Pick Your Poison: Mushroom Mayhem

Rains this summer summoned up the shapely fruiting bodies of a wide variety of fungi and similar earthy goo, including toadstools and slime molds of various shapes and colors ... cream doll furniture, yellow jellied ears, spiny white golf balls, orange dog penises, black tumors, white coral. I don't know much about them; it's a brain void I hope to fill one day with mushroom stuffing. Yet, my recent attempts to infiltrate pure mycology were sidetracked by a troubling social phenomenon: People who know a little about wild mushrooms are using the internet to encourage those who know nothing about wild mushrooms to find and eat wild mushrooms.

Like a lot of people, I turn to the web when attempting to put names on things ... dragonflies, wildflowers, rocks, mammal tracks and scat. But only the mom-and-pop mushroom sites regularly encourage their readers to eat that which they are learning to identify. This could be unfortunate if the pupil makes a mistake and ends up in the ER, perhaps as a first step toward a liver transplant. Bon appetite! In fact, some sites regard the conservation, picking and eating of lawn fungi as a sort of duty. Stopping mycophobia and the tragedy of  senseless "toadstool kicking" is a real calling for some. The good folks at Urban Mushrooms exemplify this perspective, with comments like...

When folks who hate mushrooms see one in the forest, they can simply hike in the other direction. But when people who hate mushrooms see one growing in their lawns, a deep anger emerges that, in many cases, only subsides when they kick or chemically exterminate the peaceful mushrooms from the grass.

Furthermore, these peaceful organisms are edible! So much for conservation.

We regularly eat mushrooms from urban areas, despite the toxins that you find in all cities. But we take precautions. Typical herbicides applied to lawns don't bother us, unless they've been applied within the previous few days, but we don't eat mushrooms growing along old railroad beds, because mushrooms absorb heavy metals.

It's good to have standards.

YouTube and other social media sites are also filled to the gills with well-meaning yokels pushing the rabble to treat lawns and woodlands as grocery stores. They generally provide a disclaimer somewhere ("Take my advice at your own risk!"), but then proceed to dispense their rules of thumb for sorting yummy 'shrooms from lethal ones. They are not mutually exclusive properties, by the way. Here's some internet fun.


So, after telling us how deadly mushrooms can be and that he only eats species without look-a-likes, he shows us some blewits that have toxic look-a-likes and tells us to do extensive research on our own. Hmm. Blewit has two meanings here. There are 8 more minutes of Joshua's wisdom in the original video.

The title of this video led me to think that they were going to show us six mushrooms. They showed us three species and 11 individual mushrooms. Obviously, they are on a low budget. I have to wonder whether they bothered to find actual photos of the three species they named. No worries about look-a-likes or fatal mistakes here. No disclaimers. But what can you expect from a production outfit called Blackhole?

I wonder if the toadstool pushers ever considered that their posts can be accessed anywhere on earth and that their folksy tips for distinguishing a yummy Wisconsin meat muffin from a destroying angel won't necessarily work in Georgia or California? Nor do they seem to care that half the population has below average ability to identify mushrooms. (I did the math.)

This is not to say that the internet's approach is completely without merit. I think we have to agree that the road to modern culinary diversity was paved with the corpses of those conned into testing the edibility of various natural items.

     "Hey, Grog, me dare you eat slime brain from log."
     "Me not sure, Steve, it red like death berry."
     "Apple red, cherry red, ketchup red..." 
     "You right, me eat ... <slurp> ... Taste like dirt, with nutty undertones .... Uh oh, can't feel
     face, Steve ... Eye come loose! ... Kidneys not work!"
     "Oh, no, Grog! Dialysis not invented for 10,000 years! Hold on, hold on!"
     "Glarp ... Ploop ... Ack!
     "Aloha, Grog. No worry, me comfort wife ... Mental note: no eat red slime brain from log."

We owe a debt to primitive food scientists like Steve for both eliminating Grog from the gene pool (and the name pool) and enriching our dietary choices beyond mammoth meat, onions and other people's head lice. Well done. Despite its several virtues, the old-school approach is justly frowned upon these days on ethical and legal grounds, at least as a matter of stated public policy. On the other hand, natural selection will continue to operate on an informal basis in perpetuity, transcending our collective morality and laws.



Clearly a sort of morality play, but still ...
As one would hope, poison control officials and professional mycologists do not share the laissez faire values of the worldwide web when it comes to public health, a sensitivity forged perhaps while identifying pieces of toadstools from the gut contents of the unlucky and the ill advised, although only occasionally as part of an autopsy. The North American Mycological Association (NAMA) provides a list of the mycotoxin-based afflictions that can arise from grazing on mushrooms. Muscarine, for example, takes effect in less than an hour after 'shroom consumption. Its effects seem to involve every conceivable bodily pore and orifice: excessive salivation, perspiration, lactation, tearing, vomiting, diarrhea. Not usually fatal, but quite a ride. The mycotoxin amantin has a 50% mortality rate if left untreated, but that can be brought down to 10% in a hospital. For a day or so, the amanitin asymptomatically destroys the liver and kidneys. Then there is a day of vomiting and diarrhea followed by apparent recovery. After a day of ignorant bliss, the effects of degenerating liver and kidney function finally kick in and its pretty much downhill from there. The toxins in some 'shrooms aren't known yet. Something in Paxillus involutus causes hemolytic anemia in people who have eaten it for years without any other negative effects. Sneaky. Some toxins only kick into gear when the diner consumes alcohol along with the relevant mushrooms.

