subjectiveday

Magnolia biondii

2012-02-26T22:18:00.000-05:00

So I'm taking a brief break from my planned adaptation/living planet themed entries to show off a few more photos... I did make it to Longwood's Orchid Show last week, and am hoping for another visit shortly so there's a post on orchids in the works, but in the meantime I have a few photos on Google+ available here if you can't wait...

Magnolia biondii

Anyway, If I haven't mentioned it earlier, Magnolias are probably my favorite genus of tree. In fact, I credit the Bigleaf Magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla) with being the plant that got me interested in horticulture, botany, and eventually Botanic Garden Curation. I'll focus on that one later this summer when it is in bloom, but suffice to say it truly challenged my perceptions of what a tree could be, and furthered my appreciation for botanical biodiversity to the extent where I became passionate about sharing these realizations with others.

Framed by a fruiting holly for reference

As far as I know, this is the first Magnolia to bloom, and with them being a tree already known for early spring flowering that should say something. Seeing Magnolia biondii begin to push out flowers in late February or early March is quite regular, though whether or not it ends up getting away with jumping the gun in this fashion varies from year to year. More often than not, winter is not quite ready to depart yet, and another cold snap causes the tree to abandon the process.

I'd seen the tree begin to break bud here at UDBG after a string of fifty degree days (which coincided with my first ride down DE Route 9 for the season), but when I saw the temperature was going to hit 60 last week I really began to take note. I've never really seen the flower do much more than break bud during my time living in New England, but given my move a little further down south as well as an unconditionally warm winter, I was in a pretty good position to see this flower fully open.

About the best I could do for a closeup... Tree is about 25' tall so
I couldn't zoom in on anything too close... this is cropped

It's definitely a smaller flower than you'd see on later spring magnolias such as the Star or Saucer Magnolia, and the tree as a whole is certainly less prolific in terms of flowering, though it's hard to say for sure if this is characteristic of the species or if this specimen is just struggling. Regardless, I think the flower itself is still interesting. Though not as showy, it is easily recognizable as that of a magnolia, probably closer to Magnolia cylindrica than anything else I've seen. Most noticeably, the pink coloration towards the base is deep, distinct, and prominent.

Maybe it's just that I've been watching Living Planet and am thinking in terms of adaptations, but I'm now puzzled by the early flowering time of this species. Is there in fact a pollinator which operates at these lower temperatures? Or is this an example of Magnolia biondii behaving differently in terms in cultivation versus the way it does in the wild? Unfortunately I don't have a book to reference at the moment as I left my copy of The World of Magnolias at school for a side project I'm working on, but I'll look into it tomorrow and see if I can come up with a better guess.

I'm not sure how much more these flowers will open, but with the weather forecast claiming 60 again tomorrow, I plan on having my camera with me most of the week. I've even spotted a few buds closer to eye level so this might not be the last we see of this tree this year.

Hopefully within the week I'll have the Orchid entry planned out... it's probably going to be a long one but I'm real happy with the photos so far so I'm thinking it will be a good one.

Fresh Water

2012-02-14T20:56:00.001-05:00

Cover art from Wikipedia

I've been rewatching The Living Planet as of late, a classic nature documentary series from David Attenborough (his second actually) which aired in the early to mid 1980s. Though visually it can't quite stack up to some of his more recent work such as Planet Earth, it is interesting to see him taking a more active on-screen role in this series including acts such as narrating the segment on the oceans while in a diving suit, experiencing zero-gravity in a plane during the segment on the skies, and climbing to the top of a canopy tree in the jungle (during which he allegedly left his microphone on, treating his crew to a mix of panic, prayer, and profanity the entire way up).

One thing that really made The Living Planet unique however was that it really focused on the adaptations that various creatures of the earth had developed in order to more successfully survive in their environment. I thought it might be interesting to pick a plant species which would grow in each of these habitats, and cover some of the adaptations or characteristics it displays which allow it to really thrive there.

The first topic covered in the series (at least on the DVD I have, a Christmas Present from my friend Dave a year or two back) is Fresh Water. I actually do have a few photos of freshwater plants which I took upon moving here when I was doing some volunteering at Longwood.

Nymphaea, the Water Lily

Obviously since this plant grows in water instead of upon land, there are a few additional challenges it faces. First off, light does not travel through water as well as air, so it would be difficult for a truly underwater leaf to photosynthesize very effectively. The way the water lily has circumvented this is to ensure that its leaves grow on the surface of the water, able to photosynthesize without losing any of the brightness of the leaf. In fact, in many aquatic plants, the chlorophyll in the leaf tends to be exclusively on the top side, though I'm not sure if this is the case in Nymphaea.

Leaves float (so long as they are alive anyway) due to air pockets within their leaves, which exist due to gas exchange taking place during photosynthesis. It is worth noting how thin and flat this leaf is however, ensuring that water is unlikely to pool up on top of the leaf and cause it to sink.

A Lotus (Nelumbo), at Blithewold

It's not merely the leaves which hold this plant up though. As you can see in the above photo, this plant does have stems connected to these leaves, which in turn connect to roots and anchor it to the bottom of the water body. The shoots tend to be hollow, decreasing their density and encouraging their floating as well.

However, this erroneously sort of portrays the plant as fearing the water. There are obviously a good deal of benefits for the plant resulting from being submerged in water. For one, water retention becomes a non-issue. Land plants have stomates (stomata) in their leaves, essentially pores for gas exchange. They try to keep these closed as much as possible to reduce transpiration. Since aquatic plants don't have to worry about drying out, their stomata tend to be open most of the time.

So, suffice to say, plants can grow just fine in the water, as long as they can keep their leaves out of it.

I actually forget what this is, but note that even though the margins of the leaves are raised, there are still "gabs" through which the water could run off were the leaf to become submerged. I think this plant may have actually had a few other tissues which aided in its floating but can't quite remember... I'll have to check back in the summer.

I'm not sure how regularly I'm going to do these (I'd like to do some more Tree ID over the next few weeks), but the next one will probably be on the Jungle, focusing on how epiphytic orchids use their roots (and probably a bit more on orchids as well as I want to get down to the Longwood Orchid show and take some pictures).

the birch

2012-02-07T20:54:00.001-05:00

I was planning on writing a bit on Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo), but the shots I took quickly on Sunday aren't quite up to the quality I'm holding myself to so I think I need to spend a little more time on that first.

However, did take some other photos over the weekend while preparing for a lab on native trees I'm teaching this semester. Though I took these more to emphasize easy identification characteristics instead of the ornamental appeal of the plant, I still think it's a good excuse to talk a little bit about one group of our native trees: the birches.

Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera)
Note the cluster of three male catkins on the end of the branch

The Paper Birch is probably the first one that comes to mind when I think of a birch tree. It's actually one of the first trees I remember being interested in as a kid. Growing up on the Vineyard I was used to seeing Black Oaks, White Oaks, Pitch Pine, Sassafras, the occasional Red Maple, and that was about it. I saw one while up in Maine one summer, and remembered being confused over how different it was than any tree I'd seen before, with the thin, papery white bark smooth and cool to the touch. Maybe still as a result of this, like many birches, I'd probably claim the bark is the most significant feature of this tree.

So if that's the case then why did I relegate it to the background in the above photo? I didn't even widen the depth of field enough to bring it remotely into focus. Well, I was trying to highlight a group of catkins (essentially clusters of petal-less flowers), as they serve as a good characteristic to distinguish it from a similar species, the Gray Birch.

Grey Birch (Betula populifolia)
With a solitary male catkin

The name Grey Birch typically refers to the bark of this species, which is evident in the photo above mostly because of the lighting. If you see these plants out in the woods together though, sometimes both the Paper Birch and Grey Birch will have sort of an off-white color to the bark making them hard to tell apart. However, on this tree the male catkins tend to be solitary, instead of clustered as in the Paper Birch.

Yellow Birch (Betula alleghaniensis)

You might also see female catkins on birches, which are a bit stouter, and generally not on the tips of the branches. If you're in doubt over whether you have a male or female catkin, try rubbing it back and forth with your fingers. The female catkins will break apart rather easily while the males won't. And of course, there are male and female catkins on this tree as there are independent male and female flowers.

Now for the next three I actually do have the bark in full focus. First up is the Yellow Birch, or Betula alleghaniensis. The botanical name of this changed at some point, so you may see Betula lutea in reference to this species. The name lutea refers to the yellow, or golden lustre to the bark of this species. Now "yellow" probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind when looking at this tree, but once you think to look for it, there is a bit of a dark golden tinge to the bark, interrupted by the pattern of thick, obvious lenticels - pores of the tree used for gas exchange.

Were you to actually scratch the thin layer of bark open, you'd pick up on a familiar somewhat sweet odor: Oil of Wintergreen. The odor will not be quite so strong however as it would be for the Sweet Birch (Betula lenta)

Sweet Birch (Betula lenta)

The Sweet Birch is a similar looking tree to that of the Yellow Birch, but lacks that golden coloration. The Oil of Wintergreen it produces serves as a flavoring agent in Birch Beer. I've never been a huge soda aficionado, so I had actually never tried this (well, or at least don't remember it) until a few years ago. It was OK. I had the Polar brand (Worcester's finest), so I'm not sure if that was the best direction to go. I'd say this tree is a little less ornamental than the other one's I've listed here, but has actually become rather important in New England ecologically speaking as it's starting to take over the forests traditionally inhabited by Eastern Hemlock, which are dying off due to the threat of Hemlock Wooly Adelgid.

River Birch (Betula nigra)

Finally, we have the River Birch, which can be readily identified by the reddish-tan colored bark, peeling off the plant with enough of a fervor to leave bare spots on the trunk. I'd say this is one of the more common birches cultivated in the landscape. For my friends in Boston, there's an aspiring grove of these about halfway down the Greenway (Somewhere between the Aquarium and the Intercontinental). They do put on a nice show in the fall when the leaves turn a brilliant yellow. I did find those trees a bit difficult to work with as I seemed to be constantly having to prune the lower branches, as well as water the trees heavily in the dead of summer, also proving difficult as the trees were planted on raised grass mounds which the water tended to roll off of. As the common name suggests, River Birches do like their water, and seeing the fall color show in mid-July can be a bit disconcerting.

Though I didn't explicit mention it throughout the article, I hope you're gaining a bit of an appreciation for some of the sight recognition tricks someone like me would use to quickly identify a birch tree while in the field. If I see a tree that I can identify as probably being a birch, to figure out which birch is a matter of asking myself a few questions: Is the bark peeling heavily? Do the twigs have a sweet soda-like smell when scratched? If so does the bark look golden? And if the bark is white, thin, and papery, how many male catkins does it display?

Next time you think you see a birch out in the woods try asking yourself the above and see what you come up with. Especially since you can't use the LeafSnap app since it's winter (though at 50 degrees again today I'm still not convinced).

and finally, the indehiscent fruits

2012-02-02T18:36:00.000-05:00


Line drawing of Common Buckwheat from wikipedia. Note the fruit in the lower right.

Unlike the dehiscent fruits, these ones do not open to release the seeds. The simplest example of an indehiscent fruit is an achene; where the fruit carries only a single seed. Importantly, though this seed may be large enough to nearly fill the small fruit, it is not attached to the pericarp and thus cracking the fruit open would cause the fruit to easily fall out. I unfortunately don't have a great photo of one right now, though achenes are generally produced by members of the Buckwheat and Buttercup Families... so if by chance you're familiar with buckwheat think of that. Many ornamental plants are in the buttercup family, including Helleborus (Lenten Rose or Hellebore) which I've seen flowering at the university so fruit can't be too far off... I'll keep an eye out.

The samara: winged achene of the maple

The rest of the dry fruits we'll talk about are all quite similar to the achene save for one or two distinctions. For example, when an achene has "wings", it is called a samara. Samaras are usually produced by trees, and are probably familiar to most as the "helicopters" produced by maple trees.

