Late May Sightings in Herrontown Woods and Elsewhere

A runner named Nikolas who moved to town less than a year ago and, because he has considerable curiosity and runs rather than walks, already knows the area trails better than most of us, asked me what these are. He's been seeing them along paths in many places. They are the tips of tulip tree branches--a tree that grows to giant size and has distinctively shaped leaves and tulip-shaped flowers. It's sometimes called tulip poplar, and has a poplaresque look to it, but is actually in the ancient magnolia family. For some reason, I've never been very curious about why the tips of tulip trees end up on the ground this time of year, but Nikolas was. So I looked it up, and found out that squirrels bite off the tips, then drink the spring flow of sap from the cut stem as if it were a straw. No plastic straws for a squirrel, and it must be exciting to quench one's thirst while teetering at the end of a branch, 70 feet above ground. There's also a scale insect that can suck the sap from a tulip tree, then drops its aphid-like honeydew on the ground below, like a sticky rain. Fortunately, that's according to the internet rather than experience.

Very rarely, Jack in the Pulpits have this prominent venation. One nursery sells it as "Starburst."

Yellow star grass, seen now and then along trails, looks like a grass but isn't, in much the same way that blue-eyed grass looks like a grass but is actually an iris. Sedges and rushes are also plants that look like grasses but are not. Botany rewards those who take a closer look at things.

Wood briars have the latin name of Smilax and tend to have thorns and arching veins in the leaves, and grow up and over things. This one is less frequently encountered, has no thorns and supports its own minimal vertical ambitions. Called Smilax herbacea, apparently because it's more herb-like, its common name is carrion flower, named for the alluring aroma of its flowers, which I have yet to sample. Hinting at its preference for wet ground is all the jewelweed and stiltgrass seen rising from the ground below it in this photo.

Bladder sedge is one of the sedges with interestingly shaped seedheads that make up for the lack of color.

Have seen tiger beetles a couple times in Herrontown Woods this spring. They are speedy predators.

I happened to take a peek behind an ugly strip mall in Princeton Junction and found that where the expanse of asphalt ended, an amazing ecosystem began, filled with blueberries and sweet pepperbush and expanses of ostrich fern, growing beneath oaks and even a American chestnut that was hanging on. One could grieve for what was buried beneath the asphalt sprawl, or be astonished at what has managed to survive.

People often ask what the white flower is that grows a couple feet high and looks pretty but a little weedy. Daisy fleabane. (Betty Horn reminds me that there are a couple species of fleabane.)

This is what happens when you plant daffodils in spring rather than in the fall. They bloom in May and June.

Keena sent me this photo of a puffy golfball-sized growth on a white oak at the entrance to botanical garden taking shape next to the main parking lot for Herrontown Woods.

Turned out to be the tree's creative response to the wool sower gall wasp, which lays its eggs on oaks in the spring. The wasp "sows" its progeny, and ends up growing something wool-like in the process.

Red buckeyes are good to plant under powerlines, since they don't get very big, and would be an excellent tree to plant south of a house that has solar panels. People think that we must choose between trees and solar panels. No, just plant trees that don't grow tall, and one gets the carbon sequestration and cooling action of the tree plus the power generation and roof shading of the panels. That's what we call a "win-win."

Some May Wildflowers

A random assembly of May wildflowers, some seen here, some there.

Fringe tree is more like a shrub, but sometimes achieves the size of a small dogwood. Give it some sun and it will fill its form with lacy white in May. Native to the southeast U.S., I've seen it growing in the wild only once, in a preserve we created in Durham, NC. Some internet postings say it can be attacked by the emerald ash borer, but we have two that are flourishing thus far.

This black cherry was blooming conveniently next to a friend's front porch. Black cherries have "black potato chip" bark and little black cherries preferred more by birds than humans. They are common in backyards and in the wild, thriving on edges or in younger forests, before getting shaded out by larger trees.

Two other flowering trees easy to spot along roadsides this time of year are black locust, with its masses of white flowers, and princess tree (Paulownia tomentosa), an asian species with tubular purple flowers.

Another friend who was donating a tree to us happened to have a Leucothoe in his backyard. A good specimen like this can be attractive. There are native species--one that goes by the name "doghobble"--but I can't say I've ever actually seen them growing in the wild.

