The Butterfly Effect

Late last September I noticed a cloudless sulphur butterfly ovipositing on a privet senna. (Privet senna used to be called Cassia ligustrina, but now has been reclassified as Senna ligustrina). Not long afterward I found 4 big healthy caterpillars busily eating the flowers, and one small caterpillar on a privet senna around the corner. I'm always excited to see caterpillars, but this time was special because it was the first time I had seen sulphur caterpillars in our yard since Hurricane Charley gave us a near miss in 2004! (We weren't quite so lucky with Wilma in '05, and Irma in '17).

Cloudless Sulphur Caterpillar on Privet Senna

I've seen only the occasional large sulphur in our yard since Charley, and certainly none none laying eggs.  At the same time, I have cast many an envious glance across the canal, where sulphurs frequently visit the red flowers in that neighbor's yard. And I haven't seen the gorgeous orange-barred sulphurs at all for years.

Orange-Barred Sulphur
Female: Top & Middle; Male: Bottom

Sulphurs don't have it easy. Once as I was sketching a newly-emerged cloudless sulphur dry its wings, an anole jumped out of nowhere and snatched it right off the chrysalis shell. The caterpillars don't seem to be toxic, so they would be vulnerable to birds. Years ago I observed a tiny spider -  sucking on a hapless sulfur caterpillar many times its size. I went back a few hours later to see how much the spider had expanded, but couldn't find it or any traces of the caterpillar. The spider either stowed its prey somewhere better hidden, or perhaps both got taken by a bird. I didn't see how the spider could injest the whole caterpillar in one go without exploding!

You Can Just Make Out the Spider in the Top Right
Cloudless Sulphur Caterpillar on Bahama Cassia

I've always blamed the hurricanes along with habitat loss for the disappearance of the sulphurs in our yard. And indeed, the entire insect population visiting us has declined significantly in both numbers and number of species over the years. But that really doesn't explain why there are sulphurs across the canal, and not here, or why I still get other butterfly species reproducing in the yard. It also doesn't explain why I got plenty of the smaller barred yellow sulphurs once I introduced their larval host, pencilflower. (Stylosanthes biflora).


A little reading and a little web surfing has led me to something of an aha! moment, and a no-brainer at that. I came across a post by Florida wildflower specialist Craig Huegel, in which he commented that he never had seen sulphurs ovipositing on cassias that weren't blooming. He also wrote that he preferred Bahama cassia over privet senna because it blooms more regularly, while privet senna blooms in sporadic flushes. It turns out that the orange-barred sulphurs prefer Bahama cassia over privet senna as well. (Bahama cassia now seems to be classified as Senna mexicana var. chapmanii).

Newly-Emerged  Female CloudlessSulphur(I think)
Blue Porterweed, Stachytarpheta jamaicensis

As the photo with the spider shows, I had Bahama cassia at one time, but it wasn't in a good place. Over time it declined, and then died. Once you've had privet senna in a no-lawn yard like ours, you'll always have it, due to its vigorous self-seeding. I like the plant for the bamboo-like effect its dark green, pointed leaflets, as well as its striking deep yellow flowers.

It's supposed to be drought-tolerant, but it is short-lived for me. Maybe it is just too hot, sunny and salty for it here, or maybe I just don't love it enough. Over the years I've pretty much abandoned it as a garden plant, letting it grow in the waste places in the yard where nothing else thrives. Of course, it gets ratty quickly, and then I cut it down. If I were a sulphur butterfly I wouldn't lay any eggs on its desiccated leaflets either. So without thinking about it consciously, I've stopped providing reliable host plants for the large sulphurs.

Privet Senna - Senna ligustrina

Another thing that I did along the way was remove a large firebush (Hamelia patens) that was growing in absolutely the wrong place. It was a great favorite of the sulphurs, who like the same flowers that hummingbirds do. It also gave cover for birds, and mockingbirds and red-bellied woodpeckers loved its berries.

There's no guarantee that I'll get a resident sulphur population again, but it's worth trying. I can't do anything about hurricanes or the overbuilding, but I can get a Bahama cassia, take care of the privet senna, and see about finding a place for another firebush. It's so easy for one seemingly small action to set a chain reaction in motion. As former Florida senator and governor Lawton Chiles once said, "The knee-bone's connected to the jawbone."(He really did say that).