Now if we an achene, but where the seed actually does adhere to the pericarp essentially making the seed and fruit indistinguishable, it's called a caryopsis. This is common to many grains and grasses.

Finally, the last fruit type we'll cover here is the nut, which is quite similar to the achene, but has a thick "stony" wall, and develops from a flower with a compound ovary. A lot of what we consider to be nuts, at least culinary speaking, such as walnuts, are actually drupes. Acorns and hazelnuts however are examples of true botanical nuts. I'm embarrassed to admit I don't actually have any pictures of acorns right now, but I assume you're at least fairly familiar with what they look like.

Well, that should conclude our introduction to fruits. There are a few types I skipped to keep it simple, but I hope this at least gives you an overview on the diversity of fruit types as well as some of the characteristics used to distinguish them. I'll probably revisit these concepts in context if talking about a particularly ornamental fruits (much as I did with the winterberries).
Until then, if there's any botanical/horticultural questions you're curious about, go ahead and give a reply/message/contact me on Google+, whatever, and I'll try and answer it in a post!

dehiscent fruits

2012-01-30T22:01:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned earlier, there are a few more types of dry fruits... I'm going to go into nine in total. Not all at once though, since we break this larger group up a little bit based one whether the fruits are dehiscent or indehiscent (again, based on whether or not they break open to release the seeds)

Asclepias (Milkweed), a dry fruit, opening to release seeds

Ok, it's actually possible that I didn't take that photo. It was clearly taken in the North End at the Greenway, but I don't remember taking it, and it is dated 2009 which is before I really started taking photos there. Then again I do like milkweeds so it might have been me. If it wasn't me, it was almost certainly Tom Smarr who took it.
Regardless, I think this photo is ideal for getting a feel as to what a dry fruit is and how it differs from a wet fruit. Think back to the diagrams of the wet fruits: you can clearly see the pericarp (comprised of the exo, meso, and endocarp) is much thinner on the milkweed, most noteably lacking that characteristic layer of fleshy mesocarp we saw in all the wet fruits. Though the pericarp still covers and contains the seeds in a dry fruit, it is not attached to them nor does it hold them in place, leaving the seeds to freely disperse as soon as the fruit opens.

The peanut, a legume. Taken from Wikipedia's Peanut entry
as I have no peanuts in the house. .. and even if I did
there would be no shells. Pericarp just gets in the way.

If you're not quite seeing the difference yet, contrast in your mind a banana and a peanut. If you cut a banana in half, the seeds still for the most part remain in the banana, stuck in and attached to that layer of fleshy mesocarp. On the other hand, if you split a peanut shell, the two seeds (peanuts) will fall right out. there's nothing there to hold them to the shell. Banana's a wet fruit, the peanut shell is a dry fruit.

The Milkweed and Peanut are both examples of simple dry fruits. Simple, in this case, means the fruit is the result of only one ovary maturing, and that two or more have not combined to form an aggregate fruit.
The Milkweed fruit is a follicle, a simple dry fruit that splits down one side to release the seeds. The peanut is a legume, a simple dry fruit that splits along both sides when releasing the seeds.

Now. though you probably believe me that the peanut fruit splits down both sides, you might be scratching your head as to why I'm saying the milkweed fruit splits down one side, since the photo of the follicle above clearly shows it apparently split in at least two places. Remember though, that this distinction is made when the fruit first opens, and in the photo above, the follicle had probably been present on the plant for quite a while. I'll try to get a photo that better shows this at some point (and not just because I feel bad for maybe stealing Tom's), but for now you'll have to take my word for it... well, I'll back it up with a story.

Back when I first started working at the Arnold Arboretum after finishing my undergrad, I had collected a few of these follicles (well, back then I knew them as "seed pods") off milkweeds as they were ripening, with hopes to do something with them later I guess (it was a flawed plan). I put these follicles in my locker where I apparently planned to leave them indefinitley (again, flawed plan). About two weeks passed, and I suddenly noticed one of the follicles had looked like it burst. It had just sort of popped, like an overstuffed suitcase that wasn't properly latched shut. Now is when the flaws in my plan should have become evident. The follicles were beginning to burst open to disperse their seeds, and one can easily tell by looking at the seed that the dispersal mechanism is "wind". All they needed was a source... like for example every time I opened or shut my locker door.

It took a good two to three months for the dispersal situation to die down enough for me to feel confident I could carry those follicles to the trash without making a bigger mess in the process.
Moral of the story: milkweed fruits split down one side. Keep them in a bag.

From Wikipedia's entry on the silique

Moving on, there are also two dehiscent fruits resulting from multiple carpels: the capsule, and the silique. Now these are considered simple fruits as well, since even though more than one carpal is involved, the carpels have not fused together tightly enough to produce a true aggregate fruit such as a pineapple or strawberry.

A silique is characteristic of the mustard family, a long fruit resulting from two carpels. The individual seeds are held in that central portion until both sides of the fruit split off, allowing their release.

Last but most common, is the capsule. It is also the result of multiple carpels, but in this case those that were fused together in the a flower as a compound ovary.

The Poppy, displaying a compound ovary. We can make out
theanthers to the outside, but the female part of the flower
is a far cry from the distinct stigma/style of the Amaryllis.
From Wikipedia entry on the Poppy

And from the same entry, the capsule ready to burst.

The capsule will sometimes split in half to release seeds, though sometimes it actually bursts at the top. Since capsules are a bit more common, there are a few different dispersal mechanisms, so the distinction here isn't quite as important as it was when differentiating the follicle from the legume. What's important to remember is that it forms from more than one carpel, since the flower proceeding it possessed a compound ovary.

So that's it for deshicent fruits. In summary: If it's from one carpal and splits down one side, it's a follicle, if both sides, it's a legume. If it's from a compound ovary, it's a capsule, and if it's a long fruit of a mustard resulting from two carpels, it's a silique.

