Near Brewton, AL
Near Atmore, AL
terrestrails in Alabama
Started by
Guest_PhilipKukulski_*
, Dec 19 2008 08:00 PM
21 replies to this topic
#1
Guest_PhilipKukulski_*
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Posted 19 December 2008 - 08:00 PM
Near Brewton, AL
Near Atmore, AL
#2
Guest_farmertodd_*
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Posted 19 December 2008 - 10:19 PM
Near Brewton, AL - The azolla (red stuff) or the spiney branch?
Near Atmore, AL - one of the club mosses, although I'd need to see more detail to get toward a guess on species.
I need to go down for a trip just to botanize. Too much cool stuff to bother chasing those danged Pteronotropis around their crappy environs
Todd
Near Atmore, AL - one of the club mosses, although I'd need to see more detail to get toward a guess on species.
I need to go down for a trip just to botanize. Too much cool stuff to bother chasing those danged Pteronotropis around their crappy environs
Todd
Edited by farmertodd, 19 December 2008 - 10:20 PM.
#3
Guest_Newt_*
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Posted 19 December 2008 - 11:00 PM
I've seen that spiny thing in West Tennessee, and had a botanist ID it for me. It's an exotic; I can't remember the name. I'll let you know if I remember.
#4
Guest_Mysteryman_*
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Posted 20 December 2008 - 12:36 PM
It's either Pyracantha, Acacia, or Aralia spinosa, the Devil's Walking Stick.
Acacia is exotic. I've never seen any specimens in AL, but I guess it's possible.
Pyracantha is common to this area, but that specimen is very unusually huge.
My first guess is Acacia.
Acacia is exotic. I've never seen any specimens in AL, but I guess it's possible.
Pyracantha is common to this area, but that specimen is very unusually huge.
My first guess is Acacia.
#5
Guest_PhilipKukulski_*
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Posted 21 December 2008 - 05:44 PM
I also found this tuber in Alabama.
#6
Guest_nativeplanter_*
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Posted 22 December 2008 - 01:18 PM
Tuber looks like Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus)
#7
Guest_Mysteryman_*
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Posted 23 December 2008 - 01:34 PM
I must retract my Aralia suggestion. I don't know what the heck I was thinking. I never saw one that remotely resembled that.
Fun factoid: Aralia has the largest leaves of any plant in North America. Single leaves can exceed seven feet in length. You have to be paying attention, though, to realize that they are single leaves, as the many leaflets look like separate branches.
Anyway, the spines of the Devil's Walking Stick are smaller, skinnier, and considerably more numerous. This is not Aralia.
It's also not Pyracantha; again the thorns are all wrong, being too fat and curved.
Acacia is now my only guess. I don't know if it's right, but that's why it's only a guess. Actually I think I'm still wrong, but it's all I can think of at the moment.
Fun factoid: Aralia has the largest leaves of any plant in North America. Single leaves can exceed seven feet in length. You have to be paying attention, though, to realize that they are single leaves, as the many leaflets look like separate branches.
Anyway, the spines of the Devil's Walking Stick are smaller, skinnier, and considerably more numerous. This is not Aralia.
It's also not Pyracantha; again the thorns are all wrong, being too fat and curved.
Acacia is now my only guess. I don't know if it's right, but that's why it's only a guess. Actually I think I'm still wrong, but it's all I can think of at the moment.
#8
Guest_truf_*
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Posted 23 December 2008 - 03:55 PM
While you're at it, what in the heck is this oddball I found in the Big South Fork?
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#9
Guest_tetra2004_*
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Posted 23 December 2008 - 09:31 PM
While you're at it, what in the heck is this oddball I found in the Big South Fork?
It's a doll's eye, Actaea pachypoda. Perfect name.
Pierre Gagne
Potomac River drainage
#10
Guest_truf_*
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Posted 24 December 2008 - 01:58 AM
Thank you, I was worried it might be an alien hooba-joob!It's a doll's eye, Actaea pachypoda. Perfect name.
Pierre Gagne
Potomac River drainage
Here's another oddball I found in the Red River Gorge, KY. I thought you all might be interested...It's called Indian pipe. These plants contain no chlorophyll.
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#11
Guest_Irate Mormon_*
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Posted 29 December 2008 - 01:35 AM
Pierre! It's been a long time since we have heard a peep out of you - where have you been? Slumming with tropicals?It's a doll's eye, Actaea pachypoda. Perfect name.
Pierre Gagne
Potomac River drainage
#12
Guest_nativeplanter_*
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Posted 12 January 2009 - 01:22 PM
Aaah! I've been trying to remember what the first plant was since it was posted. Came to mind just now. Looks like trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata).
#13
Guest_fundulus_*
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Posted 12 January 2009 - 02:46 PM
Yeah, I just recognized that first picture as being "osage orange". We have some in our yard, and yesterday I noticed some sprouts growing from a stump that look just like that shot. Mature individuals are big woody trees, and females produce soft, green grapefruit-sized fruits that are the "oranges".