The Comfort of "Exceptional Images"

It's been a while.

I have been coping (not very well) with serious health issues in my family for a couple of months. We seem to have turned a corner now, though we're not out of the woods yet.

While the crisis was building I felt utterly helpless. I was drawing frantically - somehow drawing was one of the few things I could do. Otherwise I felt as if I were walking in deep sludge. Even the most basic activities seemed to take enormous effort.

A Dead Dragonfly (Saddlebag)?
My husband found it and brought it to me to draw.

Drawing was a way of blocking out feelings, a way of mitigating, if only temporarily, the desperation and frantic torpor that threatened to overwhelm me. But once I put the pencils down, the anxiety returned with a vengeance.

Then I read the post Art and Nature are My Healers by Elizabeth Smith. She described her path to reconciliation after her mother's death, and it seemed as though she had written it for me. She quoted a passage from Clare Walker Leslie's Drawn to Nature, in which Leslie recounted losing her own mother, and the solace she gained from drawing: "Every day, while my mother's illness progressed, I would find one image outdoors that I could hold onto, like a marble in my pocket that I rubbed for nourishment and balance. This looking out at the world helped my looking in, towards my own pain."

Shell and Horseshoe Crab Molt 

In her post Elizabeth detailed her search for, and sketch of a "daily exceptional image," and how it is helping her to deal with her own grief. When I read it something fell into place, and I realized what I was missing.

I needed to stop blocking, and start opening myself to the wonder of what I saw, even if it left me more vulnerable to fear and anxiety. Strangely enough, the process has been comforting. The weather then wasn't conducive to outside exploration, so instead, I searched my sketchbooks for drawings that had meaning for me, and finding them gave me a glimpse of happiness again. I have sprinkled some of them throughout this post.

Elizabeth's blog reminded me of the first peaceful day I remember after my mother's death, which was devastating.  I sat outside in the shade and drew Gaillardias. It took a long time to make this very simple line drawing. I  meant to color it in later, but decided it was better as it was. My mother was not one for frippery or fuss. She had a clean, simple esthetic. She loved a handful of flowers in a jar much more than a florist's arrangement. Drawing these cheerful flowers became an act of devotion, a simple moment of celebration of all my mother had meant and forever will mean to me.

Gaillardias - for me and my Mother

Anxiety and grief never really go away. But drawing with an open heart, not drawing to block out reality, is grounding. The drawings don't have to be perfect; they don't even have to be good, but the very act of recording something that has impressed us with its beauty, its form, its simplicity, whatever it may be - can give us the serenity to keep going. As Elizabeth wrote, "I could be mindful about something exceptional that did not cause pain, but instead promised something more." Thank you, Elizabeth and Clare.

June Beetle

Two of my favorite books by Clare Walker Leslie :

Nature Drawing: A Tool for Learning. Prentice-Hall. 1980. Revised Printing, Kendall/Hunt. 1995. - This is one of my favorite books, period. I often go to it when I feel like I am in a slump, or need an infusion of energy and enthusiasm.

The Art of Field Sketching. Prentice-Hall. 1984. Revised Printing, Kendall/Hunt. Another great book to get you motivated, up and outside.

Clare Walker Leslie's books are available at Amazon, and probably other vendors.

White Mangrove and Buttonwood

I have been working hard on finishing pieces for a show in January, which means I 've been neglecting sketching and blogging. I'm taking a little time now trying to catch up for a while.

White mangrove, Laguncularia racemosa, and buttonwood, Conocarpus erectus, both bloomed in late July, and well into August. They are in the family Combretaceae, which also includes the black olive, sometimes used as a shade tree. My neighborhood in Miami was lined with these stately trees until Hurricane Andrew uprooted dozens - maybe hundreds - of them along with huge slabs of sidewalks.

White mangrove, obviously, is classified as a mangrove, but buttonwood, which lacks special adaptations to cope with highly saline, saturated, and oxygen-starved soils, is considered a "mangrove associate." Typically it will be the most landward, highest and driest species in a mangrove forest habitat. It often grows in mixed stands with the white mangrove. However, white mangrove requires at least moist soils, whereas buttonwood is very drought-tolerant.