I think it can be argued that there are no safe wild mushrooms. I know, I know ... you've eaten this or that wild spore-bearing structure for years with no problems. Congratulations. But that's not the point. Promoting the consumption of wild mushrooms to the general public via the internet is dooming our gullible neighbors to pain, injury or worse. 

Does Mr. Smarty Pants, the great mushroom hunter, know that one of his faves, the morel, can be quite nasty? Morels look like little brains on a stick, there are big light-colored ones and small dark-colored ones, all hollow. I admit that morels do seem to occupy the safer side of the spectrum and, in fact, I picked and ate quite a few as a kid in Michigan. They are certainly a tasty conveyance for salt and grease, a trait that inspires an annual northward migration of fungivores and a non-trivial tourist industry fueled by numerous "mushroom festivals". But morel madness should be tempered a little by this excerpt from NAMA's Toxicology Report for 2015-2016.

As has frequently been the case in the past, Morchella species were cited in so many cases that were they not so delicious and so commonly eaten, I would be tempted to call morels poisonous...

Raw or under-cooked morels cause intestinal cramping, vomiting and diarrhea. NAMA's 30-year Summary Report notes a case of 400 people being served raw morels at a banquet in British Columbia, over 70 people were stricken. The lines at the restrooms (and the restrooms themselves) were horrendous ... just awful ... not to mention the conditions of potted plants and other handy receptacles. Clean up on Aisle 7!

Also, Mr. Pants, did you know that most fungi, including morels, concentrate toxins and heavy metals in their tissues? Hmm? Well, maybe you should think twice about eating your fancy toadstools from that old apple orchard, with its decades of accumulated pesticide residue in the soil. And what about those false morels, Gyromitra esculenta, which produce the toxin gyromitrin? This stuff hydrolyzes into the highly volatile and carcinogenic monomethylhydrazine, which is used by NASA as part of their rocket fuel cocktail. (Fortunately, the chef inhales most of it as it escapes from the pan during the cooking.) Do we still think morels are totally safe?

All this mayhem begs a theological question: Why would a merciful, loving god place temptations like yummy-looking deadly mushrooms so close to good fungivorous people? Is this just another case of 'mysterious ways'? Actually, Padre, I don't think it is that big of a mystery if you read the Old Testament. Yahweh was bigger on testing than No Child Left Behind. Maybe he wants you to use that big morel in your head for something other than finding new routes to the ER. In any event, showing up at the pearly gates as a result of eating some mushrooms that happened to pop up in the yard must be a source of some embarrassment. [Interestingly, the Bible says nothing specific about mushrooms. The only significant reference to fungi at all occurs in Leviticus, where there's inordinate concern with mold and mildew, which were apparently much more potent back in the day. Clean up required such things as fire and priestly interventions. Scrubbing bubbles were still a long way off, people. Count your blessings.]

Oh, well... The obvious and alarming implications drawn from the juxtaposition of the enthusiastic "eat now, ask questions later" internet crowd and the sobering toxicology reports from the mycologists seemed to scream out for comment. So, I commented.


Now ... to the fungi!

Chlorophyllum molybdites. Green-gill Mushroom or Vomiter. This is a very common species in lawns in the eastern United States. They are large, white and often grow in fairy rings. It's also responsible for a whole lot of mushroom poisonings. When cooked and consumed, this 'shroom will cause a couple days of severe diarrhea and vomiting as well as chills, headache, salivation and perspiration. Apparently, if you eat it raw, you can experience all of the above as well as blood erupting from both the in-hole and the out-hole.


Pseudoinonotus dryadeus (=Inonotus dryadeus). Warty Oak Polypore, Oak Bracket, Weeping Conk, Butt Rot, etc. This fungus is usually associated with older deciduous trees, especially oaks. Their appearance at the base of a tree indicates that the roots in that area are rotting. Gradually, the unseen mycelium encircles the tree base (butt) and makes its presence known by sending up "conks", cork-like excrescences that ooze fluid for a time, harden, yellow and eventually blacken as they themselves decay. A tree encircled by conks is a dangerous tree, ready to be pushed over by the next big wind. There are a couple of big, old willow oaks (pictured) on the east end of McKeldin Mall with fairly heavy infestations; that is, surrounded about half way by conks, so half their butts are rotten.

Phallus rubicundus. A stinkhorn fungus. I was happy to see these, although not as happy as they were to see me, it seems. This species is distributed almost worldwide in tropical and subtropical regions, but it apears to have been transported to Maryland and other more temperate regions in wood mulch.This species has a pink, orange or reddish stalk tipped with a reticulated cap that's covered in olive-brown slime. The spore-bearing slime has a putrescent odor that attracts insects, mostly flies. The spores attach to the flies' feet and mouthparts, which deliver the sludge to fertile grounds elsewhere. It seems unlikely that the redness of the stalk has anything to do with attracting flies; aside from some bees and butterflies, most insects can't distinguish red from gray. However, red is seen by a lot of diurnal vertebrates, so it may be a warning to them that this thing is nasty and to leave it be. I found these perky beauties in a planting in front of the School of Public Health, but I have seen dried up remnants elsewhere around campus recently, always in mulch.
 

More Fungi from Campus Mulch

Left: Parasola plicatilis. Pleated Inky Cap or similar coprinoid mushroom. Pretty and delicate, but I guess there are lot of fungi with these characteristics. Need a microscope to check out the veil tissue and spores.
Middle: Bird's Nest Fungus (Agaricaceae). A diverse family. The fungus emerges as a bulb, most, like those pictured, with a cap that pops off exposing a cup with several spore-bearing structures, the "bird's eggs". The cup is shaped so that when a well-aimed raindrop hits the nest, one or more eggs will be propelled out. What happens next is anybody's guess. Tranported by water, perhaps.
Right: Clavulina critata. Crested coral fungus. There are several similar species in this genus. This one branches fairly extensively and each stalk ends with a cluster of points.



