Bee Plant Wise

Urban plantings frequently include non-native plants that may not provide nectar for our native species of bees, butterflies and moths.  They usually can't serve as host plants needed for food for native caterpillars. This also creates a food shortage for birds. We encourage homeowners to "Bee Wise and Plant Natives."

Our Master Naturalist chapter is participating in the Native Plant Market at the Springfield Botanical Center on May1st from 9:00AM to 2PM.  (The plants can be selected on site and pre-orders from Ozark Soul and Smiling Sun Gardens are also welcome.) Our chapter's focus will be on invasive ornamental plants that are harming Missouri's wild and urban ecosystems and the wisdom of replacing them with our natives.

There's a wealth of reliable resources on the internet to help the curious (as well as the obsessed) when it's time to chose ornamental plants for our yards and public spaces.  Perhaps the first question we should ask when making decisions about plants is "Is it a known invasive or known to have invasive tendencies?"

• Grow Native! is Missouri's best resource for all things relating to native plants, including advice for beginners as well as the experienced, pollinator and wildlife habitat, water protection, and local resources.
• For information about invasive plants in general, their environmental impacts, and specific plants that are known to be invasive in our area check out Missouri Botanical Garden Invasive Species. 
• Missouri Botanical Garden has a Native Landscaping Manual in PDF form.  Chapter Four is an excellent guide for gardeners wanting to landscape with native plants.
• If you want information about control and identification of invasive species link to Chapter Three.
• To learn more about common invasive ornamental plants, how to identify and control them see this Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) link.
• Native Plant Finder has information matching lepidoptera with plants.
• The Invasive Plant Atlas of the US has lists of plants that have invaded and degraded natural areas throughout the US.

Local sources for native plants and landscaping include:

• Ozark Soul
• Smiling Sun Gardens
• Missouri Wildflowers Nursery

Also remember Missourians for Monarchs.

Wildflower Walk 2018

Hannah Parker and her new pet - April 14!

The Wildflower Walk II got off to a roaring start 3 hours early with a visit from Greater Ozarks Audubon birders.  As usual they heard lots of species that don't fall in my hearing range, pointed out broadwing hawks circling that I would have thought were red-shouldered and some other cool finds, but the best one didn't have feathers.

Hannah Parker spotted the rather tattered female Monarch butterfly on our Mail Trace Road.  It patiently rode her finger for a while until we transferred it to a container.  It will be living on a potted milkweed in her house.  In spite of its arduous journey, we hope it will lay some eggs.

We reported it to Journey North which tracks the Monarch migration and it was the second one reported this year in Missouri.  The first was reported flying overhead in St. Louis.  You can see the report here.

From there on the day was a continued success.  We saw a lot more finds with the trained eyes of Michelle Bowe and her students (MSU) and Ioana Popescu (Drury). They provided lots of Greek, Latin and botanical pearls while some of us just carried the cameras and listened in awe.

Pussytoes - female

Dainty little pussytoes have just blossomed with their tiny fuzzy heads.  The botanical name Antennaria plantaginifolia is less catchy than its other common names such as plantain-leaved everlasting and ladies' tobacco.  It typically grows in acid soils on prairies, or dry or rocky slopes, and glades which are abundant along Bull Creek.

Male flowers of pussytoes

It propagates vegetatively by runners under the soil (stolons) and can occur in large clusters.  Stolons are stems that run parallel to the ground or just below the ground and form new roots and essentially new plants which are genetically identical.

I had only seen the pure white blossoms but Michelle pointed out to us that they are dioecious, i.e. male or female flowers are on separate plants.  This area had the pure white heads which are the female flowers with an adjacent patch of male flowers that have tiny brown anthers. The seeds produced by the female plants have fluffy tufts on them to aid their dispersal by wind.

For those like myself who have forgotten their flower anatomy many times, here is a refresher.

A list of wildflower species found at Bull Mills with Saturday's finds highlighted is here.

Bank Stabilization

After a moderate flood - Click to enlarge

Like many other streams, Bull Creek is challenged in recent years by larger rain events and increased flooding.  Continued development in the upper reaches of the watershed includes more impervious surfaces such as roofs and paving.  Lawns replace native grasses, shrubs and trees with deep roots that previously captured some of the rain with each storm.  This leads to larger peak flow creating increased bank erosion and gravel deposition as well as silting in of Lake Taneycomo with serious implications for the economy of Rockaway Beach.  Below you can see the changes from 2008 to 2018.