White Mangrove, Laguncularia racemosa

The presence of  2 bumps, one on each side of the petiole just beneath the leaf, is characteristic of the Combretaceae. They once were thought to excrete salt, but the general consensus now is that they are "extra-floral nectaries," glands outside the flowers that secrete nectar. It's possible that the reliable source of nectar attracts ants and wasps, which then protect the plant from leaf-eating insects. Only the new leaves of white mangrove produce nectar.(1)*

White Mangrove, Extra-floral Nectaries in Center of Illustration

Another, really cool, feature of this plant family is the presence of "domatia" on the undersides of the leaves. "Domacium" is Latin for "house, home, etc." - think "domicile." A domatium on a plant is a pit, pouch, or tuft of hairs that serves as a residence for ants or tiny arthropods like mites. There probably is a symbiotic or mutualistic relationship between creature and leaf.

Under magnification the domatia on these 2 plants look like mini volcanos, with the crater being the home. They don't go all the way through the leaf, but do make slight bumps on the other side. In buttonwoods the domatia tend to be lined up along the midvein where secondary veins branch off. They are located about a quarter of an inch inside the outer margins on the white mangrove.

Domatia, Buttonwood on Left; White Mangrove on Right;
Expanded View of Domatium on Right

The white  mangrove is primarily a "salt excretor," getting rid of salt through its leaves. Lenticels on the trunk help with air exchange in very wet situations, and it can send up "peg roots," like the pneumataphores of black mangroves, to aid in air exchange if it is inundated regularly.

White mangrove and black mangroves are the most salt-tolerant of our mangroves, able to survive in areas with salt concentrations as high as 40-50,000 ppm, but buttonwood is usually destroyed at concentrations of 40,000 ppm. (2)

At first glance, the idea that the red mangrove, which can grow directly in the salty water of estuaries,  is  the least salt-tolerant of the group seems counter-intuitive, at least to me. Actually, constant tidal flushing and freshwater runoff into these estuarine habitats reduce salinity in the red mangrove root zone. In fact, the red mangrove reaches its most luxurient growth along tidal rivers and even in freshwater swamps if it is not out-competed. White and black mangrove are flooded only intermittently, so salts accumulate in their  soils.

The white mangrove gets its common name from its light-colored bark. The leaves are opposite, succulent, yellow-green and oval, and get to about 3 inches long. They may be notched at their tops.  They can be shiny, but sometimes are dulled by salt residue. The plant can get up to 60' tall, but often remains shrubbier. It is the least cold tolerant of our mangrove species.

White Mangrove in Mixed Stand with Other Species 

Vase-or-cup-shaped greenish white flowers, which can be mildly fragrant, are produced on stalks. As is the case with other mangroves, the fruit is a propagule. Some of my sources say it germinates while still on the plant, others say it germinates only upon dispersal. It stays viable for about 35 days. The propagule is green, narrow at the base, widest in the middle, and ribbed. It gets up to about a half-inch long.

Flowers

The white mangrove has a rare means of reproduction, called androdioecy.  Trees produce either male flowers or hermaphroditic flowers. Most of the white mangroves in Florida are hermaphroditic, with the frequency of males declining as you move northward along the peninsula. In Mexico, there are proportionately many more "male" trees. The sex difference between the 2 types of flowers is reflected by differing sizes and behaviors of the pollinators that visit. (3)

Propagules

Buttonwood will have to wait for another post. All this is probably boring for normal people, but for a plant nerd like me it is utterly fascinating.




Notes and Sources:

1; 3. Beverly J. Rathcke. Mangroves: Ecology and Reproduction. Laguna Bacalar Institute Symposium, 12/28/08. I can't get a link to work, but if you search for "The Wild and Wonderful World of White Mangrove" you should find the article.

2. Frank Craighead Sr. The Trees of South Florida. Vol !: The Natural Environments and Their Succession. University of Miami Press. 1971. P.71.

The Non-Doing Pear

My mother made the best pear preserves I've ever tasted. They were so rich and syrupy smooth you'd swear they had butter in them. As my University of Florida botany professor used to say (He was a mushroom specialist, and was talking about the culinary delights of some Florida fungi), "you'd think you'd died and gone to heaven" after eating them.