Rachel Carson Conservation Park Left: Scleroderma citrinum. Common Earthball or Pigskin Poison Puffball. Common in rich woodland soil or rotting wood. Its solid tissue turns purple before producing spores, the outer surface rots and peels away exposing the spores, spores are then disseminated by wind or water. NAMA notes that members of this genus are mistaken for edible puffballs and that consumption results in violent vomiting and diarrhea, sometimes leading to hospitalization. No human deaths are known, but dogs and pigs have died after eating them.
Middle: Stereum ostrea. False Turkey Tail. This looks like a shelf or bracket fungus, especially the Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor), but it is not a close relative. Apparently, there is a limit to what the fungivore crowd will try to eat; not enough meat on the bone, I suppose. No reports of anybody eating or being poisoned by this one.
Left: Sparassis spathulata. A cauliflower fungus, one of several species. Sparassis crispa is the one that the fungivores look for. Pretty. Looks more like a coral than a cauliflower, though.

OK. These aren't fungi. Just testing.

Left: Fruit of the skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). These plants are widely distributed in freshwater wetlands in Maryland. Its sessile spathe is among the first flowers to appear in the spring and is able to generate its own heat to melt through the snow. A putrid odor attracts pollinating flies and beetles and the tissues produce a sulfurous stink when damaged. The leaves are very large, up to 20 inches long and a foot wide. They are the winter hangout for our only species of stalk-eyed fly Sphyracephala brevicornis.
Right: Fuligo septica (Dog Vomit Slime Mold). This is an old patch I found on campus. It's common on mulch after rain and is yellow or tan when fresh. They live as a plasmodium, a multinucleated blob encased in a cell membrane that oozes and flows through the soil absorbing organic material. At some point, it (they?) enter a reproductive phase where some nuclei generate spores and others form the scaffolding for these spores.  So, some nuclei sacrifice themselves so that others can reproduce. They provide a hint as to how multicellularity might have evolved. They are not fungi or animals but are closely related to them in the broad scheme of things. Oddly, some folks in Mexico gather the plasmodium when it comes to the surface at night and fry them up like scrambled eggs.


Enjoy the beauty and diversity of wild fungi, but keep them out of your mouth, please.

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The following video is an hour-long lecture by mycologist Dr. Paul Kroeger titled Darwin's Elves. The title is derived circuitously from the antithetical definitions of the word "Gift" in English and German. The content is very good. However, the quality of the video/audio is not super. I was happy to learn that my quick and informal take on mushroom mania is pretty much the same as Dr. Kroeger's.

Local Color: Wildflowers, etc. of the University of Maryland Campus. Part 2.

This post completes a description of plants I encountered during a recent afternoon walk in the northeastern part of campus. There was a lot more that I haven't included. For example, the large pond in front of the Research Green House is covered by a grid of wires, presumably to exclude Canada geese, but it fortunately does not exclude other birds. I saw three or four green herons during my expedition, and, more recently, I saw a belted kingfisher trying to perch on the wires and a great blue heron standing like a statue in the shallows.  It's worth a visit.

Map

Say good bye to the ash trees, Fraxinus sp., damaged by emerald ash borers near the Shuttle Bus Depot. As you probably know, the ash trees of eastern North America are being devastated by this invasive buprestid beetle. You can still see unaffected ashes around (I have seen a lot in Frederick County), but it is only a matter of time. I was disturbed to learn that a pretty tree closely related to ashes, the white fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus: Oleaceae) is also susceptible to emerald ash borers. It's sad to think we could lose this tree, as well.

Left: Phragmites australis australis. Common Reed. Family Poaceae (Grass Family).  Exotic subspecies (Europe), perennial, aquatic-semiaquatic. This tall (up to 18 feet) reed with its large, loose terminal inflorescence is common in wetlands in our region and around the world. It appears to have replaced the native subspecies, P. australis americanus, over much of its range and has even taken over habitats where the native version never existed. (See Mistaken Identity, pp.34-35 for a comparison.) Its dense growth degrades habitats for other plants and wildlife. See a big patch of this stuff just north of the Shuttle Bus Depot.
Right: Smilax rotundifolia. Common Greenbrier. Family Smilacaceae (Greenbrier Family). Native, perennial, vine.  This vine is probably painfully familiar to anyone who wanders about outside. Its broad ovate to heart-shaped leaves camouflage sharp 1-inch spines that grow along the stem. Those vines that tend to "take over" a habitat are generally assumed to be invasives like kudzu or porcelain berry, but this native can also cover substantial areas when conditions are right. Check along the east side of Paint Branch Drive for an impenetrable wall of greenbrier.

Liriope spicata. Creeping Lilyturf. Family Asparagaceae (Asparagus Family). Exotic (East Asia), perennial. I found these small plants (left and center photos), with spikes of light lavender flowers and long grass-like leaves, growing at the edge of the lawn near Parking Lot 5. It spreads by both seeds and rhizomes and is widely planted on campus as an ornamental (photo on right foreground and inset taken on the west end of Cambridge Hall), along with its close relative L. muscari or Big Blue Lilyturf (photo on right toward the back), which lacks the rhizomes. There is a large planting of L. muscari in front of the Biosciences Research Building, strangled by field bindweed (see below) and crown vetch. In 2012 the National Park Service issued an invasive plant alert for L. spicata. So, what else is new?

