Tay Meadows Tidbit – empty nest

It’s funny how you can walk by something so often and never notice it, and then one day it just pops right out at you, and you wonder how you’d possibly managed to miss it. Such was the case with me this week. I’ve walked passed these little saplings every time I’ve taken Raven back into the fields behind the house. They stand just off the trail, not too far. I’d even gone over to check one out a couple of months ago, because I’d noticed some galls in the leaves that looked interesting. The leaves came down in October, and for the last month or so I’ve been walking by these bare-naked trees and never noticed anything.

Then this week I glanced over and happened to spot a small blob in the lower portion of the tree that I hadn’t noticed before. So I went over for a closer look.

It was a nest. How the heck had I missed that all this time? Especially once the leaves come down and nests usually become quite conspicuous. Given its size (closer photo below, with my fingers for scale), structure (a compact cup of mostly grasses), habitat (open fields with widely scattered brush), and location (a couple of feet up in a small oak sapling), I guessed it to be a Field Sparrow nest, probably a late-summer second-brood nesting. In the early summer Field Sparrows usually nest on the ground because that’s where cover is thickest, but if they decide to try for a second brood later in summer those nests are often elevated, since by that time the leaves are all full and green on the shrubs and trees. The only other likely candidate might be Chipping Sparrow, but I tend to think of them as nesting more commonly in conifers, and their nests as being shallower constructions lined with animal hair rather than grasses.

Tay Meadows Tidbit – Porcupine tree damage

Well, that whole orchid kick got a little away with me. I hadn’t really intended to turn it into four posts when I found the helleborine stalks in the woods. And I cut myself short: I’m sure I could have rambled for a week on the subject if I’d wanted to. But I’m moving on now, to other things I’ve seen recently. On the same outing as I found the helleborines, I came across this tree trunk that had been gnawed away at by something. As I was stepping back to take a photo, Raven came over to check it out. She’s never one to pass up a photo op, whether invited or not. It does give you a sense of scale (she’s a 45lb dog). The damage extended about two feet (60cm) up the tree. It’s the work of a porcupine, which switch to bark as a primary staple in the colder winter months, when there aren’t green foods available.

The tree itself is a beech, so told by the smoothish gray bark, and it’s an oldish one. Judging from the diameter I’d guess it to be 60-80 years. It stands along an old fenceline, presumably the original fences from when the land used to be clear, and the forest has grown in around it again. I’ve noticed a few such trees in the forest. Damage like this on a smaller, younger tree might kill it, but this mature individual will likely just seal over the wound and keep on truckin’. Just like when you’re feeling stressed out, though, it will weaken the tree while it pulls through and make it more susceptible to diseases or other stressors such as caterpillar outbreaks.

It’s interesting to note that there are two colours to the damaged area. The upper part, a small band across the top, is a lighter, brighter colour than the lower part. This suggests that the damage was done in two stages: the lower part was the porcupine’s first visit, and then it came back a day or two later, after the first part had already started to dry out, and chewed off a bit more.

The porcupine would have chewed off the outer bark, which is tough and not very nutritionally useful, to get to the softer inner bark. The inner bark also contains some of the tree’s network of food transport tubes, called xylem and phloem, which like our veins move nutrients and oxygen throughout our body, contained within our blood. The outer bark acts like the tree’s skin, protecting the inner tissue. The damage exacted here by the porcupine is not dissimilar to if we fell and scraped our knee. The skin is peeled back to expose the soft tissue underneath, which then bleeds because the network of blood vessels has been torn. Before the tubes “clot” shut, some sap is lost, making the wound feel tacky, just like a scraped knee would be as it clots. It was a moderately warm day out, by mid-November standards, and a few flies had been attracted to the sweet sap on the recently-damaged part.

Orchids from elsewhere

"RONA: Greenhouse" by Bill_Barber on Flickr

It’s funny to think, but all those potted plants one sees for sale in the plant sections of places like Home Depot or the grocery store are native to somewhere. Many of them have become so common as houseplants that it’s hard to envision them growing out in the wild, in some steamy rainforest or a dry, sandy desert. In the case of the orchids usually found in such stores, the vast majority come from tropical rainforests where they grow as epiphytic plants, on the limbs or trunks of towering trees. The Phalaenopsis orchids such as the ones shown above are the genus most often sold in chain stores, and are native to tropical Asia, as are the Paphiopedilum orchids such as the ladyslipper I own.