#14
Guest_Newt_*
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Posted 12 January 2009 - 02:52 PM
Thanks, Laura! That's exactly what I was trying to recall! Bruce- I think Osage orange has a more zigzag growth, and doesn't flatten out around the nodes like Poncirus does.
#15
Guest_nativeplanter_*
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Posted 12 January 2009 - 03:21 PM
That's right. The trifoliate orange is actually a close relative of our more recognized citrus. If you cut it in half, it will have citrusy segments. Osage orange is indeed a big tree, while trifoliate orange is a tangled tall shrub.
#16
Guest_PhilipKukulski_*
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Posted 12 January 2009 - 06:44 PM
Thanks Laura.
I looked at the spiny twig in person; I saw no sign that the stick EVER had any leaves.
Pictures of the thorns on Poncirus trifoliata look correct.
Bruce,
I planted an Osage Orange in my yard. I'm repatriating Osages. Osages would grow in Michigan if the NA megafauna hadn't been wiped out.
My Osage is a female and has had fruits the last two summers. I don't know of any males around. Only 15 seeds per fruit instead of 300, but all the seeds sprouted.
blossom
And a Honey Locust for good measure:
I looked at the spiny twig in person; I saw no sign that the stick EVER had any leaves.
Pictures of the thorns on Poncirus trifoliata look correct.
Bruce,
I planted an Osage Orange in my yard. I'm repatriating Osages. Osages would grow in Michigan if the NA megafauna hadn't been wiped out.
My Osage is a female and has had fruits the last two summers. I don't know of any males around. Only 15 seeds per fruit instead of 300, but all the seeds sprouted.
blossom
And a Honey Locust for good measure:
#17
Guest_fundulus_*
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Posted 12 January 2009 - 07:07 PM
Phil, you like the crazy trees! I kind of like osage oranges too, but sometimes they make a nuisance of themselves in the midsouth. We had to hire tree surgeons to cut back an osage branch that had grown into a big magnolia on our property, seriously inhibiting its growth. Now I think they're all happy.
#18
Guest_Casper Cox_*
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Posted 12 January 2009 - 10:17 PM
Osage Orange....
Wife Connie tried to cook one once. Mis ID. Terrible smell and certainly not edible. They are a mystery fruit as nothing is known to eat the fruit. The fruit all rolls downhill so how do the seeds get back uphill? Of course people have been planting them for years as a hedge type tree. Every year about 30 roll by the studio. But how did the trees repopulate themselves before? Phil Nixon told me that they found out elephants like em. Thus Mammoths.
Kinda neat.
Good to hear from you Pierre. I thought that Truf fella had made something out of Playdoo and was tricking us. Very cool plant.
Wife Connie tried to cook one once. Mis ID. Terrible smell and certainly not edible. They are a mystery fruit as nothing is known to eat the fruit. The fruit all rolls downhill so how do the seeds get back uphill? Of course people have been planting them for years as a hedge type tree. Every year about 30 roll by the studio. But how did the trees repopulate themselves before? Phil Nixon told me that they found out elephants like em. Thus Mammoths.
Kinda neat.
Good to hear from you Pierre. I thought that Truf fella had made something out of Playdoo and was tricking us. Very cool plant.
#19
Guest_PhilipKukulski_*
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Posted 13 January 2009 - 08:07 AM
Osage Orange....
Wife Connie tried to cook one once. Mis ID. Terrible smell and certainly not edible. They are a mystery fruit as nothing is known to eat the fruit. The fruit all rolls downhill so how do the seeds get back uphill? Of course people have been planting them for years as a hedge type tree. Every year about 30 roll by the studio. But how did the trees repopulate themselves before? Phil Nixon told me that they found out elephants like em. Thus Mammoths.
<clip>
www.stephenbodio.com/Pleistocene_Park_Proposal.pdf
STEPHEN BODIO PLEISTOCENE PARK BOOK: SHORT PROPOSAL
"Two recent popular books, Connie Barlow’s Ghosts of Evolution and Tim Flannery’s The External Frontier, deal with the human impact on the megafauna in America, starting 11-12,000 years ago. Barlow describes plants that need megafaunal “dispersers” – such things as honey locust and Osage orange need mammoths and mastodons!"
http://darwiniana.org/ghostsof.htm
Ghosts of Evolution
Anachronistic Flora
and Extinct Fauna
"Like vestigial organs, anachronistic plants and their fruits represent a kind of evidence best explained by coevolution and extinction. Or, as Theodosius Dobzhansky informed us, Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution."
#20
Guest_bullhead_*
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Posted 20 January 2009 - 12:15 AM
Very interesting info on the osage orange! These are things that I never heard before. Things I have heard: The fruit repel spiders. (Probably not true, but it does explain why my aunt had the oranges behind her couch.) I have also heard that the wood makes good primitive bows. And the wood is very rot resistant which makes it useful for fence posts.
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