Left: Lythrum solicaria. Purple Loosestrife. Family Lythraceae (Loosestrife Family). Exotic (Eurasia), perennial, wetland invasive. Growing up in Michigan, I developed mixed feelings about this plant. It grew in profusion along the banks and shallows of old millponds along the Kalamazoo River, creating a real spectacle of purple during the summer. On the other hand, the plant grows in such density that other plants, wildlife and fish can be excluded. The plant is invasive in Maryland, as well, but it is doesn't seem to be as big a problem. Each of the ponds on the map have at least some Lythrum.
Right: Pontederia chordata. Pickerelweed. Family Pontederiaceae (Water-Hyacinth Family). Native, perennial, aquatic to semiaquatic. An attractive plant that is common in many shallow aquatic environments throughout the temperate and tropical New World. It has large simple (lanceolate) to arrowhead-like (sagittate) leaves and a spike of blue flowers at the end of a robust stalk. After the flowers are gone, the stalk bends to the water surface to disperse the seeds. Every pond on the map seems to have at least some pickerelweed.

Left: Vernonia novaboracensis. New York Ironweed. Family Asteraceae (Aster Family). Native, perennial. A common sight in moist fields throughout Maryland during late summer. It has a tall stalk (2-7 feet) with alternating lanceolate leaves and a terminal branched, flat-topped inflorescence of purple flowers. Tony Stark's favorite plant gets its name (apparently) from the persistent stalk that lasts throughout the winter. Although common in Maryland, it is not abundant on the part of campus I visited. The specimen depicted above was found on the shore of the large pond behind the Xfinity Center.
Middle: Persicaria pensylvanica. Pennsylvania Smartweed. Family Polygonaceae (Buckwheat Family). Native, perennial, semiaquatic to moist fields. May grow up to 6 feet. A common inhabitat of wetlands, its seeds are an important source of food for waterfowl and other birds as well as some small mammals. It is found at all the ponds, ditches, etc. in the map, often in dense clumps.
Right: Pycnanthemum muticum. Clustered Mountain-mint. Family Lamiaceae (Mint Family). Native, perennial. There are several species of mountain-mint in Maryland. They release a strong minty odor when touched or brushed against and attract a wide range of pollinators. Find them in the raised areas near the ditches across Paint Branch Dr. from Parking Lot 5.

Left: Cynanchum laeve. Honeyvine. Family Apocynaceae (Dogbane Family). Native, perennial, vine. This was a surprise for me... a milkweed in vine form. It can even serve as a host for monarch larvae. If it weren't for the flowers, I would have assumed that the vine was a convolvulacean bindweed (see next plant). The blossoms produce an intensely sweet odor that attracts a lot of pollinators, especially skippers. See and smell it behind the Geology Building ... before the groundskeepers remove it.
Right: Convolvulus arvensis. Field Bindweed. Family Convolvulaceae (Morning-glory Family). Exotic (Eurasia), perennial, vine. This is a common weed throughout Maryland and throughout the campus. I have seen this vine form a wall as it climbs on the outer row of plants in corn and sunflower fields. The pictured specimen is covering a holly in front of the Biology-Psychology Building.

Just goes to show that the stuff people overlook or dismiss as "weeds" all have a story. Take some time to check them out.

Creeping Cucumber Update

Note: This blog had a few weeks incubation as a summer email post to the members of the Dept. of Entomology at the University of Maryland. What follows is a re-post of two items dealing with a wild cucumber, followed by a new one. Those who already know the cucumber saga from the emails can scroll down past the older stuff to see the update, but I wouldn't advise it.

So, what's happening behind St. Mary's Hall?
11 July 2017 

I was wandering around campus yesterday and came across St. Mary’s Hall.  I like to investigate buildings … see if the windows are locked, jiggle door knobs, check for unattended purses and laptops. You know, summer stuff.  Anyway, I found the need to make a quick exit out the back door and stumbled across some interesting stuff while investigating the bushes. 

There was this vine covering some shrubs. I didn’t recognize it, but it was very like a water melon, cucumber or squash vine … you know, Cucurbitaceae. It had funny little palmate leaves, tiny yellow flowers and what looked like baby water melons. So, I took a few pictures and figured I would ID it later.  To my surprise, it turned out that this plant is a creeping cucumber (Melothria pendula) and is considered an imperiled species in Maryland. Only about five populations are known in the state and the University of Maryland has one of them. This specimen (or at least the population) has been known since 1970; the plant is a perennial. The creeping cucumber is much more common farther south and is considered something of a pest in some places.

 

Leaves, flowers, tendrils and fruit of the "imperiled" creeping cucumber Melothria pendula

Creeping cucumber covering ornamental juniper

St. Mary’s Hall also has a small vegetable and flower garden which is worth a look, I suppose. The police were stepping into shots and making a commotion, so no more time for pictures.

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Creeping Cucumber Update! 1.0
31 July 2017

I went back to St. Mary's Hall to look at the Melothria pendula vine, hoping to get a photo of the ripe fruit.  Unfortunately, the landscape people had stirred themselves into activity and eliminated it.  As it is a perennial, it will likely return next year, if not before. Still, sad.
 

Crestfallen, the atmosphere darkened and I began to wander aimlessly; the lyrics of Don't Fear the Reaper forcing themselves into my head. However, a few steps brought me face to face with another "imperiled" creeping cucumber vine; this one in a planting of ornamental grass near Dorchester Hall. Cucumber party time! It you missed the first one, it's not too late.