"Cyrtochilum divaricatum" aka Oncidium costatum by Quimbaya on Flickr

Cattleya orchids, on the other hand, come from Central and South America. Oncidiums, such as the one shown above, are found primarily in the Central Americas. Dendrobium orchids range throughout tropical Australasia, as do the Cymbidiums. And these are just a small sprinkling of the many genera of orchids, representing the groups most commonly found in chain and garden stores.

"Wild Orchids in the Lyon Orchid Garden" by Dick on Picasa

One thing nearly all of these groups have in common is that they’re air plants, growing above the ground with their roots exposed. They collect their moisture and nutrients from the air and rainwater that runs down the tree or whatever substrate they’re growing on. Because of this, they can only grow wild in humid environments such as the rainforests. It’s also why they need special potting medium to keep at home. Since most homes aren’t nearly as humid as the orchid’s tropical habitats, we have to simulate the same conditions. Orchid potting medium is usually quite coarse and absorptive; bark and coconut shell is a common mix. There’s room for air to get through between the large pieces, but the pieces of bark absorb and slowly release moisture to the orchid’s roots, effectively maintaining a “humid” environment in the air pockets. If you planted an orchid in typical potting soil, it would likely suffocate and die, because the roots would rot with the constant moisture and lack of air circulation. Most orchids appreciate a regular misting with water or a tray of water underneath them which helps to keep the leaves from drying out too much, as well.

Cattleya labiata by Cristóbal Alvarado Minic on Flickr

Orchids have a long and storied history as houseplants. They have been artificially cultivated for more than 2000 years. The Chinese would use fragrant species – some of them can have very strong perfumes – to scent their households, placed strategically in a room designed around them. They really caught on in the 18th and 19th century, however, when European explorers began collecting specimens from the regions they visited. It might be that orchids owe their existence as houseplants to a single serendipitous decision made by Sir William Cattley in the early 1800s. Cattley, a British horticulturalist, was unpacking some tropical plants sent to him from South America by a colleague. The collected individuals had been placed between some common plants who were simply intended to be used as packing material. Curiosity must have got the better of Cattley, who decided what the heck, let’s plant some up and see what they do. One of them bloomed for him, producing the beautiful pink flowers above. Presumably his neighbours, when they saw them, said “I want a piece of that action!” and so tropical orchids became introduced into European cultivation. Or something like that. Incidentally, the pink flowers, the first described from their genus, were named by Cattley’s friend and fellow botanist John Lindley in honour of his “discovery”.

"Orchid-222.jpg" by Andy.Schultz on Flickr

It was a while before orchid enthusiasts figured out how to propagate the plants, however. At first, cultivated orchids were all wild specimens collected from the tropics and shipped back overseas. As the interest in orchids grew, so did the number of plants collected from the wild. Needless to say, this sort of free-for-all had a very negative impact on the populations of many of the species, and eventually laws had to be put in place requiring export permits for the species (whether wild-grown or cultivated) in order to control the movement of orchids from their native countries. These days, nearly all tropical orchids require a CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) permit to be shipped across borders, even for those species who have stable populations. From a personal perspective, this seems a little overkill; with all the orchids in cultivation these days, shouldn’t they be focused on making it easier for growers to share cultivated stock to maintain a strong gene pool, rather than harder? After all, the more propagation done using pre-existing cultivated plants, the less people are going to want, or need, to take plants out of the wild. On the other hand, especially for poorer people in the countries where these species grow, it would be a really easy way to make a buck to just go into the forest and collect a whole bunch of orchids, and sell them off to an overseas buyer.

"Orchis mascula", the most common species used to make orchid ice cream; by Inklaar on Flickr

The word “orchid” is derived from orchis, the Greek word for testicle; it references the root bulbs of a terrestrial genus that grows in Greece and the Mediterranean region, whose paired tubers resemble that part of the male anatomy, and were thought to be an excellent aphrodisiac. The genus has now been labeled Orchis, and includes species such as O. mascula, above. These days, they’re still used to make a type of chewy ice cream called salep that resembles salt taffy in consistency. They’re so common that no one bothers to cultivate them, they’re just collected from the wild.