They were wonderful on a hot biscuit, but sometimes we just ate them out of the jar. And while they were deliciously sweet, they had just enough balance, without being tart, so you didn't feel like you needed to run for the toothbrush after indulging.

The fruits were hard and gritty, and she cooked them just soft enough, but never mushy. Part of the appeal of my mother's preserves was their wonderful brown color. The preserves were a maple-syrup, honey-brown, not the anemic white things I see on internet recipes. But all it was was sugar, water, pears and spices, cooked just right. I never had pears, and foolishly, never asked for her recipe.

I don't think the pears she used were much good for eating out of hand. Maybe she deliberately picked them early, or it wasn't the best variety for my parents' north Florida home, or just a manifestation of the tree's generally unsatisfactory nature. (More on that later).

I've often wondered if they were the same kind of pears that grew on my grandmother's farm in South Carolina. When I was little, taking the cows to and from the barn and pasture was a special treat. My Aunt Iola had us children "leading" Red, who not only was the dominant cow and knew perfectly well how to get where she was going, but also very affable and docile. My aunt really had to watch Jersey, a mean cow who would jump the fence into the cornfield at any opportunity.

Back to the pears. One of the delays in the daily journeys was caused by old pear trees. Their hard, inedible fruits littered the ground, and the cows scarfed down as many as they could before my aunt got impatient and hurried them along. They probably made good preserves if you got to them before the cows, but I was too young to wonder. Now that I'd like to ask there's nobody left to answer.

I am not sure if the pear tree my parents planted in north Florida every truly flourished. My parents said that they stood under it one winter debating whether to cut it down because it never "did" anything. Being unhurried folk, and not unkind, they granted it one more year, whereupon it bloomed and fruited gloriously, like it never had done before, and the whole family rejoiced over the resulting bounty of pear preserves.

Thereafter they made a ritual of standing under said tree every winter, threatening it gently or not so gently, with the prospect of ending it all. And from then on, as the story goes, the tree was a faithful producer in spite of its sorry appearance.

My mother has been dead for 4 years now, and my father even longer, but the pear tree remains - just barely. It's not so much clinging to life as gradually letting go. We survivors go back as often as we can, but there's nobody to give it a good scare, and worse, nobody to use whatever harvest there might be. So the non-doing pear tree persists -  a weathered sentinel from the golden-brown sweetness of a past time.
.....................................

I clipped this branchlet on a visit, but colored it after I returned to south Florida. I don't know whether the hard brown spheres were immature fruits or shriveled remnants. The leaves were bright green when I picked it, but turned their "fall" colors after a few days. Even though the sketch wouldn't be quite biologically accurate, I couldn't resist trying to capture these vibrant hues.

Oaks - It's Always Much More Complicated

I spent most of the 3nd week of September in North Florida, on a tract of land bordered by the Suwannee River. Though I have known this place for 40-some years, I never had looked really hard at the plants - apart from a few wildflowers.

It take far more focus and memory than I possess to see something thoroughly without drawing it. On this visit I decided I would try to figure out what some of the hardwoods are. I'm weak in hardwoods when it comes to my own neck of the woods, so this was a real challenge, especially when it came to oaks.

The German philosopher Ludwig Marcuse kept the framed motto "Es ist immer alles viel komplizierter" (It is always much more complicated) above his desk. It is a good motto for the amateur botanist - and it certainly proved true when it came to my identifying oaks.

I made  mistakes. An axiom the late botanist Robert Reed emphasized when he was teaching plant identification was, "Plants vary." I didn't follow his advice - didn't look at enough leaf samples from different parts of the tree, so what I had might or might not have been representative. I didn't label specimens, so later on I had no idea whether similar but slightly different leaves had come from the same plant. I didn't study the bark, and too late, I found out that bark can matter. I didn't study the habit and stature of the trees hard enough. The trees I was trying to id were growing in relatively crowded conditions. Still, I could have made useful observations about relative sizes and gotten some idea of the overall shape of the crown. I did not have a useful loupe. That's on my "to buy" list now, because I really needed one to study the undersides of the leaves.

I didn't get to all the oaks on the property - only 3 as a matter of fact. My ids are tentative. There were no acorns visible, and no flowers. Acorns, especially, would have helped a lot.

