Sweet Gum Ball

 

Sweet Gum Ball

Sweet Gum/Liquidamber styraciflua

The fruit, popularly nicknamed a "space bug", "monkey ball", "bommyknocker", "bir ball", "gumball", "conkleberry", "cukoo-bir" or "sticky ball", is a hard, dry, globose, compound fruit 2.5–4 cm in diameter and composed of numerous (40-60) capsules. Each capsule has a pair of terminal spikes (for a total of 80-120 spikes), and each capsule contains one to two small seeds. When the fruit opens and the seeds are released, each capsule is associated with a small hole (40-60 of these) in the compound fruit. The seeds are mostly spread by wind.

The dried ball, an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, hangs on the branches during the winter. The woody capsules are mostly filled with abortive seeds resembling sawdust.

(Source:  Wikipedia)

Guest post by Jo Smith.

**********

Celebrate a tree in 2011.  It's easy:  Observe, photograph, sketch, or discuss and share with other tree huggers.  Please visit The Tree Year 2011 to participate or find other blogs post dedicated to trees from around the world.

.

Sweet Gum Ball

Nature Notes: Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

Butterfly Weed is a native herbaceous perennial. Though it is a member of the milkweed family it does not have milky-sapped stems.

Butterfly weed is easily grown in average, dry to medium, well-drained soils in full sun. Drought tolerant. Does well in poor, dry soils. New growth tends to emerge late in the spring. Plants are easily grown from seed, but are somewhat slow to establish and may take 2-3 years to produce flowers. Mature plants may freely self-seed in the landscape if seed pods are not removed prior to splitting open. Butterfly weed does not transplant well due to its deep taproot, and is probably best left undisturbed once established.

Butterfly Weed has a long bloom period from late spring throughout the summer. Flowers are a nectar source for many butterflies and leaves are a food source for monarch butterfly larvae (caterpillars).

Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies are among the species attracted to Butterfly Weed by its color and its copious production of nectar.

We hope the Butterfly Weed's wind-borne seeds have a successful journey and establish many more plants for future years.

All photos are by Jo.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

.

Nature Notes: Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

Carolina Cranesbill: Seed Dispersal

The seed head of Carolina Cranesbill (Geranium carolinianum) consists of a central spike or beak and seedpods. A finely veined (reticulated) seed is inside each seedpod.

As the seed head dries the seedpods split open on their bottom sides.



With the seedpods removed from the plant you can see the seeds inside.

At the same time, the central spike shrinks and splits along it length into separate strips. A seedpod is at the bottom of each strip. Because of the shrinkage, the strips want to curl but cannot because they are still attached at their tops and bottoms.

Eventually, the bottom connection on a strip breaks beneath the seedpod. The strip pops upward as if it were spring loaded, which in effect, it is. As the seedpod attached to the bottom of the strip arcs upward, the seed inside is toss out away from the mother plant.



Empty seedpods after they've popped upward and tossed the seeds they contained away from the mother plant.

Carolina Cranesbill: Seed Dispersal

Scorpionfly (Panorpa sp.)

Scorpionfly (Panorpa sp.)

Scorpionflies are neither flies nor scorpions -- aside from that, their common name is totally appropriate. They do look something like a fly (especially a crane fly) and the abdomens of the males curl up over their backs something like the tail of a scorpion. Unfortunately, this male was perched down inside a cave of leaves and I couldn't get a shot from the side which would show the details of this interesting creature. If you want a better look, check out the photos on Cirrus Images.

Both adult and larvae scorpionflies are omnivorous scavangers, feeding upon decaying vegetation and dead (or dying) insects. The are found throughout eastern North America and tend to prefer wet and humid locations.

The mating ritual among scorpionflies involves a food offering made by the male to the female. First the male collects a bit of food -- either a dead insect or a short column of a his brown salivary secretion that has become gelatinous after drying in the air. He flies into a new area with his food offerring and emits a pheromone to attract a female that might be in the vicinity. If the female finds his food offerring worthy, they will copulate while she eats. The duration of copulation depends upon the quantity and quality of the food. Occassionally, males will imitate females in order to secure food from other males.

Sources and additional information:
North Carolina State University
Earth-Life Web
BugGuide

******




Seed Pods
Wild Comfrey (Cynoglossum virginianum)
Related Post

Scorpionfly (Panorpa sp.)

Around and About

Another up close and personal view of a frequent visitor to the birdfeeder hanging outside our dining room window. (Jo's photo -- 12/28/07)













Seedpod from some member of the milkweed family, I suppose. Found on our walk on Christmas day.















The only snow remaining after four days -- on a north slope that never gets any sunshine and insulated from the warm ground by a cow pie. Cow pies are obviously good insulators, but I don't think I'd want to fill the walls of my house with them. (Photo from 12/30/07)

Around and About

Seedpod

I have no idea what plant this seedpod belongs to. (Maybe someone else does and will clue me in.) It was a "weed" growing alongside our road out. I failed to take note of the plant while it was blooming, but thought the seedpods with square-shaped tops were interesting. (The leaf belongs to a nearby sunflower.)


Bits and Pieces from Saturday, 11/24/07:

Overcast and damp in the AM. Temperature in the mid-thirties.

Clothes needed to be washed despite the lack of sunshine required to operate our solar clothes dryer. The area around our wood stove is now decorated with "unmentionables". It's a good thing we're not expecting a visit from Martha Stewart.

Jo's having problems recording TV programs again, but this time it isn't her fault. She normally tapes several of the Saturday how-to programs broadcast by PBS. She watches them during her lunch breaks during the week. This morning she discovered that AETN had suspended its regular programming and was fund raising. Who knows what Jo actually recorded with her pre-set recording schedule.

(BTW: The Arkansas Educational Television Network is the one and only television channel we can receive up here in the hills. It has several transmitters scattered around the state. We don't spend a lot of time channel surfing.)

Today I donned long underwear for the first time this winter. I'm sure everyone was eagerly awaiting this seasonal fashion statement from the Ozarks.

Jo unloaded her kiln from the bisque firing and waxed the bottoms of the pots so that she can glaze them tomorrow. The wax prevents glaze from sticking to the bottoms when she dips the pot into a bucket of glaze.

The wax she uses comes from a friend who makes candles. It's the extra wax he trims off his candles after removing them from the molds, making it a random mixture of various colors and scents. He remelts the wax into a large block before sending it on to various needy potters. The color of the wax ends up being a blackish purple -- kind of like a bad, deep bruise. As for the aroma wafting off the old electric skillet that Jo uses to keep the wax molten, think of the worst room air freshener you've ever smelled on steroids. The great thing about the wax is that it only costs a coffee mug or two.

Our temperature climbed to 46º today. Drizzle began during the evening.

Seedpod