"Cycnoches barthiorum" by douneika on Flickr

Orchid flowers generally last a long time, up to two or three months or more in some species. The reason for this is that many have evolved very complex strategies for achieving pollination, usually ones that require that their pollinator do backflips and jump through hoops to get their reward, and so they need to ensure that their pollinators have enough time to actually do those backflips. Most tropical orchids don’t actually produce nectar as a reward. Instead, they rely on a number of other strategies to attract pollinators. Some encourage the patronage of Euglossine bees (often also known as “orchid bees”). The lady bees just go crazy for perfume, and the males desperately try to collect up as much as they can to offer the female. The orchids provide the bees a source of this perfume. Quite often, specific species of orchid have very specific species of bees that they’re attracting. When the bee comes to collect the perfume, it brushes against the pollen sac of the flower. On the next flower it goes to visit, the pollen sac has been positioned in just such a way that it will come into contact with the female bits, and thus pollinate the flower.

"Phragmipedium Besseae_Kew_2680" by KitLKat on Flickr

The ladyslipper orchids are sneaky plants. Their flowers offer no reward to their pollinators, but instead dupe the poor insects into visiting. They may use an odour to attract individuals to the flowers. Once at close range, shiny bits may resemble honeydew or nectar that the insect can collect. The bug goes to land on what looks like it should be a perch, but turns out to be a slippery wart. The insect tumbles into the flower’s pouch, the only way out of which is, because of the curved lip, up the back wall and through a tunnel that takes it past the plant’s anthers (the male parts), where a pollen sac is deposited on it. In order for the flower to get pollinated, the insect must then fall for the same trick a second time, climb back up through the second tunnel, and brush the appropriately-placed pollen sac against the second flower’s stigma (the female part).

"hand pollinating a vanilla orchid" by glowingz on Flickr

In cultivation, because of the specific requirements of the flowers for pollination, the job usually has to be done by humans. In the case of the vanilla orchid (yes, the same one we use to flavour all sorts of concoctions), the plant won’t produce a pod (actually the orchid’s seed pod) unless it’s pollinated, and so workers go around their plants to look for new flowers and pollinate them by hand. The flowers only last one day, though, so the task must be completed every day over the roughly three month blooming period or else risk losing some potential crop.

"Orchid Display" by Salihan on Flickr

There’s lots more information I could share, but in the interest of length, I’ll leave it there. All in all, pretty interesting plants. There’s an orchid show every spring up in Ottawa; growers bring their best plants for judging, there are displays of different species and hybrids, vendors have orchids and orchid-related paraphernalia for sale. Imagine the sights and smells! I think this year I’ll try to go.

Orchids and haworthia

While I’m on an orchid kick, here is 6/7ths of my orchid collection. I blame it on Julie Zickefoose, this newfound interest in orchids. To be fair, it probably isn’t completely her fault. I’ve always had a love for green things, and have a tendency to collect plants and fill my house with them. There is such great satisfaction to be had in nurturing something, watching it thrive and thank you for your doting with beautiful flowers or lush greenery. I don’t really get cut flowers, as they seem beside the point – within a couple of weeks they’ve all died, and there’s nothing you can do about it. A potted plant will reward you time and again, with a little love and patience.

It’s only natural, then, that this love of green should eventually become focused into a particular area. My love of nature became focused in birds and moths, over time. While all sightings are exciting and have meaning, it’s the ones in these focal groups that really get you going. So it is with plants. And why it’s not completely Julie’s fault. But I think my budding (pardon the pun) interest in orchids and my recent desire to collect them over other equally interesting and worthy groups of plants is probably, at least partly, the result of reading Julie’s blog and her regular posts about her orchid collection. After all, when you read posts like this one, or this, or this, or this, or this … who could possibly resist the urge to go out and collect one or two or several for themselves?

Most likely, though, just on their own, Julie’s posts wouldn’t have tipped me over the edge. About four years ago, Dan bought me an orchid, a tropical ladyslipper hybrid of the genus Paphiopedilum. It was blooming at the time, and I enjoyed admiring the flower and was disappointed when it finally died and dropped off, a few weeks after bringing the plant home. But it was when the plant rebloomed the following winter that I really fell in love with it. Oh, the excitement and satisfaction of that new flower. Especially in combination with the stereotype that orchids are hard to care for and rebloom, I took great pride in that my plant had put out another inflorescence. I took this photo of it, and for a couple of years that was the image on my website’s front page.