Location of the late St. Mary's Hall cucumber vine (RIP) and that of the remaining Dorchester Hall cucumber vine (Party Time!)

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Creeping Cucumber Update! 2.0
15 August 2017

The creeping or Guadeloupe cucumber is ranked G5 on the NatureServe ranking scheme, meaning that it is secure globally, and S2 in Maryland, meaning that it is "imperiled" in the state. The Maryland populations are at the northern edge of the plant's range, which appears to be moving northward based on recent discoveries on the Eastern Shore and Delaware. So, while the species is technically scarce in Maryland, it is not in any great jeopardy. In fact, it has been making something of a nuisance of itself on campus.

I recently found several more plants near the Biomolecular Sciences Building growing on some milkweed and a large stand of Eupatorium sp. (boneset). Here are some photos.

A couple creeping cucumber vines from a large assembly of vines near the Biomolecular Sciences Building. The vine on the left was destroyed less than 48 hours later by weed-wacking grounds keepers. Worried about their crimes against cucumberdom, they have started to follow me ... destroying evidence!

I returned less than 48 hours later to get a picture of the habitat, which includes the chimney to Maryland's subterranean skunk crematorium.  (Where did you think dead skunks ended up?) I found that the grounds keepers had been weedwacking and had severed a couple vines. This was an opportunity to sample one of the doomed fruits. It had a very satisfying crunch followed by a sudden rush of a pleasant cucumbery flavor but richer and a bit of sourness. It was very tasty. I could see placing them in a garden salad or chopping them up into, say, tuna or chicken salad. There was an after taste, but it was not unpleasant. Too bad they are "imperiled". Fortunately, the seeds of a close relative, M. scabra or Mexican sour gherkin, are available commercially for the rearing of "mouse melons" for culinary purposes. I also understand that the fruits of both species must be eaten green; the ripe purple fruit is a potent purgative. Mmmm ... purgative.

Left: A tasty creeping cucumber or "mouse melon". Right: Creeping cucumber habitat, including picnic area near chimney of UMD skunk crematorium. Mmmm ... skunk crematorium.

Local Color: Wildflowers on the University of Maryland Campus. Part 1.

I took a walking tour of the northeastern part of campus looking for some wildflowers. I picked up quite a few chiggers. Still, I was  pleasantly surprised by the plant diversity, although some of the most surprising were limited to a few square feet of ground. A few things other than flowers caught my attention.  First, the woods in the flood plain between the Paint Branch River and Paint Branch Drive are loaded with plastic water bottles and other junk. I mean LOADED. Second, the natural, untended or marginally tended areas on campus are being devoured by porcelainberry, an invasive East Asian vine in the grape family (Vitaceae), that covers any structure or woody plant that will support it. The surface area covered by this plant is alarming. Finally, there are virtually no ferns in these moist forests. I found this odd given that the conditions seem very suitable. I saw one Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) on a stream bank...period. Something's wrong. Are contaminants in the runoff from roads and parking causing this? All of this is somewhat embarrassing given that the University of Maryland identifies itself as an Arboretum and Botanical Garden and is presumably filled to the gills with environmentalists, including a college devoted to natural resources.

Porcelainberry, a nightmare

The process of reclaiming and maintaining natural areas around campus would seem to offer opportunities for lots of research and proof-of-concept projects aimed at maintaining biodiversity in urbanized environments. The knowledge gained would likely be valuable to communities throughout Maryland and beyond.... Well, back to reality.

Map

Technology Drive Retention Pond

Ludwigia peploides. Floating Primrose-Willow or Creeping Water Primrose. Family Onagraceae (Evening Primrose Family). Native, perennial, aquatic to semiaquatic. A widespread and potentially troublesome plant that can clog waterways and create other aquatic havoc. Most of the retention pods surface is covered by this plant.

Verbena urticifolia. White Vervain. Family Verbenaceae (Vervain Family). Native, annual, biennial or short-lived perennial. Can get up to 3 feet high, leaves are similar to those of nettles (thus urticifolia, compare to false nettle below). Crowned with elongate inflorescences with ridiculously small white flowers. See a plant in profile in front of the deer in the picture above.

Left: Dianthus armeria. Deptford Pink. Family Caryophyllaceae (Pink Family). Non-native (Europe), annual or biennial. Small showy flowers clustering on long (about a foot), thin stalks. Common in meadows, pastures, hedgerows, etc. "Pinks" are named for the notches at the edges of their petals (as in pinking shears), not their color. Deptford is a city in England where these flowers were once common. Coincidentally, I started listing to Heart of Darkness on LibriVox recently and Deptford was mentioned early on. I know, who cares? 
Right: Eupatorium serotinum. Late-blooming Thoroughwort or Late-blooming Boneset. Family Asteraceae (Aster Family). Native, perennial and not blooming yet. Tall, widespread plant that occupies a variety of habitats. The genus Eupatorium contains many of the white composites that lack ray flowers (the marginal flowers in composites that carry the big petals) that one sees in the fall, including bonesets and thoroughworts. Sometimes hard to tell apart.

