Readers’ wildlife photos

Glory be: three readers submitted photos over the weekend!  And today’s batch is from reader Thomas Webber. His notes and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

This is McCarty Woods, at 1.4 ha the last substantial remnant of native forest on the built-up part of the University of Florida’s 850 ha campus in Gainesville. For decades it has been designated a Conservation Area in the campus land-use plan. Five years ago we learned with a shock that the university’s board of trustees had voted to revoke the plan and cut down the woods to build – I am not making this up – a forestry teaching lab. (According to hearsay, the forestry department itself has not been lobbying to put the lab there.) But leadership in McCarty’s defense arose at the right time. Botany professors Douglas Soltis and Pamela Soltis took up the challenge of helping the UF authorities understand the importance of the forest, and galvanized public opinion in its favor. They have recruited a large, enthusiastic volunteer force that meets each month to remove invasive exotics and restore native species that have dropped out over the years as the grove was surrounded by development. For the time being the UF administration has agreed that the woods should stay.

Here are just a few of the flowering species in our reprieved McCarty Woods.

Cherry laurel, Prunus caroliniana. Native. Individual flowers 3-5 mm. Small trees, which turn snowy-looking with masses of tiny blossoms for a few weeks in the spring.

Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana. Native. 7 cm long. Famous for being poisonous, though the leaves can be eaten for a short time in spring if cooked. I haven’t tried it:

Paintedleaf, Euphorbia cyathophora. Native. The complicated central part is 2-3 cm across. One of the few abundant inhabitants of the shady interior. At close range it’s one of the stranger-looking plants in the woods, with features that don’t correspond obviously to the familiar parts of typical flower-like flowers, such as petunias. The oval cups are nectaries. Holiday Poinsettia is a close relative:

Trumpet creeper, Campsis radicans. 7 cm long. A native that had disappeared from McCarty, which we are trying to restore:

Potato vine, Ipomoea pandurata. Native. 7 cm. The most visible of the native vines when it’s in bloom. We haven’t had to do anything for this one. As of early September it’s near its peak of bloom in the interior and on the edges.

Coral honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens. Native. 6 cm long. Another vine formerly lost from the woods. We’re now planting some in hopes of re-introducing it:

Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana. Native. Individual flowers 3-5 mm. Most people know this plant from its large clumps of close-packed purple berries. Here is a less familiar close-up view of the flowers:

Nightshade, Solanum nigrum. Native. Individual flowers 1 cm.:

The colorful bases that remain after the nightshade flowers fall away, and the 6-8 mm berries:

Ironweed, Vernonia gigantea. Native. Whole flower head 7 cm across. A superior butterfly plant:

Carolina petunia, Ruellia caroliniensis. 3-4 cm. A native that is especially abundant this year:

Elephant’s foot, Elaphantopus tomentosus. Native. Whole flower head 3 cm across:

Sandmat, Euphorbia cf. hyssopifolia. Individual flowers 2-3 mm.:

Silkgrass, Pityopsis graminifolia. Native. Mature flower head 2-3 cm:

Frogfruit, Phyla nodiflora. Native. 1 cm. For some reason this has been more common around town this year than ever, and no more so than right at the edge of our woods. It is part of a spectacular example of convergent biological and cultural evolution:

Skunkvine, Paederia foetida. Native to southeast Asia. Flowers 1 cm long. This technically should not be welcome, since it is not native and is alleged to smell skunk-like when its parts are crushed. But there is only one here, it is small and behaving itself, and it doesn’t seem very foetid to me, so I have included it just because I like the way the picture look:

One of our teams of joyous forest restorers. This is a big crowd for July, when the heat and humidity and especially the sun hammering the east edge of the forest are brutal. On the summer days I assign myself a job in the shade of the interior, taking out the imperialistic, introduced vine called catclaw:

So we have kept the bulldozers away for five years. The right leadership was essential; as the expression goes, “It’s not what you say, it’s who says it.” When National Academy members  Doug and Pam Soltis speak, the administration pays attention; if lab-assistant Webber said the same thing, the sound would be like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Regardless of the success so far, there are infinite opportunities to lose it all, for there will always be someone who will look at our woods as a blank space that’s just the place to put their construction project. Here we say, “What’s the difference in protection between a UF Conservation Area and a non-conservation area? The Conservation Area has a sign on it until it’s leveled.” Conservationists have to win every time, without end, but developers need to win only once, and the concrete is forever.