What to See This Week

Great blue lobelia is currently blooming in the Bird Watching Garden as well as trail and road edges. In the Bird Watching Garden it grows alongside its close relative cardinal flower.

Down in the Learning Garden many of the items grown as food for us also serve as food for caterpillars. Pictured here is a tiny black swallowtail caterpillar feeding on a fennel plant. Black swallowtails feed on all sorts of plants in the carrot/parsley family and are common in the garden. The caterpillar pictured here is a very young one that is only about a centimeter long at most. At this stage they mimic the appearance of bird droppings! As they get larger, they have yellow, green and black stripes.

Late summer is when The Arboretum starts to see many fruits ripening. Kousa dogwoods are very popular small ornamental trees that have interest throughout the year, including beautiful blooms in the spring to unique, soccer ball-like fruits ripening now. The inside of the fruit is yellow-orange and soft. The fruits are sometimes eaten by chipmunks and squirrels. The inner flesh is edible and has a very tropical flavor, however the bitter skin and hard seeds should be avoided.

Our native flowering dogwoods are also in fruit right now. While flowering dogwood fruits are not edible for humans, they are much preferred by native birds! Flowering dogwood fruits contain a higher percentage of fat than many other types of fruits. Fat provides birds with a longer lasting energy source that is especially important as they prepare for the upcoming fall migration.

Under the dense canopy a pop of deep blue color stands out in the Woodland Garden. Blue cohosh is a spring wildflower that has unassuming greenish blooms. The blue in their name comes from their striking fruits!

White baneberry is another interesting fruit found in the Deep Woods area. While there are several examples of plants with spooky names, this plant has a spooky appearance as well! Another name for white baneberry is doll’s eyes, named for its fruits that look like perfect little eyeballs.

Spicebush is a common understory shrub throughout all forested areas at The Arboretum. Spicebush is most recognizable in very early spring when it has its small, bright yellow flowers as well as late summer into the fall where green fruits begin to ripen to a shiny, bright red. Spicebush fruits are enjoyed by foragers, noted for their complex flavor and typically used as a replacement for allspice.

To see guttation in action on plants you have to be in the right place at the right time. Guttation is when liquid from inside a plant (or fungus) is pushed out of the tips of leaves, often seen overnight or early in the morning and when soil moisture and humidity are high. In this photo guttation is seen on jewelweed. Every plant in this patch had tiny droplets of water sitting on the tips of each leaf’s teeth.