Left: Mikania scandens. Climbing hempvine or climbing hemp weed. Family Asteraceae (Aster Family). Native, vine. An unusual growth form for a member of the daisy, aster, ironweed family. Look for it growing on milkweed near the pond outlet.  Right: Asclepias syriaca. Common milkweed. Family Asclepiadaceae (Milkweed Family). Native, perennial. It's past the flowering season for this population, but the pods have nice color in the forms of milkweed bugs and leaves with yellow aphids tended by ants. Left: Erigeron strigosus. Prairie Fleabane or Prairie Fleabane Daisy. Family Asteraceae (Aster Family). Native, annual to biennial. A common component of many disturbed habitats. It blooms from spring to fall and thus differs from asters, which tend to start blooming late in the season. Right: Hibiscus moscheutos. Rose Mallow, Crimson-eyed Rosemallow, etc. Family Malvaceae (Mallow Family). Native, perennial in marshes, swamps, etc. Its petals range from white to deep rose with dark pink to maroon center. There are several easy-to-spot plants at the pond.

Not shown Bull Thistle, Cattail, Porcelainberry, Horsenettle, Pokeweed

Beech Woodlot

This small woodlot is not exactly colorful but it has some interesting things. There are several large and unmarred American Beeches (Fagas grandifolia) that are quite impressive. Part of the understory includes a small stand of pawpaws (Asimina triloba: Annonaceae), a small tree that is fairly common in Maryland and is particularly abundant along the Potomac River and C&O Canal. Its fruit is fairly large (up to 6 inches long), somewhat oval or kidney shaped and contains a soft yellow pulp that tastes of banana with hints of other tropical flavors. The family is primarily tropical. There was no fruit on these trees; pollination failure is common due to the weak carrion-like odor of the plant that attracts relatively few insects, flies mostly. Reproduction occurs primarily though suckers sprouting from roots. The leaves and other tissue are avoided by deer and most herbivorous insects due to the presence of acetogenins, which are neurotoxic. However, one insect, the larva of the zebra swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus: Papilionidae), can feed on the leaves and retain the acetogenins as a defense agains predators. Recent work suggests that these chemicals may be useful as pesticides or anti-cancer drugs.

Zebra swallowtail butterfly on sunflower at McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area. Photo courtesy of the lovely and talented Janet Easly

 Pedestrian Bridge

Left: Lobelia cardinalis. Cardinal Flower. Family Campanulaceae (Bell Flower Family). Native, perennial. Look for them on the upstream side of the bridge where a very small stream meets the larger stream. The largest cluster is on the bank of the small stream; there is another, smaller cluster on the right bank of the larger stream about 4 or 5 meters from the bridge. It is one of the few red flowers in Maryland.
Right: Mimulus alatus. Sharp-winged Monkeyflower. Family Phrymaceae (Lopseed Family). Native, perennial. Look for them opposite from the cardinal flowers on the small stream.
How to distinguish Maryland's two monkeyflower species: The flower of M. alatus attaches to the stem by a very short stalk; the flower of M. repens (Allegheny monkeyflower) attaches to the stem by a long stalk. See post Triumph of the Natives? (Aug. 5, 2017) for a picture of M. repens.

Left: Solanum carolinense. Horsenettle. Family Solanaceae (Nightshade Family). Native to southeastern US from VA and KY south, but introduced throughout much of eastern North America, perennial. Large cluster left of the bridge entrance nearest the parking lot. Pernicious weed of pastures and similar areas, poisonous to livestock in large quantities, produces poisonous tomato-like berries in the fall. What's the deal with poisonous berries? Seems counter productive to the whole idea of a berry. Apparently, skunks and turkeys will eat the berries, but most things avoid them.
Right: Boehmeria cylindrica. Small-spike False Nettle. Family Urticaceae (Nettle Family). Native, perennial. Looks like a stinging nettle but doesn't sting. (The sting in stinging nettles is caused by the injection of histamines, neurotransmitters and acids by tiny needle-like hairs.) The plant is wind pollinated so the flowers are small, lackluster green things.

Creature Feature 1.0

I was eating my morning cereal last Friday, while using a laptop to listen to a pirated live stream of CNN. (We cut the cable last year.) I heard a clink or creak coming from the direction of our fireplace. The wind must be blowing pretty hard, I thought, and continued listening to a discussion about Donald Trump Jr.'s problematic meeting with Boris and Natasha.

More clinking. I looked over and could see something bobbing in the darkness behind the glass of the fireplace insert. Uggh. I figured it was a black rat snake; they get into the walls, attic or basement on occasion. One must have managed to get past the critter baffle and come down the chimney. Not a big deal. I would finish my cereal, then take the snake outside... CNN was now saying that Moose and Squirrel were also implicated in the Trump thing and that soon we would have no effective government at all.

Eventually I got a flashlight and peered into the fireplace to take the measure of the situation and met the beady eyes of a twitchy little bat. I don't know what kind of bat, there are 10 species in Maryland. I think he may have been a vente brown bat or a grande brown bat. My light frightened him, whatever species he was, and he began clambering about again, quickly disappearing into one of the many crannies in there. Fortunately, there were no nooks.

Fireplace insert and bat-collecting equipment

Hmmm. Not having dealt with a bat before, I wasn't sure how to proceed. Are they fast on the hoof, do they break easily, can they bite through metal? So, I gathered things that I thought might be useful ... a canvas insect sweep net and an old peanut butter jar. Upon reflection, this was clearly an entomological solution to a mammalogical problem (if all you have is a hammer...). I had to think more like a bat. So, I took a small cardboard box, stapled an old washcloth on the inside bottom and put the thing into the fireplace insert on end, so the washcloth made a vertical surface. I figured His Batness would eventually crawl in there, find it comfy and when I got home in the evening, he would be hanging around in the box. All I would have to do is close the flaps and take him outside... done and done. It was a plan, anyway.

