Finger Gall Inquiliines

We found some of these elm leaf finger galls on a tree beside our deck measuring up to 15 mm long.  With a magnifier I could see that  each had an exit hole. so I cut into a few to see their internal structure.  Under magnification I was surprised to find tiny creatures visible only under magnification, living in the hollowed galls.  These are either inquilines or new inhabitants using the structures that have been deserted by the original occupants.  

 

This little 1mm critter was inside a gall and I couldn't tell if it was an eriophyid mite that caused the gall or another visitor.  It wiggled its butt but didn't crawl around.

This 3mm beetle had found a home in another finger gall.  You can compare it to the dark stained exit hole on the bottom of the gall.  I always wonder what they might find to eat.

You can see these two 3mm flies were crawling around, not particularly disturbed by having their home cut open.  They never did fly away and were still near the gall an hour later moving around at this Youtube link that I filmed with a Celestron MicroCapture Pro digital microscope.  

There are two takeaway lessons in this:

1. Looking closely you can find lots of life in small spaces.  To quote Dee Morgan, "Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them, and little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum."
2. I have way too much time on my hands. 

There is more on elm leaf finger galls at this link.

Exploring a Little Gem

 

The 5th grade WOLF class explored La Petite Gemme Prairie last week with their usual vigor. We found lots of the usual suspects and some great new finds.  One of my favorites was the beauty above that was on the prairie roses in great numbers. These occurred in small 1-3 foot clumps scattered across the prairie.  This is Carolina rose, Rosa carolina.  This prairie rose is found across the US, ranging from glades, open woods, prairies, to wet soils along streams and swamps and low areas.  We commonly find these colorful leaf galls decorating them on the prairie.

These spiky balls were galls created by the spiny rose wasp gall - Diplolepis bicolor.  I split one open during the WOLF field trip in 2021 and it revealed a lively larva that was constantly jumping and impossible to photograph.  I had to settle for a frame grab from my shaky video seen here.  This year I was more organized and brought some home to open under the microscope.  This one laid dormant until I used a single hair from our dog, Duke, to touch it lightly as seen here, setting it off on a twitching spasm which lasted 5 minutes!

Much of what is written about rose galls focuses on how to get rid of these "pests."  Apparently a rose-growing purist doesn't see the same beauty as my 5th grade colleagues did on the prairie.  There are roughly 50 Diplolepis sp. which are in the Cynipid wasp family.  Their larvae induce galls on wild roses, and rarely on domestic roses.

Diplolepis sp - Charley Eiseman

The insect overwinters as a larva in the gall.  In early spring the adult wasp matures and chews out through the gall, just as the first cells of leaf tissue appear. After mating it looks for fresh expanding leaf tissue to lay eggs on. The eggs attach to 1-2 plant cells and this induces gall formation. Once hatched, the larva feeding stimulates gall growth even more. This provides food and shelter until the next spring.  There is only one generation per year.

Diving deeper, Diplolepis sp. have their own special problems.  While safely hiding in the gall, there are interlopers that can move in with them.  Most Diplolepis galls are known to host inquilines - species that invade and occupy a gall but do not feed on the larva. They may however harm the larva by competing for their resources like a hungry roommate.

As if life wasn't tough enough,  Diplolepis species and their inquilines can be attacked by a wide variety of parasitoid wasp species.  With this complex intra-gall food chain, I no longer feel bad about opening mine up.  

Prairie Crayfish

This year we had several other personal firsts.   In the classroom we had talked about the prairie crayfish which burrow tunnels down to water level sometimes as far as 6 feet below the surface.  Three different student teams found dead crayfish on the ground around their deserted burrows.

Oblonged-winged Katydid - MDC

 

My personal highlight was a pink katydid.  I have read about them for years but it took sharp-eyed WOLF students (who are incidentally built lower to the ground) to actually capture one.  We commonly find the green form and the pink-yellow-orange variants are common in prairies but are thought to be eaten by predators because of their lack of camouflage as explained by MDC here.  We couldn't get good pictures through a plastic bug box and all living finds are returned to the prairie unharmed.