Encouraged, perhaps, by my success in reblooming the Paph (as orchid enthusiasts call them; it’s certainly easier to say), I decided to go out and buy another one. This time I got a hybrid of the genus Phalaenopsis, a lovely white-and-fuscia individual, from the same grocery store where Dan had bought the Paph. That store had a pretty good assortment in their flower section, and they had all sorts of orchid types. I’m not sure why I settled on the Phal at the time over the other varieties. The Phalaenopsis orchids are among the easiest to grow at home, it turns out, and these days just about every store with a flower section has at least a few Phals for sale, but I rarely see the other orchid groups anymore. Perhaps Perth just isn’t big enough to support fancy orchids. I enjoyed the blooms on that plant while they lasted, and was delighted when it put out a second flower scape the following year. In all the moving about last year and then this, both of those spikes eventually died, but now that it’s settled again it’s putting out a new one.

I think it was the second orchid, the Phalaenopsis, reblooming that really did me in. Why was I more affected by the orchids than I have been by success with other plants? I don’t know. Maybe it’s that they’re easy to get, and they come in so many colours and varieties. And many are very showy. A lot of other flower groups can fall into one of these categories or another, but I think the combination of all three really appeals to my collector’s nature, and is the same reason that I “collect” birds and moths: easy to see, great diversity, and many are quite showy. With birds and moths, you’re simply collecting names on a list. Plants, however, require space and constant care. I need a room with bigger windows. I would love to have a greenhouse or sunroom addition to the house.

I’ve recently been reading a book called Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen. It’s a book my mom happened to have, which she lent to me shortly after I’d got my first orchids. It sat on my shelf, unread, for a couple of years. The new flower spike on the original Phal, timed with the disappearance of moths and most everything else outside, has tripped my orchid enthusiasm again (I suspect it will become my winter obsession, fueling me through the cold winter months when nature is scarcer; how nice that the plants bloom just when you need it most), and I decided to pick it up. I’m about halfway through. It’s a non-fiction book that explores the world of orchid enthusiasts: growing, collecting and showing tropical orchids. It’s a huge industry, worth about $9 billion globally each year (as of when the book was published in 2000). These days, most orchids are captive-grown in nurseries, rather than collected from the wild. In fact, these days, most of the orchids on the market probably aren’t pure species anymore, instead being artificial hybrids created by orchid enthusiasts to develop new and interesting colours, patterns or shapes of flowers. Hansen offers some interesting insights into many aspects of the cultivated orchid world through his own trips and interviews to learn more about the plants from the people who love them. More on that tomorrow.

Right now most of plants in my study are sitting on a shelf under a grow light. I’d had them on the windowsill, but have been afraid to leave them there while the new cat gets adjusted to the house. The other two never bothered them on the sill, but last week the new guy knocked off my Haworthia, above, from the windowsill. This might be the oldest plant that I own, although I think I myself have only had it about three years. The plants are very hardy, and put out lots of pups as they grow. My original plant was a large pup from a plant my mom had had for years. When I got it, I planted it in that 4″ square container on the left. At the time, it didn’t amount to much more than what’s currently in that 4″ square pot on the left. In three or so years it had grown so much it was overflowing the sides of the pot and I could barely get in with my thin-spouted watering can to water it. I’d been meaning to repot it for a while, but was eventually forced to get around to it when the cat knocked the top-heavy pot off the windowsill. Yes, all those plants came out of that one little 4″ pot on the left. It’s now split between the 4″ square and a 6″ round.

The year after I got it, the plant bloomed for me. How thrilled I was! I couldn’t recall my mom’s plant ever blooming. Where I lived at the time, it sat in an east-facing window, a huge picture window that bathed the apartment in bright light. Most of my plants loved that apartment, with few exceptions they all grew fabulously. I’ve moved three times since then, but haven’t found a spot that had nearly a nice light as that apartment. My window here faces west, not east, but gets lots of light. I’m hoping that it might encourage the newly-repotted haworthia to bloom again. They’re a plant of open areas in South Africa, and while they grow alright in darker areas, probably the bright light mimics its natural conditions better.

There are actually quite a lot of varieties of haworthias, too. Enough, in fact, that there’s an actual Haworthia Society of haworthia collectors and growers. I’ve been so pleased with the growth of my haworthia, and was so excited to have it bloom. So why did I get hooked on orchids but not haworthias? Couldn’t tell ya. Maybe I just didn’t have a blogger expounding the virtues of haworthias complete with intriguing photos of their collection at the right time.

