Burger's Onion

The Tale of the Red Hand

2009-10-30T16:48:00.004-04:00

The Old English Cemetery, Sutherland. Photo via Kambrokind Guest House.

One of the few “true” ghost stories that I know happens to have a botanical and succulent plant theme. As with all true ghost stories, it happened to a friend of a friend who shall remain nameless, many years ago, and has certainly changed with each telling, probably in significant ways, to turn it into a satisfying narrative, and to make it more frightening and inexplicable. I don’t for a moment think that the cold, high veld around Sutherland is really haunted by a shambling lich or some other, less describable terror from beyond. But still, I will be tempted to double-check the windows the next time I park my car to take a nap after a long drive.

Sutherland is far back in the mountains to the northeast of Cape Town, South Africa. I recall flying over the area on the way to the Fairest Cape one July—at the height of the southern winter—and glimpsing a dimly lit, snow-covered landscape through a break in the clouds. The sight was unsettling, ghosts or no, for someone fresh from summer in New England and contemplating a month of camping in the desert. Sutherland is one of the coldest places in Africa, with rocky plains in every direction sparsely vegetated with low scrub and hardy little succulents.

A certain respected South African botanist was doing fieldwork around Sutherland in the middle of winter. At the end of a long day of driving, hiking and collecting specimens, he found himself on a little-used road, miles from nowhere, and decided to park, get some rest and continue plant hunting in the morning. After supper out of a can, heated on a camp stove by the side of the road, he decided that the weather was going to be too frosty for sleeping under the stars. So, he got into the car, reclined the seat, and got settled in his sleeping bag.

The temperature was bitterly cold that night, by African standards if not by the standards here in Connecticut, and the botanist closed the windows tight, and wore his jacket inside of the sleeping bag. The chill was still uncomfortable, and he was awake for some time before falling into an uneasy sleep.

Some time after midnight, he awoke with the feeling that he was no longer alone. Nervously, he looked around the car, and saw a disembodied hand—emaciated, deep bloody red and faintly internally phosphorescent—reaching for him from out of the dark, right inside of the cab with him. He just about leapt out of his sleeping bag in a panicked attempt to escape the hand, but the spectral visitor vanished almost as soon as it was seen.

There are a number of possible explanations for the Red Hand: certainly, people commonly experience strange and sometimes realistic hallucinations when emerging from troubled sleep. One can’t entirely rule out the actions of living humans, though the area was very remote, and the blasted, treeless landscape didn’t offer many places where a thief could have hid when the frightened botanist searched the area around his car. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the incident was this: the night was frigid and the botanist was certain that he had closed the windows to keep out the wind before going to sleep. But afterwards, he found that the window in the direction from which the hand had approached was rolled down part of the way.

Autumn in New England

2009-10-16T13:11:00.003-04:00

It's been sort of a dreary summer in Connecticut, and the fall foliage isn't really the best this year. Still, the view from Spring Hill in Storrs isn't too shabby.

A uniform silver haze in the sky the other day gave rise to some unusual light effects: note the ring around the sun, with bright spots at 9:00, 12:00 (and presumably 3:00 behind the low clouds). Was this a portent of bad weather?

Yes, as a matter of fact, it was a portent of bad weather. Wet snow flurries fell yesterday afternoon through this morning, on and off. Snow before the leaves fall is pretty rare, and it was fortunate that it wasn't cold or heavy enough for much accumulation: heavy snow sticking on the leaves of deciduous trees can cause serious damage. There weren't any downed branches or power outages that I noticed, and the snow is gone now.

Talk in Massachusetts

2009-10-16T12:30:00.003-04:00

Pelargonium oblongatum (section Hoarea), a tuberous caudiciform from Namaqualand in South Africa's Northern Cape, in flower in late spring.

I've got a talk coming up this Saturday, at the Cactus and Succulent Society of Massachusetts, at Tower Hill Botanical Garden near Worcester. The meeting runs 1:00 to 4:00, and I'll probably start yakking at around 2:30.

My topic is going to be "Succulent Pelargonium." Pelargoniums are members of the geranium family, primarily native to South Africa. The usual garden center geraniums are hybrid Pelargonium, but the genus also includes probably 150+ species from arid habitats with succulent stems, succulent roots, or even somewhat succulent leaves. My talk will be a basic introduction to the group, covering a range of succulent species, with diversions into cultivation and propagation. I'll bring along some extra seedlings for people to try at home, too.

I'll be doing a similar talk for the Philadelphia Cactus and Succulent Society in November.

Anacampseros hillii

2009-09-22T17:18:00.004-04:00

Anacampseros hillii is flowering for me right now. This plant was only described in 2008, and is hardly cultivated anywhere, so I've been trying to produce some seed to spread around. It hasn't been easy to propagate: the flowers only open for a few hours starting around 2:00-3:00 in the afternoon, and they are self incompatible (pollen from a different individual is needed to make seed). My two plants never seem to synchronize properly, though I did manage to succeed once by saving some pollen from plant A in the fridge, and applying it to plant B when it bloomed a week later. I think I managed the same trick this year; we'll see in a few weeks. Oddly, the original description (Williamson, G. 2008. Aloe 45) has the plants as being self-fertile. It may be that there is variation in the presence of incompatibility.

Anacampseros hillii is truly minute, which probably explains why it eluded detection for so long while growing on rather well-botanized quartz flats in the Knersvlakte north of the relatively major town of Vanrhynsdorp. The flowers are about 1 cm across, and the plant is normally represented above ground by just one or two tiny blackish green leaves and a nub of hairy stem. The spindle-shaped tuber underground has about the bulk of a peanut or two, sans shell.