Finally, a popular if not rare find was this ornate box turtle seen in this video plowing through the dense vegetation which must feel like a forest to it.  It is either looking for insects and an occasional berry for dinner or possibly looking for love.

Barb and I are privileged to go on a field trip with young eyes.  They see more and are more inquisitive, leading us to see a fresh view of a prairie.  More on the WOLF School is at this link.  La Petite Gemme Prairie is owned and protected by the Missouri Prairie Foundation, one of 32 protected prairie remnants.  More past prairie adventures in these blogs.

Micromoths of May

Umber moth- Hypomecis umbrosaria

May is the start of moth season on Bull Creek.  Leaving the porch light on Sunday night called in a haul of micromoths.  My definition is a moth less that an inch long.  The umber moth above is a good example, common, underappreciated and with little information the lifecycle.  It is in the Geometridae family whose name come from the inchworm larvae that seem to measure the earth as they crawl along.  There is another similar moth more common to the north which requires dissection to differentiate, so this is good enough for me.

Curved-lined angle moth

The curved-lined angle moth, Digrammia continuata, is another geometrid moth. This one has larvae feasting on our eastern red cedars.  This is another common find on the wall of our deck.  Its larva grows to 29mm, virtually an "inch-worm" before pupating in the soil over winter.  Soon they will be laying eggs on cedar trees, preparing for another year.

Small Necklace Moth

The small necklace moth, Hypsoropha hormos, is distinctive but like many of these micromoths, there isn't much on them easily available.  For me, the thrill is in the chase through INaturalist and other resources.  With a deep dive I found that their host plant is sassafras.

 

 

Below is it's cousin, the large necklace moth, Hypsoropha monilis.

Large Necklace Moth

Banded tiger moth

This banded tiger moth, Apantesis vittata, is a common find this time of year.  It is a beauty and we will be seeing them over several months.  They feed on a variety of herbs including dandelion.  Their bright aposematic colors help them ward off predators by signaling that they might have a bitter taste, (although no entomologist has reported tasting them).

Spcekled Lactura

Finally we have the speckled lactura, Enaemia subfervens. They feed on bumelia and are very common visitors on our porch.

There were several other species higher up that I couldn't get good photographs of.  You might try leaving your porch light on to see what comes in.  We also find occasional wing fragments on the ground suggesting that we are feeding other wildlife.

Derecho

Bull Mills derecho - May 8, 2009

Our own Master Naturalist and retired Springfield meteorologist, Drew Albert, offers a series of monthly columns in the Springfield Daily Citizen on weather trends in the Ozarks.  This month's column gives a great description of derechos and how they develop at this link.  The National Weather Service defines them here.

"A derecho (pronounced similar to "deh-REY-cho") is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to the strength of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term "straight-line wind damage" sometimes is used to describe derecho damage. By definition, if the wind damage swath extends more than 240 miles (about 400 kilometers) and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph (93 km/h) or greater along most of its length, then the event may be classified as a derecho."

Some of you may recall the major derecho that swept through the Ozarks on May 8, 2009 which is written up on here on Wikipedia. Here is his description of the storm when it moved east into the Springfield area.  The pictures here are from our forest above Bull Creek at that time. 

Root wad 6' tall

"Storms shifted east into the Springfield area by around 8 a.m. with continued fury. In addition to the wind gusts up to 90 mph along the leading edge of the storms, a small-scale circulation known as a mesoscale convective vortex (MCV) developed, which aided in producing additional intense storm activity including strong winds, large hail, and tornadoes. This feature prolonged the period of damaging winds by an hour in some cases. Like the Joplin area, damage to homes was common, and widespread power outages occurred."

 

We had major damage, especially to large trees on the ridges.  A striking feature is whether trees were broken trunks or uprooted, they all fell in exactly the same direction.  There were over 60 trees downed that were 12" or greater in diameter.  Younger trees with diameters less that 10" tended to survive the straight line winds, protected by their taller neighbors.  It was difficult to walk through the forest and my chainsaw and tractor worked there for several years simply clearing the trails.  

