I had a magical nature adventure on my own property yesterday!
I was delighted to discover that the woodland floor next to our house was covered in charming little flowers. I’d never seen them before, even though I walk in these woods often each spring, because I’m noting when different plants and birds come and go.
Gosh darn it, they’re cute.
I had to look them up as soon as I went inside after my birding break. Their name was as lovely as their appearance: Virginia Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica). I happily read the excerpt of a longer article that appears in iNaturalist as had to giggle when I saw that one of their other common names is Fairy Spud. I had to learn more.
I’m your little spud.
It turns out that the plants grow from tubers that were eaten by many indigenous people in the eastern US, you know, like potatoes! They were thought to cure convulsions and/or prevent conception. I assume the latter didn’t work well, since people ate it a lot. The whole plant is edible, but the Wikipedia article noted that the leaves are “not choice eating.”
Now, here’s a mystery. Today it’s much cooler and very windy. I went out to see my little flowers, but lo and behold, I couldn’t find them. I hope they come back!
Just last Thursday night I mentioned I hadn’t seen any Hogna ‘incognita’ for a while. The last time was December 31 to be precise.
Early Friday morning, I found out they were back!
I’m back!
Based on another’s similar experiences, this nap time seems to be true of the species, regardless of environmental conditions. Its close relative, Hogna antelucana, passed on napping and is now significantly larger. That’s a neat thing about a new species. Every little discovery about it can be a surprise.
Recently, while photographing wolf spiders scooped off of a lake beach, a strange tiny critter appeared in the bowl along with a spider. It was easier to photograph than ignore, and it was about as small as I could get with my camera.
I uploaded it to iNaturalist figuring it was a juvenile bug (Hemiptera) but was soon told it was probably a globular springtail (Symphypleona). A while later someone even made a species ID (Pseudobourletiella spinata). Try to say that quickly. No common name of course.
Now I’d heard of springtails during my TMN training, but globular springtails? I checked these out on iNat, and my observation was a county first for the species, and only the fifth in Texas. The others were from the Austin area and brown. Most in the U.S. were also brown, so I’m guessing than mine may have been the adult form. You can learn something new every day.
You’ll note the two pale shapes of the critter. They are simply reflections of my light ring which I built for my equipment so I could take consistent photos, cloudy or clear, day or night.
I usually take photos for identification, but occasionally there’s one that could hang on a wall.
Look at those eyes!
Most wolf spider species pass the winter as juveniles. Tigrosa georgicola is an exception and one of the larger species. I’ve generally had trouble identifying Tigrosa to species, mostly because I hardly ever encounter adults.
This winter I have two locations where I can more or less reliably find Tigrosa georgicola adults and am taking full advantage of it. The females must be keeping to their lairs since I usually find males, but at least I’m getting practice identifying one of the sexes.
The State Fungus of Texas is the Texas Star (or Devil’s Cigar) (Chorioactis geaster). It’s not spotted often, so wheneever you see it, it’s newsworthy. When it was spotted for a second time at Inks Lake State Park last December, it made the news all over Texas. This is just one of the articles. There’s also an article on them in this month’s Texas Coop Power magazine. So, when my neighbor Vicki sent me a photo and asked me if I’d ever seen anything like this before, my heart skipped a beat.
I knew exactly what it was!
I told her it was rare and exciting. She looked it up, and we both geeked out over it for a while. The next day I went over to her property to get a look (I’d also hoped to pet her minature horse, but she was in the next pasture.) The mushroom was in a field of post oak trees, which confused me.
However, when I got closer to the spot where the Texas Star was located, conveniently flagged by Vicki, I saw it was exactly where it should be. It was right next to the stump of a cedar elm tree (that’s basically all we have, the oaks and the elms). We’d recently had a lot of rain, so it was fruiting right when it was supposed to.
There it is!
As soon as I got my own photos, I uploaded the observation to iNaturalist, where it was quickly confirmed. It had already burst its spores out, so we missed the exciting hissing sound the Texas Star makes, but it was fun to feel its leathery “petals,” and see if it smelled funny (I couldn’t smell anything). I looked around but didn’t see any more on her property. I also looked at the dozens of cedar elm stumps in my woods, but no Texas Stars have turned up.
It pretty much looks the same from all angles.
As I looked at the information on iNat and Wikipedia about the fungus, I learned a lot. First of all, I’m pretty lucky to live where it grows. It’s only found here in the middle of Texas and a small place in Japan. That makes me wonder if they are really the same fungus, but I’m sure professionals have looked into that.
This iNat screenshot isn’t the whole Texas Star range, but it shows how few observations there are in this part of the world.
There were observations near Davilla and Buckholtz, but only the Davilla one was research grade, making my observation the second confirmed one in Milam County. And we are way to the east of its usual range. I was excited!
This map has most of Milam Couonty in it, and shows the three potential observations.
Keep on the lookout for these if you have decaying cedar elms (Ulmus crassifolia) and we have another nice rain (which I assume will happen soon). To learn more, read any of these articles:
Nature Along the El Camino Real 