Before I began my drive to the office, I decided to circumnavigate the outside of the house. I sometimes find nocturnal creatures who lack the ambition to hide again before daylight, usually slugs, daddy longlegs, spiders and moths. But today was a first. I found a leaf-rolling cricket Camptonotus carolinensis, the only species of the family Gryllacrididae in the United States. Gryllacridids are not crickets per se but are more closely related to katydids, but even this is a phylogenetic technicality. They are really off by themselves with camel crickets, wetas and some other misfit orthopterans.

C. carolinensis is about 1.3 cm long (~ .5 inch), a wingless, nocturnal predator of aphids. During the day they occupy a retreat that they constructed by chewing a flap in a leaf, folding the flap over and fastening it to the rest of the leaf with silk from their mouthparts. They have remarkably long antennae (see photo), and this individual, an adult female based on the ovipositor, had its antennae extended in opposite directions, seemingly to maximize the distance over which it could detect predators.

Leaf-rolling cricket (Camptonotus carolinensis), arrows indicate ends of antennae

A rarely considered aspect of Camptonotus biology is the incredible stickiness of their feet, probably an adaptation for walking on the smooth, waxy surfaces of leaves. If you put one on your finger, it's hard to pull it off without feeling that something is going to give ... their legs or your skin. It's a peculiar feeling when they finally let go; it seems like there there must have been a glue, but there is no glue.

When I was a graduate student in the 1980s, this business of sticky bug's feet was explained by water surface tension. Each little hair on a bug's foot has a bazillion super-microscopic projections and each projection was thought to be hydrophilic (attracted to water). Assuming that most surfaces have a thin film of water on them and that bug's feet are attracted to water, this could explain how bugs and other creatures could walk on the ceiling or a window pane. But there is also something called the van der Waals force (attraction or repulsion of atoms due to random fluctuations in their electrical charges) that some scientists thought might be a better explanation for sticky feet. Still, most folks thought that these forces were too weak to account for the phenomenon, but this was wrong. In fact, van der Waals forces are strong enough to allow even geckos to walk bipedally, talk and sell insurance... I mean, climb on vertical surfaces, even glass. The same is true for spiders. A glue-less adhesive tape has been designed based on these findings. (This is an example of why we should fund basic science, y'all!) I suspect that Camptonotus is using the same mechanism.

So, I drove to campus listening to a LibriVox audio book, The Turn of the Screw. Oooo, scary. Listening to stories makes the drive seem to go faster, although, objectively, I am still burning through the same amount of my short lifespan trapped in a box. On the bright side, this is probably good practice for later.

Every day, while walking from the parking garage to the Plant Sciences Building, I pass by the School of Public Health where, once or twice a week, I see striped, blue-tailed lizards skittering around on a retaining wall. These are juvenile five-lined skinks (Piestiodon fasciatus: Scincidae), one of six lizard species in the state according to the Maryland Biodiversity Project. However, these little guys were always too wary and quick to examine, let alone photograph. I lucked out today. There was a pair of them having some sort of lizardy tiff, and they were focusing on each other rather than on me. So, I was able to get a series of images be fore they darted into the juniper shrubbery.

A stand-off between two juvenile five-lined skinks

These lizards can autotomize (self-detach) their tails when attacked by a predator. The tail continues to wiggle, distracting the predator and allowing the business end of the lizard to escape; that is, the part with the reproductive organs. The stationary skink in the photos has apparently used this strategy in the past; it has a regenerated tail: short, stocky and not very blue. Adults look rather different; the stripes and blueness of the tail are usually less distinct and the head becomes reddish. I have never seen an adult, but clearly they must be on campus somewhere.

Eating lunch in my office (Chobani passion fruit yogurt), I began to think about His Batness and whether he had made it into the box yet.  I decided to send an email to Second Chance Wildlife Center asking if they had any advice. They responded that I should hang a towel in the fireplace insert, wait for the bat to perch on it and then fold him up in it.  I was then supposed to take this bat burrito outside, unfold the towel and hang it vertically, because bats need to take off from a vertical surface. Who knew? I reckoned that my approach was pretty close to this. After all, towels and washcloths are very close relatives on the spectrum of household items... cousins, if not siblings; they usually share a closet. I was reassured about my choice of materials.

When I arrived home, my wife, Janet, informed me that she had named the bat Petyr, after the ancient but ill-fated vampire in What We Do in the Shadows (2014), a movie I highly recommend. Petyr hadn't made it into the box yet and, in fact, he hadn't put in an appearance all day. Perhaps he got out by himself?

As evening approached, we heard scurrying in the fireplace. Amazingly, Petyr wandered into the box and climbed onto the wash cloth.  I opened the insert door, folded the flaps of the box closed and took the contraption outside.  I opened the box slowly, half expecting Petyr to fly into my hair and give me rabies, but he just sat in the corner looking pathetic. I took a couple pictures, stood the box on end again, and we left him alone.

Petyr

When we returned a little later and Petyr was gone. His little wash cloth that he had loved so much was all that we had left of him. It will be framed.  With a sense of accomplishment, we returned to the living room and closed the door to the fireplace insert, a little teary eyed. Oh, Petyr, we barely knew you. 

I sighed, sat down, opened the laptop and turned on pirated live-stream CNN to find out what Fearless Leader had tweeted today.

Triumph of the Natives?