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

Five years later in 2014, I contacted Frances Main, our MDC forester, looking for some way of using the downed wood.  Most of it was a half mile up a rather steep trail, a challenge to most vehicles.  She got me in touch with Ed Hultgren and a crew of volunteer wood cutters which does charity wood harvests.

They would donate their time to cut, split and deliver firewood to families that heat with wood but have neither the source or the financial resources to obtain fuel at the present.  They had been collecting our downed wood now for several years.  This year he and Steve Prine planned a big charity harvest and coincidentally there was a sudden shortage of propane for heating throughout the area.

Young work horse

Saturday was the big day, with around 14 wood cutters arriving from Cabool, Carthage, Arkansas, Mississippi, and four "Okies from Muskogee," many of whom were professional timbermen.  I use the term Okies with the greatest respect as they were great guys, big, strong and especially because all of them were holding chainsaws.  They brought four powerful wood splitters, a UTV with a power dump back, and an unbelievable collection of chain saws.  Four of them brought their kids who worked hard hauling wood to the splitters and moving the split wood onto the six big trailers Ed had borrowed.

When Steve said he would bring a "collection of saws," Barb said he just meant backup saws as "no one would collect chainsaws."  Knowing "men and boys and the price of their toys" in a world where Harbor Freight acts as an adult Toys-R-Us, I respectfully disagreed.  It turns out that for once I was right.  Steve alone has over 90, most of which are operational. Almost everyone there collected chainsaws to some degree and all had several brands on hand, both modern and historic, switching between them just for fun.

A real man's chainsaw

We had a lot of logs previously hauled out of the woods by tractor, enough to keep them busy I thought.  This backlog lasted until about 11 AM and from then on we were dragging logs out as crews plunged into the woods with abandon. Several dead trees were felled, always leaving lots standing as future housing for wildlife.

They harvested 7 huge trailers full of split firewood as well as other large piles which would be loaded onto the trailers once they are emptied.  By late afternoon several loads had been delivered to families which heat with wood but don't have the resources to obtain wood or buy it.  With a sudden shortage of propane, the timing couldn't be better.  For that reason, to my surprise, KY3 showed up to film the event, arranged for by the organizers of the cut, Steve Prine and Ed Hultgren.

Ordinarily I enjoy running a chainsaw and cutting up logs but that Saturday my role was as the greeter, photographer, and chief log-dragger using my tractor to back into the woods and drag out logs to the cutters and splitters.  Besides, I was a little embarrassed displaying my "little" Stihl 260 saws which looked like they were made by Mattel compared to their monsters.

Homemade splitter

The boys were cute and hard working, hauling cut logs that I would find intimidating. Each had his dad's work ethic with a little mischief thrown in.  There were undoubtedly a lot of snoring kids headed toward Muskogee and Cabool that night.

By Tuesday morning, 8 loads had been delivered to families in need, and the wood pictured below is some of the next loads which are being scheduled.  Ed's crews have delivered 693 pickup truck loads in the last 5 years as the program has grown and I can't guess at how many they packaged that Saturday.

You can see more on the 2014 firewood harvest in this KY3 video news report.  There is one error in the video- no firewood was sold, only delivered by volunteers to those in need.

 

 

Here is Drew Albert's personal story on the 2009 storm. 

"I was home on a day off on Friday morning.  I had worked an overnight shift the morning before.  Because my sleep schedule was off, I got up at 5AM and watched this storm roll in.  When I saw the wind reports at Joplin I filled the tub and large containers with water and moved the car to an open spot away from trees.

We were lucky because our house sits in some lower terrain, we had no roof damage. All our neighbors had at least some. No power until sometime the next day. The bad news was three large trees fell and blocked our way out to the road. Chain saws came out, but it took until afternoon before we and our two neighbors could get out."

If you didn't read Drew's Springfield Daily Citizen column on derechos and how they form at the start of this blog, here is the link again.  SDC link.

-----------------------------

More on the subject at these links from Drew.

Good video from an eye witness: Derecho Tales - Logger Larry May survives tornado - YouTube
And an excellent article here: (foresthistory.org)

Callery Cedar

 

Note:   This is an update to a blog story started in 2018 with a chance find of a callery pear tree growing out of a eastern red cedar.