The plant is probably related to the similarly dwarf Anacampseros comptonii, which grows fairly close by, though in quite a different habitat on cooler, wetter elevations. Anacampseros is part of the Portulacaceae (purslane family), better known for the garden annual portulaca.

Hondebal in Flower

2009-09-08T16:25:00.004-04:00

Larryleachia cf. marlothii, the Hondebal, in cultivation at the University of Connecticut, September 2009.

The Hondebal ("dog ball" in Afrikaans...) is a stem-succulent in the Apocynaceae (milkweed family) with a fairly wide distribution in the arid parts of Namibia and western South Africa. The taxonomy of the Hondebals is about as convoluted as it could be for a group with probably just two species, which have been assigned to seven different genera at various times. The name "Trichocaulon," which is how I originally learned them, is a sentimental favorite, but I think they're more properly placed in the genus Larryleachia. For now. I grew the plants in the photo from seed that was labeled at L. cactiformis, but I suspect that they are really the other species, L. marlothii, based on the pale, speckled flowers.

Hondebals can be finicky, but can also grow rapidly if they are kept happy. These plants are flowering at only about a year and a half old. I use a sandy soil with very little organic content, and keep the plants in a really dry, sunny spot right next to the Lithops. So far, Larryleachia has been doing better than many of the other stapeliads in the UConn greenhouse, possibly because the plants are relatively tolerant of winter chills.

Welwitschia Cones

2009-08-25T17:35:00.005-04:00

Welwitschia mirabilis at the University of Connecticut.

Welwitschia mirabilis is a gymnosperm (cone bearing, non-flowering seed plant) endemic to the Namib Desert in southwestern Africa. Welwitschia is in a category of its own in the plant kingdom, morphologically speaking: seedlings produce exactly two foliage leaves before the shoot apex aborts. The resulting stubby trunk with pair of strap-like leaves can live for centuries, gradually expanding by growing from the region where the leaves are attached.

There is an extensive mythology surrounding the cultivation of Welwitschia, but the plants aren’t as difficult as one might be led to believe. They don’t actually need to be grown in tall, skinny drainpipes, and may in fact benefit from planting in a wide container (or in a ground bed in a greenhouse), which allows room for an extensive network of surface roots to develop. It is possible to transplant them, though Welwitschia roots are a bit on the delicate side. They can also grow fairly quickly: the large mature plants at the University of Connecticut in the photos are only about 12 years old. For the past several summers, these plants have produced cones.

Welwitschia plants are either male or female (i.e., they are dioecious). So far here at UConn, we only have had fully formed cones on male plants like the one in the photo above, but the production of seed should be possible, eventually, as more of our plants reach maturity.

Certain aspects of the reproductive biology of Welwitschia and its relatives in the plant order Gnetales are similar to reproduction in flowering plants, and for a time Welwitschia and the flowering plants were considered to be fairly closely related. More recent information on the evolutionary biology of the vegetable kingdom has pretty well sunk this idea, though, placing Welwitschia and friends much closer to pines and other conifers. Likely fossil relatives of Welwitschia, with similar leaves and reproductive structures, are known from North and South America. Some of the fossil species were apparently tree-like, with branches.

Organic Pest Control, the Mad Botany Way

2009-08-24T17:00:00.004-04:00

So, there was an outbreak of fruit flies in the kitchen last week. The place looked like an introductory genetics lab in May, when the students start to get lazy about disposing of their old Drosophila cultures. After more prosaic control options--such as cleaning out the compost bucket--were exhausted, I starting thinking about the possibilities for mopping up the abundant fruit fly stragglers. If only I had something sticky like flypaper, with a sweet smell to draw the insect pests to their doom...

Then I remembered that I have access to Drosphyllum lusitanicum, the Portuguese Sundew or Dewy Pine, a large carnivorous plant from the western Mediterranean with leaves that drip with mucilaginous goo and smell strongly of honey.

Drosophyllum turns out to be brutally efficient at offing Drosophila. The first flies were caught before I even set the plant down by the sink, and within an hour it looked like the majority of the infestation was glued to the leaves and in the process of being digested. I brought the Drosophyllum back to its greenhouse lair after a couple of days: it's not the sort of plant that would survive in typical kitchen conditions for long. Besides, there wasn't anything left for it to eat.

For those tempted to try growing their own Drosophyllum, there are cultural notes at the ICPS website.

Hail to the King, Baby

2009-07-31T16:21:00.003-04:00

Drosera regia in cultivation in Connecticut, June 2009. Leaves about 40 cm (16 inches) long.

Drosera regia, the King Sundew, is one of the giants among carnivorous plants, apparently growing close to a meter tall in some situations. Its natural range is a small patch of mountainous terrain north of Cape Town, South Africa, and it occupies an evolutionarily isolated branch of the sundew family tree, being the only surviving representative of a very early-diverging lineage. King Sundews are uncommon in cultivation, having a reputation for being slow-growing and temperamental. These plants at the University of Connecticut were started from seed collected in Bainskloof, South Africa, and are flowering for the first time at age 4.

Drosera regia flower.

I had several individual King Sundews flowering at the same time, so I cross-pollinated them. Six weeks later, the first seed capsules have started to ripen, and it looks like pollination was successful. Even seeds are big in D. regia: about the size of poppyseed, which is gigantic by Drosera standards.

Drosera regia, ripe capsule and seeds (pencil tip for scale).

Jerry Barad's 53rd Open House

2009-07-13T16:41:00.009-04:00

Jerry Barad discusses salvaging plantlets from a favorite variegated Agave potatorum, which was in the process of dying after it flowered.

For more than half a century, Jerry and Bea Barad have been hosting an annual open house at their spectacular private collection of cacti and succulents in New Jersey. This year, the Massachusetts and Connecticut cactus clubs decided to work together to charter a bus down to Jerry's place for the big event.

