Chickasaw plum

The Chickasaw Plum (Prunus angustifolia) in the Richard T. Bowers Historic Tree Grove and all over the MOSI site have burst into beautiful white blooms. Softly fragrant, these blossoms appear even before leaves on the bare branches of the tree and bees and butterflies are drawn to the fragrant spring blooms for nectar.

Chickasaw plum is a short native Florida tree that will reach a height of about 15 feet at maturity. It grows in a dense arrangement of branches and twigs that is perfect for nesting birds and it can form a nice screen for privacy in the summer. If left untended, new trees will spring up as sucker growth and a small thicket will form naturally.

This tree is deciduous and drops its leaves in the winter but the profuse blooms in the spring and delicious plums make it entirely worthwhile. The edible golden fruit form in the later part of the summer and ripen to a lovely red color.

Chickasaw plum was one of the first fruits to be domesticated in North America and was planted in orchards by the Creek Confederacy. American Naturalist William Bartram observed Native Americans gathering fruit from these abandoned orchards as he traveled throughout the American southeast in the late 18th century.

If you want to know more about the interesting history of this fruit and other native foods, check out Renewing America’s Food Traditions edited by Gary Nabhan.

Blue Flag Iris

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Blue flag (Iris virginica) is one of the seven iris species native to Florida and with its showy blue-purple blooms this flower is fairly easy to recognize. Spreading from underground rhizomes this medium sized plant can grow to about 4 feet in height. Blue flag has flat bladed leaves that look a lot like tall blades of grass.

This distinctive flower can be found in wetlands in Eastern North America and generally blooms in early Spring. At MOSI these iris are blooming inside the BioWorks butterfly garden and in the small pond near the main plaza and front doors of MOSI.

The Re-garden: Re-use, Re-purpose, Re-awesome

One of our new garden initiatives this year is to find new ways to use old things in the garden. Rather than purchasing materials to create a raised garden bed, we have re-purposed a set of five truck tires that were illegally dumped at the museum site. Five truck tires were set into a pyramid shape and were filled with soil and compost to their tops. Care was taken to tuck soil up underneath the lips of the tires to keep water from standing anywhere in the beds that might become a mosquito hazard. The tires were planted with five milkweed plants in each tire circle.

Throughout the year we’ll be adding more raised beds like this out of other re-purposed materials. Hopefully we’ll have some time to create some recycled garden art like the small tea-cup birdfeeder that was made by volunteer Patti W. Using a metal stake, a teacup and saucer found at a thrift store she created a whimsical piece of garden at that our birds just love to visit.

Have an idea for garden art or a new way to re-use something in a garden space? Please leave us a note on this post and share your thoughts!

Walter’s Viburnum

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Walter’s Viburnum (Viburnum obovatum), also known as small-leafed viburnum is a Florida native that can be grown as a large shrub or a small tree. Right now this is one of the most remarked upon plants in the MOSI gardens as it is putting on a show of white flowers that makes each plant look like the branches are laden with snow!

Dwarf varieties of viburnum species are also available and make a great dense hedge to edge yards or fences. The taller Walter’s Viburnum can also make and excellent dense screen for the edge of a property line or as a privacy hedge. Walter’s Viburnum is well suiting to heavy pruning and can be easily trimmed into a formal hedge or topiary.

This species is generally evergreen in the Tampa Bay area and produces a fruit in the fall months that can be an important part of the winter diet of native birds. The dense and twiggy limbs provide a great shelter for nesting birds and the flowers are appealing to small Spring butterflies. Right now there are cardinals building a nest in one large shrub, about a half dozen doves hanging out under another and it looks the the Brown Thrashers (Toxostoma rufum) are using these shrubs for shelter between dirt baths.

All in all, a cool Florida native with a lot of checks in the plus column.

Spring brings all the bugs to the garden.

I do enjoy when Spring starts to bring the butterflies back to the gardens! This gem of a butterfly is the glorious Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) butterfly hanging from a blossom of lavendula.

In colder weather the butterfly gardens are fairly limited in the number of species available for viewing as only the hardiest of butterflies survives or is active in cold weather. Now that the weather has become more temperate we are starting to have some of our overwintering butterfly species emerge from chrysalis.

Many of these species have spent the winter in diapause. Some butterflies in various stages of development utilize diapause to overwinter. Diapause is a state of dormancy in which all development is suspended. Unlike hibernation where development and metabolism still occur at a slower rate, during diapause all cellular growth stops causing complete dormancy.

In recent days we have seen a number of Giant Swallowtails, Polydamas Swallowtails and Zebra Swallowtails emerge from chrysalis in the butterfly garden lab. Also, some swallowtail species have been seen on the wing in the outside garden including the Eastern Black Swallowtail. Yes, Spring is in the air and so are the butterflies!

A pick-me-up for a picnic area

Right outside the BioWorks Butterfly Garden and on the sidewalk to the front doors of MOSI there is a grand old double-trunked oak tree dripping with graceful Spanish moss. This tree and the grove behind it were named in honor of Dr . Richard T. Bowers

Dr. Bowers was director of athletics at USF for 19 years, and a friend and fundraiser for the Gold Shield foundation that raises money for the families of fallen police officers. In his last years Dr. Bowers helped to raise money at MOSI for the whole museum but especially for the BioWorks Butterfly Garden and also the Historic Tree Grove. When he passed away in 2007, the Historic Tree Grove was renamed as the Richard T. Bowers Historic Tree Grove. Dr. Bowers was a fantastic gentleman who has been sorely missed at MOSI and in the Tampa community since his passing.

