Welcome to our second field trip of the class! For this trip we hopped on a bus and headed East to Hocking Hills. Here we saw all sorts of plants that associated with acid sandstone. Alright, lets get into it…
Substrate-associated Plants
Chestnut oak is one of the plants we saw at Deep Woods that is a substrate-associated plant. Its leaves are shallowly lobed.
Sourwood is another plant we found here. Surprisingly, we can eat these leaves! The leaves have a sour taste. Hmm considering its name, I would not have guessed that.
Huckleberry-blueberry is one of the last ones I will be including that we saw (despite seeing others). Its leaves are alternately compound with an entire margin.
Ferns
Christmas fern has a fully pinnate frond dissection type. This fern is sterile and have clusters of spores on the top half. It is also has a hemidimorphic frond type.
Rock-top Polypody is a monomorphic fern meaning the spores that are produced are beneath the normal-appearing leaves. The frond dissection type is deeply pinnatifid.
Cinnamon fern has fully dividing leaflets and has both sterile and fertile fronds. This fern has circular clusters of large fronds that have deeply pinnate-pinnatifid frond dissection type. It’s frond type is hemidimorphic.
Honorary mention is… Sensitive Fern! The way the sun is hitting it is so pretty! Just because it’s sensitive to frost does not mean it’s not worthy! The fronds of this fern are dimorphic.
Appalachian Gametophyte
Vittaria appalachiana, more commonly known as Appalachian gametophyte, is a special gametophyte. Mature sporophytes have never been found in this species. What we have found is that it reproduces asexually, using gemmae. When gemmae matures it can separate from gametophytes. It then disperses in short distances and grows independently, however, these individuals are genetically identical. Fern gemmae is larger than spores and is considered too large for long distance wind dispersal. Considering they cannot go very far with wind dispersal, gemmae rely on being dispersed short distances via water, wind, and or possibly animals. Specifically for bryophytes gemmae dispersal, this short distance dispersal has been seen by slugs and even potentially ants. Appalachian gametophyte limited dispersal is because of the species being absent just north of the last glacial maximum. During or before the last ice age, it is thought that the ability to produce mature and functioning sporophytes by gametophytes was lost. However, they were still about to survive during this time. Appalachian gametophyte can be supported by long-distance dispersal from a tropical sporophyte source, however, can be rejected based on studies about allozymes.
Grr-Arghh! plants
Bear corn, a parasite that grows on the roots of oaks, is an invasive species we saw. This parasite steals nutrients from oaks and can live up to 10 years. Surprisingly, the first four years of its life it remains completely underground. This plant can be found in most of the United States and even into Canada. Even though this is a parasite, it does not cause serious harm to the trees it invades. With that being said it can be difficult to control bear corn from growing without also harming the host plant as well. Little information is known about host-parasite interactions. However, there is hope that new strategies will be developed to help limit the spread and decrease the damage that these interactions can cause.
Information from:
https://biolard.wordpress.com/2020/06/09/native-of-the-week-bear-corn/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7570238/
Trees in Trouble!
A tree we sadly saw that was in trouble was Butternut. Some of butternuts can or are infected with a fungus called Juglans cinerea which is also known as butternut canker. Its first case was back in 1967 and its origin is thought to be from outside of the United States. Sadly, in some states this fungus has killed about 80% of butternuts. Even though there is no cure for butternut canker, if it is caught early enough you can remove the affected branches to prevent the disease from spreading. Preventing butternut canker can be difficult but one way you can try is keeping butternut trees are watered and fertilized properly. This slow down the development of butternut canker.
Information from:
