Category: Roses (Rosaceae)

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Photo of the Day

Gray Catbird and Black Chokeberry
The fruits of a Black Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) prove irresistible to this Gray Catbird.  Chokeberry is a native clump-forming shrub that reaches a height of less than ten feet.  It is tolerant of wet soils and makes a good choice for inclusion in plantings alongside streams and ponds, as well as in rain gardens.  Springtime clusters of white flowers yield berries by this time each summer.  By turning red as the fruits ripen, the foliage helps attract not only catbirds, but robins, waxwings, and other species that, in exchange for a meal, will assure dispersal of the plant’s seeds in their droppings.  With considerable sweetening, tart chokeberries can be used for juicing and the creation of jams, jellies, and preserves.
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Photo of the Day

Invasive Trees and Plants of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed: Callery Pear including Bradford Pear
Presently in the valleys of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, you’re sure to see a gorgeous nightmare, showy stands of flowering Callery Pear (Pyrus calleryana).  Invasive groves like this one quickly dominate successional habitat and often create monocultures, often excluding native pioneer trees like Eastern Red Cedar and several species of deciduous hardwood.  The void beneath the pear trees in this photograph shows how deer browsing can intensify the damage, preventing other plant species from becoming established in the understory.  In autumn, crimson foliage again makes these non-native trees a standout in the landscape.  The red leaves attract birds including American Robins and Cedar Waxwings to the abundant berries, but European Starlings usually get to them first.  Planted specimens of ornamental Callery Pears began producing fertile seeds when multiple varieties became available in addition to the self-sterile “Bradford Pears” that were planted widely during the last decades of the twentieth century.  Cross-pollination between varieties produces the fertile seeds that are distributed by starlings and other birds as they digest the fruit.
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Forest vs. Woodlot

Let’s take a quiet stroll through the forest to have a look around.  The spring awakening is underway and it’s a marvelous thing to behold.  You may think it a bit odd, but during this walk we’re not going to spend all of our time gazing up into the trees.  Instead, we’re going to investigate the happenings at ground level—life on the forest floor.

Rotting logs and leaf litter create the moisture retaining detritus in which mesic forest plants grow and thrive.  Note the presence of mosses and a vernal pool in this damp section of forest.
The earliest green leaves in the forest are often those of the Skunk Cabbage (Simplocarpus foetidus).  This member of the arum family gets a head start by growing in the warm waters of a spring seep or in a stream-fed wetland.  Like many native wildflowers of the forest, Skunk Cabbage takes advantage of early-springtime sun to flower and grow prior to the time in late April when deciduous trees grow foliage and cast shade beneath their canopy.
Among the bark of dead and downed trees, the Mourning Cloak butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa) hibernates for the winter.  It emerges to alight on sun-drenched surfaces in late winter and early spring.
Another hibernating forest butterfly that emerges on sunny early-spring days is the Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma), also known as the Hop Merchant.
In a small forest brook, a water strider (Gerridae) chases its shadow using the surface tension of the water to provide buoyancy.  Forests are essential for the protection of headwaters areas where our streams get their start.
Often flooded only in the springtime, fish-free pools of water known as vernal ponds are essential breeding habitat for many forest-dwelling amphibians.  Unfortunately, these ephemeral wetland sites often fall prey to collecting, dumping, filling, and vandalism by motorized and non-motorized off-roaders, sometimes resulting in the elimination of the populations of frogs, toads, and salamanders that use them.
Wood Frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus) emerge from hiding places among downed timber and leaf litter to journey to a nearby vernal pond where they begin calling still more Wood Frogs to the breeding site.
Wood Frog eggs must hatch and tadpoles must transform into terrestrial frogs before the pond dries up in the summertime.  It’s a risky means of reproduction, but it effectively evades the enormous appetites of fish.
When the egg laying is complete, adult Wood Frogs return to the forest and are seldom seen during the rest of the year.
In early spring, Painted Turtles emerge from hideouts in larger forest pools, particularly those in wooded swamps, to bask in sunny locations.
Dead standing trees, often called snags, are essential habitats for many species of forest wildlife.  There is an entire biological process, a micro-ecosystem, involved in the decay of a dead tree.  It includes fungi, bacteria, and various invertebrate animals that reduce wood into the detritus that nourishes and hydrates new forest growth.
Birds like this Red-headed Woodpecker feed on insects found in large snags and nest almost exclusively in them.  Many species of wildlife rely on dead trees, both standing and fallen, during all or part of their lives.

There certainly is more to a forest than the living trees.  If you’re hiking through a grove of timber getting snared in a maze of prickly Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) and seeing little else but maybe a wild ungulate or two, then you’re in a has-been forest.  Logging, firewood collection, fragmentation, and other man-made disturbances inside and near forests take a collective toll on their composition, eventually turning them to mere woodlots.  Go enjoy the forests of the lower Susquehanna valley while you still can.  And remember to do it gently; we’re losing quality as well as quantity right now—so tread softly.