When I started sketching the trees  below I first thought it was just one tree. Soon enough I realized my mistake. Then I thought I had 2 oaks. Later I discovered that the smaller tree was an American elm.

Oak with American Elm
WC, Niji brushes, Aquabee Mixed Media 9x9, 93 lb

I'm used to drawing fine details, so trying for an entire tree was a real challenge, and I obviously need to get more practice, especially when it comes to getting the underlying structure. You can't just glob in a lot of green and hope a tree emerges. These trees were growing so close together it was very difficult to see which branches belonged to which trunk, but I was trying mainly for a general impression. The oak might be a live oak, Quercus virginiana. Though it doesn't show the massive horizontal branches typical of the species, the short, divided trunk  is typical of the species.

Who Am I?
same paper, ink, wc

This specimen, from the tree above, shows leaves of various shapes, but they more-or-less fit the profile for live oak. On the other hand, they are smooth on the underside, which rules out live oaks, which are quite hairy underneath. But perhaps I didn't look at enough leaves. The plant could be a Darlington oak, Quercus hemisphaerica. Then again, it could be something else. Nelson writes that Darlington oak sometimes is confused with the live oak. (p.209). I'll have to wait until I can get back to the site before I can go any farther.

Quercus nigra, Water Oak

I think I am on slightly firmer ground with what I am calling the water oak, Quercus nigra. The general shape of the leaf and the presence of fine hairs at the vein axils on the underside of the leaf argue for this identification.There is a slight problem, though. Gil Nelson doesn't mention any bristles on the leaf tips, but Richard Wunderlin includes it as a distinguishing characteristic. Guess what?

Water Oak? with Bristle-Tipped Leaves

Here's a specimen that clearly has bristles at the tips of some leaves. If I'd kept a record of which samples came from which trees, I'd have a much better case for arguing that both the drawing and the photo represent the same species. I think they probably do, but again, I won't know for sure until I can look again.

My final oak sums up my dilemma - total confusion. It has fine hairs in the vein axils like turkey oak and water oak, but it really doesn't look like any of the illustrations in my field guides. For now I am just calling it my "mystery oak."

Who Am I?

On top of everything else, oaks hybridize to some extent.  Marcuse was right. It's always much more complicated.


My references: Gil Nelson. The Trees of Florida. 2nd Edition. Pineapple Press. 2011. pp. 201-218.

Richard Wunderlin. Guide to the Vascular Plants of Florida. University Press of Florida. 1998. pp. 256-260.

Hermann Kurtz & Robert K. Godfrey. Trees of Northern Florida. University Press of Florida. 1962.

"Naughty" Names - Jamaica Caper Seed Pods

When the seed pods of the Jamaica caper first appear, the shrub looks pretty dowdy. The  skinny  lumpy, brown pods, which grow up to 6 inches long, make the plant look sort of bedraggled - at least to me.

 But when they open, often twisting dramatically as they display their bright red interiors it's another story altogether. The plant, gorgeous in spring, goes through another showy season.

The seeds are black, about the size of a peppercorn, and strung together on a red, gelatinous "string." The other day the "joint was jumpin" with mockingbirds (sometimes flying away with entire pods), a red-bellied woodpecker, and doves. Cardinals also like the seeds, but they weren't around that morning.

Seed Pods -( The red smears are from the "goo" connecting the seeds)

The plant is listed in the 1753 Species Plantarum, the  source of the oldest valid botanical names, which was compiled by Karl Linnaeus, as Capparis cynophallophora. I haven't been able to discover yet who sent the first specimens to Europe. It could have been Sir Hans Sloane, who traveled to Jamaica and surrounding islands in 1687, and brought a 7-volume herbarium of species, including Jamaica caper,  he collected there back to England.

 It also could  have been an unnamed plant explorer who sent specimens to Leonard Plukanet in London.  Plukanet was a member of the Temple House Botany Club, a group which "encouraged collection of plants iin foreign lands, their propagation locally, and their scientific study." (1) He began publishing a lavishly illustrated catalog, Phytographia, in 1691-1692. I was unable to find out whether it contains Jamaica caper. After Plukanet died in 1706, Sloane bought his papers and collections. Linnaeus relied heavily on Sloane's and Plukanet's work, as well as that of others, in devising his system of plant classification.

Around  1735 Linnaeus went to work for the wealthy banker George Clifford in Holland. Ostensibly he served as his client's personal physician, but his real job was to catalog the plants in Clifford's extensive gardens, hothouses, and "cabinet of curiosities." He published Hortus cliffortianus in  1738, and it includes Jamaica caper. Hortus Cliffortianus was the first published work to use Linnaeus' new binomial system of classification. (2)

Illustration of Magnolia by Georg Dionysius Ehret-Cover Illustration (see note 1) 

The renowned botanical artist Georg Dionysius Ehret collaborated with Linnaeus on this work, and contributed 20 of its 24 illustrations. (I haven't been able to find an image of jamaica caper by Ehret, which doesn't mean there isn't one). He also drew up a table illustration Linnaeus's new system of plant classification. The two had something of a falling out over who actually had advised whom on this collaboration, with Linnaeus taking the credit.(3)

The species nameof the plant, cynophallophora, is from Greek, and refers to a dog's penis. It doesn't take much imagination to see the resemblance in the seed pods.  Perhaps that is a little  graphic for  some people, but folks  in the 17th and 18th centuries tended to call things as they saw them, and some words that are "dirty" today were in normal use in previous eras. Besides, Linnaeus and his predecessors had an awful lot of new plants to name. And he was a bit of a rascal when it came to dubious puns.

Jamaica Caper Seed Pods

Whether it was in Swedish or Latin, Linnaeus wrote with a lively, graphic style. He was able to convey a superb naturalist's eye for detail with a never-failing sense of wonder at the marvels of the world, and the journals he wrote about his travels and discoveries in the Swedish landscape are considered part of the nation's literature as well as factual works. However, his style did lead him into some troubles, as we shall see.

Linnaeus is known today as the "Father of Taxonomy." (the science of naming and classification of a organisms). An explosion of voyages of exploration and scientific inquiry in the 16th and 17th centuries had led to an unworkable chaos when it came to describing species. Species were identified with long Latin descriptions, and the same plant or animal could have numerous differing descriptions, leading to much duplication and misunderstandings.

More Seed Pods - Fun to Draw

Calling himself "the Prince of Botany," Linnaeus set himself the task of establishing order in this mess, and he did. He didn't create his system out of thin air, but relied heavily on the work of contemporaries and predecessors. One of his greatest achievements was stabilizing the principle of what made up a genus by arranging the genera into groups based on the number of reproductive parts in the flower. (4) He then established a hierarchy, which still stands in modified form, by breaking down organisms into ever-smaller groups, from kingdoms to orders, classes, genera and species. He was by no means the first naturalist to use a binomial system of classification, but the first to apply it consistently.

Linnaeus based his classification purely on the sexual arrangements of the flowers. To oversimplify, he determined classes of plants by the number of stamens and pistils, which he termed "husbands" and "wives" repspectively. He also described the structures of the stamens and pistils in terms of human sexual anatomy. This was bad enough for the faint-hearted, but his classes with one "wife" shared by multiple "husbands" was utterly beyond the pale. The class Dodecandria, for example, had one unfortunate - or lucky -  "wife" with up to 19 "husbands."

Not one to stop at half-measures, Linnaeus pushed the envelope further by using overtly sexual and erotic language. In 1729 he wrote, "The flowers' leaves... serve as bridal beds which the Creator has so gloriously arranged, adorned with such noble bed curtains, and perfumed with so many soft scents that the bridegroom with his bride might there celebrate their nuptials with so much the greater solemnity..."(5)

His contemporary, botanist Johann Siegesbeck, blasted this system as "loathsome harlotry," but Linnaeus got the last laugh by naming an ugly little weed, Siegesbeckia, after his detractor. In 1807, in her Fifty Plates of Green-House Plants,  botanical illustrator Henrietta Maria Moriarity, while acknowledging Linnaeus' genius,  declared that the Linnaean system was dangerous for young minds. (6)

