Cranberries et al.

It feels like I'm in Alaska!


Cranberry bogs are surreal!  By cranberry bogs, I really mean black spruce forests with sphagnum so deep you want to sleep on it (but for the mosquitoes).  The Ericaceous shrubs out here as an understory make sense.  I haven't taken any pH readings, but I'm sure its low (high acidity = low pH).  The heath family is an acid loving family and its Virginia members include Rhododendron, Blueberries (the vaccinium corombosum from a previous post plus another), mountain laurel, wild azalea, and probably one or two others I've missed.

Out here in the Interior of Alaska, there's Vaccinium uliginosum (blueberry), V. vitis-idea, V. oxycoccus (cranberry), Ledum groenlandicum, L. decumbens (Laborador tea), Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, and A. rubra (see below for common name).  So that's a lot of names, BUT, some of them are really cool!

Stunted Picea (likely P. mariana) in a bog

Kinnikinnick is the common name for Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (sometimes hard to tell from V. vitis-idea).  First off, I'm not sure how Kinnikinnick is any easier to remember than Arctostaphylos uva ursi.  It's also one of many "bear-berries" which would make sense with the "ursi" in its name.  Kind of like the constellation Ursa Major (big bear), but there are several bear berries up here.  Likely because bear like to eat just about any of the berries up here....

Anyways, so Arctostaphylos.  It sounds like a winged dinosaur and with the specific epithat being uva-ursi it sounds like a winged dinosaur resembling a bear.  A rather impressive name for the little plant with super-cute impressed leaves!



So out here there are decidous conifers (like Larix larcina or Tamarack), evergreen conifers (Picea Mariana or black spruce), evergreen decidouous shrubs such as the cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idea), and deciduous broadleaves such as birch and alder (Betchula papyrifera or paper-bark birch, B. nanna, B. glandulosa, Alnus tenuifolia and A. crispa).

Picea mariana

Populus tremuloides

Larix larcina

Ledum groenlandicum

Not all broad-leaves lose their leaves in the winter time and not all conifers keep theirs in the winter.  All of these different types of growth strategies are up here!

There's so much more I want to write about.  The insulating moss, the neat epiphyte, the frogs up here, the permafrost, the many wildlife signs, tussock-hopping, and just more cool pictures!  But this will be a little bit for now.  I'll put up a few neat ecology stories with pictures soon!  My transfer cable is at work, but I'll have some extra exciting pictures soon!

April 8th plant quiz answer!

 Plant Quiz Answer: 

Starch GrapeHyacinth or Blue-Bottles!  As ID'd through Virginia Tech's Weed Identification Guide Muscari racemosum  


Congrats to both Camille from Red Onion Woodworks and her blog The Wayward Spark, and Jackie who correctly answered (though on not in the comments below).  As promised, I do offer a local pickup of some of the tomato seedlings!  This may or may not work for those on the Western side of things, but it was still fun!

Muscari racemosum

At first, I thought these were onion-grass as our yard in the summertime has a lot of that. I've even cooked with a few of them before. You can definitely tell by the smell when it's onion-grass (or wild-garlic as I've read the two are often confused, both in the Allium genus, bulbs like the lilly family).

I thought my allergies were acting up when it didn't smell like onions.  I don't think this plant is terribly poisonous, because I chomped on the stem a little to see if it tasted like onions.  Don't worry, it was just a little chomp.  chomp.

                                     Top, USDA Allium (onion) example and bottom,
                                                     the racemes of the M. racemosa 


Anyways, the biggest difference was the flowers; they would have been very different.  The University of Madison Wisconsin botany program has a nice display of inflorescence types.  My fast attempt is below:

 Raceme and Umbel Inflorescence 

As the name implies, these grapehyacinth flowers are in a raceme (racemosa) which means they are a group of indeterminate flowers (oldest at the bottom) attached similar to the way a french braid looks.  In fact, it's a lot like an upside down french-braid come to think of it...   But the flowers are fairly tightly packed and in Bob Ross terms, the one above is a happy raceme, ours is a sad raceme--see below:

Sad Raceme.  Similar to the M. racemosum but less packed full of flowers

In conclusion: the Allium genus is typified by its umbellate inflorescence.  Umbell like Umbellerella--no wait...

Again, anyways, they're attached all at the same height on the stem and go out like a fireworks explosion if you look at it from the top.

So, grapehyacinth = umbellerella and allium = explosion.  maybe.  We'll work on this.



Weed'n-seed won't work on these guys by the way (except maybe the blueberry).  The part where they are a bulb, and in the Lilly family (in the broader sense of the term, sensu lato) means they're not broad-leaves like violets, plaintain thingies, or other broad-leafs in the lawn.  They're monocots, like your grass.  Though grasses (sensu lato) aren't bulbs, they too are monocots and the weed'n seed selects out dicots and interrupts their metabolism or just kills them some other way i'm not aware of.
          
     PS--you just learned latin.  A common cattail, Typha latifolia means wide-leaf cattail.  folia = leaf and lato = broad or wide (the same lato that's in sensu lato).  As opposed to the other kind of cattail, Typha angustifolia which has narrower leaves.  I'm not sure if angusti means narrow.  Hmm.  Also, cattails are monocots.

Typha latifolia from the USDA plants database

Blueberries, by the way, do have a similar looking flower from the outside.  They're in the heath family with rhododendron and azaleas (Ericaceae family) which is an acid loving family.  Vaccinium (that's their genus), do have bell looking flowers similar to the Grapehyacinth, but they are not a bulb-bearing family pretty far removed from the lily family.

Vaccinium corymbosum from USDA plants database

Notice the name (specific epitaph) corymbosum.  Its inflorescence is in a corymb.  Similar to an umbel, but not quite.  They tend to remind me of a menorah.  Also, people naming plants are still not creative.

Corymb inflorescence.  Don't laugh at it, it'll hurt its feelings.

What are your thoughts on onion-grass--a useful vegetable that grows in your lawn, or a pesky weed that weed killer doesn't often kill?  Have you ever seen it bloom?  I don't think I have, to be honest.  I can't wait to see its umbel!