Bloomlist for May 9, 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.

Near the start of the path is a Speckled Alder (Alnus incana), whose blooms are perennially confusing.

This Univ. of Wisconsin link helps a lot, though.
They say:

This shrub is one of the first “wild” plants to flower each spring (usually only Silver Maple and Skunk Cabbage bloom earlier). It has long male “catkins" which open very early and shorter female catkins which mature over summer and, after dropping their seeds, persist into the next year. The leaves have not begun to emerge when the plant is in flower.

So we missed the buds because of the shrub’s height, and are now looking at new male catkins and last year’s females. Hard to see them against the Red Maple samaras in the background.

A miraculous time of year for the Interrupted Fern, which is looking very macabre in Bonnie’s picture (left). They’re really in their prime at this moment, compared to a week or so from now when the sori will start shedding spores and begin looking a bit moth-eaten.

Below is a group of white-petaled Bluets (Houstonia caerulea) to the right of the patch of pale blue ones. I'm pretty sure I’ve never seen these before, and I haven't found a separate species variety for them.








We may have missed a Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) around no. 13, as it was in that area last year for a couple of weeks. It's also possible that one or more of them can be found on the left side of the path between 5 and 7.

There’s some distinctive red galls (below) on a couple of small trees, which I didn't think to identify at the time, nor probably couldn’t have anyway.

One website describes them this way:

Spindle galls, caused by the mite Eriophyes emarginatae, are red spindle-like structures of leaf material caused by the mites feeding within. These tiny mites begin feeding as soon as cherry leaves expand in the spring. Although they can occur in large numbers, the galls will not stop leaves from photosynthesizing, and the trees will put out new leaves after mites are inactive. 

Wiki lists various Eriophyes spp. here, and different trees associated with these mites (e.g., maples, chokecherry, black cherry, linden, lime trees) are mentioned in various places. The Department of Agriculture put out a comprehensive monograph on them with lots of pictures, but I still can't pinpoint the one we saw this afternoon. Maybe it's the guy on the right.....









Here’s the Northern Bayberry stage we’re at now, which is decidedly not "in bloom" yet.

We're thinking that these are actually leaf buds along the branches under hefty clusters of opened leaves at the tops of stems.

But check out the stages of flower buds and blooms below right (from this website), particularly the one in the center, which shows the leafy top cluster looking the same as ours and decidedly free of leaves down the branch below it:







In the Woods, there’s a very beautiful Large-flowered Trillium (T. grandiflorum) visible from the path uphill from the Foamflowers area, in among the Witch-hazels. There are also some Smooth Yellow Violets (V. pensylvanica), matching all the characteristics in Peterson: stemmed with untoothed stipules, basal leaves and lacking the fine hairs of the Downy. But they hybridize, he says.

We may also have in The Woods what Peterson calls a Large-leaved Violet (V. incognita). Unlike the Cream Violet (V. striata) on WFI, this one is stemless. Efloras.org stipulates the V. incognita is synonymous with V. blanda, though it says further down the page that the taxonomy is as yet "currently unresolved":

[The incognita] is said to have pubescent leaf blades, greenish peduncles, nontwisted lateral petals, and a preference for moister habitats. Most of these characters fall within the range of variation observed in V. blanda. N. H. Russell (1965) noted that V. incognita is principally found in glaciated areas whereas V. blanda is found in nonglaciated areas.

Our area is glaciated. By the way, Peterson’s Sweet White Violet (V. blanda) has reddish stems and upper leaves twisted. GoBotany shows the reddish stems (right), our plant has green stems.

The North American Native Plant Society has a Large-leaved White Violet (V. blanda var. palustriformis), but not wishing to go down any further rabbit holes, I’m sticking for now with Peterson’s name: Large-leaved Violet (V. incognita).



These are the flowers of the Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor), which I suspect were blooming last week as well judging by the the thinness of the inflorescence.

Ithaca.com has an interesting discussion of trees and pollen here:

A pollen grain is a protein coat around the genetic material of the male plant. These proteins vary by species and some are more reactive with human immune systems. Some of the trees that most commonly give people problems are oaks, maples, and elms, although the list of “the worst” is much longer. Our immune response, said Pritts, is basically a flawed response to a perceived poison. With an allergic response “a body can’t distinguish between harmful and not harmful,” he said. “Over a long period evolution might straighten this out."