Undercut bank

When the creek gives us more water it takes away more soil.  The Christmas flood of 2 years ago and the following 500 year flood in April 2017 caused a loss of 50 feet of bank in a 300 foot stretch including 6 rows of recent riparian plantings.  More important it threatened the remaining mature trees along the east bank downstream.  This is located in the middle of an 8 mile stretch of Bull Creek which is designated as one of Missouri Outstanding Resource Waters.

Dave Woods, of the Missouri Department of Conservation fisheries division designed an initial plan for stream bank remediation with the construction of a bank stabilization structure which was just completed.  The project was funded by the Missouri Conservation Heritage Foundation through the Stream Stewardship Trust Fund which is described here.

The objectives of the project were to mitigate the unnatural rate of stream bank erosion, improve the channel stability by reinforcing three light equipment stream crossings, augment and protect more than 30 acres of bottom land forest to maintain a healthy riparian corridor.  It included establishing a perpetual easement to protect over 1.5 miles of the high quality Ozark stream, its tributaries and the associated corridor.  The easement permanently protects the high quality riparian areas along the creek from unnatural disturbance and development now and by any future land owner.

This remediation involved bringing in 1,400 tons of rock to stabilize 320 linear feet followed by replanting 2.7 acres of seedlings along the restored bank.  Detailed engineering plans were created by Chris Cash and the construction work was by Kelpe Contracting, a firm that specializes in riparian remediation.

Dave and Andy harvested 8' willow and sycamore poles (logs really) and these were held upright in trenches with the bottom end below water level in the hyporheic zone, the stream water that flows under a gravel bar.  Here they will sprout roots and grow to begin the riparian tree restoration even before the seedlings are planted next spring.

The project was completed in 5 days with a pause for a flood that tested the bank which passed with flying colors.  A video of the project is at this Youtube link.  Special thanks to Dave Woods who shepherded the project through a two year gestation to delivery and to Andy Humble for his logging skills and strong back.  Many thanks to the Missouri Conservation Heritage Foundation for all they do for conservation in our beautiful state.

Downstream portion of bank stabilization - Click to enlarge

 

 

 

 

 

 Here is a before and after taken from the same spot by Eric Rahm of MDC.

This work was made possible by the Stream Stewardship Trust Fund through the Missouri Conservation Heritage Foundation.

Hydra Microblog

Microblog from Linda Bower MN

Green Hydra - Wikimedia

Linda Bower sent me this fascinating video she filmed of a green hydra in pond water.  Like the crinoids of old, it ingests nutrients into a dead end stomach, expelling undigested particles back out the way they came.  What is not to love about a simple system like that?

New to hydra?  Here's an excerpt from an article by Northern State University of South Dakota, USA: "Hydra are named after the nine-headed sea snake of Greek mythology and are freshwater relatives of corals, sea anemones and jellyfish. All are members of a primitive phylum, the Cnidaria. The gut of cnidarians has only one opening. Unlike more complex animals, cnidarians are designed around 2 sheets of tissue: the ectoderm, lining the exterior; and the endoderm, lining the gastrovascular cavity. The two are separated by a gelatinous partition...greatly expanded in jellyfish, but is much reduced in hydra."

Chlorohydra viridissima is a bright green species, owing to the presence of numerous algae called zoochlorellae, which live as symbionts within the endodermal cells. Their relationship is mutualistic as the zoochlorellae carry out photosynthesis and produce sugars that are used by the hydra. In return, the carnivorous diet of the hydra provides a source of nitrogen for the algae.

Hydra viridissima - Wikimedia

At the base of the tentacles is the mouth. Smaller animals which blunder into the tentacles are stung and paralyzed by structures called cnidocytes, the little bumps seen along the tentacles in Larry Wegmann's photograph below.  The tentacles draw the prey into the mouth, and body fluids leaking from puncture wounds stimulate a simple feeding response as the shortening of the tentacles shorten, the opening of the mouth expands, and the victim is engulfed.  Digestion of the prey item in the gastrovascular cavity proceeds over several hours. Cuticles and other undigested remains are subsequently expelled through the mouth. Almost any small invertebrates, up to the size of the hydra, may be consumed, including annelid worms, rotifers, insect larvae, and (especially) small crustaceans, such as Daphnia, Chydorus and Cyclops spp."

Hydra budding - Larry Wegmann

Most hydra reproduction is asexual by budding as seen above.  A new but genetically identical hydra is extending from the body and will break free from the parent.  Hydras can occasionally reproduce sexually.  Most species being hermaphrodites, they form both an ovary and testicles on the same individual.  A single fertilized egg can be held until the conditions are right for its release.

You can read more in the Northern State University article.

Blueberry Stem Gall

Mark Bower sent me this picture of a "weird thing" he found while out photographing mushrooms.  He described it as being hard and growing off of a plant.  Now when a man whose passion is photographing fungi thinks something he found is "weird" I have to take it seriously.  To me it appeared to be a deformed part of a plant stem, likely a gall.

Gall in winter - Joshfecteau.com 

Using my years of Master Naturalist training and botanical skills, I Googled "kidney shaped gall" and came up with several pictures of blueberry stem galls.  That opened up a lot of references to the gall and the wasp that forms it, Hemadas nubilipennis.  I was intrigued by the name and searched for the origin of this name and only came up with "pennis" which is Latin for "feather" or an aluminum coin of Finland  eliminated with the introduction of the Euro.   But I digress.....

H. nubilipennis - John van der Linden

The wasps are tiny, measuring less than a tenth of an inch.  They emerge during the blooming season and most are females.  Following mating, a female wasp lands on a tender shoot, frequently under the leaf litter. Facing the tip, she plunges her ovipositor into the stem to deposit an egg, then moves slightly forward to repeat the action multiple times. There are typically 12 eggs in a gall.

Wasp larvae in the gall - Molly Jacobson

The eggs will hatch in 12-14 days and the damage of the larvae feeding causes the stem to swell,  producing the gall.  This provides nutrition and protection for the developing larvae.  The gall turns hard in the fall and the larvae will pupate in it in the spring.  Extension.org

Galls are a major problem among blueberry growers and the primary treatment is pruning of parasitized stems.  Elimination of the wasps takes persistence over years.  Although blueberries are self-pollinating, cross pollination by insects produces larger fruit.  Spraying insecticide as a secondary treatment against the wasp is tricky as the wasps emerge in blooming season at the same time as honeybee pollination.  Michigan State

Wasp emerging from a Blueberry Stem Gall - Nature Posts

There is a fantastic set of photographs of the tiny gall wasps emerging on the Nature Posts blog but they aren't all of the gall with H. nubilipennis.  It turns out that at least 6 other parasitic wasps call these galls home.  One is a chalcid wasp called Ormyrus vacciniicola.  I went straight to Charley Eiseman's Bugtracks where he describes two more eurytomid wasp species that are known to parasitize Hemadas nubilipennis exclusively,  Eurytoma solenozopheriae and Sycophila vacciniicola.  This is where it gets really weird.  He goes on to say:

"Eupelmus vesicularis (Eupelmidae) has also been reared from these galls, and by contrast is one of the least host-specific chalcidoids–its known hosts include six different orders of insects.  It is thought to have been introduced from Europe in straw, and the list of host species in North America is said to be “tiresomely long.”

So of my gall emergences so far this year, one in four has been the actual gall inducer, and the rest have been parasitoid wasps.  I think this is pretty representative of what’s going on out there–there seem to be more parasitoids than anything else.  Hemadas nubilipennis galls are multi-celled, so it will be interesting to see what else comes out of the ones I collected." - Charley Eiseman

We haven't identified many blueberry plants in our valley and I wonder how the wasp found a victim.  We will start looking more carefully for other plants.  Details on the lowbush blueberry are at llinoiswildflowers.info.  For an interesting history of the blueberry stem gall read pages 14-17 of this 1981 Ospry newsletter.
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Some of the findings from MN Wildflower Walk I are at this link.  WW II (not the war) is on April 14th at 1PM.