 

2018:  

Barb called me a few weeks ago to tell me that she had found a Callery pear tree (think Bradford) next door that was growing out of the trunk of an eastern red cedar.  I won't go on to say what I thought at the time as she edits this blog.  As I trust her fully I only said, "Oh?"

 

Pear above junction with the parent cedar.

When I got home I went out to see it for myself.  Indeed, there is a Callery pear tree, Pyrus calleryana, 2.5" in diameter emerging from the cedar's trunk three feet above the ground!  It is healthy and happy, approximately 12' tall and in full bloom.  The cedar appears healthy and is the same height as its mates along the line.

Cedar limb scar with Callery pear exiting above - Click to enlarge

Base of pear - Click to enlarge

Close up you can see that a branch was sawed off years ago.  The Callery emerges from the top edge of the scar, which is 3" in diameter, on a 9" DBH (diameter at breast height) cedar.  There is no visible opening to suggest a cavity where a seed might have fallen in the past. 

The first thought might be that it was grafted.  Bradford pears like all other flowering broad-leaf trees are angiosperms and can't be grafted onto gymnosperms such as junipers and pines.  (Technically, our "eastern red cedars" are not cedars, they are junipers, Juniperus virginica.)

The current consensus** of several forestry people is that some time in the past fifteen or so years a bird passed a seed onto the branch and it landed in a crack in it.  Perhaps the bird's feces provided it a little nutrition and a break in the cedar bark allowed some water to collect.  A big question remains - does its roots extend to the ground or is it getting its nutrition from the cedar itself?  I hope to protect it until someone can study its vascular connection to either the cedar or roots extending into the ground.  Regardless of the details it certainly was a one in a million occurrence.

Callery pear trees were brought to the US in 1916 from China to combat fire blight in the common fruit pear (Pyrus communis).  Once they were found to be relatively resistant, 100 pounds of seeds were imported to develop a resistant genotype.  Over the years more seeds from across China, Japan and Korea were collected and made available to nurseries.

In 1952, the ornamental possibilities of one particular vigorous, thornless tree were recognized, and cuttings of it were grafted onto P. calleryana seedlings.  After 8 years of successful testing in nearby neighborhoods they were named "Bradford."  They are unable to self-pollinate, therefore the trees, by themselves, couldn't set fruit. Their vigor was described by USDA plant explorer Frank Meyer in 1918 who had first collected the seeds.

"Pyrus calleryana is simply a marvel. One finds it growing under all sorts of conditions; one time on dry, sterile mountain slopes; then again with its roots in standing water at the edge of a pond; sometimes in open pine forest, then again among scrub on blue-stone ledges in the burning sun; sometimes in low bamboo-jungle...and then again along the course of a fast flowing mountain stream or on the occasionally burned-over slope of a pebbly hill."

When a species is described as thriving in any condition, tolerating all enemies, and like Superman "able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound" you are describing an invasive species.  Soon there were several cultivars produced across the country and when they were planted together as my dad would have said, "up jumped the devil."

A cultivar with striking leaf color in Oregon became Autumn Blaze. Aristocrat, from seedlings growing at a nursery near Independence, Kentucky, had a strong central leader with horizontal branches and an early pyramidal form, more sturdy that the somewhat fragile Bradford.  Chanticleer, cloned from a street tree in Cleveland, Ohio, was named the 2005 Urban Tree of the Year by the Society of Municipal Arborists.

"Callery in a Cedar Tree" -  Click to enlarge

This was all well and good as they weren't self-pollinating but soon innocent insect species began moving pollen between different cultivars planted a few hundred feet apart. Their offspring began creating their own hybrids that could reproduce.  It was as though the individual varieties that had occurred natively in China had all moved into the same neighborhood and had a giant angiosperm orgy.

3 new branches 2020 - Click to enlarge

 

 

 

 

I would nominate Callery pears as our most invasive plant species, pending the discovery of garlic mustard growing on the back of a zebra mussel.  I am proposing naming this Callery/cedar tree shown above, Juniperus calleryana var. Barbarae, in honor of the discoverer.
==========

 

Update 2020

Now two years later there are three branches growing out the other side of the trunk as well.  The cedar is otherwise healthy looking.