Big-leafed magnolia--relative of the very common tulip tree--is one of many seldom seen native magnolias. There are some growing in an area of the Institute Woods in Princeton, but I had also seen one growing in Herrontown Woods a few years ago, some distance off one of the trails, downslope from the ridge. Not remembering where it was exactly, I wondered if I'd ever encounter it again. Then one day recently my friend Kurt was showing me some trail work that he and his wife Sally were doing. Our conversation, which began shifting from trails into philosophy and history, took me out of my usual way of moving through that particular section of trail, and when I looked up I saw in the distance the big-leafed magnolia, twice the size it was before and in full bloom.

Each flower is like a candle centered on a platter of leaves.

Surprised to see cuckoo flower still blooming,

and rue anemone, too, is having a long season in this cool spring weather.

Mayflower can cover the ground in leaves but few flowers, as is the habit with trout lily earlier in the spring.

Each leaf of Jack-in-the-Pulpit has three leaflets. Males have one leaf, while the females, arising from a more robust root with enough stored energy to support production of seeds, has two. Each individual plant can change sex, year to year.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits are fairly common, in part because deer often leave them alone. If they do browse the leaves, it's more often of the females, whose leaves may be more nutritious.

Golden ragwort in the field next to Veblen House,

growing in what looks like a field of grass, but in this small patch there is no grass but instead something unidentified, more like a sedge or rush.

Wild geranium adds some color along trails.

Fairly rare is the wild comfrey, with a few small flowers lifted above a rosette of big velvety leaves, growing only on the special soils of the ridge.

This cool, wet spring is showing the showy orchid to be more widespread along the ridge than I had previously thought.

A bellwort with its yellow flower hanging like a bell.

A bit of a celebration here. These are the first blooms of a native azalea relocated to a sunny area of our botanical garden next to the parking lot at Herrontown Woods. This species, once common along the ridge, has long been prevented from blooming in the wild due to deer browsing and deep shade.

Primrose Past and Present

This post was supposed to be about the mystery flower in the photo, sent to me May 10, but its shape brought back memories of primrose past and shifted the writing to something more like memoire. Sometimes, sitting down with the intention of writing about one thing, something very much different pops out.

You can skip to the chase by scrolling down to the identification of this primrose found by Susan Michniewski during a walk in Woodfield Reservation, but first a primula-induced interlude that skips back to the 1970s.

When I was 16, my father left Yerkes Observatory to become chair of the astronomy department at the University of Michigan. For my family, that meant moving from small town Wisconsin to Ann Arbor, MI. It wasn't much of a move compared to the overall size of the universe, but for me it meant transitioning from a school with 50 kids per grade to one ten times larger. I don't recommend moving in the middle of high school, but at the time I was so introverted that one place was probably about as good as another. In retrospect, having made as yet no sense out of humanity or myself, I was well primed for connecting to the plant world.

During the house search that first year in Ann Arbor, we got lucky. My father had learned through the department that a deceased physicist had left behind his estate--a house and garden. It hadn't even gone on the market, and I remember our first magical visit to the empty house in the fall. The abandoned feel of the place stirred parts of my brain that must date back to a distant, less populated era, as when a wandering tribe might happen upon a long abandoned valley that nature had begun to reclaim, and feel a sense of forsaken treasure and possibilities.

A door to the back patio had been left open at one point, because autumn leaves lay scattered on the hardwood floor of the living room lined with metal casement windows and paneling made of sweetgum wood. The living room had a high ceiling, and we were told that it had been designed for music. The physicist, Walter Colby, I have recently learned via the internet, once dreamed of being a classical pianist. A few of his effects had been left behind--a brass inkwell, and green paper napkins that referred to the miniature valley behind the house as "Thorn Hollow." The house was embraced by a lovely english garden, and that first spring, the garden revealed its secrets--a salve for my lonely soul. Down in the hollow a venerable elm tree spread its graceful limbs over walkways lined with yellow primrose and Pulmonaria. Sweeps of Scilla and other bulbs ornamented the slopes. Native wildflowers--mayapples, Trillium, Solomon's seal--rose in the informal beds defined by the trails. A quince tree below the rock-walled terrace still bore fruit.

