the truth is out there

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If there is a bright side to any of the non-native invasive plants that are taking over our part of the planet and trust me there is no bright side. I'm being sarcastic because it wouldn't take Fox Moulder to find 'em. We're talking kudzu, privet, bush honeysuckle, English ivy, climbing euonymus and a host of others that are pushing out our native plants. The "greenest state in the land of the free" has been invaded.  

That one tiny bright side is that Microstegium vimineum dies back early. Commonly known as Japanese stiltgrass, packing grass or Nepalese browntop, the grass is an annual that quickly spreads its seeds and bounces back next spring. It is common in a wide variety of habitats and is well adapted to low light. So it's a grass that grows where few other grasses will.

In Knoxville, our little claim to fame, or infamy, is that it was first documented and IDed in North America in 1918 growing along the mouth of Third Creek, a tributary of the Tennessee River, barely two miles from where I type these words.

If you see Moulder and Scully, send them over. 

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primrose tough

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With the sun setting and a frost advisory out tonight for the first time this autumnal season, this colony of evening primrose (Oenothera biennis) digs in by the Tennessee River ready for the chill. Call them defiant.

Although they appear somewhat delicate, primroses are tough colonizers making the most out of lonesome ground. They thrive in poor even disturbed soil that's been recently cleared like the rock-filled riprap along the new Cherokee Farm Greenway near my home. 

Called "evening" because each blossom is ephemeral, their four bilobed yellow petals open late in the day and will be gone by noon tomorrow to be replaced the next evening by another flower.  

A cold wind is moving in on this dainty evening as it seems to suggest... 

Bring it on.

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phasma

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Just in time for All Hallows’ Eve, Ijams naturalist Christie Collins found a walkingstick insect by the staff entrance at the nature center. 

The curiously linear creatures are in the insect order Phasmatoptera, from the Ancient Greek, φάσμα or phasma, meaning an apparition or phantom. 

Phasmids or stick bugs (or in some countries, ghost bugs) are remarkably accomplished at being practically invisible. But don’t be spooked, our local species is an herbivore that feeds primarily on oak leaves.

With cooler weather finally forecast for the valley, the adult insects will soon die, their lives are...ephemeral by nature. (Shameless book plug) Only a very few are able to overwinter as adults. 

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seed time bloom

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“Of wandering forever and the earth again . . . of seed-time, bloom, and the mellow-dropping harvest,” wrote North Carolina novelist Thomas Wolfe in “Of Time and the River.” 

And this is the seed time, when some of the plants around my little spot on the planet---common milkweed, cattail, sow thistle, honey vine (also a milkweed)---wait for a change in the weather, a flow of highs and lows. It’s their time to inherit the wind, dispersing their seeds to parts unknown.

Bon Voyage!

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leafing through Ijams

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Extra! Extra! What were WBIR Channel 10 Live@5@4 host Beth Haynes and I talking about this afternoon?

Could it be the "Leafing through Ijams" program Sunday, October 15 at 1 p.m.? Yes. The trees are beginning to drop their leaves so they no longer need them. Well then let's start a colorful leaf collection.

It's part Easter egg hunt (without the bunny) and part scrapbooking plus your kids will begin to learn about the different types of trees at Ijams and around your yard.

(All ages but perfect for 5- through 9-year-olds) Join me for this Family Adventure Sunday program in the park. Bring scrapbooks or notebooks for each child and let’s go leafing through Ijams. The fee for this program is $8. Everyone over the age of two must have a ticket.

To register by phone, please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 or go online to register at ijams.org/events/

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a monarch passing

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The journey magnífico!

You feel for them this time of the year. The monarch butterflies, little more than paper mache, on their long migration to mountain ranges in Mexico.

Do they even know their final destination? We think not. It is just somehow hard-wired into a brain as tiny as a grain of sand. The Mexican Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains are over 1600 miles away but that is by road. Monarchs take a more direct route over the Gulf of Mexico.

This one passed through the Garden Demonstration Site on the eminence above the Visitor Center at Ijams Nature Center Saturday afternoon before the heavy rains on Sunday. It just pausing long enough to seek food on a sprig of frostweed. And flippity-flap it moved on towards the southwest.

We are humbled by your nonchalance and courage.

Viaje seguro!

My new book has an entire chapter about them and their journey. And oh, how ephemeral they are. 

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Sneak Peek

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Sneak Peek Book Signing 
 Saturday, November 4, 4 p.m. 

Wild Birds Unlimited, 7240 Kingston Pike

Join my friends at Wild Birds Unlimited for a "good-natured" discussion of my new book Ephemeral by Nature: Exploring the Exceptional with a Tennessee Naturalist published by the University of Tennessee Press.

I'll talk about some of the interesting birds—owls, hummingbirds, warblers and cranes—that appear in "Ephemeral" plus two non-feathered animals: freshwater jellyfish and Appalachian pandas. WBU will have my new book to buy and be signed. And remember, they make great Christmas gifts! UT's suggested retail price is $24.95 but WBU will be selling them for $22.50 but you MUST REGISTER IN ADVANCE so that they know how many books to have on hand.

Please contact WBU at (865) 337-5990 so that WBU may allow for appropriate seating.

Thank you Liz, Tony, Tiffiny and Warren.

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star-crossed spiders

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Argiope aurantia. Photos by Lynne Davis

After seeing wildflower devotees Lynne and Bob Davis at the nature center yesterday, I was reminded of the photos Lynne had recently sent me of writing spiders, a.k.a. garden spiders (Argiope aurantia). The photos capture the much smaller, more tentative male moving in to be near her.

"Found these 'lovers' outside the office at Eagleville Gliderport. Looks like the male is taking no chances - he's on the other side of the web," emailed Lynne.

"See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!" sighed Shakespeare's Romeo.

But she's a Capulet! Will she eat me?

To borrow loosely from the Bard of Avon, calling the pair star-crossed lovers is fairly accurate. They do not have a fortuitous future together as Wiki succinctly states.

“Yellow garden spiders breed twice a year. The males roam in search of a female, building a small web near or actually in the female’s web, then court the females by plucking strands on her web. Often, when the male approaches the female, he has a safety drop line ready, in case she attacks him. The male uses the palpal bulbs on his pedipalps to transfer sperm to the female. After inserting the second palpal bulb, the male dies, and is sometimes then eaten by the female.”

There's a country song in this somewhere but George Jones is no longer with us to sing it.


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