New Callery growth 12" from the cedar base

Update September 2021  

New growth -Click to enlarge

Continued growth of all the original branches (red arrow) with two new small branches growing out  of the bottom two feet of trunk on the other side.  Also, a new growth with leaves coming out of the soil one foot from the base of the tree (lower right arrow).  While that could be a separate seedling there aren't any others in the surrounding area.  This would seem to settle the question of nutrition as the Callery now has roots in the ground through the cedar trunk!

There are now 26 cultivars of Callery pears. Twelve of these are currently being sold. The Missouri Invasive Plant Council will be making an effort to cease the sale.

========================  
Update-- April 10, 2023

This report is from a site visit by Dr. James Guldin.*

"That Callery pear growing from a knothole in the eastern red cedar is a fine demonstration of adaptive physiology on the part of the pear. It takes some imagination to describe how the pear can coexist with the red cedar.  It also takes some thought to account for how the pear tree gets enough nutrients and water to develop into a 3” diameter stem growing out of that knothole in the red cedar that is 4 ft above the ground.

The availability of nutrients is the easier question. When rain flows down the stem of a tree, the water in the stem flow is enriched by nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and the micro-nutrients that a tree needs to survive, no doubt by leaching those nutrients from the bark. That flow of nutrient-enriched rainwater down the stem of the red cedar finds its way into the holes, nooks, and crannies into the dark interior of the host tree. The roots of the pear got their start in those nooks and crannies, and by now have developed to utilize the macro- and micro-nutrients that the pear needs to grow.

But to me, the availability of water is the larger question. How do the twigs of a Callery pear stem look vigorous today, and flowering today, without any apparent contact with the ground to provide the water that the above ground stem needs to grow and thrive? There are two possible answers.

One, the roots of the Callery pear are also 3-4 feet above the ground, embedded in the decayed core of the red cedar, and the stem flow of water into the nooks and crannies into the punky decayed core of the red-cedar may provide all the water the pear stem requires. In the spring, I can buy into that hypothesis. But in the summer, even the decayed wood in the red cedar will become dry as dust, and I doubt the stem of the pear could drink up the water it needs on a daily basis from dry punky rotten wood. The stem would have died before we saw it today.

Two, more likely I think, is this—the roots of the Callery pear have wiggled, writhed, slithered, and otherwise grown downward through the decayed center of the decayed stem of the red cedar into the soil, below the root collar of the red cedar. If this is the case, the pear would be able to suck up the water it needs from the soil below and around its red cedar nurse tree. It might even continue to grow and thrive into, well, maybe a 3” diameter stem that’s flowering and showing twig elongation—as this stem is doing.

If this tree is ever cut for some residential purpose, a close look at the stem analysis would show whether the roots of the pear have made grown into the soil at the bottom of the stem of the red cedar." 

Dr. James Guldin is a recently retired forest scientist (University of Arkansas and US Forest service).  He serves on the board of the L-A-D Foundation.
=============

Callery pears and their 'Bradford' kin are now spreading wild and are considered possibly the greatest invasive plant species threat in Missouri.  In the words of Nathan Muenks* of MDC:

"It’s difficult to truly determine which invasive species is most impactful, but Callery pear sure ranks up there with bush honeysuckle, sericea lespedeza, spotted knapweed, feral hogs and a few others. The reason being that it I would consider it an “ecosystem changer.” Given its ability to invade many of Missouri’s habitat types (whether open or wooded) and the fact that it forms such dense thickets, it has the ability to drastically out-compete native flora and drive away native fauna by creating unusable space for them. It not only grows dense, it also grows quickly. In addition, it’s a tree, vs. bush honeysuckle and others, so it can tower into the upper mid-story – what hope do our native, slower growing trees have in competing for resources and regenerating our native forests and woodlands?