Current judgement of the man ranges from tongue in cheek accusations as in "The way we name species was invented by a botanical pornographer,"(7) to more serious criticism that Linnaeus "was a bit of a sexual obsessive," and that {he and}... his sex-obsessed work would almost be laughable if they hadn't been so influential." Citing Capparis cynaphallophora, the author also referred to the botanist's "decided knack for the unsavoury image." (8)   The very down-to-earth writer Sue Hubbel, (whose work I admire), called Linnaeus "an unpleasant man" who gave "mean namings." In particular she was offended by his pun on a Latin vulgarism for a part of the female anatomy in his naming of a marine invertebrate. (9)

Be that as it may,  the man was responsible for naming somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 plants and even more animals. Many of these names, published in Species Plantarum in 1753, and the 10th edition of Systema Naturae in 1758, are valid today, as is the classification hierarchy and convention of binomial nomenclature he established. Today he probably would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, because he alternated between bouts of almost superhuman energy and periods of deep depression, but the energy was enough to carry the day.

Quadrella jamaicensis - new name for an old favorite

But back to Capparis cynophallophora, I have to lament that that is no longer the accepted name for the plant in our backyard. Nowadays plant taxonomists are more likely to grind specimens up in a blender for DNA sequencing than to examine them under a microscope. Although they did it using traditional taxonomic methods, Iltis and Cornejo broke my "Jamaica Caper" out of the Caper family entirely and relocated it in the related family, Brassiciaceae. It gets more complicated. Apparently there is an entire "caper complex" with regard to this plant. Capparis cynophallophora still is accepted as the name for the plants that grow in Jamaica, but in Florida we have a new species altogether - Quadrella jamaicensis, "Quadrella" being an old genus name retrieved from the taxonomic attic. (10)

We move with the times, but I hope we do not become so technically refined that we forfeit the color of the past.


Notes:
(1) James L. Reveal. Gentle Conquest: The Botanical Discovery of North America. With Illustrations from the Library of Congress. Sherwood Publishing, 1992, p. 26.
(2) Gill Saunders. Ehret's Flowering Plants. The Victoria and Albert Natural History Illustrators. Webb & Bower, 1987, p. 12.
(3) Kerry Grens,"The Sex Parts of Plants." The Scientist.Home/Archive/January2015/Foundations.
(4) Reveal, p. 45.
(5) "Carl Linnaeus." https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html
(6) Jack Kramer. Women of Flowers. Stewart, Tabori & Chang. 1996. pp.146-149.
(7) Diane Kelly. "The Way We Name Species was Invented by a Botanical Pornographer." 6/25/2015.  (I couldn't create a link; Search under the title will bring up page).
(8) Hanne Blank. Straight:The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality. Beacon Press. 2012. Could not create link. Cited from Google Books using search string linnaeus+dog+penis+sexuality+hanne+blank.
(9) Susan Hubbell. Waiting for Aphrodite. First Mariner Books. 2000, p. 121. cited from Google Books.
(10) Hugh H. Iltis & Xavier Cornejo. "Studies in Capparaceae XXVIII: The Quadrella Cynophallophora Complex." Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. 4(1): 93-115. July 2010.

Mangroves, Part II - Red Mangroves

I am incredibly lucky to live in an area dominated by mangroves. In fact, the watery mangrove landscape beloved by fishermen and naturalists alike has its own name around here, the "back country" or "back waters." This has been a good year for red mangroves. They are hanging heavy with "pencils," which any day now will drop off and float until they wash up onto a suitable growing surface.

Marco Island is considered the northernmost of the "10,000 Islands," the greatest concentration of mangroves left in the state. The development of Marco Island and my community, Isles of Capri, wreaked massive damage on the native flora and fauna, and mangroves in particular.  Fortunately there are a few places left in both areas where the mangroves  either escaped the devastation or have reestablished themselves. And both areas are now nestled within area protected by the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Sanctuary and Everglades National Park.

Undisturbed Mangroves Part of Rookery Bay Sanctuary

A warren of prop roots makes the red mangrove easy to distinguish. These roots stabilize the shallow-rooted trees, and  are vital in transporting oxygen. They possess numerous pores, lenticels, which admit oxygen and allow its transport to the feeding roots, and which close when inundated. In a dense growth of red mangroves it can be impossible to tell which roots belong to which trunk.

Prop Roots

The trees not only send down roots from the trunk, but also  long roots from large branches. The lenticels and the plant's low rate of transpiration make it possible for the plant to maintain high osmotic pressure in the roots, which allows them to take in water, but exclude the salt by a process of reverse osmosis.