Dr. Barad made a living as a gynecologist before his retirement, but in his free time he is also a serious student of succulent plants who has traveled extensively in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and the Canary Islands, and published his findings in national and international journals. His area of specialization is stapeliads (succulents in the Apocynaceae, or milkweed family), but he grows pretty much everything. Outside of stapeliads, his collections of Haworthia and Echeveria are especially impressive.

Stapeliad festival.

Stapelia vetula, which has dropped some of its milkweed-like seeds to the left of the flower.

Jerry has two greenhouses. The smaller one is devoted mainly to the Crassulaceae: Echeveria, Crassula, and other members of the stonecrop family. The larger, older greenhouse is divided into halves, with a warm section given over to stapeliads, pachypodiums and other more tropical plants, and a cooler section with cacti, Haworthia, mesembs and more.

Variegated Haworthia truncata. Nothing that a little 2, 4-D wouldn't clear up. I'm not a fan of variegates, but actually, that is impressive.

Outside of the greenhouse, the grounds are like a miniature botanical garden/zoo, with hardy cactus and succulent rockeries, koi pond, bamboo grove, orchards, sheep pasture, a giant vegetable garden and carefully tended borders with annuals and dozens of large Brugmansia (Angel's Trumpet) plants that are planted out every spring, then dug out and stored in a cool garage all winter. It must be an enormous job to take care of it all, but Jerry does have hired help.

The view from the house. The greenhouses are behind the clump of bamboo (Phyllostachys aureosulcata?) at left.

The trip went smoothly, and I think everyone had a great day photographing plants, meeting fellow enthusiasts from all over the region, and just lounging by the pool. I'll be looking forward to visiting the Barads again some time!

Connecticut visitors Martha B., Bill B. and Ken M. between the koi pond and the swimming pool.

Echeveria and other Mexican Crassulaceae in the smaller greenhouse.

Impatiens mirabilis, a semi-succulent lithophyte (plant that grows on rocks) from tropical Southeast Asia.

Euphorbia piscidermis, a remarkable example of evolutionary convergence with the unrelated cactus genus Pelecyphora.

Me next to a giant Adenia (A. fruticosa?), which apparently grew from a piece of stem that Jerry left by the post many decades ago.

Carnivorous Plants at Tolland Marsh Pond

2009-06-14T16:16:00.010-04:00

Tolland Marsh Pond, May 31, 2009. Sarracenia flower at lower center.

Tolland Marsh Pond is a rather large (half a mile north to south) wetland, located in my neighborhood in the northeastern corner of Connecticut. The waters of the pond itself are acidic and dark, and ringed with a wide swampy margin of sedges, sphagnum moss, and thickets of blueberry and buttonbush. This is the kind of place where carnivorous plants grow, and in a recent trip to the pond I managed to find several different species of insect-eating greenery.

Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea. Note mosquitoes in lower left pitcher; these may be Wyeomia smithii, a pitcher plant commensal.

The most impressive carnivorous plant native to New England is the Purple Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia purpurea. The pitcher plants were in full bloom when I checked them in late May. The dark maroon flowers attract pollinating bees, and are held well above the modified, water-filled leaves.

Sarracenia purpurea flower, about 2 inches across.

The leaves are the business end of the plant; the part that actually traps and kills insects, then breaks them down in order to obtain nitrogen and other nutrients that are in short supply in bogs. Unlike some carnivorous plants, Sarracenia purpurea does not move. Prey is attracted by the coloration of the leaf and nectar that it secretes. Unlucky critters slide into the pool of liquid inside, drown and are digested by bacterial action.

Pitcher plants and cranberries. The fruit must have come through the winter, but it was still edible, if a bit mushy.

At Tolland Marsh Pond, pitcher plants are present in a few open, boggy areas, but don’t seem to be tremendously abundant. I’ve seen a few dozen plants, but there are large areas of potential habitat that I haven’t checked.

Drosera rotundifolia. A few plants of this species are visible in the cranberry photo above, too.

Drosera intermedia favors wetter, muckier parts of the bog.

The pond is also home to both of the species of sundew that occur in inland Connecticut, Drosera rotundifolia and D. intermedia. Sundews have glandular tentacles on their leaves that secrete sticky mucilage, and trap small insects. The tentacles and leaves slowly fold around and digest their prey. Drosera rotundifolia grows all around the pond in sphagnum moss, or on half submerged waterlogged wood. Drosera intermedia isn’t as widespread, and I saw just a few patches of it in mucky peat in open areas on floating mats of moss and vegetation.

Tolland Marsh Pond: edge of the marshy parts of the area viewed through laurel thicket, White Oak and Red Maple. There is a pond out there, but you can't see it from here.

Tolland Marsh Pond isn’t easily accessible, which does have the beneficial effect of limiting the number of visitors to a fairly fragile habitat. There are a few informal trails around the pond, but my botanizing has involved a good deal of bushwhacking through laurel thicket (Mountain Laurel is pretty, but it is a slow and scratchy process to cross a dense stand of it). The marshes where the carnivorous plants occur are treacherous as well, with floating hummocks and sphagnum mats providing doubtful footing over sunless water and peat slurry of indeterminate depth. Tolland Marsh Pond also has Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix), which is a bit like Poison Ivy, but twice as toxic and as tall as a lilac. Nasty, nasty stuff, which normal people will fortunately never run into, since it is almost entirely confined to bogs.

Tolland Marsh Pond, January 2009.