Before I wrap up this very long-winded post, I’d also like to point out the couple of non-orchids on my shelf. The little pink impatiens are cuttings I took off my outdoor plant and rooted. The original plants were given to my by our neighbour at the lake, who was very, very generous with her extra seedlings. The colour of this one really appealed to me and I decided to see if I could overwinter it as a cutting. I brought it in with a couple of blooms on it, and it’s continued to grow and bloom and bloom even through the whole ordeal of putting out roots from the cut stem. What a fabulously determined little plant.

And the other, the tall one in the same water dish as the impatiens, is a cutting I took off one of my tomato plants before the frost, the only tomato cutting to root. A couple of weeks ago it started to bloom, and now it’s growing a couple of cherry tomatoes. You can just sort of see the larger blobs on the left side of the plant. The challenge will be getting the tomatoes to ripen. I’m hoping putting it under a grow light where I can lengthen the “daylight” hours might help encourage it.

My posts never seem to end up being what I start out intending them to be. Tomorrow, more on wild tropical orchids.

More on native orchids

Inspired by the discovery of the dried Helleborine in the cedar grove, I did some poking about yesterday for info on wild orchids in Ontario. According to the Orchid Society of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, Ontario, there are 62 species of orchid that have been recorded in the province. They give the current population status of each species, indicating whether it is secure or at risk, or introduced. Three species fall into this latter category, and an additional one is found only accidentally, with no known established populations. That leaves 58 that are found regularly in the province. Some 38 of those have secure populations, and the other 20 are either sensitive or at risk.

Yellow Lady’s-slipper, Cypripedium parviflorum, falls into the first category. It’s one of the most widespread of Ontario’s orchids, growing in a variety of habitats. There are four subspecies, which look similar but are largely divisible by habitat. This one was one of several found growing on the man-made spit of land that projects into Lake Ontario from the Toronto shoreline. The landform, or at least the bit where these plants were, is only about 30 years old. The spit has never, to my knowledge, undergone planting programs, and the orchids would have arrived under their own mysterious power.

Another common species is this one, Pink Lady’s-slipper, Cypripedium acaule . They grow in acidic soil, commonly in the boreal forest but also in forests further south. It favours boggy areas but is happy to grow anywhere the soil conditions are met. Dan and I found quite a number in our Rock Ridge MAPS area at Frontenac Provincial Park at the end of May this year. They bloom through early July.

Showy Lady's-slipper, borrowed from my mom at Willow House Chronicles

When we first spotted the Pink Lady’s-slipper, I just assumed it was a Showy Lady’s-slipper, Cypripedium reginae, another relatively common species in Ontario. I didn’t give it much thought that it might be otherwise, and I didn’t bother to look it up later. I’ve never seen a Showy and it had been a while since I’d seen a photo; I expected it to be brighter, but wrote it off as the flower just being past its best.

Just north of here is Purdon Conservation Area, which includes Purdon Fen. This area contains some 16,000 individuals of Showy Lady’s-slipper, the largest known population of the species. My mom went up to see them this past spring and posted about it on her blog.

Looking at them side-by-side it’s hard to believe I mistook one for the other now. For one thing, the big cleft down the centre of the pouch on the Pink should be a big giveaway. The three lady’s-slippers shown above are the most common in Ontario, but there are an additional three that can be found in the province. The Bruce Peninsula, separating Georgian Bay from Lake Huron, is one of Ontario’s hotspots for orchids. Every year the Friends Of Bruce District Parks holds the Bruce Peninsula Orchid Festival in celebration of these beautiful flowers, where attendees can learn more and have the opportunity to see a wide variety of species. The Bruce is home to an amazing 44 species of wild orchid.

I’ve personally only seen a small handful of species. Perhaps I’ve seen more than I think I have, but not realized they’re orchids. Only a portion of orchids actually have the big, flashy flowers we tend to associate with the group. In fact, many more are more subdued, or smaller in size. This Rose Pogonia, Pogonia ophioglossoides, was found growing beside the water at Rock Ridge in the summer. I didn’t recognize it as an orchid at first, since its flowers and leaves were smaller than I typically think of. Now that I know what it is, I can see the similarities.

The Helleborine I mentioned yesterday are a non-native species, one of three in Ontario, and if their abundance on our property is any indication, they’re doing pretty well. They probably started out as garden plants, introduced more than a century ago. Having recently taken an interest in indoor orchids, I wondered if it would be possible to dig some of these up and cultivate them indoors. Since they’re non-native anyway, any possible negative consequences to the population would not be a problem (except, perhaps, in terms of my own aesthetic appreciation of them outdoors).