Don't worry too much though if you're having a little trouble with this... My guess is that you're feeling you'd have trouble looking at a fruit and guessing how many carpels the flower that proceeded it had. I wish I had a few good cross-section photos of capsules vs. follicles to show which might make it easier, but for now I'll say the capsule will usually look a little more "full" on the inside than the more empty milkweed pod we started the entry with. Regardless, my main hope here is to have us gain an appreciation for these different types of fruits. We can work out the details later.

Next time I'll cover the indehiscent fruits, and will have a photo that is indisputably mine.

how does a flower become a fruit?

2012-01-27T09:42:00.001-05:00

Wet fruits were pretty easy. There were only three types that we talked about, and once knowing the criteria to tell them apart, it was fairly self-explanatory whether a given fruit was a drupe, berry, or pome.

I started writing the entry on different types of dry fruits but decided to first take a step back. We're going to eventually cover nine types of dry fruits and though it's easy to explain the difference between an dehiscent and indehiscent fruit (the dehiscent dehisce, or open at maturity to release the seeds, while the indehiscent reamin closed), it gets a bit more complicated when narrowing it down further. Specifically, we need to know how many carpels have fused together in order to form the fruit, and I think the best way to go about that is to gain an understanding as to how the flower actually transforms into a fruit.

Diagram of a mature flower cross-section, via wikipedia

This vocabulary was what tended to be my undoing when taking Botany, but I think maybe if I link it back to a few examples I've already discussed it will make a little more sense.

As we know from our brief discussion of winterberries, flowers have distinct "male" and "female" parts. Since winterberries are monoecious, they do not have both these parts on the same flower. The flower in the diagram above however, seems to be diecious, having both parts.
The "male" part is referred to as the stamen, consisting of an anther attached to a filament. The carpel is the "female" part, with the style connecting the stigma to the ovary. I had mentioned the exaggerated stamens and carpels of the Amaryllis flower as seemingly "beckoning" in a pollinator, and though the style of the Amaryllis is much longer than that of the flower in the above diagram, I'd encourage you to take a look at those photos again if you want to try your hand at finding these parts on an actual flower.

The journey from flower to fruit begins with pollination; a pollen grain (more or less the microsporangium in the diagram above) enters the stigma, traveling down the style into the ovary, and making contact with the ovule, forming a zygote.

The ovule or ovules then begin developing into seeds. the ovary on the other hand, begins to enlarge and form a fruit. The stigma, style, petals, sepals, and stamens will all fall off (or excuse me, dehisce). As the ovary continues to develop, it begins to mature into a fruit, in many cases with clear exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp layers becoming evident. Finally, we're left with a familar fruit, usually falling from the plant when ripe.

The above video shows a fairly good animation of the process, but I think this six-image sequence of nectarine development from wikipedia is very effective at showing what is essentially the life-cycle of a flower. Let's walk through it:

Dynamic sequence from Wikipedia showing nectarine fruit development, accessible from their Drupe article

Plant is dormant, not putting energy into flowering until the warm season
Flower buds begin to swell and prepare to open. Note the sepals, protecting the emerging flower in this fragile period.
Flowers open fully, awaiting a pollinator.
Flowers have been pollinated, with sepals and petals falling off. Stamens and possibly stigmas appear to still remain, but most noticeable is the ovary, already beginning to swell.
Ovary continues to mature into a fruit with distinct endocarp, mesocarp, and exocarp tissues probably evident.
Ovary has fully ripened, resulting in the nectarine, a mature drupe.

Alright, I think we now have a fairly good appreciation for how a fruit comes to be. Next time I'll talk about dehiscent fruits, and maybe post another photo or two if I get the chance to take one... raining today. Still working through my flickr photostream though so maybe I'll find an old one.

Pome fruits and plant families

2012-01-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

So as promised, the next few entries are going to walk through the major categories of fruits. Now I'm not doing this just because I might run out of winter-interest plants to talk about at the rate I'm going, but mainly because I think that aside from people who tend a garden or care for houseplants; culinary fruits, nuts, and seeds might be the part of the plant most familiar.

Though terms like drupe can be a bit esoteric, you're already aware of what makes a peach different from an orange. Even though you might not think to describe the orange as a berry or the peach as a drupe, being able to notice these differences and knowing what to look for, in my mind, is more important than the specific vocabulary. I think this will be an easy way to show that you know more than you think you do, as well as a good way to start gaining an appreciation for the way a botanist hones in on certain characteristics to determine what makes certain plants more similar to each other.

So we already know that a drupe is a fruit with one single pitted seed (peaches) and a berry is one with multiple seeds (blueberry, banana, etc), now for the third type of wet fruit; the pome.

Not really sure why I bought this... not a big golden delicious fan

Pomes have multiple seeds, but unlike the berry, the seeds aren't just hanging out wherever. They're kept in a "case" at the center of the fruit. You guessed it, the "core" we know from apples. Though the core (endocarp) isn't quite as stony as you'd find in the pit of a drupe, it is noticeable more solid than the fruit (mesocarp) surrounding it

Nicely labeled diagram from Wikipedia's entry on the Pome

So now we know our wet fruits. Take a fruit and cut it open. If there's a single seed in a pit, it's a drupe. If there are multiple seeds confined in a core, it's a pome, and there are multiple seeds scatted throughout, it's a berry.

Easy, right? Leaves us plenty of time to go into something else I find interesting about the pome: the fact that despite how familiar they are to us (apples are usually the first fruit that comes to my mind anyway), they're actually somewhat uncommon in nature, or at least far less so than the drupe or berry. Only plants in the Rose Family produce them, and even then, not all of the genera in that family do.

Family? Genera? I think it's time for a brief review of the phylogenetic tree (or the "tree of life")

Now as you may remember from high school bio, the major divisions we use to categorize a living thing are (from most to least broad)... Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species (my bio teacher passed down the acronym "Kings play checkers on fuzzy green squares" as a mnemonic device)

I've already been using genera and species in this blog, any time I list a scientific name. For example, the Red Oak, or Quercus rubra: rubra, the species, means "red", and Quercus the genus, is the term for "oak".