There is no doubt bush honeysuckle and other invasives are much more widely distributed and affecting more natural communities at this time, but there is a strong fear that Callery pear is on a very similar trajectory. While in St. Louis yesterday, I noticed that bush honeysuckle and Callery pear tended to do just fine growing together, with honeysuckle dominating the low under-story and the Callery pear towering above it – SCARY! Is this the future of Missouri’s landscape? It could very well be if we don’t halt the invasion and join in this fight together!"

*Nathan Muenks is the Habitat Management Coordinator with the Missouri Department of Conservation.  This includes coordinating the Department’s terrestrial invasive species management efforts.

Dragonhunter

Gala Keller sent us this photograph of a huge dragonhunter larva she found on their stream.  It was left "high and dry" on their creek path when the flood water receded.  This MDC Field Guide has lots of information on dragonfly larvae but lets look at a few of the highlights.

Adult dragonhunter - Donald Lake on Wikimedia

The dragonhunter, Hagenius brevistylus, is the largest of the clubtail dragonflies in the US and the only member of that genus.  Adults feed on large insects including other dragonflies and darners.  They are known to feed on monarch butterflies, eating the thorax and abdomen first to avoid the greatest concentration of the toxins acquired from feeding on milkweeds. 

Typical dragonfly nymph - MDC

Now about dragonfly larvae aka nymphs in general, and a few "fun facts." Note to self- spending too much time talking with 5th grade WOLF Students!

• The larvae are all aquatic and live in the stream bed until they molt into flying adults.
• They are ambush predators of small aquatic animals, using their lower scoop like jaw which covers most of the bottom part of their heads.
• They have a chunky body with large eyes.
• "Gills are located inside the rectum (unlike those of damselflies, which extend from the hind end like 3 leaf like tails). They breathe by drawing water in and out of their hind end. talk about bad breath!  By forcefully expelling this water, the animal can also move quickly in a form of jet propulsion."  You can see it "exhale" at the last of this video by our own Linda Bower.     Now wasn't that fun?
  
•  The nymphs undergo several molts which can occur over several years. They finally crawl out of the water to a safe place, shed their skin, and emerge as a young adult. In the next days or week, they complete their maturation.

For more on Dragonfly and damselfly action check out our Linda Bower's Nature in Motion videos.

Backyard Heron

Our fellow Master Naturalist Jean Parker sent us this story of a blue heron in her backyard.

_____________________________________

I saw a blue heron in my backyard today. He was at my pond. Again! Last year he emptied my pond of 13 fish, including some 5-7 inch ones! He did it all in ONE afternoon when I was out. I did some research back then and found they LOVE backyard ponds. Makes their job so much easier...like shooting fish in a barrel...
 

I live in the middle of a suburb and find it curious that this huge bird flies our city skies.

Jean's pond

 

I restocked the pond and placed some old netting I had over the pond. No more fatalities! But he returns without fail, just in case. This time I shooshed him away and he flew to the top of my shed and stayed there for about half an hour. No matter what I did he ignored me. He knew my feeble earthbound limits.

Their feeding habits are described in abcbirds.org:

"The Great Blue Heron will eat whatever it can catch with its formidable bill: fish, crustaceans, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals, and birds — especially ducklings. It usually forages alone, locating food by sight. Once a Great Blue Heron spots a meal, it strikes quickly, straightening its long, powerful neck and grabbing its quarry with its spear-like bill, then swallowing it whole. Excellent night vision allows this versatile wading bird to hunt in darkness as well as in daylight."

Not a fish! - Joe Motto

According to North American Native tradition, the Blue Heron brings messages of self-determination and self-reliance. They represent an ability to progress and evolve. The long thin legs of the heron reflect that an individual doesn't need great massive pillars to remain stable, but must be able to stand on one's own.

Editor's note:
The description of GBH feeding is right on. Some years ago I pulled up to our Bull Creek crossing and saw a great blue heron at the end of our swimming hole. I rolled down the truck window, zoomed in with my telephoto, and snapped five quick shots.   I was surprised with my luck capturing this series.

Regarding their broad range of food choices, my bird photographer friend Joe Motto captured the one above choosing a red meat diet. Swallowed whole, that must have been one interesting poop!