Myrmecochory

Myrmecochory (pronounced: muhr-muh-koh-KOR-ee) is the dispersal of fruits and seeds by ants.

I love this word! I have written about this phenomenon with two other plants, bleeding heart and trillium. The seeds have a white, oil-rich appendage known as an elaiosome, which is attractive to ants. They will collect the seed to eat the elaiosome and then discard the seed, thus helping to disperse it.

This one is the seed of the inside-out flower. The pods split open and curl back into interesting, wavy shapes revealing beautiful red seeds nestled in foamy white elaiosomes. I imagine it being a delicate French pastry on a tray in the case of a bakery in Paris.

I put these seeds on a well-traveled ant trail and they immediately were attracted to them. The interesting part is that they remove the elaiosome in pieces and carry it off. They don’t take the seed with the elaiosome attached back to the nest. I watched them for an hour and a half today dismantle one of the elaiosomes. They had nearly trimmed it all off the seed, but I didn’t see it to the end. It started to rain and I was getting a little chilly. I wasn’t quite prepared for the weather so I left. There were always ants tugging at the elaiosome in every direction so it seemed impossible that one might transport it back to the nest.

When I watched ants tear open the pods of the trillium two years ago, they also took the elaiosome off the seed and left the seed there. They didn’t transport it back to the nest to remove the elaiosome. That same year I took the bleeding heart seeds and put them on the same ant highway, the ants took them away within a minute without first removing the elaiosome from the seed. I’ll see if I can find some bleeding heart seeds and try them again to see what happens.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I hope to see you out there.

Orange Honeysuckle

Small trumpets blare, announcing the warmth and luminosity of summer. Its harmonious tangle of vines weaves through the dappled light of the understory, splashing rays of tangerine. Its sweet scent and brightness attract its pollinators. The berries ripen red and form a cluster nestled by the terminal leaves. Daniel Mathews aptly writes, “the uppermost pair of opposite leaves modified into a single fused leaf—often shaped like a very full pair of lips—with the stem passing through the middle.” I often see chickadees eating the berries.

The vines can climb up small trees and shrubs that develop thickets of vegetation that provide a hideaway for a bird’s nest, such as a hummingbird (Blogpost 05/02/2022).

Iris Opening

The iris plunges forth.
A watercolor brush
dipped in violet.
The pigment seeping
into its pulse,
ready to dab its radiance
onto the complexion of spring.

Winter is Springing

Even though winter has just begun, many plants are slowly beginning to sprout and grow in the hillside forest and the wetlands. The wrapped leaves of the giant trillium are pushing up through the soil. The first leaves of Nuttall’s toothwort are formed and scattered across the landscape. The paw-print-like leaves of the western snakeroot are a vibrant green. The toothed leaves of the purple snakeroot are spreading open. The feathery leaves of cicely have nudged their way up through the layers of decaying leaf litter. The waterleaf is starting to form its carpet of greenery. There are small bouquets of larkspur arranged throughout the wetlands. A patch of stinging nettles is starting to develop.

I love all of the different shapes and shades of green.

Common Knotweed

It hasn’t rained in a dog’s age. It is dry as a bone. This old road through the South meadow was traveled by farm equipment for years and many people walk on it daily. It’s compacted hard as a rock. It is gravelly and bakes in the full sun. It seems unlikely that any plant would grow here. That said, common knotweed grows on the road, is green, and blooming.

It grows in these fairly dense flat mats. The stems radiate from a central, knot-like structure and maybe that is the origin of its common name. It has small green leaves, and the flowers are white. It produces a plethora of seeds. I often see dark-eyed juncos congregating on the road in the fall and winter eating the seeds.

It is not a beautiful, showy plant, but it got my attention because of the location of where it grows and its hardiness.

Pacific Sanicle

This plant grows everywhere in the arboretum. It is also known by the common Western Snakeroot. From what I read on the internet, apparently, this plant was used to help with snakebites. The Latin name for this plant is Sanicula crassicaulis. Sanicula comes from the Latin sanare which means to heal (Nature Collective). At the moment, I didn’t find any information on the medicinal qualities of this plant online.

It has yellow flowers (sometimes tinged purple) that are in small, compact, rounded clusters. These flowers are not showy and are probably passed over by most people. I watched a decent-sized patch of this plant the other day for a little while and the only insects I saw visiting it were weevils and one lady beetle. Actually, most of these plants had weevils on them. How does this plant fit into the life cycle of weevils? I expected to find more small insects visiting this flower considering how abundant it is. It is interesting that some plants like Pacific Sanicle have such small flowers that are mostly unnoticeable. Why have they evolved to be so small?