It seemed a timeless place, with balance and beauty, a peaceful coexistence of plant life, but over time that timelessness was put to the test. The elm tree succumbed to Dutch elm disease. The redbud became overgrown, losing its graceful shape. Maintaining balance in the garden beds involved many hours fighting the advances of garlic mustard and the goutweed that clung to the ground with a vengeance. In sunnier areas, pretty garden phlox began to pretty much take over. Myrtle proved a mixed blessing, too, embedding itself most everywhere.

The more I got interested in gardening, the more I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with a few bad actors that refused to play well with others. There were still joys, like when a pawpaw tree volunteered in one of the beds and ultimately bore fruit, its origins a mystery. Favoring practical plants, I started a vegetable garden. As trees closed the canopy, we moved the vegetables out front to the sunniest place remaining, between the sidewalk and the curb. Neighbors, at least the neighbors who commented, took delight in our unorthodox rethinking of the front yard.

The primrose in that garden were yellow--probably cowslip (Primula veris), native to Europe--and were about as docile and unadventurous as can be, not weedy in the least.

That's why I was surprised to hear that a primrose species was found this spring growing wild in Woodfield Reservation. It had the same rosette of leaves at the base as cowslip, with a burst of flowers like a circle of trumpets at the top of the stem. But the flowers were red or white rather than yellow, and this one was reportedly spreading along the streambank.

We decided it is Primula japonica. I checked in with Mike van Clef of the NJ Invasive Species Strike Team, who said he hadn't encountered it anywhere in NJ other than near the footbridge in Woodfield Reservation, and that it's worth keeping in mind if it seems like it's spreading.

Thanks to Susan Michniewski for sending photos, and to photographer Douglas Meckel.

Murder Hornets and Princeton's Cicada Killer

The scary reports about murder hornets offer an opportunity to write about invasive species and insects generally. "Murder hornet" is a nickname, but the insect's real name, Asian giant hornet, is not very reassuring. There have been some scary videos making the rounds. The NY Times article was less sensationalistic, and captured well the potential threat along with the actions being taken to counter it. Rutgers hastened to clarify that the insect isn't found in the northeastern U.S.. And it's still not clear whether the AGH (Asian giant hornet) has established a population in the northwest, and if so whether the population is still small enough to be eradicated.

Big insects are scary. One nightmare remembered from childhood was of an ant about two feet long. I had a memorable bike ride home one day with a wasp having perched on my shoulder. I decided to just let it sit there, and eventually it flew off. The more I learn, though, the less scary most insects become. Late last summer, I waded out into a lawn full of blue-winged wasps flying about, knowing they were harmless. Knowledge can lead to a gentle response to something seemingly dangerous in nature. When the fishhook-shaped thorn of a multiflora rose bush pricks the skin, the best thing to do is relax, move towards the shrub rather than away, calmly cut the stem to which the thorn is attached, or rotate so the thorn has a chance to slip back out of your clothing.

Learning more about the Asian giant hornet can bring at least a little reassurance. Along with the uncertainty of its establishment in the U.S., I heard via an invasives listserve that "AGH does not attack people unless it feels threatened", and though they do pose a threat to honey bees, they only "attack and kill other bees in the late summer when developing males and future queens need extra protein to complete their life cycle."

The largest wasp in the Princeton area is the cicada killer, which looks much scarier than it actually is. Like dragonflies, they can tackle insects in midair. Ten years ago, there was a colony of cicada killers living near the Princeton Community Pool. Cicada killers are large wasps in Princeton that dive-bomb cicadas in mid-flight, then haul them back to their underground nests to use as food for their young. They pose little danger, but the colony was exterminated by the parks department because the wasps alarmed people walking by in their bathing suits. (Photo is a dramatization featuring our local cicada killer and an unknown actor.)

While pointing out that some threatening looking insects can be benign, I've also long advocated for action on invasive species. As introduced plants like lesser celandine and porcelainberry spread their smothering growth across Princeton's open space and lawns, there is an opportunity to keep them out of some areas through proactive action. It's been very hard to get people to think strategically, however.

The Asian giant hornet is at least being taken seriously. Quick action could prevent it from getting established in the northwestern U.S., though usually an introduced species is already established by the time anyone sees it in the wild.