That question led to wondering if it was possible to purchase native orchids for your garden. I know that, aside from damaging wild populations when collecting from the wild, most orchids don’t survive the transplant to a garden environment. Some, like the Pink Lady’s-slipper, have spreading root systems that may be more than two metres/yards in diameter, making it impossible to get the entire plant. Often the plant doesn’t survive the severe reduction in root mass. If you’re the patient sort, it may be possible to collect a seed pod and try growing your own from seed, but orchids are very long-lived plants, sometimes lasting on the order of decades, and as such it may take an orchid like the Pink Lady’s-slipper 10-16 years to grow from seed to blooming size.

"Clump of Cypripedium montanum - Lady Slipper Orchid" by pictoscribe on Flickr

Even just collecting the seeds has the potential to impact the wild population, as those seeds then don’t get a chance to germinate in the wild (regardless of whether or not they actually would have). Really, the best way to acquire orchids of your own is to purchase them from captive-bred populations raised at a reputable nursery. The Yellow Lady’s-slipper is not too hard to find, particularly at native plant nurseries, such as the Native Plant Source in Kitchener, Ontario.

However, some digging around online turned up a few links, including Fraser’s Thimble Farms on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. This nursery specializes in rare and unusual flowers, many of them native. They have a whole page dedicated to cold-hardy ground orchids that will survive in Canada’s northern climate.

"Calypso or Fairy Slipper (Calypso bulbosa (L.) Oakes var. americana)" by pverdonk on Flickr

Another Canadian source is Planteck Biotechnologies in Quebec. They have a similar selection of species as Fraser’s Thimble Farms, not all of them native, but also list the genera Calypso and Calopogon. The above flower is Calypso bulbosa, a species native to Canada and our area; this particular individual was photographed on Manitoulin Island here in Ontario.

Lady's-slipper orchids in the gardens of Raising Rarities in Ohio; www.raisingrarities.com

The Washington Native Orchid Society provides a list of additional retailers, a dozen or so, mostly American. The photo above is from the website of Raising Rarities in Toledo, Ohio. They specialize mostly in lady’s-slippers, which are the most popular group at many of the nurseries, including both Fraser’s and Planteck above. Imagine this sight greeting you in the garden each dew-filled summer morning!

As an aside, I love that frosted fern in the foreground. My mom has a bunch of these growing in her new gardens, I must remember to ask for some in the spring.

Remains of summer

Back in August, I posted a photo in one of my Monday Miscellanies of an orchid that I’d noticed growing in the shade of the pines along the side of the driveway. The orchid was a Helleborine, Epipactis helleborine, a European species that was introduced to North America in the late 1800s. It was first found in New York in 1879, and over the past 100+ years has efficiently spread throughout a most of the northeast, as well as parts of the west. The Orchid Society of the Royal Botanical Gardens (based in Burlington, Ontario), has a species database of wild orchids of Canada. There, they note the name of this species to be Broad-leaved Helleborine, but since it’s the only member of the genus established over here, often the first part of the name gets dropped.

Yesterday afternoon I took Raven for a walk into our back fields. For a change of pace, I decided to wander through some of the wet cedar groves at the back of the property, now mostly dry with the onset of winter. I’d only been through them once or twice. The last time I explored I found a wild turtlehead hidden in a small glade in the middle. Most of the vegetation has now died back, and the grove was mostly empty. I noted a few bones, perhaps left by a coyote who had retreated here to enjoy his lunch, a number of rotting mushrooms now so past their best that they would be difficult to identify, and a patch of dead helleborine.

I had walked a few metres beyond the helleborine before I had the thought: “Hey, wait a minute – why am I letting lazy Brain lead this tour? Get back there and check those out, or at least take a photo of record for the blog.”

So I turned around and came back for another look. Even in death, its dried, shriveled leaves still call to mind the form of a wild orchid. You can see the broad, ridged leaves that alternate up the base of the stem, and the brown seed heads hanging where the flowers once grew.

In summer, the flowers are understated, at least compared to the ladyslippers many call to mind when thinking of wild orchids. They have a similar form, though, with a bulging, cupped lower lip and a spreading hood that shelters the reproductive parts. A single stem holds many flowers, a characteristic shared among many non-ladyslipper orchid genera. The flowers bloom through the summer, June to August, sometimes lasting into September. This photo was taken mid-August; I can’t recall now for how long I continued to see the plants in bloom after that.