Sarracenia purpurea is evergreen, and although the leaves are low to the ground and can be hidden by even a little snow, the old seed heads are distinctive and fairly tall. So, winter is a good time to explore bogs for Purple Pitcher Plant populations. Places that are inaccessible in summer--too solid to be navigable by boat, but too unstable to negotiate safely on foot--can be reached by an easy walk after a long cold spell has frozen the landscape solid. And, there are no leaves on the Poison Sumac to worry about brushing up against.

Two Sarracenia purpurea flower stalks sticking above the snow (lower left and center).

I first found pitcher plants at Tolland Marsh Pond by taking advantage of good conditions for frozen bog walks this past winter. It would have been easier to find the plants if there hadn't been so much snow, but the old seed heads are fairly easy to spot, and seem to persist well into the cold season. There were even seeds still present in the capsules in January.

A little digging reveals the rest of the plant. Sarracenia purpurea leaves tend to turn solid red in winter, possibly to protect against light damage while the plants are dormant. The pitcher plants that I've seen in winter at Tolland Marsh Pond were close to open water in the center of the wetland, while the ones that I've been able to check on in summer were near solid land around the edge. In between, there is a stretch of possible habitat where I haven't looked. Time to think about another expedition!

Aloe dichotoma: the Quiver Tree

2009-06-01T16:16:00.003-04:00

An Aloe dichotoma forest east of Ratelpoort, Northern Cape, South Africa (August, 2004).

In Namaqualand, in the arid northwestern corner of South Africa, about the closest thing to a forest that a traveler in search of shade will find are groves of Quiver Trees—Aloe dichotoma, or Kokerboom in Afrikaans—growing on rocky slopes. At about 10 to 20 feet high, Quiver Trees are giants of the succulent plant world, if on the small side by ordinary tree standards.

The forest of Aloe dichotoma in the photo is located near Ratelpoort in central Namaqualand, where some of the finest stands of this species that I have seen occur. Quiver Trees are widespread in the arid parts of southern Africa, growing naturally throughout much of the Northern Cape Province in the RSA, and north well into Namibia. There is quite a bit of variation in the form of the plants, and a short, highly branched form found in the northern part of the species’ range is sometimes recognized as a separate entity, Aloe ramosissima.

The common names Quiver Tree and Kokerboom both refer to the former usage of hollowed-out A. dichotoma stems as containers for arrows, by Khoisan people. Aloe dichotoma has been put to other ethnobotanical uses, as well. In the not too distant past in the hinterlands of South Africa, farmers without electricity would fashion A. dichotoma wood into boxes that served as crude refrigerators. The wood is very light and porous, and if kept wet by a drip of water a Kokerboom container apparently stays quite cool from evaporation. I actually saw a Kokerboom refrigerator outside of a farmhouse in Bushmanland, years ago, though the device had been idle for some time.

Aloe dichotoma seedling, about a foot high at four years of age.

The homeland of the Quiver Tree receives its rain in winter, for the most part, but cultivated A. dichotoma plants pretty much seem to grow whenever water is available. Ordinary cactus and succulent soil mixes and watering regimes seem to work well with the Kokerboom, though it is not nearly as tolerant of poor light as its houseplant cousin, Aloe vera. Seed is usually available from Silverhill Seeds, and can quickly yield nice little plants, especially if the seedlings are given plenty of root run. I started my seedlings in the autumn, though I wouldn’t be overly surprised if it was possible to germinate seed in other seasons.

Aloe dichotoma with Connecticut Yankee for scale. The landscape, with domes of red gneiss/granite, is typical of Namaqualand. This is the farm Namaras, southeast of Springbok (July, 2004).

Lady's Slippers at Mansfield Hollow

2009-05-25T17:32:00.004-04:00

Memorial Day is usually flowering time for Cypripedium acaule (Pink Lady's Slipper), a native orchid that occurs here and there in northeastern Connecticut. Last weekend, I checked out a few local populations that I knew from previous years, and didn't see much in the way of flowers or buds, so I figured it was going to be a bad year for Lady's Slippers. However, poking around Mansfield Hollow State Park today, I ran across some really impressive stands of this somewhat uncommon wildflower. There was a little evidence of damage from deer and two-legged vermin (one plant pulled up and left by a trail), but also many dozens of plants at the peak of bloom.

The Mansfield Hollow and Mansfield Center region is underlain by thick layers of rough, nutrient-poor sand and gravel left over from the glaciers. The trees are mostly White Pine and various oaks, and there are blasted heaths of bare sand where vegetation has never managed to recolonize old roads or gravel pits. There's a neat overview of the local geology here. However, areas with exceptionally poor soil like this are always home to interesting plants.

Dry, acidic woods like these are the typical home of Cypripedium acaule. The plants seem to favor somewhat open sites in the forest, and patches of Lady's Slippers tend to come and go over the years as old sites get overgrown and new gaps open up. The long, toothy leaves in the background are an American Chestnut sprout, another frequent component of the flora in this type of habitat.

In the harshest spots where the orchids hang on, they're shorter than the plants deeper in the woods. This was a population under some stunted pines near an open gravel slope; the canopy was thin enough and the soil dry and poor enough that there were also patches of Reindeer Lichen (Cladonia rangiferina).

Pink Lady's Slipper is protected in Connecticut (doubly so in state parks), so visitors should tread lightly around the plants, and not pick or dig them under any circumstances. In any event, the plants need very specialized conditions to grow and are nearly impossible to transplant (gardeners should not take that as challenge! Seriously, it is cruel and wrong to swipe these plants from the wild), and are best enjoyed in situ.

CSSM Show at Tower Hill

2009-05-16T19:37:00.002-04:00

The third annual Cactus and Succulent Society of Massachusetts Show is going on this weekend, at the Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, Mass. I was there early this morning for judging duties, and was impressed by the quality of the plants on display and the enthusiasm of the CSSM membership.