As for the other levels, the only one we need to worry about right now is the family, that next level up which starts to group some of these different genera together (sticking with our Red Oaks example; Oaks, Beeches, and Chestnuts all make up the Beech Family). As for kingdom, all I'm probably going to talk about here are plants (unless I start taking photos of mushrooms or something), so we can pretty much forget about that. and we'll save the rest of the levels for later when I talk about a pine tree or something.

So apples are actually in the Rose Family, meaning the trees producing the apples we like to eat are pretty closely related to the shrubs and vines producing the roses we like to look at. This comes as a surprise to some, since as a society, we generally place a big distinction between ornamental plants and culinary plants. However, the way the plant is used is not how it is botanically categorized: most of classical taxonomy is done by floral characteristics, so the fact that both the apple tree and the shrub rose have a flower with typically five petals and stamens is more important than whether it produces a fruit we find appetizing.

I don't have any close-up photos of apple blossoms though (closest thing I found on my HD was a long shot of a flowering pear), so you'll have to take my word for it.

So we now know all of our "wet" fruit types, as well as some of the groupings that Taxonomists use to lump plants together. Next time we'll start going into the dry fruits. There are a few more, but once again I think you'll find many of them are already familiar to you.

Further Reading

Well in this case, it's viewing as. the Khan Academy has a great video about Taxonomy and the Tree of Life in case you're looking for a little more depth on that.

Also, did you ever wonder what the numbered code of the sticker on an apple (or any produce for that matter) stood for? I never paid much attention to it myself until I started using self-checkouts at the supermarket, but there is actually a difference in how the fruit has been raised depending on whether you see a four or five digit code.

A four digit code tells you the plant was grown using normal methods (so pesticides and all that), whereas a five digit code can mean one of two things. If the code starts with a 9, it was raised organically (no pesticides). If the code starts with an 8, the plant was genetically modified.

I don't think I've ever seen an 8 (or a 9 for that matter since I rarely buy organic produce), but I'll keep an eye out for either next time I'm at the Pathmark.

Frozen plants, including Chimonanthus praecox

2012-01-21T19:43:00.002-05:00

Buddleja frozen solid

We had our first snow of the year today, but the temperatures warmed up quite a bit over the day resulting in freezing rain, and thus a thin layer of snow covered by a thicker layer of ice.
I always worry about this kind of weather as I've found the warm winter followed by wet snow is probably the most damaging to trees. They're already thawed out for the most part, and just can't take the load of that heavy wet snow sticking to their branches, especially when in turns cold enough to freeze there.
Luckily, here in Delaware, the accumulation was fairly light, and though there was a bit of ice on plants, it wasn't enough to do any real damage. On the way into work, I walked past some of the other plants I've already covered so you can see how they took to the ice.

Plum flowers (Prunus mume) looking a bit less brave

Ilex verticillata 'Winter Red'

and 'Winter Gold'

And on to something new...

Chimonanthus praecox (Fragrant Wintersweet)

The Fragrant Wintersweet is a shrub native to China reaching about 10-12' in height.

I hadn't really paid much attention to this plant, only becoming aware of it in the last couple of weeks after coming across one at Chanticleer. Though it is nice to have flowers in the winter, I can't get quite as excited about this one as I do the Prunus mume. The flowering is by no means prolific, and the overall shape or color of the flower is fairly forgettable as well

Not the showiest shrub but flowers are a bit of a rarity this time of year

It's possible I just caught the plant on a bad day though. I've only seen two of these so I'm not sure if either was necessarily the greatest specimen, and apparently the fragrance of the flowers is a big reason behind their cultivation. I didn't notice anything distinct, but that might be due to the flowers all being encased in a thin sheet of ice.

I'll keep an eye on this plant but overall I think I'd rather just wait another week or two for the Witch-hazels to start flowering. Their petal shape, as well as the variety in color across a numerous cultivars, make it seem like a superior choice for a late-winter shrub.

Going to switch gears over the next few entries and walk through the different fruit types. Next up will be a summary of the wet fruits, adding the Pome to the two we already know.

Added my flickr photostream to the sidebar... I'm still not sure if I want to go with that or Picasa (which seems like it would be easier for integration with this blog) but for the time being take a look at some of my older photos if you're interested.

Ilex verticillata, berries, and the definition of a cultivar

2012-01-21T10:09:00.000-05:00

Ilex verticillata 'Winter Red' (Winterberry)

This shrub should be quite a bit more recognizable, as it is quite common both in cultivation, as well as in the wild where it particularly stands out this time of year. Native to the wetlands of the Eastern and Central United States, as well as a similar range in Canada. It generally reaches 6-10' in height with a similar spread.

The characteristic berries actually appear in late summer, but persist well into winter. I'm not sure as to exactly how long the berries remain on the plants, but I've found birds generally pick these clean by the time the spring plants start putting on their show.

In terms of color, shape, and timing, some might pick up on these as looking similar to berries from the evergreen Holly Tree. The winterberry is actually in the same genus as hollies (Ilex) so obviously shares some of its characteristics. Primarily, the fact that these winterberries are dioecious, meaning each shrub is either male or female, but not both. Therefore, in order to get a fruit set at all, one needs to have both a male and at least one female plant (though generally most gardeners will have at least 3-4 females). The male plant will not produce berries, so the general convention is to hide the male behind the females.


Crushed winterberry. Note the multiple seeds

We've already covered drupes, so this seems like a logical place to mention another type of wet fruit, the berry.

Until I started paying attention to such things, I would generally refer to larger fruits such as oranges as "fruits", and smaller ones such as blueberries as "berries"

It's not the size of the fruit that botanists use to make this distinction, but the number of seeds it contains. Some of the largest fruits we see in the produce isle, such as the grapefruit (Citrus x paradisi) and watermelon (Citrullus lanatus), are defined as berries due to having multiple seeds, where even the smallest cherries are considered drupes due to having one solitary pitted seed.

