Bloomlist for May 16, 2019

    This week's bloomlist for Wildflower Island is at the end of the post, and Bonnie's pictures
    can be found HERE. Peterson names are used for consistency wherever possible, and comments
    and clarifications are welcome in the comments section.

Swan babies have arrived! In the picture, one of them is to the left of the smaller adult in the water.

Just as you step onto the Island, there’s more signs of new life. A Highbush Blueberry ravaged mercilessly by the beavers is sprouting ton of new shoots.

Turning to the Phlox family, Illinois Wildflowers is so helpful in differentiating between Greek Valerian and Jacob’s-ladder — except in nomenclature, because they use the name “Jacob’s Ladder” for Polemonium reptans, which Peterson assigns to Greek Valerian. But very useful in its discussion are these points:

This is a rather floppy plant … with a distinctive appearance. The only other species that resembles it, Polemonium vanbruntiae [Peterson’s Jacobs-ladder], which is native to some of the Eastern States . . . [Jacob’s-ladder] is more erect in habit, and it has slightly larger flowers with exerted stamens . . . usually a darker shade of blue.

Importantly, P. reptans has “5 stamens with white anthers, and a pistil with a slender white style that becomes tripartite toward its tip . . . The stamens are the same length as, or shorter than, the petals of the flowers.” The stems of the P. reptans are green to reddish-green.


Perhaps the diagram on the right will help:
According to Wiki, the stigma (with a style at the tip) extends beyond the 5 anthers, as you can see in Bonnie’s picture from last week below left. Apparently, that makes self-pollinating difficult, mandating cross-pollination by insects.

To bring this point home, in the Jacob's-ladder, it’s the stamens, not the style and its stigma, that extrude way beyond the petals, as in the picture from the USDA on the below right. We do not have J.L. (P. van-bruntiae) on the Island.

 



A word about the very young Scotch Pine (Pinus sylvestris) we’ve seen growing bigger for the past few years. It’s in front of the boulder on the right side of the path near the Field Pussytoes. These new growths are called “candles,” and some people pinch them halfway so the plant fills itself out better (described here).

Below right is the white and fluffy, but hidden flower of the Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense), which you can't show anybody because it's too hard to get to. We're wondering why the Mottled Wild Ginger (Asarum shuttleworthii) hasn't bloomed at all this year.

More on the Northern Bayberry (Morella/Myrica pensylvanica) discussion from last week, trying to figure out whether the tiny growths along the branches were leaf buds or flowers. I believe now that they are flowers.

The Missouri Botanical website says the Bayberry is:

A mostly dioecious shrub (male and female flowers appear in separate catkins on separate plants). Neither catkin is showy, with only the male flowers displaying color (drab yellowish-green). Flowers on female plants, if pollinated, are followed by attractive clusters of tiny, grayish-white fruits in late summer which usually persist through the winter, but are not particularly showy. The fruits are covered with an aromatic, waxy substance which is used to make bayberry candles, soaps and sealing wax.

Here on the left is a picture of the blooms on the staminate (male) plant, and on the right are male and female flowers from a Cape May Identification guide:

  

I believe we have a female plant — obviously we do, since we always see the berries later on — and I'm thinking these protuberances along the stem in Bonnie's picture below are the female flowers, with tiny hairs sticking out of their tips.



In The Woods it was exciting to see the Long-spurred Violet (Viola rostrata) again. Below right is where you can find that patch; the picture was taken looking up the Witch-hazel hill, you can see the gate to the parking lot in the left top background.







The Hooked Buttercup (Ranunculus recurvatus) is blooming at the Waterfall Bridge. The name comes from the seeds, which is described on the website of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden.  It says that at the base of the petals “is a ring of numerous stamens with yellow anthers which surround a green receptacle of pistils that lack styles.”

That “receptacle” is described by Illinois Wildflowers as a “dense green cluster of pistils" (see the picture below) that become "transformed into a dense cluster of flat-sided achenes with slender hooked beaks.”

On the right is a close-up from the Minnesota Wildflowers website, and there are some other greatly detailed pictures at that link, including the downward curving sepals (ergo recurvatus).




I wouldn’t say what grows on both sides of the bridge to the Island is the Common Duckweed (Lemna minor) species, but it’s definitely Duckweed, and I have unfortunately only just discovered that it is, in fact, a flowering plant. Not that you can see the actual flowers, they’re so small. It’s in the Arum (Araceae) family, all of whose members have a spadix like the Jacks.

Wiki says "Flowers are rarely produced and measure about 1 mm in diameter, with a cup-shaped membranous scale containing a single ovule and two stamens. The seed is 1 mm long, ribbed with 8-15 ribs."

Bonnie's picture is on the left, and I grabbed a picture of the tiny flower from GoBotany below right:

 

I was looking for when it actually blooms, but it might be all summer and we’ll never know from looking at it from the bridge. According to Wiki again:

L. minor can grow at temperatures between [43 and 91°F]. Growth of colonies is rapid, and the plants form a carpet covering still pools when conditions are suitable. In temperate regions, when temperatures drop below [42°F], small, dense, starch-filled organs called 'turions' are produced. The plants then become dormant and sink to the ground for overwintering. The following spring, they restart growing again and float back to the surface.

If someone knows more about its bloom, please jump in. I hate to put it on the list when I actually can’t see the flowers.