park think nothing of crushing millipedes on the trail, it is concerning to encounter evidence of such disrespectful and boorish behavior. Here is an intact millipede I found last week. Millipedes are a group of arthropods that are characterized by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; […]

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Visitors to Robert H. Treman park think nothing of crushing millipedes on the trail, it is concerning to encounter evidence of such disrespectful and boorish behavior. Here is an intact millipede I found last week.

Millipedes are a group of arthropods that are characterized by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; they are known scientifically as the class Diplopoda, the name derived from this feature. Each double-legged segment is a result of two single segments fused together. Most millipedes have very elongated cylindrical or flattened bodies with more than 20 segments, while pill millipedes are shorter and can roll into a tight ball. Although the name “millipede” derives from Latin for “thousand feet”, no species was known to have 1,000 or more until the discovery of Eumillipes persephone, which can have over 1,300 legs.

There are approximately 12,000 named species classified into 16 orders and around 140 families, making Diplopoda the largest class of myriapods, an arthropod group which also includes centipedes and other multi-legged creatures. Most millipedes are slow-moving detritivores, eating decaying leaves and other dead plant matter. Some eat fungi or drink plant fluids, and a small number are predatory.

Millipedes are generally harmless to humans, although some can become household or garden pests. Millipedes can be an unwanted nuisance particularly in greenhouses where they can potentially cause severe damage to emergent seedlings. Most millipedes defend themselves with a variety of chemicals secreted from pores along the body, although the tiny bristle millipedes are covered with tufts of detachable bristles. Its primary defense mechanism is to curl into a tight coil, thereby protecting its legs and other vital delicate areas on the body behind a hard exoskeleton. Reproduction in most species is carried out by modified male legs called gonopods, which transfer packets of sperm to females.

Millipedes are among the first animals to have colonized land during the Silurian period. Early forms probably ate mosses and primitive vascular plants. Millipedes also exhibit the earliest evidence of chemical defense, as some Devonian fossils have defensive gland openings called ozopores. Millipedes, centipedes, and other terrestrial arthropods attained very large sizes in comparison to modern species in the oxygen-rich environments of the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, and some could grow larger than one meter. As oxygen levels lowered through time, arthropods became smaller.

Most millipedes are detritivores and feed on decomposing vegetation, feces, or organic matter mixed with soil. They often play important roles in the breakdown and decomposition of plant litter: estimates of consumption rates for individual species range from 1 to 11 percent of all leaf litter, depending on species and region, and collectively millipedes may consume nearly all the leaf litter in a region. The leaf litter is fragmented in the millipede gut and excreted as pellets of leaf fragments, algae, fungi, and bacteria, which facilitates decomposition by the microorganisms.

Reference: “Millipede” Wikipedia

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Visiting a Bog

Chicago Bog, part of Lime Hollow Nature Center

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The grandchildren and I hiked the 0.6 mile trail through old growth forest to visit a bog. In the 1830’s there was a village named Chicago along Gracie Road, which gives it the name we have today. The Chicago Bog is home to many carnivorous plants, including sundew, the pitcher plant, and more. The deepest depth of the bog is about 7.2 ft. The bog is along the Phillips Memorial Trail, which can be found on Gracie Road. Lime Hollow Nature Center, Cortland, New York.

Listen to the Wood Thrush and other bird song in this short video.

A dragonfly landed on the log, in the above images, lying at my feet. This male Chalk-fronted Corporal (Ladona julia) is a skimmer dragonfly found in the northern United States and southern Canada.

Chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly

Juveniles of both sexes are light reddish brown, with white shoulder stripes and a black stripe down the middle of the abdomen. As they mature, males develop a white pruinescence on the top of the thorax and at the base of the abdomen, while the rest of the abdomen turns black. Females become almost uniformly dark brown, with a dusting of gray pruinescence near the base of the abdomen; a few develop the same color pattern as the males.

Chalk-fronted corporals often perch horizontally on the ground or on floating objects in the water as you can see it doing here. They are gregarious for dragonflies and are commonly seen perching in groups. They readily approach humans to feed on the mosquitoes and biting flies that humans attract.

We noticed a large patch of buttercups growing in a sunny patch along the trail. Petals of these buttercups are highly lustrous owing to a special coloration mechanism: the petal’s upper surface is very smooth causing a mirror-like reflection. The flash aids in attracting pollinating insects and temperature regulation of the flower’s reproductive organs.