Resources
“Pacific Sanicle.” Nature Collective, https://naturecollective.org/plant-guide/details/pacific-sanicle/. Accessed 14 May 2023.

Dandelion Seeds

I love seeing dandelion seeds spill from the seed head and being carried off in the wind.

The book Reader’s Digest North American Wildlife writes this about dandelions: “No weed is more successful than the dandelion. Its leaves exude an ethylene gas that discourages competition. A small fragment of its gluttonous taproot will grow into a new plant. Its parachute-borne fruits can stay aloft almost indefinitely as long as the relative humidity is less than 70 percent—which means that when the humidity rises (often before a life-giving rain), dandelion seeds come to earth.”

Rant
I am not sure why there has been a campaign over decades to vilify and eradicate dandelions. The flowers, leaves, and taproot are edible and nutritious. Insects visit the flowers for nectar and pollen. I regularly see birds such as goldfinches and juncos eating the seeds. I’m sure there are many insects and small mammals that eat the seeds as well. There is absolutely no reason to create and market poisons to kill such a beautiful and beneficial plant. Moreover, every child on earth delights in picking these fluffy seed heads and blowing the seeds into the air to make a wish.

Resources
Wernert, Susan J. Reader’s Digest North American Wildlife. Updated ed, Reader’s Digest Association, 2000.

Dandelion Flower Bud

Before a dandelion opens to reveal its golden, astral luminance, it is encased in an elegant, green capsule resting on a collar of bracts bowing in reverence to the nurturing light soon to be unveiled.

Hound's Tongue & Hummingbird

While researching and creating a page in my nature journal for Pacific Hound’s Tongue, I read that this flower is one of the first to bloom in spring and a favorite among hummingbirds. Yesterday in the late afternoon, I was out at the arboretum watching this plant when my friend Patrick walked up. I told him what I just told you and at that moment a hummingbird came up to sip nectar from the flowers! I missed the photo opportunity so I decided to return the next day to try again. I showed up and sat by a small patch of these flowers in front of the visitor’s center. I had only been sitting there 15 minutes when an Anna’s Hummingbird showed up and captured these photos. I sat there for about an hour and half to two hours watching. During that time bumblebees, mason bees, and honeybees all came by looking for nectar. This is a great native plant to add to the landscape around where you live.

Goldfinch & Thistle

Clouds of downy thistle seeds have been billowing out onto the landscape and flying up into the sky. The seed is attached to an umbrella of feathers that enable it to float away in the slightest breeze. Goldfinches are on the scene to forage before the seeds sail away.

Goldfinches mainly eat seeds, but they will also supplement their diets with small fruits (elderberry and madrone) and tree buds (cottonwoods, alders, sycamores, willows, and oaks).

I think this particular plant is a bull thistle, a non-native plant. Non-native plants can be invasive, but I had to admire the cool seed head left behind after the seeds were released. It reminded me of a straw hat that Van Gogh might have painted.

In the birdseed business, Niger seeds are sold as a popular goldfinch food. Early marketing labeled this plant seed as a thistle. People wanted to capitalize on the fact that goldfinches love thistle seeds, which Niger seeds aren’t. They are a native plant to Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Malawi. They are also grown in India. You may also see the plant labeled Nyger or Nyjer on the bag of bird seed.

I wanted to mention this because I feel that it is better to grow native plants and create more habitat for birds to forage. I feel these types of small changes can have huge impacts on restoring a balance in nature. When we use native seeds, we not only create habitat, we avoid spending energy importing seeds from far away to put in our bird feeders. In addition, Niger seeds are not going to be as nutritious because they are sterilized by heat before being shipped. I am sure this is to help prevent germination and spoilage of the seed.

Summer Frost

Flowers take on a new life and beauty when they die. Looking up-close at this seed head, one is left with the impression that it is a cold, winter’s day. The transformation from a supple, colorful flower to a completely different stiff, monochromatic seed head is miraculous.

Side note
I have a photo of the flower from the side when it was in bloom, but unfortunately, it is out of focus. I’ll get one next year. Also, I didn’t notice until I looked at the photos at home, but there appears to be a golden ant on the dried seed head. What happened to that ant?

Snowberry Still Blooming

With the end of August approaching, I am surprised to see that snowberry flowers are continuing to emerge. I looked back and found that I had taken photos of it flowering in May. I see many insects visiting the blooms, and I am reminded of how valuable this native plant is as a nectar source.

Giant Trillium Seeds

The seed pod of the giant trillium forms into a capsule that turns a dark, rich purple-black. The seeds have a lipid-rich seed appendage known as an elaiosome which is an attractive food source to ants. I read that the ants will collect the seeds, take them back to their nest, remove the elaiosome and discard the seeds. This helps to disperse the seeds around the landscape.