So next time someone acts all smug by bringing up the fact that tomatoes are fruits and not vegetables, you can smile to yourself secure with the fact that you know more, as the tomato is a berry.

Alright, now for a bit of horticultural terminology: I threw around the term "cultivar" a few times in the entry on Prunus mume, which though second nature to those of us in the horticultural field, is not exactly standard vernacular. It's a fairly easy concept though. I'll walk you through it.

We've defined Winterberry above as a shrub possessing red berries. But say you have quite a few of these on your property, and one day as they all produce fruit, you discover a freak of nature which looks like this:

Ilex verticillata 'Winter Gold'

Plants, like any other form of life, have a certain amount of variability to them, be it leaf shape, flower size, resistance to a certain pest. or in this case, fruit color. As a result of sexual reproduction between two plants, a mutant occurred which has a dark yellow or golden berry as opposed to the traditional red.

Now being a plant enthusiast, this excites you and you can't wait to share your new plant with all your friends. You give them all a few of your prized golden berries and they begin growing new plants from their seeds. However, a few years later, when the offspring produces fruit of its own, only a scant few of them produce these golden berries, the majority of them reverting back to the standard red. And most disappointingly, about half didn't even produce berries at all.

So where did we go wrong? By choosing to hand out berries, and having our friends grow these plants from seed, we distributed plants which had our golden winterberry as the female parent but with an unspecified male. Sexual reproduction took place, so the seeds we handed out do not have identical DNA to our parent, golden-fruited plant. The 50% that didn't fruit are probably male offspring, and the female offspring which produced red berries likely did so as a result of genes from the male parent.

In order to distribute identical plants, we need to produce clones of our golden-fruited winterberry. For shrubs, this is typically done by taking cuttings. Tips of some of these branches would be removed, then the cut end dipped in a plant growth regulator such as Indoleacetic Acid (an Auxin). These cuttings are then stuck into a medium and kept in a high humidity environment, where the hormone will stimulate the cut ends of these twigs into producing roots. Usually 4-6 weeks later, the roots have grown to a significant enough size for the cuttings to be transplanted into a pot where they can continue to grow until big enough to be planted. If you give these to your friends, they'll all be female, and will all produce gold berries.

One step remains, we need a name for our plant, especially if we're proud enough of it we want to try to get local nurseries to distribute it further. In the case of this golden-fruited winterberry, the introducers chose the name "Winter Gold". The golden-fruited winterberry is a cultivar (which I believe to be shorthand for "cultivated variety"), and Winter Gold is the name of this cultivar. When using this as a part of the botanic name, Ilex verticillata, "Winter Gold" follows it in single quotes but not italicized, making the correct botanic name of this plant Ilex verticillata 'Winter Gold'
Another common (though now outdated) convention is to write the name as Ilex verticillata Cv. Winter Gold. You may see this occasionally on old botanic garden labels, or those produced with a label maker which cannot handle punctuation.

At the end of the day, I think I prefer the bright red of the straight species to the duller gold of this particular cultivar, but a little variety is always nice and a few plantings of these can help to break up the monotony where winterberry is used heavily.

Unlike Prunus mume, this plant is ubiquitous in cultivation, particularly in native-themed gardens, and a wide variety of cultivars are readily available in any nursery. The three I am most familar with are 'Winter Red' and 'Winter Gold', pictured above, and 'Red Sprite'. Winter Red and Gold are both taller forms of the species, reaching 7-9' at maturity whereas Red Sprite is smaller, reaching only 3-5'. Most Ilex species can tolerate fairly heavy pruning however, so it should be fairly easy to keep this plant to an appropriate size without fear of harming it too much. Note that for fruiting though, you will still need a male plant, of which a few cultivars exist. 'Southern Gentleman' is typically sold as a pollinator for the taller cultivars, whereas 'Jim Dandy' is more similar in height to 'Red Sprite' and the smaller cultivars, so often sold alongside them.

First snow of the year today here in Delaware, though it's predicted to soon turn to freezing rain. Might be able to get a few neat photos of these winter-interest plants with snow as a backdrop while doing some work for the botanic garden tomorrow.

My favorite peach tree (so far)

2012-01-20T19:52:00.000-05:00

All that impromptu talk about drupes just got me thinking about a peach tree I came across randomly during one of my stints in Boston.

Summer 2009: I had moved back to the city in order to start working for the Greenway, and found a summer sublet living with some Tufts University students in Somerville, MA. The apartment was in the Teele Square area quite close to the university, and I had been taking the Red Line from Davis Sq. to South Station as a daily commute. By the time August rolled around, I was talking to one of my roommates about routes to work (which I think is the generic icebreaker conversation after you've covered the current temperature and level of precipitation), upon which she noted I was going a longer way than I needed to.


City peaches: I think this was by the intersection of Packard and Broadway.

Either needing a change of pace or looking to save five minutes on my commute, I took her advice a few days later and walked to Davis Station via. Packard Avenue, where I'd take a shortcut across a Tufts parking lot before crossing onto Holland St.

Now I tend to check out street trees and gardens as I walk, if only because I feel proud of myself when I recognize plants. So there I was checking out the profusion of urban staples such as London Planetrees (Platanus x acerfolia) and Norway Maples (Acer platanoides). So you can imagine my surprise when all of a sudden I first look down to try to avoid the overripe fruit littering the sidewalk, and then find myself ducking to get past one of the low hanging branches of a Peach tree.

Drupes in July, probably a few weeks until ripening

I actually took the above images in July 2011 (nearly two years after the above anecdote), as part of my whirlwind tour of the city before moving to Delaware, so the fruits (excuse me, drupes) are not ripe. Still, I was more than a little surprised to see this tree. I've always thought of peaches as a southern crop, and assumed that growing them in New England would require quite a bit of care, so I was bit taken aback to come across one at an intersection in Somerville, which seemed to be in at least good health and fruiting prolifically with little to no signs of care. I suppose it goes to show how hardy some of these trees can be, and how strong their will to live is once they have become established. Also goes to show what one can do as an urban gardener. If you're willing to think even a little bit outside the box, you can cause a even plant nerd like me to stop dead in their tracks. Come to think of it, I suppose that does mean you do risk them coming back camera in hand year after year trying to catch the plant in peak... maybe it's better to stick to the staples after all.