Click me for “Celestial Geese with two haiku by Issa”.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Hepatica acutiloba

Old Leaves

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This Hepatica acutiloba, the sharp-lobed hepatica, I found in Fillmore Glen last April, capturing them with the Apple Iphone 14 proMax.

Hepatica acutiloba is also known as sharp-lobed hepatica, liverwort, kidneywort, pennywort, liverleaf. The perennial nature of this plant is seen here in the purplish leaves hanging below, from a previous year’s growth.

The word hepatica derives from the Greek ἡπατικός hēpatikós, from ἧπαρ hêpar ‘liver’, because its three-lobed leaf blotched leaves resemble a diseased human liver.

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Plants of genus Hepatica are native to Europe, Asia, and North America.

Europe: Albania, Austria, the Baltic states, Belarus, Bulgaria, Corsica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Yugoslavia

Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Western Siberia

Eastern Asia: North China, South Central China, East China, Japan, Korea, Manchuria, Primorsky Krai

South Asia: Pakistan, Western Himalaya

Canada: Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec

United States: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Plants of the genus have been introduced to Belgium.

These tufted perennials grow to 10 centimeters in height with wiry roots.  Leaves usually three-lobed and untoothed.  Flowers can be blue, pinkish, or white.  Three sepals, small and green.  Petals usually 5, can be more, without a nectary.  Stamens numerous.  Ovary superior; styles short with capitate stigmas.  Pollination is by insects.  Fruits many, one-seeded.  Seeds are green when ripe. dispersed by ants.  

References:
Wikipedia, “Hepatica”
“The Botanical Garden, Vol II” by Roger Phillips and Marytn Rix, Firefly Books, 2002

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Hepatica Gone To Seed

AKA liverleaf

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This Hepatica acutiloba, the sharp-lobed hepatica, I found in Fillmore Glen last April, capturing them with the Apple Iphone 14 proMax.

“’The liverleaf puts forth her sister blooms of faintest blue soon after the late snows have melted. Indeed, these fragile-seeming, enable-like flowers are sometimes found actually beneath the snow, and form one of the many instances which we encounter among flowers, as among their human contemporaries, where the frail and delicate-looking withstand storm and stress far better than their more robust-appearing brethren.” 

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Each clump-forming plant grows 5 to 19 cm (2.0 to 7.5 in) tall, flowering in the early to mid-spring. The flowers are greenish-white, white, purple, or pinkish in color, with a rounded shape. After flowering the fruits are produced in small, rounded columned heads, on pedicels 1 to 4 mm long seen here in these gone to seed flowers. When the fruits, called achenes, are ripe they are ovoid in shape, 3.5–4.7 mm long and 1.3–1.9 mm wide, slightly winged and tend to lack a beak.

“The rusty leaves of last summer are obliged to suffice for the plant’s foliage until some little time after the blossoms have appeared, when the young fresh leaves begin to uncurl themselves.  Someone has suggested that the fuzzy little buds look as though they were still wearing their furs as protection against the wintry weather which so often stretches late into our spring.”

Hepatica cultivation has been popular in Japan since the 18th century (mid-Edo period), where flowers with doubled petals and a range of color patterns have been developed.

Noted for its tolerance of alkaline limestone-derived soils, Hepatica may grow in a wide range of conditions; it can be found either in deeply shaded deciduous (especially beech) woodland and scrub or grassland in full sun. Hepatica will also grow in both sandy and clay-rich substrates, being associated with limestone. Moist soil and winter snowfall are required; Hepatica is tolerant of winter snow cover, but less so of dry frost.

Propagation is done by seeds or by dividing vigorous clumps in spring. However, seedlings take several years to reach bloom size, and divided plants are slow to thicken.

Hepatica was once used as a medicinal herb. Owing to the doctrine of signatures, the plant was once thought to be an effective treatment for liver disorders. Although poisonous in large doses, the leaves and flowers may be used as an astringent, as a demulcent for slow-healing injuries, and as a diuretic.

References:
The quotes are from From “How to know the wildflowers,” by Mrs. William Starr Dana, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1989
Otherwise, Wikipedia, “Hepatica acutiloba” and “Hepatica”

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Keep Your Pants On

Dutchman’s breeches

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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’.

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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

Disappeared

Very Rare

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I was lucky enough to live near the site of these wild orchids back in the early 2000’s, close enough to enjoy serial visits, enough to find this perfect moment titled “After the Rain.” In recent visits there were no specimens to be found. The reasons for the disappearance are not clear.

Click me to view “After the Rain” from my Online gallery.

