Ohio Botanical Symposium

If you are a big fan of Ohio's natural areas, you have probably heard of the Ohio Botanical Symposium. About 415 of Ohio's native plant people gathered in Columbus for an educational day of programs, vendors and the latest plant news. A special gathering of Sedge-heads were there to hear the great Tony Reznichek talk about one of the most confusing genus of the plant world, sedges.

One of the best places to look for rare plants is near rare habitats, and Richland county's Five-Finger Bog is a land trust property and frequent haunt of mine.

Today Jim McCormac presented the program on "Best Finds" from all over Ohio, including the Bog Willow, Salix pedicellaris, and Five-Finger cinquefoil, Potentilla palustris found at Five-finger Bog by a couple of the best botanist in Ohio: Rick Gardner and Steve McKee. I was honored to be along on that trip and photo documented the great day as shown above.

Others were credited with "Best Finds", too. Friends like Jason Larson, Daniel Boone, Janet Creamer, Tom Arbour and loads more- that I can't remember! I will try to get my hand on the list and post it in its entirety later. These are the people adding to our Ohio Heritage data base, and the important work of the Ohio Heritage botanists.

Another speaker was the well-known author Dr. Douglas Tallamy- if you don't own Bringing Nature Home yet, please click on the link and get it! I might help you re-think your whole perspective on landscape plants - and the species trying to make a living on them: caterpillars, spiders, bees, birds, frogs, bats and many mammals as well. Think about adding native plants to your landscape, and as Tallamy wrote in my copy of the book: "Garden as if life depends upon it!" Because, it does!

Winter Leaf Squeezing

Winter walks provide a perfect opportunity for a little leaf squeezing. Yes, it will probably never become so popular it becomes an Olympic sport, but it is an excellent exercise in natural history.






Look closely among those dried leaves remaining on the trees and understory shrubs. Sure, go ahead and squeeze them... just don't squeeze them too hard! Wrapped inside their safe cozy, leafy cocoon a moth may be spending winter.


.....................Photo provided by Dave Lewis


And if those moth cocoons are fortunate enough to be over-looked by the hungry woodpeckers and the migrating wood warblers, they will be hatching out one of these balmy spring days.






Many of the larger cocoons protect members of the giant silk moth, or Saturniidae, like the Promethea in the photo. Once the mature moth emerges from its cocoon, their life expectancy is but a few days. Silk moths have no mouth parts, and cannot feed. Their only order of business is finding a mate and producing eggs to continue the species.

Once those eggs hatch out, hungry hoards of caterpillars eat or are eaten. It is a tough life as an early instar of an insect. And these gooey protein sacks are a primary food source for many species of birds. Unfortunately, our native silk moths have suffered great losses from pesticides, invader insects which were introduced to control gypsy moths, and the general loss of habitat. And in a trickle-down economy, that means it is harder for the birds to find dinner.

If you like birds, and butterflies- plant a native tree. Cherries, oaks, walnuts, elms... these are the native tree species our moths and butterflies have co-evolved to feed upon.

And if you are interested in learning more about the relationships between lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) and native plants, be certain to hear Dr. Doug Tallamy on March 26th at the Ohio Botanical Symposium. You find his program fascinating!

Go here for all the details. Deadline for registration is March 22nd.