Prunus mume and an introduction to fruit types

2012-01-20T18:49:00.000-05:00


Prunus mume (Plum Flower, Japanese Apricot)

Prunus mume (mume pronounced like moo-may), is a treeoriginally native to Japan and China reaching an adult height of 15-30’. Commonlycalled the Japanese Apricot or Plum Flower, it is a member of the genus Prunus, which contains several speciesof fruit trees including peaches, cherries, plums, apricots, and even almonds.

I find the inclusion of almonds in this group is often asource of confusion for the less botanically-inclined. Why would a nutbe lumped in with all these fruit trees? In fact all of these treesproduce fruits which are considered “drupes”, a fruit type where a single seedis surrounded by usually a fleshy layer fruit. The peach is often a textbookexample: think of it as comprising of three parts: the fuzzy “skin” of the peach(exocarp) covering the fleshy fruit (mesocarp) which in turn encases the pit orseed of the peach (the rough uneven outermost layer of the pit is the endocarp).

Almonds are drupes as well, however inthis case it is the seed we find edible rather than the mesocarp . The mesocarpand green leathery exocarp of the almond fruit have already removed by the timethey reach the store, leaving only the endocarp and embryo. The shelled almondshave their endocarp removed, whereas the unshelled still have the endocarpremaining.


Diagram of a Peach Fruit (drupe) pulled from Wikipedia's entry

An example of a “true nut”, botanically speaking, would besomething like an acorn or hazelnut, which is produced on the plant with a hardenedwall around the seed and no fleshy fruit layer. I’m now thinking of doing anintroduction to the major fruit types in a later entry, but for now let’s usepeaches and plums as our reference points for drupes.

Despite that we now know the plant produces a drupe, Prunus mume, is not generally known as afruit tree. Most of the plums you’ve eaten are probably members of Prunus x domestica, a name referring tohybrids of two mainly European species. Prunusmume is instead an ornamental grown for its flowers.

I remember seeing a few of these trees last summer upon movingto Delaware, and have been keeping an eye on them since hoping to catcha specimen in bloom. I first became interested in the species when doing a write-upfor the Greenway’s Chrysanthemum festival back in Fall 2010. I was trying tofind a brief tidbit from Chinese Folklore about the significance of the mumflower to liven up the article a bit and came across a mention of the “Four Menof Honor.” I’m not sure of all the details, but apparently these are a group ofplants traditionally believed to possess admirable human traits. TheChrysanthemum symbolizes modesty, Bamboo represents integrity, the Orchidstands for leisure, and finally, the Plum Blossom is seen as displayingbraveness.

The brave Plum Blossom! This is actually from the cultivar 'Pendula', though you'd never be able to tell without seeing the habit. Note that there are clearly five petals per flower, indicative of plants in the rose family.

We already had bamboo and obviously chrysanthemums in theChinatown Park, so I thought it would be fun to add the remaining two men ofhonor. Orchids are a huge family of plants so there were several options there,but I was pushing for Bletilla striata,the Chinese Ground Orchid, which in retrospect may have been a bit too fragilefor use in an urban park unless protected in a raised bed or container. The plum flower on the other hand was muchharder to track down. It’s thought of being only marginally hardy to NewEngland as it apparently has difficulty surviving the colder winters. Though Ithink it would have been at least worth a shot given a protected location, manyof the New England Nurseries simply do not have the plant. I assumed that thiswas due to the aforementioned hardiness issues, but its rarity appears to benationwide. It is however, decidedly more popular in Japan, with hundreds ofnamed cultivars.

I’m not sure if I see the evident braveness in this flower,but there’s definitely something ballsy about coming into full bloom inJanuary. I’m the kind of person who likes being able to walk through a gardenat any point of the year and see something in bloom. The offerings forDecember, January, and the first few weeks of February are understandably quitesparse. Now granted we’ve had what I understand to be a very mild winter inDelaware, at least so far, but when in late January I see a flowering tree thatapproximates the flowering cherries so representative of spring, I can’t helpbut feel that season is rapidly approaching, even if I know there are stillquite a few cold weeks ahead of us. I’m surprised, but also a bit disappointed thisplant is only rarely cultivated here in the US, and will certainly be keepingan eye on it in the future, watching for any particular forms which may beworthy of further evaluation.

We also have Prunus mume 'Hokkai' at the UDBG, which seems to be a semi-double form with darker flowers

Further Reading:
Edible Plums and Apricots

Hippeastrum 'Cinderella'

2012-01-16T17:40:00.009-05:00

I actually have one plant currently blooming in my apartment, so I figure that’s a good place to start. It is probably at least vaguely familiar to most as a commonly grown indoor bulb, and likely is also in recent memory due to its popularity around Christmas. However, those of us like me who don’t begin thinking about Christmas until at least a week or two into December usually find it coming into full bloom right about now.

Hippeastrum ‘Cinderella’ (‘Cinderella’ Amaryllis)

The name Hippeastrum (which apparently refers to the morning star, a medieval weapon to which I see no resemblance), may seem a little surprising as the plant is commonly known as the Amaryllis. This is one of the few common names which sounds like a botanical name, though misleadingly is actually the botanical name for a different (though very closely related) group of plants. Another common name for Hippeastrum I’m aware of is “Naked Ladies”, presumably referring to the fact that these bulbs produce flowers without leaves (fully) present. It seems to be rarely used however, for reasons I feel are obvious. Though my gut is to go with potentially offensive (well, really more weird than offensive…) over taxonomically misleading, I think I’m just going to keep calling it Amaryllis. I guess it just sounds classier.

hey, wait a minute, mine doesn't look like the picture on the box!