Over the last few weeks a large amount of work has been done on the landscaping around the grand old oak that was dedicated to this true Southern gentleman. Flax lilies and African irises were used as foundation material to enclose the picnic space and bromeliads, fern, coontie were added for their various textures. The front corner of the space was edged in spiderwort plants that

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bloom with pretty purple flowers in the dapple sunlight. Inside the ring of new plants, colorful impatiens in orange and pink were added to brighten the picnic space.

These additions have helped to create a beautiful picnic space that is welcoming to museum guests and staff alike. Next time you are by the museum and get lunch in the cafe, bring that lunch outside and enjoy a meal out-of-doors is a fantastic little garden space. The flowers, plants, birds and butterflies will be waiting.

As Dr Bowers used to say: 'You can do an awful lot of good in the world if you don't care who gets the credit,' and that is a lesson I plan to keep with me for years to come.

Thanks, Steve!

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The butterfly garden at MOSI purchased some metal plants stands several years ago through a grant. Although the stands were listed for outside use, they began to rust quite badly. Over the last year the tops on the stands have begun to deteriorate badly and have become unusable. Thanks to a volunteer, we have the stands back!

Steve W. took these stands home and replaced the tops with new metal pieces that he had at home. He also cleaned up the legs of the stands, removed the rust and painted them with several layers of rust resistant lacquer to keep them from degrading again. Once again the Flight encounter has metal plants stands that help to pick some of our smaller pots up off the ground and keep nectar and host plants at different heights for our butterflies. We can also use these stands to highlight plants that are looking particularly good on any given day.

Steve is the same gentleman who provided metal butterfly stakes for our pond by the MOSI entrance. Thanks again Steve for helping to make the garden that much better with your work!

Zebra Swallowtail

The Zebra Swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus) butterfly is our singular native representative of the kite swallowtails (tribe Leptocircini) in Florida. These butterflies have a fairly triangular shape and taper to a point with long swallowtails on their hind wings. Their common names comes from the zebra-like striping on their wings.

The Zebra Swallowtail hosts on Pawpaw (Asimina) leaves, although females prefer to lay eggs on new growth and larvae can only consume young leaves of the plants. The caterpillars are variable in coloring, changing in color and pattern from one instar to the next and are armed with bright yellow osmeterium.

Osmeterium are a fleshy organ where caterpillars of swallowtail species sequester essential oils from their host plants, also known as terpenes. These oils coat the normally hidden osmeterium which can be everted or pushed out when the caterpillar is threatened. The osmetierium are usually a bright warning color like red, yellow or orange and because of the terpenes smell quite foul. Each species has its own unique odor based upon what plants the caterpillar has been eating.

Adult male Zebra Swallowtails can often be found in groups sipping liquids from moist sandy areas. This behavior is called puddling and you can see some great pictures at this website. Butterflies of this species are usually found in greater concentrations near their host plant Pawpaw which tends to grow in undisturbed upland habitants.

Zebra Swallowtail adults exhibit seasonal dimorphism which means that their wing patterns are variable and change seasonally. Early spring individuals are smaller in size, have more white coloring and have shorter tails. Later season individuals are larger, show more black coloring and have much longer swallowtails.

Painted Lady

The Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) is one of the most widespread butterflies in the world appearing on all continents with the exception of Antarctica and South America. These butterflies will host on thistle, mallow, and hollyhock and can become locally abundant. In the state of California, late season Painted Lady migrations can be quite a sight as huge numbers of butterflies migrate to find more host and nectar plants to support their quickly increasing population.

Because of their cosmopolitan nature, most butterfly rearing kits contain Painted Lady butterflies so that the adult butterflies can be released into the wild without introducing non-native species to an area.

A closely related species, the American Painted Lady (V. virginiensis), is very similar in appearance. These butterflies are both resident in Florida but can generally be found on different host plants. American Painted Lady butterflies often host on cudweeds.

Caterpillars consuming cudweed (Gnaphalium pensylvanicum) will use the fluffy seeds of the plant and silk to create a puff ball at the top of the plants in which they can hide. These shelters help to conceal the larvae from predators. Cudweeds are a genus of about 120 species, many of which are important host plants for the American Painted Lady butterfly.

Millipede

I found this little fellow in the leaf litter while planting a new garden space and thought to share some pictures.

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Millipedes are detritivores that eat decaying plant matter and because of that can often be found in moist areas like leaf litter, mulch and under rocks and rotting logs. These creatures are mostly harmless to humans and generally curl up when threatened, but some tropical species can secrete a noxious substance that burns if it gets into the eyes.

Millipede is formed from the Latin root words milli ("thousand") and ped ("foot"). Members of the Class Diplopoda are broken down into 14 Orders. The name Diplopoda comes from the Greek diplous (διπλους)("double" ) and pous (πους) ("foot, leg").

This particular millipede likely hails from the Order Spirobolida which contains over 900 described species of mostly tropical millipedes. I won’t even begin to guess what species it was, but it was about 11 centimeters in length and quite pretty (if you appreciate bugs like I do). If you can determine which species this may be, please comment on this post!