The sales area included about half a dozen vendors selling C&S, rock garden plants, pottery and even Amorphophallus corms.

The oranges were moved outside of the Orangerie for the summer, wrapped in fabric temporarily until they acclimate to the sun, I assume.

The territory freed up inside of the Orangerie was used for the judged cactus and succulent show. The Tower Hill greenhouse was one of the best settings I've ever seen for a plant show; natural lighting and an airy space really make a difference.

The grounds at Tower Hill are beautiful, if you need a break from cacti. The lilacs are just a little past their peak this weekend.

Lachenalia patula: a Bulb with Succulent Leaves

2009-05-01T16:18:00.003-04:00

Lachenalia patula in late March. Material from Liebendal, near Vredendal, Western Cape, South Africa.

Bulbs with truly succulent aboveground leaves are almost unheard of: the whole point of having a bulb is that the foliage leaves can be active when growing conditions are optimal, and be dropped as soon as heat, drought or cold brings growth to a halt. In the majority of bulbous plants, even those from deserts, the only significant storage of water and nutrients occurs in the modified subterranean leaves that form the bulb itself. Lachenalia patula is almost unique*, as a bulb with chunky, low-surface-area foliage leaves full of water-storing tissue.

Lachenalia patula is a winter-growing bulb from arid areas in the Western Cape of South Africa. As far as I know, it is restricted to the southern parts of a desolate-looking but botanically rich area called the Knersvlakte, on flats and rolling hills often covered with white quartz pebbles. The bulbs of L. patula are small compared to the rest of the plant, only about 1 cm across, and covered in blackish tunics. Most of the approximately 70 species of Lachenalia come from seasonally moist habitats in the winter-rainfall zone of South Africa, and have thin leaves. Lachenalia patula’s succulent leaves may be a special adaptation to harsh conditions in the Knersvlakte.

In cultivation, L. patula needs very strong sun, and does well in cramped pots of poor, well-drained soil. In winter, the soil should be kept just slightly moist at all times: don’t let it stay soggy, but be sure that the leaves don’t start to wilt. The flowers tend to emerge in late March for me, and have a moderately strong sweet smell. They always seem to bloom about a week too early to look good for the CCSS Show. The plants rapidly go deciduous in April, as the seed ripens. As with other winter bulbs, the pot can be stored somewhere out of the way and neglected during the long warm weather dormancy.

Lachenalia patula can be propagated by seed, which are best sown in early autumn, and take two to three years to yield flowering-sized bulbs. The seedlings are agreeably peculiar little things, with perfectly cylindrical leaves, as opposed to the channeled leaves of adult plants. Like other lachenalias, L. patula can also be started from leaf cuttings, which are most likely to succeed if taken early in the growing season, as soon as the leaves are expanded.

*A few species of Drimia and Ornithogalum, including the weird O. unifoliatum, also have convincingly succulent foliage leaves.

Sarracenia in Bloom

2009-04-17T16:56:00.002-04:00

It's been about a month and a half since the Sarracenia plants finished their winter nap in cold storage, and many of them are flowering. This one is Sarracenia flava, the Yellow Pitcher Plant, a carnivore native to the southeastern United States from Virginia to Florida. The particular form in the photo, without any red markings around the pitcher mouths, is relatively common in the Carolinas, according to Donald Schnell in Carnivorous Plants of the United States and Canada.

Sarracenia flava is an imposing thing, as carnivorous plants go, and this one has leaves about 25 inches (64 cm) tall. When it is placed outside in the summer, the pitchers fill up almost to their tops with trapped flies, wasps and yellow jackets.

Connecticut Cactus & Succulent Show

2009-04-02T16:32:00.002-04:00

Conophytum plants, starting to go dormant.

This weekend is the Connecticut Cactus and Succulent Society's annual show and sale, at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury. The show is always a good time, and totally free of charge, apart from whatever you might be tempted into spending at the vendors or the auction. I'll be giving a short talk about living stones (such as Lithops and Conophytum) on Saturday at 3:15. Maybe I'll see some of you there!

Spring, This Time for Real

2009-03-17T16:16:00.003-04:00

Flower shows in February are nice, but actual spring weather has now arrived outside in Connecticut. This is the Snow Crocus, Crocus tommasinianus, always one of the first spring flowers.

There was no shortage of honeybees around the flowers a little later in the day. Meanwhile, back inside the greenhouse, conophytums and other winter-growing succulents are looking bedraggled and ready for their summer dormancy.

Century Plant Seedlings: 99 Years 11 Months to Go

2009-03-14T10:48:00.008-04:00

Agave filifera ssp. shidigera seedlings. Can you spot the aphid, which I didn't notice until after I downloaded the photo?

Last fall I wrote about the blooming of the Agave filifera ssp. schidigera plant in the University of Connecticut greenhouses. At the time, I was a little doubtful that I would get any seeds from the plant, since I did not have another individual available with which to cross pollinate it. However, I did attempt to self pollinate some of the flowers. It turns out that I needn't have worried: the Century Plant produced hundreds of fruits, even from flowers that I didn't physically pollinate.

The university's A. filifera didn't seem to be completely self-fertile; most of the seeds were small, white, and didn't germinate. But, each capsule contained a dozen viable, well-formed black seeds, so there was more than enough material to replace the parent plant, now in its terminal decline.

Ripe Agave filifera ssp. shidigera fruits.

I harvested and planted the seeds as soon as the fruits started to dry out and open, about four months after flowering. The seeds were sown in ordinary cactus and succulent mix (2 peat-based potting mix : 2 sand : 1 pumice : 1 Turface, more or less), lightly covered with course sand, placed in a sunny spot and kept moist. The seedlings emerged within a week, and a month or so later, are starting to produce their first foliage leaves.