The White-tailed Deity in a woodlot infested by invasive tangles of Multiflora Rose.
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Fussy Eaters

She ate only toaster pastries…that’s it…nothing else.  Every now and then, on special occasions, when a big dinner was served, she’d have a small helping of mashed potatoes, no gravy, just plain, thank you.  She received all her nutrition from several meals a week of macaroni and cheese assembled from processed ingredients found in a cardboard box.  It contains eight essential vitamins and minerals, don’t you know?  You remember her, don’t you?

Adult female butterflies must lay their eggs where the hatched larvae will promptly find the precise food needed to fuel their growth.  These caterpillars are fussy eaters, with some able to feed upon only one particular species or genus of plant to grow through the five stages, the instars, of larval life.  The energy for their fifth molt into a pupa, known as a chrysalis, and metamorphosis into an adult butterfly requires mass consumption of the required plant matter.  Their life cycle causes most butterflies to be very habitat specific.  These splendid insects may visit the urban or suburban garden as adults to feed on nectar plants, however, successful reproduction relies upon environs which include suitable, thriving, pesticide-free host plants for the caterpillars.  Their survival depends upon more than the vegetation surrounding the typical lawn will provide.

The Monarch (Danaus plexippus), a butterfly familiar in North America for its conspicuous autumn migrations to forests in Mexico, uses the milkweeds (Asclepias) almost exclusively as a host plant.  Here at  Conewago Falls, wetlands with Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and unsprayed clearings with Common Milkweed (A. syriaca) are essential to the successful reproduction of the species.  Human disturbance, including liberal use of herbicides, and invasive plant species can diminish the biomass of the Monarch’s favored nourishment, thus reducing significantly the abundance of the migratory late-season generation.

Monarch caterpillar after a fourth molt.  The fifth instar feeding on Swamp Milkweed.
A fifth molt begets the Monarch pupa, the chrysalis, from which the showy adult butterfly will emerge.
Adult Monarch feeding on Goldenrod (Solidago) nectar.

Butterflies are good indicators of the ecological health of a given environment.  A diversity of butterfly species in a given area requires a wide array of mostly indigenous plants to provide food for reproduction.  Let’s have a look at some of the species seen around Conewago Falls this week…

An adult Silvery Checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis) visiting a nectar plant, Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata).  Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia), a plant of the Riparian Woodlands, is among the probable hosts for the caterpillars.
A Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) visits Crown Vetch, a possible host plant.  Other potential larval food in the area includes Partridge Pea, Halberd-leaved Rose Mallow (Hibiscus laevis) of the river shoreline, and Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos), a plant of wetlands.
The Eastern Tailed Blue (Cupido comyntas) may use Partridge Pea , a native wildflower species, and the introduced Crown Vetch (Securigera/Coronilla varia) as host and nectar plants at Conewago Falls.
The Least Skipper (Ancyloxypha numitor) is at home among tall grasses in woodland openings, at riverside, and in the scoured grassland habitat of the Pothole Rocks in the falls.  Host plants available include Switchgrass (Panicum vigatum), Freshwater Cordgrass (Spartina pectinata), and Foxtails (Setaria).
The Zabulon Skipper (Poanes zabulon) is an inhabitant of moist clearings where the caterpillars may feed upon Lovegrasses (Eragrostis) and Purpletop (Tridens flavus).
The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), a female seen here gathering nectar from Joe-Pye Weed (Eutrochium), relies upon several forest trees as hosts. Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), Willow (Salix), Yellow Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), also known as Tuliptree, and Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) are among the local species known to be used.  The future of the latter food species at Conewago Falls is doubtful.  Fortunately for the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, the “generalist” feeding requirements of this butterfly’s larvae enable the species to survive the loss of a host plant.
A female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, black morph, gathering nectar from Joe-Pye Weed.
The Zebra Swallowtail (Protographium marcellus), seen here on Joe-Pye Weed, feeds exclusively upon Pawpaw (Asimina) trees as a caterpillar.  This butterfly species may wander, but its breeding range is limited to the moist Riparian Woodlands where colonial groves of Pawpaw may be found.  The Common Pawpaw (Asimina triloba), our native species in Pennsylvania, and the Zebra Swallowtail occur at the northern edge of their geographic ranges in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.  Planting Pawpaw trees as an element of streamside reforestation projects certainly benefits this marvelous butterfly.

The spectacularly colorful butterflies are a real treat on a hot summer day.  Their affinity for showy plants doubles the pleasure.

By the way, I’m certain by now you’ve recalled that fussy eater…and how beautiful she grew up to be.

SOURCES

Brock, Jim P., and Kaufman, Kenn.  2003.  Butterflies of North America.  Houghton Mifflin Company.  New York, NY.

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