With the seed pods I have been watching, the ants have been taking away the elaiosome and leaving the seed. The ants are small, so maybe it is easier to harvest the elaiosome on site and leave the seed. You can see some of the seeds caught in a spider web below one of the pods. So, these ants aren’t really dispersing them, besides releasing them from their pod.

I also imagined that the seed pod would mature, open, the seeds would spill out onto the ground, and then the ants would gather them. With these, it appears that the ants are tearing them open. Somehow they can sense the seeds are in there and that they are ready to harvest. Life is amazing.

Rose Checkermallow

This pink flower grows on a fairly tall flower stalk and quickly catches your eye as you walk out into the south meadow.

When I got back home and started reading about this wildflower, I saw that there were other checker mallows. In order to distinguish Sidalcea malvaflora ssp. virgata (which I think this one is) from other checker-mallows west of the Cascades, look for hairs arranged in a star pattern and the notched petals.

They have soft, long strands of hair growing at the base of the stems, while shorter strands arranged in a star pattern cover the upper portions of the stems.

This star pattern sounds cool. I am going to go back out there tomorrow to see how noticeable this feature is, and hopefully, I will be able to take a photo of it.

I will give you an update tomorrow.

Indian Plum Flowers

Indian Plums are dioecious plants, which means the male and female flowers are on different plants.

I went out over the weekend to photograph the flowers to show you. The top two photos below are male. You can see the stamens loaded with yellow pollen. The bottom two photos below are female. They have 5 pistils in the center. Interestingly, it looks like small stamens surrounding the pistils that appear to be not viable.

Another interesting characteristic about these flowers is their fragrance. The scent is described as something between watermelon rind and cat urine. There is something more to be said about that peculiarity, but I’m not sure what at the moment. It requires more research. If you have a chance to smell them, let me know what you think.

Indian-plum Blooming

The rain was soft, drizzling.
It was saturating everything.
Pendent drops of water decorated the landscape.
Humble with beauty,
graceful, white lanterns
nodded to the spirit
of Nature in gratitude—
a brief moment in time
to shine its light.

Queen Anne's Lace Seeds

The Queen Anne’s lace flower umbels have transformed into small baskets of seeds. All the spiky seeds cradled together have a spirit bursting with excitement—they are saying, “We are ready to go!” For dispersal across the landscape, the tiny, brown seeds are covered with burs. They will grab on to the fur of passing animals that brush up against them. This includes people too. There always seems to be a couple stuck on my pants or in my shoelaces.

California poppy

The perfect flower to adorn the wrap-up of summer is the California poppy.

Its warm, orange blossoms emerge to capture the last, sunny rays of the season.

A luminous token of remembrance to carry with you through the gray, rainy days of winter.

A glowing ember to spark plans for all the cool, exciting trips you will take next summer.

A keepsake tucked inside your memory to remind you of the magical cycle of the seasons.

There hasn’t been any significant rain all summer and yet the California poppy is green and blooming. It must have some strategy to store and retain water efficiently in arid conditions. I love the contrast of the delicate, soft body of the poppy and the dry, pokey grass surrounding it.

Manroot Seeds

The manroot vines were very prominent earlier in the summer as they wove their way up through the understory or created thick blankets on the ground. As the leaves and vines have dried up, they have visually receded. I have been poking around trying to find one of the fruits. Manroot is a native perennial in the gourd family, so I wanted to see what the fruit looked and felt like as it matured. Surprisingly, it was hard to find one, but I finally discovered one hanging in an osoberry shrub.

The small fruit pod was splitting open and the seeds were starting to spill out. The seeds have a look and feel of small, weathered river stones. The are round and flat with a slight curve. They were pleasant to handle as I rolled them around in my hand listening to them tumble against each other.

One of the interesting things I noticed was that the leaves, vines and tendrils of the plant were all crispy dry. However, the brown, fibrous gourd shown in the second photo that contained the seeds was still moist. It looks papery and dry in the photo, but it is actually still damp and spongy.

The dried leaves were captivating as they hung from the vines like wrinkled, folded capes. They were curiously covered in small dots. I feel that plants take on another fascinating life and energy as their color, shape and texture transform as they die.

Tiger Lily

I have been watching this plant grow for some time now, and I finally found one flowering. These nodding flowers have bursting orange tepals that open and peel backwards. They are dotted with maroon spots that resemble freckles. The leaves are arranged in whirls around the stem in various intervals.

This magical plant reminds me that there is so much diversity and beauty to behold.

Tepal
One of the divisions of a flower perianth, especially one that is not clearly differentiated into petals and sepals, as in lilies and tulips.