The seedlings ought to be quite recognizable as little agaves by the end of the summer. It won't literally take 100 years for them to reach flowering size, though it is likely to be decades before the next generation of A. filifera plants blooms at UConn.

Spring is Here, Oh, Spring is Here

2009-02-22T17:23:00.005-05:00

...Life is skittles, and life is beer, at least in the Hartford Convention Center. The Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut held the Connecticut Flower & Garden Show this past weekend. I was there on Saturday to answer questions at the display from the UConn EEB Plant Growth Facility, and there was a steady stream of people, and the word was that it was difficult to even find a parking space by early afternoon. Things were busy, but I did take some time to do some photography.

Here's the display from the UConn greenhouses. It's a bit heavy on succulent plants and carnivorous plants. No messing around with arborvitaes and forced tulips for us.

Next door to the greenhouse table was Cheri C. from the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, with an educational exhibit on plants that are sources of fibers. Did you know that course fibers useful for rope making can be extracted from Sansevieria, the omnipresent potted Snake Plant?

The Connecticut Cactus and Succulent Society also had a booth in the educational exhibit section of the show, here manned by longtime CCSS-er Sully. The next big event for the CCSS is their annual show the first weekend in April, in Waterbury.

Out on the main floor, the New England Carnivorous Plant Society had a booth. Shaun M. and Wild Bill could barely keep up with the hordes of budding flytrap enthusiasts asking questions about the miniature garden of terror the NECPS had set up.

The numerous vendors included Judy B. of Lauray of Salisbury, with an eclectic selection of succulents, orchids and gesneriads.

Black Jungle also had a big presence. This was their first year at the Hartford Flower Show, but it seemed like they were keeping busy. In past years, commercial sources of carnivorous plants had been few and far between at the show, so I'm sure there was some pent up demand.

I didn't get many photos of the garden installations, but I really liked this one from the Connecticut Horticultural Society, who put together a charming mockup of an urban garden complete with vegetable patch and compost bin.

Ginkgo, and the Trouble with Living Fossils

2009-02-12T07:51:00.004-05:00

Ginkgo lined walkway at the University of Tokyo.

The Maidenhair Tree, Ginkgo biloba, is the last surviving remnant of a group of non-flowering seed plants (phylum Ginkgophyta) that way back in the Mesozoic had a worldwide distribution and were represented by multiple genera and species. Ginkgo came to the attention of European botanists in 1690, via cultivated trees in Japan, though it seems that the original home of G. biloba was the mountains of southwestern China. It is debatable whether truly wild populations of Ginkgo trees even exist anymore, but through cultivation the Ginkgophyta have regained shades of the ubiquity that they had in the age of the dinosaurs.

Ginkgo is a classic example of what are sometimes called “living fossils,” a lone hanger-on from a group that was far more diverse, widespread and ecologically important in the distant past, as revealed by the fossil record. The genus Ginkgo itself is known from the upper Triassic (200 million years ago) onward, with some fossils being quite similar, at least in form, to the modern Maidenhair Tree.

The term “living fossil” bothers me, though. Present day ginkgos aren’t identical to the fossils, and many of the ancient ginkgophytes don’t resemble the modern street tree in the slightest, unless viewed by someone with a background in paleobotany and plant morphology. The basic workings of genetics imply that it is essentially impossible for a real world population to remain genetically static from one generation to the next, let alone for millions of generations. So, Gingko biloba is certainly not a literal living fossil, untouched by the passage of time.

Even non-literal applications of “living fossil” are problematic. Ginkgos qualify as living fossils in large part simply because there weren’t that many of them around before people took them into cultivation, and they were confined to one obscure corner of eastern Eurasia. If it so happened that thousands of species of Ginkgophyta had survived into the present, and they grew in every forest, savannah, patch of desert scrub and vacant lot north of Antarctica, nobody would call them living fossils, never mind that they bore similarities to certain fossil remains.

Old Ginkgo tree at Washinomiya Shrine, Saitama, Japan. This individual has been coppiced: the original trunk was cut, and the tree is resprouting with multiple stems.

In our world, the Ginkgophyta barely squeaked by into the present, and another group of seed plants, the Magnoliophyta or flowering plants, diversified and came to dominate most terrestrial ecosystems. The designation of Ginkgo as a living fossil, and magnoliophytes—for example, petunias—as just ordinary plants, is purely retroactive and largely arbitrary: flowering plants, after all, have a fossil record that extends well back into the Mesozoic. Flowering plants share a common ancestor with Ginkgo, and the two lineages have been evolving for exactly the same amount of time since they diverged. A living fossil is more a matter of perception and lack of familiarity, than anything inherent in the plant.

In some alternate reality where pernicious ginkgophyte weeds infest suburban gardens of edible tomato-like ginkgophytes, and the only flowering plant that has dodged extinction is one species of petunia growing in a remote valley in Peru, perceptions would be different. Ginkgo biloba would be just another street tree, and petunias would be living fossils, a rare and freakish survival from a vanished world.

Reference: Gifford, E.M. & A.S. Foster. 1989. The Morphology and Evolution of Vascular Plants, Third Edition. W.H. Freeman and Co., New York.

Bald Eagles in NY

2009-02-08T15:40:00.004-05:00

Eagles at George's Island, Montrose, NY.

On Saturday I got over to Westchester County, New York, to visit some family and friends. The afternoon's amusement was attending Eaglefest, at various sites along the Hudson River in the Croton-on-Hudson vicinity. It went over well: the weather was considerably warmer than it has been lately, and we saw plenty of juvenile and adult Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), flying, perching, and at one point getting chased by a Red-tailed Hawk, which looked puny in comparison. My wildlife photography skills and equipment aren't up to National Geographic standards, but the bird-shaped blobs in the photos are eagles.