Come fall, little remains of the flower that might suggest the orchid of the summer. I was intrigued to notice that the seed pods had split open, forming little cages in which the seed sat, piled at the bottom. They reminded me of little lanterns, the candle glow flickering through the bars of the enclosure.

I plucked one for a closer look. The seeds were fine, light and downy, reminding me a little of cattail fluff. It was easy to see how the wind might blow through the open seed pods, picking up the weightless seeds and dispersing them through the surrounding forest. In combination with the fact that it can grow and survive in a range of habitats from wet to dry and open to wooded, it’s no wonder the plant has had such success colonizing North America.

Tay Meadows Tidbit – Asian Ladybug

This evening I spotted this guy (or gal) resting on a branch of one of my orchids. When I first saw it I thought it was eating something. I brought in a couple of cuttings from the garden in late fall, and noticed a short while later that there were some aphids on the tomato. I collected up the ladybugs each time I spotted one in the house and placed it on the plant hoping they might help control the little plantsuckers. I suspect they were mostly interested in finding a place to hole up for the winter, and not so much in eating, but the aphids seem to be gone now so if the ladybugs didn’t eat them they must have died on their own. Although I thought it strange that the aphids had migrated to the orchid, both because I thought the aphids gone and the orchid’s flower scape is tough-skinned, not easy to bite through like the tomato plant, I nonetheless was relieved to see that the ladybug had found one and was doing the job it had been imported into North America for.

Then I had to look closer. Was it really eating an aphid? It seemed to be taking longer than I would expect an aphid to require, though I’ll admit I’ve never watched a ladybug eat an aphid before and for all I know they could take their sweet time savouring every bite. I was a bit puzzled. There seemed to be something sticking out from its mouth area, but it didn’t actually look altogether aphid-y.

Finally it pulled its legs away and I realized the yellowish things I’d been looking at were the insect’s mouthparts. The movement I had been observing was the ladybug cleaning its legs, very fastidiously. Perhaps because at this time of year there isn’t a whole lot else to do, it had been taking its time about it, making sure every last speck of dust was removed and every hair was in place. It looked like it had some work to do on its elytra once it was done.

We don’t really tend to think of ladybugs as having a third body segment, but the white-and-black “head” that’s in front of the red wing covers is the pronotum, the middle segment of the insect’s three-segmented body. In front of that, and usually tucked underneath as the ladybug trundles along, is the head and eyes. The big yellow pads sticking out from its mouth are its maxillae, which it uses to manipulate food while eating it, a little like we use our tongue.

For much of the time while I watched the ladybug dangled from the orchid scape, holding on by just one hind foot, equipped with a strong claw for just such a purpose. Look at the angle it’s held at. If I was dangling off something by just one limb, you can bet that limb would be straightened out and stretched to the max as I desperately tried not to let go. It’s amazing how strong these bugs are.

Winterizing the brain

It’s that time of year, the transition between summer abundance and winter dearth. In the warm months it’s so easy to find something to blog about: life is everywhere. Insects, flowers, birds, green leaves everywhere you turn. The brain gets lazy, there’s no need for it to work overhard. Then come October and November, all that great wealth of life begins to thin out. You go out with your camera to find something to blog about and the brain says, “Are you kidding me? There’s nothing out here!” It’s wrong, of course; there’s still plenty of interesting things going on, stuff to find, but the brain is in summer mode. It will take some effort and time to retrain it into a winter way of thinking and seeing.

Earlier this week I took my brain for a walk into our back fields. It saw nothing, so I made it look closer. “Let’s start with this rock,” I said, “and we’ll go from there.” My brain peered at the rock and saw only rock and moss. I chastised it. “No, look closer. Pay attention. What do you see?”

“Well, those red things are pretty obvious,” Brain said.
“Good!” I applauded. “That’s a great start. British Soldier Lichen, their red caps in full bloom, to produce spores. What else is there?”

“Um. Some spikey mosses. Lots of them there.”
“Yes! Juniper Haircap Moss, Polytrichum juniperinum,” I enthused, including the italics. “Cosmopolitan, occurs on every continent, including Antarctica! It gets reddish ‘flowers’ on the tips when it’s reproducing. You’re doing good! Keep going, what else?”