Aerial Red Magrove Roots, Mixed Growth, HWY 952

Where hurricane action is rare, the trees can grow to 80 feet tall or more, with a girth of around 3 feet, but the frequency of storms in Florida keeps them much shorter and shrubbier. Some mangrove stands can show tall, straight trunks, while other trunks are contorted and can look even animate, tortured or ecstatic.

Red mangroves have shiny, slightly  yellow-green leaves arranged opposite each other on the branch. A special characteristic for the species is the long interpetiolar stipule. (Stipules in between the leaf stems, the petioles). At the very tip of the branch in this sketch the stipule has not fallen off yet.

Red Mangrove, Leaves, Stipules

The edges of the leaves are smooth. Undersides are paler than the top sides. They can get up to  a good 4 inches long, and an inch or more wide. Leaves are clustered at or near the ends of the branches, in order to harvest as much light as possible. There is not much understory in a red mangrove forest, but seedlings can get established where there are gaps in the foliage cover. They will stay in the seedling stage until enough light is created for them to grow larger.

Flowers are bell-shaped, with 4 waxy yellow sepals partly hiding 4 feathery white petals. The plant can self-pollinate. Pollen is wind-borne, but it is possible that some may be spread by insects.

Red Mangrove Flowers 

One of the criteria of inclusion in the "mangrove" group is viviparity - live birth.  The actual "seed" of mangroves germinates on the plant. The brownish-olive structures below are the fruits, with the propagules, the "pencils," beginning to develop.

When the propagules are mature they drop from the plants. Many land at the base of the plant, but others will float away, often in "rafts,"  with the next tide. Incredibly, the propagules can stay alive for a year. At first they float horizontally, but as they become waterlogged the heavier base begins to sink until the pencil is vertical. If it washes up onto a suitable site, it will send out roots and sprout leaves.

Red Mangrove Propagule

Propagule with New Roots Developing

It is impossible to overstate the importance of red mangroves, and mangroves in general, to the ecosystem. Their roots stabilize shell and mud deposits, provide anchoring places for microorganisms and mollusks, and serve as a nursury and shelter for small fish and other vertebrates. They, in turn supply food for wading birds and other predators. Roots, leaves and pencils are consumed by a variety of native animals and insects. The root region is rich in phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain.

Mangroves absorb a huge amount of wind energy from hurricane winds and storm surges, often at their own cost. One needs only to see the path of mangrove devastation after a storm like Irma in 2017 to see the incredible force they absorb and deflect. Dense mangrove forests also provide places for birds to perch during the day and mangrove islands provide safe rookeries at night.

Mangroves are enormously effective at capturing and storing carbon. When mangrove habitats are destroyed, the environment gets a double whammy - first by the release of massive amounts of stored carbon, and second by the loss of a significant carbon-removing source.

In some regions red mangroves are used medicinally. They have proven antibacterial properties. Leaves and branches contain high levels of tannin, which is what makes the waters of estuaries and tidal rivers tea-colored. Around the world mangrove tannin is used for curing leather.

The very stuctures that allow the red mangroves to survive can also be their undoing. Lenticels can allow the entry of pathogens. If the lenticels are clogged by fine silt, oil or other clinging pollutants the plant will die. Large swaths of mangroves in Everglades National Park were killed by silt deposits by Hurricane Donna in 1960.

The plant also dies if water levels rise enough to cover the lenticels permanently. While mangroves are threatened in their native range by rising sea levels, they also are posing a threat to salt marsh habitats farther north. Previously these vital habitats were protected by the mangroves' intolerance of freezing weather, but warmer winters with fewer freezing epidsodes are allowing mangroves to invade. Red mangrove also is considered invasive in Hawaii, where it was introduced.

Red Mangrove Leaves and Stipules 

Sources: Frank C. Craighead, Sr. The Trees of South Florida. Vol I. University of Miami Press.
1971.

Ronald L. Myers and John J. Ewel, Eds. Ecosystems of Florida. University of Central Florida Press. 1990.

"Mangroves Against the Storm."

"Why Blue Carbon is REDD Hot."

Beverly J. Rathcke. "Mangroves: Ecology and Reproduction."