George's Island wide view. There are about 20 eagles in the trees.

Darwin's Orchid in Flower

2009-01-28T16:31:00.005-05:00

Here at the UConn Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Greenhouses we have a special treat, just in time for Darwin Day and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, coming up on February 12. The specimen of Angraecum sesquipedale, commonly known as "Darwin's Orchid," is in bloom, complete with the improbably long nectar spur that lead the great biologist to predict the existence of a pollinating moth with an improbably long nectar-sucking proboscis. This particular flower has a spur about 30 cm (11.5 inches) long, for example, with nectar at the base. The pale color of the flower, and its spicy-musky scent (strongest at night) are also typical features of moth-pollinated blooms. The hypothesized moth, Xanthopan morgani ssp. praedicta, was discovered in 1903, 21 years after Darwin's death, and only quite recently has anyone actually observed the moth doing its thing in the rainforests of Madagascar.

The special genius of Darwin is evidenced here not so much by the fact that he realized that only a moth with an outsized proboscis would be attracted to an Angraecum sequipedale flower--any clever naturalist with a basic knowledge of pollination biology could have intuited the characteristics of the sort of critter that would be needed to pollinate such a bloom--but in that he provided a clear explanation for the history and peculiar details of the Angraecum story. Here's the man himself:

If the Angræcum in its native forests secretes more nectar than did the vigorous plants sent me by Mr. Bateman, so that the nectary becomes filled, small moths might obtain their share, but they would not benefit the plant. The pollinia would not be withdrawn until some huge moth, with a wonderfully long proboscis, tried to drain the last drop. If such great moths were to become extinct in Madagascar, assuredly the Angræcum would become extinct. On the other hand, as the nectar, at least in the lower part of the nectary, is stored safe from depredation by other insects, the extinction of the Angræcum would probably be a serious loss to these moths. We can thus partially understand how the astonishing length of the nectary may have been acquired by successive modifications. As certain moths of Madagascar became larger through natural selection in relation to their general conditions of life, either in the larval or mature state, or as the proboscis alone was lengthened to obtain honey from the Angræcum and other deep tubular flowers, those individual plants of the Angræcum which had the longest nectaries (and the nectary varies much in length in some Orchids), and which, consequently, compelled the moths to insert their probosces up to the very base, would be fertilised. These plants would yield most seed, and the seedlings would generally inherit longer nectaries; and so it would be in successive generations of the plant and moth. Thus it would appear that there has been a race in gaining length between the nectary of the Angræcum and the proboscis of certain moths; but the Angræcum has triumphed, for it flourishes and abounds in the forests of Madagascar, and still troubles each moth to insert its proboscis as far as possible in order to drain the last drop of nectar.

Darwin, C. R. 1862. On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. pp. 201-203. London: John Murray. [Darwin Online link]

The orchid is not providing nectar out of some vegetable sense of charity, it is making the moth struggle for every drop and still holding a little more just out of reach, maximizing the chances that the moth will get stuck with pollinia (specialized adhesive pollen bodies) to carry to the stigma of the next Angraecum flower. The average nectar spur is a bit longer than the average proboscis. The moth, for its part, just wants a meal, and may in fact be actively trying to avoid getting a package of orchid pollen glued to its mouth parts, but is forced to cram its head all the way into the flower by the lure of the nectar at the bottom of that overly long spur.

The seemingly absurd length of nectar spur and moth proboscis is the outcome of an evolutionary arms race. Moths with slightly longer proboscises got more nectar, and prospered. Orchids with slightly longer spurs were more effective at foisting pollen onto moths and getting moths to deposit pollen onto their stigmas. Any angraecums with spurs shorter than a moth proboscis were unable to force the moths into the proper position to pick up or drop off pollen, and would have found themselves on the wrong end of the process of natural selection. The arms race may very well be ongoing to this day, unless one or other of the combatants has come up against structural limitations to the length of tube it can support.

A. sequipedale is on display in the EEB greenhouses for as long as the flower holds up (probably a week or so), and anyone who's in the area is welcome to stop in and see it in person.

Eriospermum cervicorne

2009-01-22T16:54:00.004-05:00

Eriospermum cervicorne plants in January (about 3 inches/8cm tall).

The New England woods may be icy and silent this time of year, but inside of the greenhouse the South African winter bulbs are green and active. South Africa is home to the most diverse flora of geophytes—bulbs, tubers and other plants that survive unfavorable conditions as underground storage organs—in the world, and many of these come from the winter-rainfall zone in the southern and western parts of the country. Winter geophytes have adapted to grow in the temperate, rainy winter months, and then hunker down for a long dormancy in the dry summer heat.

Eriospermum cervicorne (“deer antlers with hairy seeds,” more or less) is a tuberous plant found in sandy soil on granitic hills in central Namaqualand, in western South Africa. In late summer the tubers, which look like smallish russet potatoes, send up racemes of white flowers. Only after the flowers are finished and seed is set, in autumn, do the leaves appear. As with many Eriospermum species, the flowers of E. cervicorne are fairly bland, while the foliage is distinctive and memorable.

The leaves of E. cervicorne are borne singly, one per tuber, and are dominated by a mop of antler-like outgrowths called enations. Enations are green emergences from the upper surface of the leaf, which increase the plant’s light-catching photosynthetic area (important for plants trying to intercept weak winter sun, even in sunny southern Africa), while being more resistant to wind damage than just a larger flat leaf.

