Cooksonia: A Birthday Tribute

First off Happy Birthday Mr. Darwin. In honor of the giant of biology I thought about a short post to talk about a really cool plant.

Cooksonia sp. 

This early land plant was probably one of the first land plants. Growing sometime between the late Silurian and the early Devonian (about 430 mya!), it would mark the eventual colonization and dominance of land plants in our terrestrial ecosystems.

Cooksonia looks more like a lichen than it does current extant plants, and it lacked a vascular system and seeds or flowers (all of which came much much later).


Happy Birthday Mr. Darwin.


 

Hieracium murorum

We live in a time of great change. No longer do mountains and oceans limit the march of species across the globe. Humans have become a driver of plant range expansion (and retreat) more so than any other force on earth.

Hieracium mororum 

 Specimen: From Wetmore Landing, on a cobble shore near Lake Superior. North Central Marquette County North of Marquette. Date: 6.12.12.  Collected by Michael Rotter

Hieracium is a horribly difficult genus. This primarily European group is a far way from being resolved (if ever). The recent invasion to North America have complicated the picture of this group. Inbreeding, genetic bottle necks, and founder effects in North America make this a very difficult group. Even comparing our specimens to European ones are not always clear cut. H. mororum can be identified by the hairy basal leaves, yellow heads 5-8, and usually only 1 small cauline leaf. With any of the hawkweeds it is important to look at the local specimens and not strictly try to put it in a group. This specimen above is the first Marquette County collection of this European native.

Winter Botany Project 2013!

One of the hall marks of the North is the winter doldrums.  Any botanist up here has secret thoughts of leaving and not coming back around this time every year, and I am no exception. One thing we can comfort ourselves in is data entry and indoor plant ID.

So to make this winter a little better my goal until I see a violet blooming is to ID one plant a day. Most of these will come from my back log of pressed plants (The UP and also some Texas plants) but occasionally some specimens might come up from some of my friends throughout the country and the world!

So to kick it off here is the first plant of the year, appropriately a Viola! 

Viola cucullata 

Specimen from the Huron Mountain Club. Northwest Marquette County MI. In a moist hardwood stand. Date collected: 4/29/12. Collected by Dennis Riege.

This plant came to me from a researcher in the Huron Mountain Club who is studying vegetation changes in Northern forests. Anyhow since Northern Michigan is the local herbarium (Support your local herbarium!) he was kind enough to use us as the depository of his specimens. In exchange our herbarium assistant and myself are helping him with any plant ID. Violets are always tricky and its important to make a good collection if you are going to take it home. Roots, habit , mature and young leaves, well pressed flower are all really important for future ID. Luckily, when this specimen arrived it was in this condition.  

Marsh Violet is one of our common violets in moist hardwood forests (the only nice thing violets do to help you in their ID is they tend to sort themselves into habitats and not overlap that much). The ID is straight forward. The combination of large flowers, flowers that are above the leaves, habitat in hardwood forests, and the serrate edging on the leaves allow for a good place to start. Be careful there is albino flowers in this species, but they are rare. Also a strongly cordate leaf will distinguish this interesting beauty.

-Michen

Spring time for Amelanchier

One of the most dramatic plants of spring wildflower season in the North-woods is the wonderful service-berry or Amelanchier. Around Marquette they just started blooming in full force this week. Many naturalist in our area are familiar with this groups attractive appearance; tight bark, spiraled buds, five petaled white(ish) flowers, and most importantly delicious fruits (a berry-like pome). Beyond calling them Amelanchier, most of us shy away from naming them to species level. I find myself often, when asked about the species name, mumbling something about them being confusing and then trying to redeem myself with a mention of A. arborea. With that said, they are confusing!

There seems to be a general agreement in the literature that the complex array of  characters has been caused by Amelanchier's love of edge, cut, burned, and otherwise abused land that comes with human habitation (I would propose too many people wanting to name a new species as another culprit). This confusion also extends to the multitudes of common names of this group. Here is a list of several and their possible origins:

Serviceberry: Time to have that funeral service and put the dead underground that died during the winter. When this plant is in bloom its a sign that the ground has thawed out enough for digging.

Shadbush/shadblow: This name is for when the Shad (a type of fish) starts running, then this plant will be blooming.

Sugarplum: Being members of the rose family they are similar to plums but some individuals taste much better than others (a very interesting topic in itself).

Juneberry: The fruit are usually good picking in June, but hurry to your favorite plant because wildlife love these tasty fruits.

In Michigan we can divide this genus into 6 species, 3 which are species in their own right and 3 which should be treated broadly as species groups. The 3 species that I will discuss are the 3 diploids and the easiest to ID. The other 3 have a variety of polyploidy levels that include triploids and tetraploids (its even confusing to think about, no wonder they are left as complex's!).

A. bartramiana. This is one of my favorites of the 3 diploids. This species can be found in wet areas as well as edges and old dunes. In Marquette its common around the bike trail and the shore line. This is the most "cherry" looking species of shadblow around (The difference between the cherries (Prunus) and the Amelanchier's is in the Ovary (1 and superior in Cherries, more than 1 and inferior in Amelanchier)). Take a look at its stout petals! Also the flower are arranged differently than the other juneberries, having 1-3 pedicels coming out of the axils of the leaves. The leaves are also unique among the sugarplums. They are tapered toward the base while the others are squared.

A. arborea.When I think about the Serviceberries, this is the species that I think most of. Why not? It is our most common and as the name suggest its often upright and is most likely to form a tree like habit (although A. bartramiana and A. laevis do also). This species has longer petals and the flowers are arranged in racemes and there should be more than 4 pedicels present. The leaves here are usually downy and should be only just unfolding during the flowering period.

A. laevis. Re-read everything I just wrote about A. arborea and then scratch that last sentence. The leaves of this species will be at least half grown at flowering time and will be completely glabrous at maturity. Also notice the red hue of the growing leaves.

Well that is a start of a really interesting group. Of course be careful of hybrids and don't be afraid to lump things together. Check out the Amelanchier page at the Michigan Flora for a key to all of our Michigan species. The key will also work with non-flowering specimens!

Get out and look at some plants!

-Mike