Our house is next to an outlot with a field bordered on three sides by woods and streams. When we moved in about nine years ago, a dense thicket of wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius), an East Asian raspberry, occupied one side of the field, but most of it was covered in Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum: Poaceae) with occasional mile-a-minute vines (Persicaria perfoliata: Polygonaceae) crawling over stumps and logs. There seemed to be little hope for any native plants to re-establish themselves, due, in part, to an unholy alliance between stiltgrass and too many deer. Deer don't eat stiltgrass (nor will anything else, it seems) and the deer seem to protect the grass by eating native competitors, including seedlings of trees. So the prospect of any natural succession toward something less tragic seemed unlikely. Even unnatural succession, aided by pulling the grass, mowing or applying herbicides, would have to go on for years to exhaust the extensive seed bank already in the soil. Short of a herd of herbivorous pygmy godzillas (godzillae?), the Japanese stiltgrass seems to have won. Go, go, Godzilla. [For those of you who aren't keeping score, this is yet another allusion to a Blue Oyster Cult song.]

Japanese stiltgrass

However, there were some interesting changes over the years.  A sycamore sapling, apparently too deep in the wineberry thicket for deer to bother with, and a few common milkweeds (Asclepias syriaca: Apocynaceae) established themselves among the wineberries. 

Milkweed flowers and pods with nymphal milkweed bugs (Oncopeltis fasciatus: Lygaeidae)

After a few more years, the wineberry thicket simply vanished, despite abundant opportunities for reseeding from adjacent thickets, and was replaced by the milkweed, a native plant that is as close to deer proof as we are likely to get.  By the time this had happened, the sycamore had reached a size at which it was largely immune to deer. The milkweed continues to advance across the field at a remarkable rate. Stiltgrass (at lower densities) and creeping charlie (Glechoma heeracea: Lamiaceae), a vine in the mint family, still form a sort of low understory but the grass is no longer the dominant player.

Outlot Field. A dense population of milkweed (center left) surrounds a young sycamore tree. The rest is Japanese stiltgrass, but the milkweed is advancing yearly to the right. The milkweed area was once a wineberry thicket.

Some other interesting plants have started bringing up the rear of the milkweeds. The first ones I noticed were purple passion flowers or maypops (Passiflora incarnata). The family Passifloraceae is most diverse in the tropical New World. It is an amazing flower that seems out of place in temperate Maryland. Three stigmas on top, five stamens (look like shower heads); a filamentous dance floor (coronal filaments) with nectaries in the center; white petals at the bottom. It also has a very powerful scent, a little spicy and almost sickly sweet; the odor will fill a room rapidly.

Purple passion flower and leaves of passion vine

The "passion" in the name came from the conquistadors, who thought the coronal rays of the flower resembled the crown of thorns worn by Christ at the crucifixion, the final act in his period of suffering or “passion”. I suppose if people can see Jesus in toast and Cheetos, they can see a crown of thorns in the sexual organs of a plant.  [By the way, passion fruit is my favorite flavor of Chobani yogurt. So stop asking.] Ironically, most parts of the plant, including the nectar, have a sedative rather than impassioning effect on both insects and people; it increases the consumer's level of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA (gamma acetyl butyric acid). This also accounts for the “drunken bee” phenomenon, wherein bees on the flower seem to stagger around or simply “sleep” with their faces stuck in the nectary.  I suppose this is a way for the plant to maximize the deposition of pollen on the pollinator, but who knows really? See a drunken carpenter bee below and in the YouTube video.

"Drunken" carpenter bee (Xylocopa sp.) on a passion flower, and my favorite yogurt, because, like The Ramones, I wanna be sedated.

Before leaving the topic of passion flowers and bees, I should mention a second species of passion flower in Maryland and points south and west. The yellow passion flower Passiflora lutea is a smaller more anemic-looking version of its purple cousin. There is an unusual and uncommon halictid bee, Anthemurgus passiflorae, the only member of its genus, that provisions its brood solely with the pollen from P. lutea. In contrast, the plant has many pollinators and only the bee is prepared to commit. The bee does not appear to occur in Maryland.

Yellow passion flower. Photo by Dr. Bill Shear taken recently in southern Virginia and used with his blessing.

A clump of Allegheny monkeyflowers (Mimulus ringens, Phrymaceae) turned up for the first time this year. It’s named for a supposed similarity to the face of a monkey (…duh), although I don’t really see it myself when my eyes are open. I would, however, accept “undergrad-in-my-biology-class” flower, given its vacant, slack-jawed expression. Imagine if the flower were looking at a smart phone or laptop screen during lecture and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Monkeys are engaged, enthusiastic and curious creatures.

Allegheny monkeyflowers

Back to the never-ending war on stiltgrass. My anecdotal observations suggest that there may be conditions under which natives may triumph or at least put up a good fight. Again, the transitions I observed were unaided by humans … no spraying, weeding, burning, etc. The key may be in breaking the compact between deer and stiltgrass. Plants that provide a persistent physical barrier to deer may allow the re-establishment of natives within the thicket, even if the thicket itself is composed of an invasive plant. This could allow trees to reach a size where they are no longer browsed by deer and thus begin to shade out the maternal thicket, reduce the density of stiltgrass and initiate a process of quasi-renaturalization or reforestation. In contrast to raspberries, milkweed does not represent a significant physical barrier to deer, but a large, dense population may offer a “needle in the haystack” sort of protection for other natives, like Passiflora and Mimulus. Organized planting of the major players might accelerate this process, thus giving natives the upper hand and reducing the need for persistent human intervention with herbicides. There are other examples of this process around my house. The only places I see trees actually making it to a reasonable height are those surrounded by wineberries or mixed wineberry and black raspberry thickets. There is one thicket protecting another sycamore and another protecting a hickory. 

Sycamore sapling in wineberry thicket

In short, there may be an organic approach in the fight against at least some invasive plants through manipulated succession. Research needed, I guess.