Enations seem to be an evolutionary alternative to dissected leaves (sometimes termed compound leaves), in a genus where the pattern of leaf development precludes the growth of ordinary dissected leaves. Eriospermums are monocots, like lilies or grasses, and have leaves that expand from a basal zone of cell division. Therefore, they cannot develop complex dissected leaves, like those in ferns, through the action of growing points along the leaf margin. Enations can be thought of as an unorthodox method of producing a shrubby, wind-resistant photosynthetic surface, in a group of plants with developmental constraints that rule out the usual sorts of finely divided leaves.

Like most South African geophytes, E. cervicorne appreciates cool nights (anything short of frost is fine) and warm days this time of year. Soil moisture is important for proper growth in the cool season: the plants should never dry out completely, but shouldn’t stay soggy, either. The limiting factor for northerners trying to cultivate winter-active desert plants like E. cervicorne is likely to be sunlight; the plants will soak up as many hours of direct sun as can be provided. During the dormant period, from April to August or so, Eriospermum pots can be left in a sheltered corner out of the rain and neglected.

Japan Trip

2008-12-01T16:09:00.008-05:00

On the grounds of Ginkakuji (the Silver Pavilion) in Kyoto: my current desktop image.

People occasionally somehow get the idea that I’m an enthusiastic and frequent traveler, but that’s pretty far from the truth. I stick close to home most of the time, though every once in a long while I scrape together enough money and enthusiasm to do something big, like my vacation in Japan this October.

I went over with a couple of friends from Connecticut, which was great for defraying costs and providing moral support. We planned out our own itinerary, which also cut expenses, in addition to providing the freedom to go where we wanted at our own pace. It worked out well, though it certainly helped that we all knew some Japanese, and had some friends over there.

I traveled in the southern part of the main island of Japan, in the Tokyo and Kyoto regions. This area has a humid subtropical climate, somewhat similar to the coastal Carolinas and Georgia, and October is considered a good time to visit: not stifling, but not frosty, either. Apparently, this October was unusually hot and hazy, and the weather was more summer-like than I had expected. It wasn’t unpleasant, but I quickly went through my supply of short-sleeved shirts.

Tokyo’s “electric town,” Akihabara. Across the street are a crane-game arcade, and infamous amateur comic shop Tora no Ana (The Tiger's Den).

Tokyo is a little overwhelming. It’s one of the largest cities in the world, with close to 13 million residents, and the urban landscape stretches out to the horizon in every direction when viewed from the top of the skyscrapers in Shinjuku (you can take the elevator up the Tokyo Metropolitan Building for free). But it isn’t too hard to get around; the train system is user friendly, and important signs usually give English translations.

Echeverias and a Peanut Cactus (Chamaecereus silvestrii) along a street in Tokyo.

Home base was a traditional inn (or ryokan) called Homeikan, close to the University of Tokyo, in a quiet residential neighborhood. I quickly felt comfortable in the area, which wasn’t nearly as hectic as the central parts of the city. There wasn’t much space for horticulture, but the inn had a small but immaculately maintained traditional garden. Around the neighborhood, people had collections of potted plants wherever they could find space, and I even spotted some aloes, echeverias and mesembs. The climate is warm enough that what would be houseplants in Connecticut stay outside year round. On plots of open ground around street trees near the inn someone had even planted Brugmansia (Angel’s Trumpet), which I usually think of as a true tropical plant.

Matt at Nandaimon, a gate near Todaiji, Nara Park

I also visited Kyoto and Nara, both former capitals of Japan that are famous for their ancient shrines, temples and gardens. Some of the most beautiful scenery, I thought, was at Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion, at the base of the mountains on the eastern side of Kyoto. Moss gardening is a specialty at the Silver Pavilion, and there was even a display showing which mosses were considered weeds, and which were carefully nurtured. Nara was wonderful as well, with a central park that includes numerous historic sites, including Todaiji, a Buddhist temple that is the largest wooden structure in the world. Nara Park is also home to a large number of more or less tame deer, which have the run of the place and will follow visitors around looking for handouts.

Hill east of Ginkakuji, mid-October, with maple foliage (Acer palmatum) starting to change color.

All in all, I had a fantastic time during my two weeks in Nippon. I would love to go back sometime to explore more in Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara, and maybe try to get further afield. Until then, I'm slowly putting together a longer and nerdier chronicle of the trip at my Japanese 2-D culture blog, Moetic Justice.

Talk in Philadelphia

2008-11-07T17:33:00.004-05:00

Eriospermum armianum (Ruscaceae), from west of Springbok, Northern Cape, South Africa. Single leaf with club-shaped outgrowths called enations arising from its surface.

I'm going to be giving a presentation on "Winter Growing Geophytes of South Africa" to the Philadelphia Cactus and Succulent Society this Sunday, November 9. The meeting will be from 11-3:00 at the Fairmount Park greenhouses, and my talk itself will likely take an hour or so, starting around 1:00. It should be fun; the PCSS is one of the largest and most active groups of its kind in the country; I was a little overwhelmed by the size and enthusiasm of the audience when I gave a talk on Conophytum in Philly last year.

The presentation will be a basic introduction to what is a huge subject; a lowball estimate of the number of winter growing tuber and bulb species in South Africa, from the Color Encyclopedia of Cape Bulbs, is around 1500. I'll talk about cultivation, the ecology of the plants in the field, and a little bit about morphology and anatomy, while showing slides of a somewhat scattershot sampling of Cape bulb diversity. The genus Eriospermum will be overrepresented, because I like eriospermums and have a bunch of photos of them, but I'll touch on the usual suspects too, like the Amaryllidaceae (Amaryllis family) and Hyacinthaceae (Hyacinth family), as well as some possibly unfamiliar dicot geophytes, like the tuberous Pelargonium species (Geraniaceae - Geranium family).