As with COVID-19, there are questions as to how the hornet would adapt to climate in the U.S. The L.A. Times questioned whether the AGH would adapt to California's cool summers and warm winters.

Some introduced insects become enduring pests, like Asian tiger mosquitoes that bite annoyingly during the daytime, and the Emerald ash borer that has decimated ash trees. On the other hand, we hear little about the killer bees that were touted as such a big threat in the 1980s. The best news would be that the Asian giant hornet hasn't become established after all.

Big Brains Vexed by the Tinies: Odorous House Ants

Tiny ants are a reminder of the power of the minuscule to vex us big-bodied, big-brained humans. Squash one on the kitchen counter, and others quickly appear, running in helter skelter patterns. A sense of futility quickly sets in, despite our vastly superior strength. As I write this, an ant crawls along the edge of my computer screen. The same dynamic plays out in the world beyond the kitchen window, as a powerful economy is laid low by a lowly coronavirus. A previous post compared tiny ants to "dust with legs." The closer nature gets to inanimate matter--a virus can barely be considered alive--the more it taps into the undeterrable laws of physics and chemistry. As a kid, I was impressed by big things, but relentlessness increases as size decreases, the most telling example being the carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere. Unlike our big-brained selves, CO2 doesn't sleep, or get discouraged, or conjure false realities to make itself feel better. It just does what it does, day after day.

On a far less tragic scale, our latest domestic iteration of David and Goliath began, I hear, with a harmless looking orchid plant that had sat forgotten in a corner of the living room for an unknown period of time. Taken to the kitchen sink, it was watered generously and left to drain while the family went for a walk.

Upon return, the kitchen counter was coated with tiny ants, most likely the odorous house ants that would normally not show up until later in the season.

I've tried various approaches to controlling ants over the years, including meticulous cleaning and borax-based solutions. Only ant poison worked. It's called a poison, but medicines are also toxic if taken in excess. The aim, whether treating inner or outer nature, is to be minimalist and targeted.

Though the ants seemed mostly gone by the next day, someone in the house discovered ant nests in the kitchen--one in the knife holder, the other in electric kettle.

Eggs had been laid in the tiny crevices of the electric wire's insulation in the kettle's base, requiring some dismantling to thoroughly clean.

While the parts dried (no water was put on the exposed wiring), we speculated that the ants had been dormant in the orchid pot, then launched a great escape upon being inundated in the kitchen sink. A similar dynamic can prompt ants to come inside during the summer after heavy rains. It's not clear if the nests in the electric kettle and knife holder were created by escapees of the orchid pot, or if they were already there. The queens can only lay one egg a day, apparently, which suggests it would take more than a day or two to make a nest.

Previous posts on how odorous house ants can quietly create a parallel world in your house--a covert medieval-like landscape dotted with kingdoms--are below.

Winter Ant Sleuthing

Ants in the Pantry, or Dust With Legs

Becoming a Tree

A tree was spotted taking a selfie of its shadow with the Veblen House.

Yes, you can become a tree when the angle of the sun is right, and wave to the flowers growing below, and cast your mighty shadow across the expanse, to mingle with the land's many memories of the passing day.

A Honey Bee Swarm, and a Specialist Native Bee on Spring Beauty

A couple interesting sightings of bees in Herrontown Woods recently. Working on trails on April 12, I paused and heard what sound like a buzzing coming from somewhere nearby. With so many machines of transport shut down due to the pandemic, it was quiet enough in the woods to hear what turned out to be a swarm of honey bees 40 feet up in a snag, still erect but completely stripped of branches. They were flying around a hole in the trunk. I went to get another load of stepping stones from our stockpile, but by the time I returned a half hour later, they were gone.

Some internet research led me to an entomologist at Cornell University, Scott McArt, who was kind enough to reply:

"From what you describe, it’s very likely a colony that swarmed. During swarming, half of the bees will leave the hive with their old queen, while the other half of the bees will stay in the hive with a new queen. The exiting bees will typically leave the hive and congregate on a nearby branch for a few minutes or hours, then move on to the next branch (or their new home, once they’ve found it). It’s an impressive sight when thousands of bees assemble onto the branches and/or move en masse to the next location, hence why it’s called a “swarm”." 