I bought this bulb in one of the standard kits the Netherland Bulb Company puts out everywhere. Though I appreciate the lining of supermarket isles with these kits seems to be what reminds me I wanted to buy one of these, I’m less of a fan of the cheap looking plastic pot and the dehydrated disc of coco peat which ends up being about three times as much as needed (though I will confess, it is cool watching it expand.)

and this would be how my Hippeastrum usually looks around December 25h. Pot on the right is Paperwhites.

This is actually the first time I’ve had an Amaryllis flower, which isn’t quite as embarrassing as it sounds. I tried to grow 'Minerva' last year, a similar looking hybrid coming from a similar looking kit from which I discarded a similar amount of excess media. Once again however, I bought it too late and it wasn't even remotely close to flowering before I left to visit my parents for the holidays. The sensible thing seemed to be to bring it with me. Surprisingly, the problem wouldn’t be the fact that it was repeatedly ejected from its cheap plastic pot during the drive down one of the dirt roads on the island, but the fact that my mother immediately stole it upon arrival, and it would not flower until I left for Boston without it. This year, having learned my lesson, I was wise enough to leave it at home before visiting my parents, and found it just beginning to bloom following my return.

As you can see from the photos, I did relatively little to dress the plant up, but a quick way to do so is to partially cover the bulb with Spanish moss, which gives the plant more of a rustic appearance, particularly if in an older terra-cotta pot. I personally like seeing the top of the bulb however, so I’m not likely to use too much.

Due to their popularity as decorations on Christmas or gifts on Valentine’s Day, I can’t help but think of all the wasted bulbs which are discarded after flowering, or those which are simply left out and eventually die due to being deprived their period of dormancy (So I guess they’re either discarded when they no longer produce, or they’re killed via sleep deprivation? The ways we torture plants…)

Thankfully, Hippeastrum is a perennial, and can be fairly easily reused. As there are a multitude of sources providing instructions on this (I find http://www.usna.usda.gov/Gardens/faqs/AmaryllisBloom.html particularly helpful), I won’t list the procedure here, but there are a few key things you should keep in mind if you want to do this.

You’ll need to allow the plant remain out until the leaves die and turn yellow of their own accord. This is to allow the plant enough time to photosynthesize and store energy prior to entering dormancy. Now this will take a few months, and these aren’t the showiest plants when out of bloom, so if you have limited space this may not be your best option.
You’ll need a place where the bulb can be cooled for about six weeks while dormant. This area needs to be a dark, cool (40-50⁰ F), and relatively free of moisture. The refrigerator crisper reputably works pretty well, but the bulb needs to be kept away from fruits and vegetables (apples are apparently particularly problematic) . This is as they can release ethylene, a gaseous hormone and plant growth regulator.

My mother actually used this method to store the bulb I “gave” her, and last I was home it was beginning to leaf out, so I can vouch for its effectiveness. I’ll try to get a picture of it when it blooms. Now where I run into trouble, is I have only one fridge, must share it with roommates, and have been unable to successfully pitch monopolizing one of the crispers for at least a month and a half in order to save $10-12 yearly on a bulb. Then again maybe I can find a cheap fridge when students are moving out of the dorms this spring.

The Hippaestrum is currently my favorite of the Christmastime indoor plants. I find it much more interesting than the simpler Paperwhite, or the foliar interest represented by the Poinsettia. Not sure how I feel about the Christmas Cactus, most of the ones I’ve seen seemed to scream “dead jellyfish.” One factor for this decision is the sheer variety of colors represented by the different hybrids. Due to the plant’s popularity around Christmas and Valentine’s Day, red, white, and pink seem to be the most common, but selections are available in yellow, orange, and even green. Mainly though, it is the size of the flower I find impressive, not just for the diameter of the blossom (5-8”), but for how exaggerated all the flower parts are, almost as if they have been magnified. I particularly like how the stigma (a female part of the flower) hangs lower and further outside than the anthers (pollen sacs), almost as if one finger is beckoning a pollinator to come inside.

Next year’s goal: To buy a Hippeastrum bulb (or two…) from a proper garden center as opposed to a supermarket, put it in an actual pot, dress it up, force it to bloom around Christmas, and to see if I can get at least two years out of it. I’ll likely settle for 3/5 of those.

A few cultivars that caught my eye:

‘Magic Green’: Though I understand I enjoy green flowers more than most
‘Ambiance’: From the photo at least, it appears to have a greener eye, fading to white further out on the petals where they become streaked with red
‘Splash’: Interesting Petal shape

Subjective Day

2012-01-16T12:44:00.000-05:00

Though this is my first personal blog, I am not entirely new to the concept. I previously wrote the "What's in Bloom" entries on the Greenway Blog (which it looks like at some point changed its name to "Life on the Greenway"). Anyway, this entailed me photographing plants in the park on a weekly basis and give a little bit of background on them to potential visitors.
After I left that job and moved from Boston this past summer, I realized I missed taking photos and trying to present why exactly I thought a certain plant was worthy of special attention, as well as some of the more basic botanical and horticultural concepts that can be explained as a result of that.

I view this as an opportunity to both show off some of the photos I'm more proud of as I gain more experience, as well as to do some in depth reading on plants I may not normally get the chance to cover in my studies. Plus as I'm now writing for myself rather than an institution, I can give these entries a bit more of a personal touch without worrying about veering too far off topic (also, I can receive questions and comments here).

The name of the blog comes from a term referring to the "light" portion of a circadian cycle... so basically the daytime, but more specifically when you trick a plant into thinking its daytime by exposing it to light. Pretentious as this may sound, its neither me copping out by using a derivation of my name or initials, nor going ultra-nerd by picking something latin, so I think I'm at least fairly happy with it for the time being. Also its vague enough that if I get the urge to talk about something non-botanical, I won't feel like I'm too off topic.

Alright, no need for a further introduction since i already have a post up, so I'll leave it at that.