“Some branchy lichen to the side,” Brain pointed out. “Wait, I think I remember these – reindeer lichen?”
“Excellent! Yes, reindeer lichen, specifically Cladina rangiferina, which can be told apart from Yellow-green Lichen, Cladina mitis, by its blue-gray colour. It’s soft and spongy after a rain, but brittle and crumbles when dry. It’s a major food source of reindeer, hence the name.”

“There’s that curly grass stuff in the little patch there,” Brain said, warming up to the challenge.
“Probably the same stuff we walked through to get here,” I agreed. “Poverty Oatgrass, Danthonia spicata, widespread across most of the continent. It can be identified by the curly tuft of grass at its base. Grows on thin rocky soil and is very resistant to drought, probably why it’s growing in amongst all these mosses and lichens on the rock.”

“Hm. Oh, look! Cup lichen, tucked in beside the British Soldiers.”
“So there is, good eye,” I said. “Cladonia species, perhaps False Pixie Cup, C. chlorophaea, which grows on rocks, among other substrates, and is commonly found with mosses.”

“And the moss has put out spore spikes,” Brain said, now getting up to speed.
“Ah yes, just on the right. Now you’re on a roll. I didn’t even see those till you pointed them out.”

“Some dead cedar leaves, from the cedars at the edge of the rocks, I guess.”
“Seems probable. Deposited here by wind or animal, do you think?” I wondered aloud.

“Look at that cute little plant,” Brain pointed to some red leaves. “So small. Any idea?”
“None whatsoever,” I admitted. “Too bad it doesn’t have any flower heads or seed pods to help. Something to look for next summer, I guess.”

“Oh, and look. It was visited by a rabbit,” Brain finished up by pointed out one final item.
“Eastern Cottontail or Snowshoe Hare?” I joked.
Brain and I stood up from where we’d been stooped over our one-foot-square of rock.
“See? That wasn’t so bad,” I said. “All it needs is a bit of practice to get you back in shape.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Brain said grudgingly.
“You did good. Let’s leave the lesson there for now. We’ll try again later this week, perhaps.”

November blog carnivals

Two blog carnivals to announce today. The first is The Moth and Me, a carnival I started up back in the March of this year to celebrate my second-favourite group of living organisms. This month’s edition is the final one of 2009, and was hosted by Susannah of Wanderin’ Weeta. Check out the excellent assortment of moth-related blog posts that she’s assembled to give us another reason to be glad the earth is not flat.

The Moth and Me will return in March 2010, when it will be hosted by Jason of Xenogere. Send your submissions to jason AT xenogere D0T com by March 13th. We’re looking for hosts for April 2010 and beyond. If you’re interested in hosting, send me a note at sanderling AT symbiotic D0T ca.

Also recently up is the 113th edition of I and the Bird. Matt at The Modern Naturalist has put together an enjoyable edition filled with quotations and verse. Matt put a lot of work into this one – head over and check it out.

Sunday Snapshots: Peruvian hummingbirds

Golden-tailed Sapphire by Kapitan Hojo on Picasaweb

As a continuation on the weekend’s theme presented by yesterday’s post, today I thought I’d do a snapshots of the different hummingbird species from the Manu region of Peru. There are currently 22 species of hummingbird listed on the checklist of birds of the Manu Wildlife Centre, and that’s just what’s been recorded at this one site. For a girl from eastern North America, where we have a grand total of one hummingbird species, this abundance is a veritable smorgasbord of jeweled goodness. I’ve selected a few of the flashiest for inclusion here. Since I personally have no photos of tropical hummingbirds, I’ve borrowed all of these off the net through Creative Commons licenses.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming tomorrow!

Booted Racket-tail by kookr on Flickr

Festive Coquette by Dario Sanches on Flickr

Violet-capped Woodnymph by Dario Sanches on Flickr

Rufous-breasted Hermit by barloventomagico on Flickr

Blue-tailed Emerald by jerryoldenettel on Flickr

Fork-tailed Woodnymph by jerryoldenettel on Flickr

Black-throated Mango by Lip_Kee on Flickr

White-necked Jacobin by The_Tardigrade on Flickr

Long-tailed Hermit by kookr on Flickr

Blue-tailed Emerald by prosper973 on Flickr

Crimson Topaz by jerryoldenettel on Flickr

(this last one isn’t actually on the Manu checklist, but is supposed to occur in the lowlands of Peru, and I just couldn’t resist including it – look at that brilliant firey colour!)