"Mid-April is a bit early for swarming, but not unheard of, especially since there’s been some warm weather and flowers popping up over the past few weeks. Aside from a bear getting into the hive, it’s really the only reason you’d see thousands of bees up in a tree right now. So if you didn’t see a bear, I’d say you saw a swarm :)"

Another bee sighting was much more subtle. Over the past month, the most numerous spring ephemeral wildflower has been the spring beauty. Again working on a trail, I happened one day to look down and see a tiny bee visiting one. I was crouching down to catch a photo when the bee dropped off the flower and stood motionless among the dead leaves--reminiscent of the freezing behavior rabbits use when approached. The same happened another day when I again sought a photo.

I was able to find mention of a Spring Beauty Bee (a miner bee named Andrena erigeniae) in a list of specalist bees.

An article in the Baltimore Sun entitled "Searching the Forest for the Bees" describes the bee's lifestyle, which includes only a brief appearance in the spring. It's useful to know that honey bees are not native to America.

"Unlike honey bees, which congregate in hives, most of the forest bees are loners that spend the bulk of their lives in the ground. They emerge for just a few weeks in early spring to pollinate flowering plants, shrubs and trees before the forest leafs out and shades the understory from the sun.

Many are "specialists," Droege said, focusing on a particular type of plant or flower.

For example, he said, there's a bee that specializes in collecting nectar and pollen from spring beauty, a ground-hugging pink or white wildflower that's one of the earliest harbingers of spring. One can't exist without the other, he said. In fact, many flowers have features that attract particular pollinators, while discouraging or excluding others.

"Flowers were all designed by bees," Droege said, over millennia of co-evolution."

 As a botanist, I had naturally assumed that all bees were designed by plants.

Some Early Spring Flowers Along the Princeton Ridge

Though google was indicating that local nature preserves are closed due to the pandemic, my understanding is that only active recreation areas, e.g. playgrounds, tennis courts, etc., are closed. Hiking is still allowed. (photo of flyer should expand if you click on it)

Many people were out today enjoying the good weather and hiking in Herrontown Woods, Autumn Hill, and no doubt in other Princeton preserves well situated on the special soils of the ridge, like Witherspoon Woods, Woodfield Reservation, and higher elevations at Mountain Lakes.

Below are some photos of common flowers hikers are likely to encounter at Herrontown Woods and elsewhere.

Spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) is the most common, carpeting some areas. A couple times, when I noticed these were being pollinated by a tiny bee, I crouched down to take a photo only to have the bee drop down onto a dead leaf and stay still, as if trying to hide.

The tongue-shaped leaves of trout lily (Erythronium americanum) carpet some areas as well, and some of the leaves even produce the elegant yellow flowers.

You could say "Thalictrum thalictroides," or you could say rue anemone (Roo a-NEM-un-ee). The photo is a closeup. This is a little flower.

Mayapples emerge like a closed umbrella that then deploys, hiding the flower underneath the leaf.

Violets are a just starting to show up.

Bloodroots are less common, and have larger flowers than the others. Their latin name is Sanguinaria canadensis, in the poppy family. Their enthusiastic bloom always makes me feel sanguine when I see one. They power their flower with last year's energy. The flower is soon gone, after which the seeds mature and the leaf expands and deploys like a solar panel to collect energy for next year's bloom.

Skunk cabbage lines the streams with its big, odiferous, cabbage-like leaves.

There was a shrub, painted buckeye, that lined the streams in the North Carolina piedmont and greened up early in spring. Pilots were said to be able to navigate by the ribbons of green etched in the spring landscape by the buckeyes. It's possible skunk cabbage once played a similar role.

Here's the mighty roar of the skunk cabbage flower, which pops up very early in spring, before the foliage.

The wood anemones start blooming a few days later, carpeting some areas of the ridge. Latin name is Anemone quinquefolia, with the species name meaning 5-parted leaves.

That's about it for the early flowering natives that are most likely to be encountered. Others like toothwort, hepatica, and Virginia pennywort are seldom seen.

The wild geraniums have put out their leaves, but are in less of a hurry to get their flowers out there.

Jack in the Pulpit is also up, about to open up its pulpit with Jack inside.

Black cohosh will bloom much later, but is sending up leaves.