Showy lady’s slipper, scientific name Cypripedium reginae, is also known as pink-and-white lady’s-slipper, and queen’s lady’s-slipper, is a rare lady’s-slipper orchid native to northern North America. Although never common, this plant has vanished from much of its historical range due to habitat loss. It is the state flower of Minnesota.

Cypripedium reginae grows in wetlands such as fens, wooded swamps, and riverbanks.  Cypripedium reginae thrives in neutral to basic soils but can be found in slightly acidic conditions. The plants often form in clumps by branching of the underground rhizomes. Its roots are typically within a few inches of the top of the soil. It prefers very loose soil and when growing in fens it will most often be found in mossy hummocks.

It can tolerate full sun but prefers partial shade for some part of the day. When exposed to full sun, the flower lip is somewhat bleached and less deeply colored. It is occasionally eaten by white-tailed deer.

Cypripedium reginae can be found in Canada from Saskatchewan east to Atlantic Canada, and the United States from North Dakota east to the Atlantic and south to Arkansas and Tennessee.

Cypripedium reginae is quite rare. Its increasing rarity is attributable to destruction of a suitable alkaline habitat; it is sensitive to hydrologic disturbances, and is threatened by wetland draining, water contamination, habitat destruction and horticultural collectors. Browsing by an exploding deer population stunts or eliminates the plant’s growth.

Cypripedium reginae contains an irritant, cypripedin, a phenanthrenequinone. The plant is known to cause dermatitis on the hands and face. The first report of the allergy reaction was in 1875 by H. H. Babcock in the United States, 35 years before the term “allergy” was coined. The allergen was later isolated in West Germany by Bjorn M. Hausen and associates.

Reference: “Cypripedium reginae” wikipedia

Images and captions Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Common and Beautiful

Happy June First!!

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False Solomon’s Seal, scientific name Maianthemum racemosum, is common in the Finger Lakes Region. I found this specimen during a walk with the grandchildren in a local fen among the post-glacial terrain of the Finger Lakes Region.

False Solomon’s Seal is a common, widespread plant with numerous common names and synonyms, known from every US state except Hawaii, and from every Canadian province and territory (except Nunavut and the Yukon), as well as from Mexico. What name do YOU know it by?

Because it resembles plants of the highly toxic Veratrum genus, this species should not be consumed unless identification is positive. The plant becomes fibrous and bitter after it completes flowering and seed-setting, but the tender young shoots can be stripped of their leaves, simmered in water and eaten. Their delicate flavor is somewhat reminiscent of asparagus. The ripe fruits are edible raw or cooked but may be poor in taste. They can be laxative if consumed in large quantities.

Ojibwa harvested the roots of this plant and cooked them in lye water overnight to remove the bitterness and neutralize their strong laxative qualities. Native Americans boiled the roots to make tea for medicinal purposes, including to treat rheumatism, kidney issues, and wounds and back injuries.

Reference: “Maianthemum racemosum” wikipedia

Images and captions Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

For Tiny Feet

Happy June First!!

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Yellow Lady’s Slipper, scientific name Cypripedium parviflorum, is also known as “Moccasin Flower.” I found these on a walk with the grandchildren in a local fen among post-glacial terrain. “All this swamp cabbage, phew!!,” said the youngest.

This is a wild orchid that grows all over, though picky as to habitat.

–Newfoundland to British-Columbia, south to Georgia, Arizona, and Washington; Europe.
–Newfoundland to Alaska and south to Oregon in the West.
–In the East along the Atlantic Coast, it is in every state except Florida and extends across to Louisiana and eastern Texas.
–New Mexico state: Catron, Colfax, Grant, Los Alamos, Otero, San Miguel, San Juan and Santa Fe Counties.
–Arizona state: Apache, Graham, and Greenlee Counties.

Habitats and requirements: A more upland plant preferring subacidic to neutral soils. Primarily in mesic to dry-mesic upland forests, woodlands with deep humus or layers of leaf litter, shaded boggy habitats, but also in hill prairies and occasionally in wetlands with organic, well-drained, sandy soils. Moderate shade to nearly full sun in fir, pine, and aspen forest between 6000 and 9500 feet (1830 and 2900 meters). Mountain meadows and on timbered slopes. Dripping seeps on steep to moderately sloped canyon walls.

Reference: “Cypripedium parviflorum” wikipedia

Images and captions Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Our Resident Woodpecker

A pileated woodpecker pair stays together on its territory all year round and is not migratory.

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Have you wondered, “What is ‘pileated’ about a Pileated Woodpecker? The Latin word Latin pileatus means capped, so the adjective refers to the red “cap” the bird wears. Pileated Woodpeckers mmainly eat insects, especially carpenter ants and wood-boring beetle larvae. They also eat fruits, nuts, and berries, including poison ivy berries. Pileated woodpeckers often chip out large and roughly rectangular holes in trees while searching out insects, especially ant colonies. They also lap up ants by reaching with their long tongues into crevices. They may forage around the sides of human homes or even cars and can be observed feeding at suet-type feeders, as you can see below.

Our Resident Pileated Woodpecker enjoying a suet meal one spring evening

Usually, pileated woodpeckers excavate their large nests in the cavities of dead trees. Woodpeckers make such large holes in dead trees that the holes can cause a small tree to break in half. The roost of a pileated woodpecker usually has multiple entrance holes. In April, the hole made by the male attracts a female for mating and raising their young. Once the brood is raised, the birds abandon the hole and do not use it the next year. When abandoned, these holes—made similarly by all woodpeckers—provide good homes in future years for many forest songbirds and a wide variety of other animals. Ecologically, the entire woodpecker family is important to the wellbeing of many other bird species. The pileated woodpecker also nests in boxes about 4.6 m (15 ft) off the ground. The large cavities made by pileated woodpeckers during their nesting process not only serve as a home for the birds but also play an essential role in the forest ecosystem by contributing to nutrient cycling. Woodpecker cavities can lead to increased soil nutrient levels and microbial activity, providing a nutrient-rich environment for other plants to grow.

A pileated woodpecker pair stays together on its territory all year round and is not migratory. They defend the territory in all seasons but tolerate floaters during the winter. Drumming is most common during courtship and to proclaim a territory. Hollow trees are often used to make the most resonant sound possible. The pattern is typically a fairly slow, deep rolling that lasts about three seconds.

Pileated woodpeckers have been observed to move to another site if any eggs have fallen out of the nest—a rare habit in birds. The cavity is unlined except for wood chips. Both parents incubate three to five eggs for 12 to 16 days. The average clutch size is four per nest. The young may take a month to fledge. The oldest known pileated woodpecker was 12 years and 11 months old. Predators at the nest can include American and Pacific martens, weasels, squirrels, rat snakes, and gray foxes. Free-flying adults have fewer predators but can be taken in some numbers by Cooper’s hawks, northern goshawks, red-shouldered hawks, red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, bald eagles, golden eagles and barred owls.

Reference: “Pileated Woodpecker” Wikipedia

Images and Video Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Malloryville Apple Blossoms

A Memory from 2010

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Our home at Malloryville, New York has an orchard of three apple trees, seen here on early one spring morning in the year 2010. The varieties are Delicious, Cortland and McIntosh. Freeville, Tompkins County, New York State

The original wild ancestor of Malus domestica was Malus sieversii, found growing wild in the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and northwestern China. Cultivation of the species, most likely beginning on the forested flanks of the Tian Shan mountains, progressed over a long period of time and permitted secondary introgression of genes from other species into the open-pollinated seeds.

Chinese soft apples, such as M. asiatica and M. prunifolia, have been cultivated as dessert apples for more than 2000 years in China. These are thought to be hybrids between M. baccata and M. sieversii in Kazakhstan.

Among the traits selected for by human growers are size, fruit acidity, color, firmness, and soluble sugar. Unusually for domesticated fruits, the wild M. sieversii origin is only slightly smaller than the modern domesticated apple.

At the Sammardenchia-Cueis site near Udine in Northeastern Italy, seeds from some form of apples have been found in material carbon dated to around 4000 BCE.[20] Genetic analysis has not yet been successfully used to determine whether such ancient apples were wild Malus sylvestris or Malus domesticus containing Malus sieversii ancestry. It is generally also hard to distinguish in the archeological record between foraged wild apples and apple plantations.

There is indirect evidence of apple cultivation in the third millennium BCE in the Middle East. There was substantial apple production in the European classical antiquity, and grafting was certainly known then. Grafting is an essential part of modern domesticated apple production, to be able to propagate the best cultivars; it is unclear when apple tree grafting was invented.

The proverb, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, addressing the supposed health benefits of the fruit, has been traced to 19th-century Wales, where the original phrase was “Eat an apple on going to bed, and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread”. In the 19th century and early 20th, the phrase evolved to “an apple a day, no doctor to pay” and “an apple a day sends the doctor away”; the phrasing now commonly used was first recorded in 1922.

Reference: Wikipedia “Apple”

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved