Wine? Wine not!

Species name: Vitis riparia

Common name: riverbank grape

Location: Western University campus

The riverbank grape is one of our great native vine species (the other major native eastern North American species to be featured in the next blog, Virginia creeper). It is a very vigorous grower, capable of growing up to the top of a riparian forest tree canopy (not nearly as tall as a "normal" tree canopy of a forest, since trees that live in riparian, or riverbank, areas don't tend to be able to grow as tall). In the southern areas of its native range it can be a real pest species, but here in Ontario other native species are pretty good at competing with it. Some trees have a harder time than others, but non-native species have an especially difficult time with the smothering tendencies this species sometimes has. That being said, as soon as it is transplanted, either naturally via bird poop (the most common animal vector) or "artificially" via human transplantation, into an area of lowland or upland forest the forest canopy can really suffer as a result. It is remarkably good at smothering new saplings before they have a chance to grow tall enough to escape it, and some forests are so thick with grape vines they're impassable. A great example of a species that grows well in harmony with other species in its native habitat, but can become a real pest, even in its native range, if introduced beyond those limits.

The riverbank grape has a bit of a bad rap in Ontario and the northeastern United States, but that perception seems to be changing a bit. In the 1940s and 1950s, the US government (the Canadian government quickly followed suit) decided that riverbank grape vines were a forest pest and that this species should be eradicated. There had been a lot of accidental introductions of this species into areas important in the logging and lumber trade, and if you're allowing a vine to smother your profits you're not a very good businessperson! So instead of just local eradication programs, these programs were carried out across the United States and into Ontario and Quebec, and whenever a riverbank grape vine was seen in a forest (either riparian area or otherwise) it was sprayed with very toxic herbicides. This was very effective at killing the vines, but also equally effective in killing all of the surrounding vegetation and poisoning the soil (both for soil microbes, very important in forest health, but also making it inhospitable to new seedlings). Unfortunately, it was far too late before anyone realized what was happening, so you still find "dead zones" where mature trees escaped the soil poisoning by having a root system vast enough to support itself with un-poisoned soil, but the understory species are completely missing. I have a rather personal connection to riverbank grape, because one of the species of fungi that I study for my PhD grows exclusively on grape vine in North America. Unfortunately, there's a catch (as there always seems to be with rules regarding where fungi are most likely to be found): it only grows on mature, living or dead grape vine. This means that any suitable habitat that might have been in forest ecosystems in the 1800s when a lot of the work was being done on the fungal flora of North America no longer exists for this species. For this reason, it was collected three times in the 1880s by great, now long-dead, mycologists only to never be recorded ever again. Have these species gone extinct because of our destruction of their host species? No one, including myself, knows that for sure. Since the 1930s there has been a lack of concerted effort to document the diversity of forest species, only re-invigorated in the early 2000s. What I can say is that for the last 6 years whenever I'm in a forest where there's grape vine I look for it...and haven't found it yet. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right spot, or perhaps it doesn't exist anymore. I'll let you know in 20 years when I either find it or give up looking. ;) This idea of "disappearing species" is not unique in mycology; there are also a lot of plant species that were discovered during the times of the Great World Explorers (as I like to call them) that have never been found again. Part of the problem stems from the lack of location data for the collections--how do I know where "Aunt Edna's House, near the south greenhouse but past the wood pile, 5 minutes from the beach" is?! Sure, maybe EVERYONE in 1872 knew where Aunt Edna's house was...but it's long gone by now. You don't realize just how useful GPS coordinates are until you have to figure out something like that!

Anyway, back on topic...

Riverbank grape fruits are reportedly edible, and were also reportedly an important food source in the summer for early settlers in North America. Now, I'm guessing that tastes have progressed a bit since those times, or perhaps they were much less picky eaters than we are now (or maybe a bit of both). Have you ever tried a grape from a wild grape vine? They are TERRIBLE. I wasn't expecting a sweet grape when I tried one, but holy jeez. This was...terrible. That's the only way I can describe it. It was gooey and had the most awful texture on the planet (almost like jello on the inside), plus one of the most sour fruits I've ever had in my life (puts the Cornelian cherry to shame, which you can read all about HERE, and I often eat lemons for fun...so that tells you something about my tolerance for "sour"). My friend Tanya convinced me to try one when we were out geocaching one afternoon, and I could taste the lingering "lip-puckering sour" in my mouth for hours. That's the last time I ever listen to Tanya. Ha.

Sure, the grapes don't taste that great and the plant isn't all that much to look at (although, I personally really love the shape of their leaves and the cute little curving tendrils that are most visible during the winter and early spring), riverbank grape is one of the single most important "novelty agriculture species" that we have in North America. I call them an agricultural novelty not because their use is new, but because the product we get from them is certainly not necessary for everyday life (some people might argue with me on that one; we'll agree to disagree) nor has it ever been. Wild grape vines are VERY tolerant to winter conditions in North America, which can be incredibly harsh, especially in the ground. Traditional wine grape vines, of the species Vitis vinifera, don't have a very cold hardy root system, and are prone to freezing damage in northern climates. For this reason, riverbank grape rootstock is often grafted onto a wine grape scion (or "top") for commercial grape production for the wine industry. Once grapevine producers were experts in the creation of natural hybrids, they started experimenting with different varieties of V. vinifera as well as V. riparia to make more cold-tolerant grape vines, but with the same commercial qualities of traditional wine grapes. Another major benefit is that the resulting hybrid is much more resistant to common fungal diseases encountered on grape vines. Eventually what was obtained were varieties that were genetically 50-80% wine grapes, and 20-50% riverbank grape. Baco Noir, Marchel Foch (sometimes called Marechal Foch) and Frontenac grapes are all hybrids between these two species, and produce some of the best wine in the world. Isn't it amazing what a little traditional plant breeding can do?! Cheers to grapes.

Traditional uses by Aboriginal North Americans are also numerous; they are used as a food (although, I'm guessing in small numbers), to make jellies and jams, and to produce a type of traditional North American wine. From what I understand, this wine is really unpleasant when compared to wine from a "real" winery, but it really packs a punch: it has 2-3 times the alcohol content of a traditional wine. Maybe it's alcoholic enough you don't realize how terrible it is! Not commercially sold, but every so often you might be able to find some courtesy of a backyard brewer. Let me know how it is, if you get a chance to try it.

BLOG RERUN: Mom's Secret Recipe

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Guess what?! Today is American Thanksgiving! Or, as we in Canada like to call it, Thursday. Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers. Enjoy the day off, and I'm VERY excited for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. For me, it's one of the highlights of November. I'll be really disappointed this year if the gigantic balloons don't make an appearance because of the high winds (but understandable; safety over balloons!). But more importantly...rest up! We've got some shopping to do tomorrow.


UPDATE: It has come to my attention that in my desire to be awesome and pseudo-celebrate American Thanksgiving, I have managed to jump the gun and do so a week early. SO! Stop reading this blog. Stop it! GO AWAY! Just kidding. Please don't go away. But skip this entry! And come back in a week.

(a version of this blog was originally posted on November 22, 2012)

Today I decided to do something completely different on my blog, because...well, because I can!

I was having a hard time coming up with another plant that screamed "Thanksgiving," since today is American Thanksgiving. I've already done two different species of pumpkins, and the only other suitable plant to blog about would be sweet potatoes...and those are a kettle of fish I was planning on getting into next year (still hasn't been done, despite my best intentions. One day!). So what other plant could I possibly blog about? There's no other typical vegetable of Thanksgiving that is universal to all celebrations, no matter where in the country you are. But then a colleague in the Biology Department, gave me a fabulous idea: why not blog about a recipe instead? Brilliant! So that's exactly what I'm going to do.

I'm going to feature my absolute favourite part of Thanksgiving, and Christmas (and sometimes even Easter) dinner: stuffing! I'm about to give away my mom's secret recipe (sorry mom!), so get your pens ready. Ready? Here it is:

My Mom's Famous Stuffing Recipe:
- bread (enough to stuff a turkey of your choice)
- water (enough to dampen the bread, but not make it soggy)
- onion (you like onion? Add a lot! Don't like onion? Add a little!)
- ground sage (see comments for onion, above)
- ground poultry seasoning (see comments for onion, above)
- love (don't have love on hand? Steal some from someone else!)

Steps: 
1. Tear up the bread by hand. Do it the way of the pilgrims. Food processors are the easy way out. Leave it chunky, don't make bread crumbs.
2. Chop up the onion. Dice it relatively finely, but not so fine it turns to mush when it starts cooking.
3. Put bread and onion in a giant bowl. Dump in your herbs.
4. Add in a little bit of water, and here's where your love comes in handy. Make sure your hands are clean, and mix that by hand. Mix, mix, mix. Still feels dry? Add a bit more water. Mix, mix mix. Still feels dry? Keep adding water and mixing until it's the desired consistency. Not soggy, but the bread sticks together with the mixture when you squish it into a ball. Feel free to make shapes here. I suggest snowmen. Use baby carrots as the nose. Take pictures!
5. Once you've got your desired consistency of stuffing, stuff it into your bird and enjoy the smell while it cooks.

Now you must be sworn to secrecy never to tell anyone how to do it! The bright side of giving away my mom's "secret" recipe is that NO ONE has been able to reproduce how it tastes. Trust me. That love? That's the secret ingredient. Each person's love tastes just a little bit different. And perhaps hand lotion...

So how on earth can I turn this into a blog? Well, there are three obvious species here that can be featured in this blog, each of which I'll do in a mini-blog: wheat, onion, and sage. Here we go!

A field of genetically modified wheat to resist fungal infections (Science Centric)

Wheat fruits, called a caryopsis (Flashcard Machine)

Species name: Triticum aestivum

Common name: bread wheat

Location: See above for internet sources; a common, non-native species

Wheat is native to the Middle East, in a region known as the Fertile Crescent and was first thought to be domesticated almost 11,000 years ago. This is a region of the Middle East from which we get many of our most important crops in North America. There are actually  more than 20 species of wheat, each of which are used for different purposes. The most common way that species of wheat have been "created" over the last few millenia is through spontaneous tetraploidy. This means that the plants have undergone some sort of cell division problem that has caused all of the DNA of the plant to go into one pollen grain and none in the other, instead of half of the DNA going into each pollen grain. One of these pollen grains comes into contact with an egg that has done this same thing, and now an embryo exists with the complete genome of its mother plant and father plant (and sometimes this is actually the same individual; this is called "selfing"). If this happened in humans or almost any other animal, the embryo would not be viable. In plants, however, this is incredibly common and probably the most common method of creating new species of plants. This is a pretty remarkable adaptation, too; think about how much genetic variation could be available to an organism containing four copies of each gene instead of only two! The expression rare recessive diseases would essentially be eliminated from the population. Some common wheat species that we use are the diploid T. aestivum which is mainly used for flour that goes into breads and cakes; T. durum (tetraploid), used for making pasta and couscous, is low in gluten; T. dicoccum (diploid), also known as emmer, is used for breadmaking in Egypt and some parts of Europe; and T. spelta (hexaploid), an ancient form of wheat (popular during the Middle Ages) still used now as a low-gluten equivalent to bread wheat.

Onions with their green leaves still attached (Illinois Vegetable Garden Guide)

Some different varieties of onions (Garden of Eaden)

Species name: Allium cepa

Common name: onion

Location: See above for internet sources; a common, non-native species

Onions are probably native to Central Asia, but there is much uncertainty about where they originated. Onions as a species are only known from cultivation, which is incredibly unusual as far as crop plants go. It is possible that it has gone through so many rounds of human selection that it is now genetically distinct from its ancestral species (the most likely explanation), or the ancestral species has now gone extinct (the unlikely explanation). There is one species, A. asarensefrom Iran, that is genetically very closely related to the common onion. All species of the genus Allium produce sulphur compounds, which give them their pungent smell. When these sulphur compounds come into contact with water they produce sulphuric acid, one of the most potent acids known. This is the chemical basis for the "IT BURNS MY EYES!!!!" reaction most people get when cutting onions. The easiest way to get rid of this effect is by refrigerating your onions before use, or putting them briefly in the freezer before chopping (just enough to make them cold, not frozen). This prevents the cut onion from being able to "bleed" as much as a non-refrigerated onion, contributing to less eye-burn. Also, make sure you wash your hands with soap before rubbing your eyes. Some people say plugging your nose also helps; I think it's more the silliness factor than anything else. The sulphur compounds are still becoming airborne and the mucous membranes of your eyes still contain a lot of water, so the chemical reaction cannot be modified by plugging your nose. I would contribute that to the placebo effect more than anything else. These sulphur compounds in onions (and garlic) have been exploited medicinally by humans for centuries. Yes, onions do have medicinal properties! They are very potent against bacteria and fungi, and so are popular for treating colds, the flu, and, of all things, Athlete's Foot. If you suffer from this (quite disgusting) fungal infection on your toenails, put some freshly chopped warm onions in a pot of warm water. Submerge your feet for a while, rinse, and pat dry. Fungi are incredibly intolerant to sulphur, so this should take care of them in a jiffy. In fact, many creams for Athlete's Foot exploit the natural sulphur-containing chemicals of onions!

The sage plant (GroAction.com)

Sage flowers (Soulistic Wellness)

Species name: Salvia officinalis

Common name: garden sage

Location: See above for internet sources; a common, non-native species

Sage is one of the most popular seasonings in the world, let alone in North America. The sage plant is native to the Mediterranean Region of Europe and Africa, where it still grows commonly in the wild. In North America it has the potential to become an invasive species in warmer climates, so just be careful if you plant it outside. It doesn't seem to tolerate Canadian winters well, or if it does it rarely spreads beyond where it was originally planted. The flower is incredibly characteristic of the mint family; it is purple, has a darker eyespot than the rest of the flower, the male and female parts of the flower overhang the bottom petal of the flower, and features a large bottom petal that can act as a "landing pad" for bees for pollination. This flower is very specialized for pollination by insects that can see ultraviolet light, and the reproductive parts have been modified to ensure that pollen gets onto that "secret spot" on the back of the bee's neck where it cannot access the pollen to groom it off of itself mid-flight. Bees actually love being covered in pollen by flowers not because they enjoy pollinating flowers, but because they pack this onto specialized areas on their legs to take back to the hive to feed the young larvae. Without the ability to put pollen onto the back of a bee's neck, the flower will be incredibly inefficient at cross-pollination, and will essentially be giving away its sperm to be used as bee food. Some biologists argue that bees are the most inefficient pollinators in the world! Sage also has some demonstrated health benefits and medicinal uses, although it is reported as being able to treat much more than it has actually been shown to do. One of the most promising uses of sage leaf extract (containing a combination of a huge number of essential oils; the exact combination of different chemicals has never successfully been created in a lab) is as a treatment for hyperlipidemia, or an increased level of lipids in the blood. This isn't just equivalent to obesity; in fact, obese people are incredibly efficient at filtering fats out of their blood and storing them in fat tissues (hence the obesity). This is more a result of a vast variety of genetic diseases that cause, sometimes for unknown reasons, lipids to build up in the blood. Other times it can be acquired due to various other medical conditions, the two most common being diabetes and renal failure. Chronic high levels of lipids in the blood can be incredibly dangerous to the circulatory system because it changes the viscosity of the blood, causing the heart to work harder. This can lead to different kinds of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers!

Gobble Gobble (not a plant)

BLOG RERUN: Happy Diwali!

(a version of this blog post was originally published on November 13, 2012)

Diwali is officially tomorrow, but I might not be in a position to post a new blog tomorrow. Instead of posting a Diwali celebration blog a day late, I figured it's better to post it a day early! Happy Diwali! :)

Species name: Tagetes sp. (probably T. patula)

Common name: marigold

Location: picture 1 is from Teaching College English (click HERE), picture 2 is from eHow (click HERE), and picture 3 is from the WikiJunior Flower Alphabet (click HERE)

Tomorrow is the first day of a five-day celebration by Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains in India and around the world. It is known as the "festival of lights" or Diwali (or Deepavali, depending on what part of India you're from). I tried following how the exact date of Diwali is determined for any given year, but got lost after the mention of lunar days. For us non-Indians, it's sometime between mid-October and mid-November. This year it happens to be on November 3rd. So how does this relate to a blog about plants, when it's a celebration of lights? Well, read on...

With over a billion people of the world celebrating Diwali, and with it being the single most important holiday to Indians around the world, there is an enormous demand for decorations. Just like North Americans decorate for Christmas or Hanukkah (or whatever else you celebrate), Indians decorate for Diwali. And like any true Indian celebration, A LOT of flowers are involved. In fact, there are so many flowers involved in any Diwali household celebration that the demand for flowers in India skyrockets; a flower arrangement selling for 30-50 rupees on any non-Diwali day would sell for between 700-900 rupees tomorrow. I encourage you to name any other commodity in the world whose value increases that much over such a short time, just to fall right back down to what it was all within a week. There are people in India who make their entire year's salary in one week. It's an incredible phenomenon! So how does this relate to marigolds? Well, quite unusually, it turns out.

Normally, the celebration of Diwali involves decorating the ground in a specific pattern with rose petals. Because of the unfavourable weather earlier this year, roses are in short supply compared to what they usually are, and on a day like Diwali when there's a surge in demand, flower suppliers just can't keep up. They knew well in advance that there would be no way they could meet demands, and so substitutes needed to be made. Marigolds were always popular flowers around Diwali because of their colours, but this year they became extra valuable. The value of marigolds increased almost one hundred-fold for this year's celebration alone! Could there be a day that climate change causes a huge shift in how festivals like Diwali are celebrated? Perhaps. The flower supply market in Kenya, one of the leading producers of carnations, roses, gerbera daisies and baby's breath worldwide, has already started to suffer as a result of increased incidence of drought. While the temperature is not expected to change much (only 2-3 degrees Celcius by the year 2100; compare that to a projected 7-8 degree change for the Arctic), the incidence of severe weather patterns is expected to increase. Drought will be more widespread and worse than it is now, and when there is drought relief it is expected to be in the form of violent storms. Not exactly weather conducive for flower growing, in a greenhouse or not.

Marigolds themselves are some of the most highly praised garden plants worldwide. They are native to North and South America depending on species, but were spread worldwide for ornamental plant use by early world explorers. Marigold petals are added to a wide variety of food items for the golden colour they give off, especially when fed to chickens. It brightens the colour of the egg yolk and makes the egg appear (to humans; chickens don't care about the colour of their yolks) to be more nutritious even though the nutrition hasn't been changed at all. Marigold petals are also popular in herbal teas to balance out the bright pink colour of so many other herbal tea ingredients (like rosehips or hibiscus petals). The roots of marigold plants are full of antifungal and antibacterial chemicals called thiophenes, which are starting to be investigated as chemicals of possible medicinal value. The roots have been used for centuries by Native South Americans as treatment for fungal infections of their agricultural crops with moderate success. Unfortunately, North Americans and Europeans found out this antimicrobial effect the hard way; when planted near legumes, which rely very heavily on microbial activity in the soil, the yield of the crop decreases dramatically. The scent of marigold flowers is so pungent that it repels a wide variety of crop predators, and so can be useful when planted beside non-legume crops like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and peppers. The flowers of the marigold plant also attract pollinators, some of which will also eat insect parasites of crop plants like aphids. A great story of insect-plant mutualisms!

Happy Diwali to all of my blog readers in India, and Indians living around the world! Diwali ki Subhkamnayein! That's the best I can do...my keyboard doesn't speak Hindi :)

One of the last big burly oaks on campus

Species name: Quercus macrocarpa

Common name: bur oak (sometimes burr oak or even burl oak), mossycup oak

Location: Western University campus

Burr oak trees (that's how I spell it since that's how I was taught to spell it, but Bur oak is just as common a spelling) are native to the Carolinian forest of eastern North America, and are still present throughout much of their native range. Unlike most oak species, the burr oak does best in open areas like savannahs (depending on the area, they can sometimes be the only oak species in a traditional Oak Savannah habitat) and actually does rather poorly in forested areas. It is very shade-intolerant but grows very quickly, and these two characteristics have made it one of the most popular boulevard trees (or landscaping tree). The burr oak is also incredibly long-lived, with some individuals reaching ages of 350 years or more! That's one old tree!

Like most oak species, the burr oak is known for its masting. Masting is when a tree over-produces fruit in an attempt to overwhelm seed predators so that some of their offspring (fruits are the structures produced by plants to carry and protect their seeds, which are their babies) make it to the next generation. Burr oak seeds are some of the most prized nuts in the eyes of wildlife (like squirrels, deer, and in some places even bears), and they will selectively eat burr oak acorns over any other type of acorn. There are a few reasons why this occurs: first, the acorns are the largest of any oak species ("macrocarpa" means "big fruit"). Second, the acorn wall, or that tough shell you have to crack through to get to the yummy meat of the nut, is quite thin compared to other oak species so it's much easier to eat. Third, there are fewer tannis in the acorns of the burr oak, which make it much more palatable than other oak species. They are rumoured to even be choice edibles to humans, although I've never tried one. As long as you roast it a bit I could see them being at the very least edible, but tasty? I don't know if I'd go that far. I would make a terrible forager! When tree seeds are the most eaten food item of an animal species that has co-evolved with the tree, they tend to use really odd yearly cycles to over-produce fruits. These masting years, depending on the species, are every 7, 9, or 11 years. Our red oak in the front yard had a masting year a couple years ago. It sounded like it was raining acorns every time the wind lightly blew through the tree! It was incredible. The squirrels didn't know what to do with themselves :) To put it into perspective just how many burr oak acorns are eaten by wildlife, there are reports of certain trees in Tennessee and Kentucky in "bear country" near the Great Smokey Mountains having a 0% reproductive rate in some years (non-masting years, that is). When you set up video cameras to check out what's going on with these trees reproducing less than their neighbours, you catch bears climbing the trees and eating every single acorn they encounter. They'll even rip off branches or shake the trunk of the tree to get the ones higher than they can climb (bears are heavy, you know!), and then scramble down the tree to eat what dropped. Something tells me you don't want to come between a burr oak and a bear...

Unfortunately, the burr oak that I took a picture of and its nearest equally old neighbour are on their way out as far as tree lifetimes go. The third picture above shows where a branch broke off many, many years ago and a massive hole has formed in its place. I have no idea if the hole is occupied, but it's large enough to be an ideal place for a Great Horned Owl to build a nest. And those birds are huge! It would also be a good nesting place for a raccoon family, or the equivalent of a Hollywood mansion for a family of squirrels. The fourth picture shows where on that same tree the bark is starting to come off the tree. Unlike in my previous blog post about the butternut (which you can read HERE), this is not a direct result of a fungal infection. There is now likely a fungus that has exploited the tree's old age and exposed wood, but that bark fell off because the tree is just getting old and nearing the end of its natural life. The last picture shows where more bark is coming off the tree near the base, and you can see that it, at one point, was heavily infested with insects. Again, that's likely not what caused the bark to come off in the first place, but once the old rotting wood was exposed the insects took advantage. The tree is also likely hollow, because the old inner wood of trees is often decayed by fungi before the tree is completely dead; this is called heart rot. This also doesn't directly kill the tree, but rather creates a standing hollow tube. Doesn't take much of a wind storm to knock the tree down once the structural integrity is compromised. I personally have no idea how old this tree is (I might be "old" according to my students, but I'm not THAT old!), but I'm guessing upwards of 250 years. It will be a shame to see this tree come down in a storm, and I'm sure it's not that many more years before it does.

Aside from being some of the oldest trees that can be found around southern Ontario and the eastern half of the United States, burr oaks can also be some of the largest. They grow to be very, very tall trees but also grow to an enormous girth. It's hard to tell from the above pictures, but the burr oak I was taking pictures of is one of the largest trees on campus. To put it into perspective, I took a picture of the width of the tree at "breast height" (about 4 feet off the ground; this is traditionally a way to determine if a tree is ready for logging) with the arboretum label for size:

Still doesn't really look like much, but that arboretum label measures 2.5 by 5 inches (or about 6 x 14 centimetres). So if you figure out what the diameter of the tree is (by my rough estimation, 63 inches or 160 centimetres), that's...enormous. That would make it about 196 inches in circumference (or almost 5 meters!). You would need three people joining hands to comfortably circle the tree. That's bigger than enormous! There are two trees of this size that are burr oaks, and a couple hackberries (look for this species to be covered in my next blog), all in the same general location. Standing here looking at the trees, I often wonder what these trees have "seen". They would have survived the entire outwards growth of the city I live in, and would have been here long before London, Ontario actually became a city. I wonder who planted them? Or was this an acorn that sprouted there? If it was, where was the tree it came from? It would be long gone by now. Did anyone care for this tree when it was a wee seedling? If so, who were they? What did they do? Did the Kingsmill family, the ones that owned the property that Western University is built on for many generations before Western purchased all of the land in 1919, ever use this tree for a rope swing? When there were bears living in southwestern Ontario, did bears used to climb this tree to get the acorns? So many questions and no one left to ask...

When I helped Jane Bowles with an arboretum tour back in June, she said that the four trees in this small patch of campus were "some of" the largest, oldest trees on campus. I never thought to ask her where the biggest or the oldest trees were. I guess I'll have to go exploring to find them myself now (and learn a bit about how to determine the age of a really big tree depending on the species). Until then, I'll just have to be content with the geezer trees I know :)

The unfortunate case of the butternut tree

Species name: Juglans cinerea

Common name: butternut, white walnut

Location: UWO campus

The butternut is a rather unfortunate tree, and a great example of how "world connectedness" is sometimes a bad thing. The butternut is native to the Carolinian forest, but is now completely absent from North and South Carolina in the United States, and almost completely absent from Ontario in Canada (the two extremes in the natural range of this species). Towards the middle of the range of this species in Ohio, numbers are dwindling quickly. Why is the population of butternut decreasing, you ask? Well, the saying "when in doubt blame it on a fungus" certainly applies here. In fact, when in doubt blame it on two fungi is even more appropriate.

Before we go blaming things on fungi, let's talk a bit about the butternut tree itself. It looks incredibly similar to the black walnut (which you can read all about HERE), but differs in two major ways. The first way that a butternut differs from a black walnut is in the shape of the leaves. Both butternuts and black walnuts have numerous leaflets in their compound leaf (and this number often depends on maturity of the leaf which determines the length of the petiole or the "leaf branch", rather than genetics determining number of leaflets in a compound leaf), but the butternut leaf ends in a terminal leaflet where the black walnut leaf ends in a terminal pair of leaflets. Unfortunately, the wind can shear off the terminal leaflet (pictured in the second image near the pink arrow) so the leaves end up looking identical. So when using leaves to identify species, make sure you look at more than just one! The second way to tell them apart can be seen in the third image above, but admittedly this is a terrible picture of the fruit (the pink arrow points to the fruit in the third image). On this entire tree there was only one single fruit produced this year, so I didn't have much to work with for angles to photograph. But in a nut shell (pun intended), the fruit (or nut) of the black walnut is spherical, but the fruit (or nut) of a butternut is shaped like a football. This can even be distinguished by looking at the shell casings on the ground, so take a poke around the base of the tree if you're trying to identify a butternut or black walnut. Like the black walnut, the meat on the inside of the nut is completely edible, and apparently tastes wonderful when roasted slightly in the oven or pan-fried a bit (I haven't ever had the pleasure of eating a butternut, so I don't speak from experience on this one; see below for why I DON'T recommend eating butternuts).

I guess there's no time like the presence to talk about an evil fungus. The steady decline of butternuts isn't just due to habitat loss (and there is quite a bit of that happening in the Carolinian deciduous forest in Eastern North America!). It's actually because of a disease called Butternut Canker, which is caused by a fungus. :( I know, sad face. But, of course, that's a boring story so I wouldn't just tell you about a single fungus. Recent evidence shows that it's not just one fungus that's responsible for the butternut canker disease, it's actually two. The first one comes in and attacks the tree, causing a localized disease that, theoretically, the tree should be able to overcome. Unfortunately, this causes open wounds in the bark of the tree, exposing the underlying wood and the juicy vascular tissue. This vascular tissue is critical for the survival of the tree, and is the only living part out of all of the wood in the trunk in the tree. Because it is located just under the bark, this is one of the reasons why cracking bark is a critical step in so many fungal infections (sometimes even insect infections or bacterial infections) of trees. Once this vascular tissue has been exposed, the second fungus comes in and completely kills the tree. It will start off being one or two limbs of the tree near the crown (a fancy word for the top), and once the branch loses all of its leaves it won't grow them back the next year. Even pruning these dead branches won't save the tree; once limb death starts it's only a matter of time before the rest of the tree is killed. Because it's a combination of two different fungi that cause the death of the tree, it is exceedingly difficult to come up with a solution to prevent infection. The first fungus that attacks the tree (it has a ridiculously long name: Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum) is carried by potentially hundreds of different vectors, from the wind to other plant species to insects, and nearly all of these are impossible to prevent from coming in contact with the tree. You might think that lone trees would be most susceptible to this disease, but actually that's not the case. The canopy of the forest traps a lot of pathogens in the circulating air within the forest, so it actually increases the incidence of butternut canker. Lone trees often survive much longer without the disease. This fungus, an invasive fungus introduced from Asia, has managed to infect nearly 90% of all butternut trees left in existence. It won't be long before this species goes extinct, as there is no way of preventing the disease. It's an incredibly unfortunate set of circumstances for butternut trees, and for the Carolinian forest in general. We're about to lose one of the most majestic trees in the deciduous forest of eastern North America. Because this species is so critically endangered, do the world a favour: if you happen to find an intact butternut fruit, don't eat it! Instead, hold it in your hands, do a little "rain and good health to butternuts" dance, and lovingly plant it in the ground. Cover it with some chicken wire (I recommend making a box, and burying it at least 4 inches into the ground over where you planted the seed), and hope for the best. These are one of the preferred food sources for deer and squirrels, so not many seeds manage to escape being eaten (especially considering how few are left). I'm not going to suggest you take a seed home and try to grow it in a pot; that would be illegal in Canada according to our Species At Risk Act (SARA). Even if you plant the seedling back exactly where you found the nut, it would still be against Canadian endangered species laws, and much the same regulations exist in the United States. You might ask who enforces these laws and how common these people are in butternut territory...

Instead of ending on a sour note, let's end on a happy note! There is currently an effort underway in both Canada and the United States to try to protect the butternut in some way from disease. The method developed currently will not save the trees that are dying, but will instead protect the new generation of butternut trees. When butternuts are hybridized with the Asian walnut, the tree has almost complete resistance to the butternut canker. This is great, but unfortunately it dilutes the genetic pool of butternuts with Asian walnut genes. To try to combat this (since hybrids don't actually have any status according to any endangered species act anywhere in the world), hybridizing this hybrid with a different butternut tree causes the tree to have characteristics that are nearly identical to the butternut, but still have the disease resistance of the Asian walnut. This process is known as "back-crossing," and is commonly done with agricultural plant species to introduce disease resistance. This still doesn't make a "true butternut," but the resulting tree is nearly identical to a genetically pure butternut. There might come a day when we have forests containing this "butternut" (technically called a "Butter-Buart" which to me just sounds strange) in abundance once again. I wonder if anyone has tested the edibility of the butternuts of this backcrossed hybrid to determine tastiness... :)

Sandra's Garden: proof not all Phlox are created equal

Species name: Phlox subulata

Common name: moss pink, moss phlox

Location: Sandra's garden

Last year I posted a blog about moss phlox, a native species we have in our garden that gets a little out of control in really sunny areas. It's a species native to North America, and one that occurs relatively commonly throughout its native range in bright and sunny, damp areas (despite also being drought-tolerant). It is much more common in the United States than in Canada. I knew this species was a popular garden plant based on what I've read about it, but I had never seen any of the cultivars created in greenhouses aside from the "normal" light purple type. Well, here's a spectacular demonstration of the "hidden" morphological variation that some plants contain. This variety of moss phlox was not created in the lab, but is a product of controlled breeding. Despite this, you would never find this variety of phlox in the wild unless it escaped from someone's garden.

So how do we "create" morphological variation in plants that is not typically seen in the wild? The secret is some patience, and a lot of time on your hands (it helps to have a greenhouse because it speeds things up a bit). Natural mutations in the wild create different alleles, or copies of a gene, that can show different morphologies if they have a chance to be expressed. Most of these mutations are what we call "recessive", which means you have to have two copies of the gene in order to be able to see the effect. This is good for the plant if the mutation is detrimental, but bad for gardeners if the mutation is something we want to see. In order to increase the number of recessive mutations in a population you back-cross the plants (breeding a daughter plant with a parent plant), or force inbreeding (forcing a plant with the gene to pollinate itself; sometimes this isn't possible in plants). After enough generations, which can be anywhere from 10 to over 1000 generations to get a pure line, you have a plant that shows only the allele you want expressed. Most garden plants are created this way; you back-cross over a certain number of generations until you get the desired effect in nearly all seeds grown. A huge downside of this type of selective breeding and back-crossing is that you're decreasing the genetic diversity in a population by selecting the alleles you want expressed and eliminating all others. For most plants this isn't a big deal; the ones grown in gardens are hardly reflective of the population as a whole in most cases, and if a virus or fungus or bacterium evolved that could eliminate an entire population of ornamental plant because of the inbreeding and a lack of resistance it wouldn't matter much. You would replant the next year with a different variety and hopefully the problem is solved. The big problem occurs when we start doing this with crop species, as we have been doing for over 12,000 years. Corn, for example, is so susceptible to disease that it is completely unable to survive without human intervention (not to mention we have eliminated the corn plant's ability to disperse its seeds; this is a slight problem if you're a corn plant but a major benefit if you're a human wanting to eat corn seeds). Soybeans in North America right now are on the verge of a massive population collapse due to the fungal disease called the soybean rust. It has recently shown up in the southern United States and is attacking soybean crops that have all shown to be susceptible to the disease. We grow the same variety in Canada (bred to have an increased seed size with an increased oil store in the seed), but are only saved from the attack of the pathogen due to our much colder winters that the fungus can't survive. It's only a matter of time before an entire year's crop is wiped out which could be absolutely devastating to the North American economy.

The previous blog post I did about this plant (which you can read about HERE) mentioned the smell of marijuana that this plant supposedly has, and the drug busts that have occurred as a result of people innocently growing moss phlox and having the smell waft in the wind. I did pick some leaves and crush them up; if you use your imagination I guess it smells like marijuana. I have a hard time believing that it would produce enough of a scent to convince someone there's a drug op in their neighbour's back yard, and I also have a hard time believing that someone would mistake the smell of phlox for the smell of marijuana!

For all you caffeine addicts...

Species name: Coffea arabica

Common name: coffee

Location: UWO Greenhouse

I was contemplating skipping this plant and blogging about it later when I finally found my pictures of wild coffee plants growing in Cuba, Dominican and Jamaica, but then decided that no, I'll just make it two blogs! Ah, the joy of being my own boss...

Despite coffee being grown in multiple locations around the world (with Colombian coffee gaining the most press recently as being the most prolific source of the world's coffee), it is actually incredibly rare in its native habitat in Ethiopia. There are some protected natural populations, and some equally protected populations in neighbouring South Sudan (no one is quite sure if that is a native population or a population that was introduced there very early on in the domestication process). There is also one very old population in Kenya, but it is believed to have started there as a result of trade with Ethiopia hundreds of years ago and not an independently domesticated population. Due to climate change, the "growable range" of coffee is shrinking. It requires cool, humid climates usually on mountain sides. There have been many attempts to grow coffee in North America in the great outdoors, but every single one of these ventures has failed. Coffee is very sensitive to rainfall, and if it is in an area with too much or too little rainfall it will not survive. To say it's a finicky plant would be an understatement! It is possible that with further climate change the Rocky Mountains or the Alps might one day be hospitable for coffee growth, but by then we will have significantly more problems than just not having coffee!

Believe it or not, the British used to be avid coffee drinkers, not tea drinkers. So what happened? Well, one of the areas of the world during the British Empire that was the most productive for coffee was Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon. Unfortunately, there's a fungal pathogen of coffee called the coffee rust that was spread from Ethiopia into Yemen and then to Sri Lanka that completely destroyed their coffee crop since it had no resistance (native populations do have some resistance to this pathogen; we have also now developed fungicides and genetically modified crops that show much higher resistance). The British noticed that the Chinese and Japanese made a beverage very similar to their coffee drink, and decided to "borrow" some of their crop to replant Sri Lanka. The British had discovered tea, and have been tea drinkers ever since (and tea is still the leading export of Sri Lanka, even 400 years later!). Tea and coffee, the main sources of the drug caffeine, are the most consumed beverage around the world. One could argue that caffeine is also the most abused drug in the world!

A special Christmas ecosystem

Today, with it being Christmas and all, instead of profiling a plant in my blog I figured I would profile an entire ecosystem. This ecosystem is incredibly rare, only occurring in one tiny pocket in the world, and I've been lucky enough to visit it yearly. It's a hidden gem; I can guarantee that none of you have ever seen it before, although many of you will have experienced something similar. Unfortunately, it's a transient ecosystem and is best experienced at this time of year. It's also almost like it has a timer; almost every year on New Year's Day it disappears for another 11 months. Strange! I'm not going to tell you where this ecosystem is since I like to keep SOME secrets (and my mom is mad enough about her stuffing recipe!). So enjoy the photo collage with explanations! :)

Species name: Abies navidadea

Common name: artificial Christmas tree

Location: secret!

The first species I'll profile from this ecosystem is known commonly as the "artificial Christmas tree". I'm not sure how the common name came about; it's either going to be a Christmas tree or it's not. But we'll go with it for now! This species grows incredibly quickly but never achieves its full height, rarely growing above 5 feet tall. It has intimate associations with other species, which I'll talk a bit about as we come to them. Unfortunately, the wood of this species is incredibly tough; it can be compared to solid steel. This makes it incredibly impractical for any use other than ornamental use.

Species name: Bacillus fibreopticaleus

Common name: fibre optics

One of the reasons why this ecosystem is so endangered is because of the poaching of trees that occurs for the symbionts that live within the trees themselves. Commonly these are called "fibre optics", a species of bioluminescent bacteria that live within the branches and on the surface of the needles. Why these species exist on and in the tree no one is quite sure; it might act as a way of attracting insect pollinators. The cones that grow on this tree in the spring (usually when the ecosystem is hidden away for the year) are incredibly unusual as far as gymnosperm cones go; the pollen isn't wind dispersed like other pollen cones. It is hypothesized that there were once insects that had co-evolved with these trees, attracted by the bioluminescent bacteria, that once pollinated them. It is also hypothesized that these insects have long since gone extinct or are hunted to near extinction by the ever-dominant Homo sapiens.

Species name: Gymnosporangium navidadea

Common name: Christmas ornaments

Unfortunately, the artificial Christmas tree is often attacked by a very unusual species of fungus, one that has a complex morphology like the cedar apple rust (and so it is placed in the same genus; no DNA analysis has been done on this species so we are unsure of its correct placement within the fungi). The morphology of this species is very similar microscopically to a pipecleaner with a very rigid interior and a fluffy, polyester-like exterior. The six arm-like projections are thought to mimic snowflakes, but we are unsure whether or not this has any kind of biological relevance. A very unusual species, indeed!

Species name: Sphagnum treeskirtii

Common name: Tree skirt

This species of Sphagnum grows almost exclusively with artificial Christmas trees, although it can occasionally grow with other species used as Christmas trees in captivity. It has an incredibly soft, fur-like texture that is sometimes pressed into large sheets of fabric and sewn to make seasonal clothing; it is believed that Santa Claus wears a suit made of this botanical fabric (but no one has ever seen it to confirm this idea). Other uses for this type of moss is unclear; it is rumoured to have a role in animal bedding in captivity.

Species name: Ursus noelae

Common name: Christmas bear

As an incredibly unusual step for my blog, I figured I can't possibly ignore the last integral part of this special ecosystem even though it happens to be an animal. This bear is very unusual, not just because it's one of the only bears to have ever worn clothing on a regular occasion. The main reason for why it is so unusual is because of its size; it's barely 4 inches tall! Another unusual characteristic about this bear, the only one that has this characteristic in the genus, is that it is a herbivore. It grazes on the needles and bark of the tree, rarely leaving the tree that it also uses as shelter (it is rumoured to build a nest in the tree like birds do; I have never seen this phenomenon in action so I can't speak to the validity of this rumour). Unfortunately, this is the most popular prey of a very large cat-like creature, commonly known as Storm The Cat (Latin name Felis catus). This cat subspecies (it is believed to be the only one left) is a ruthless predator when it comes to the Christmas bear, tearing it from its tree and throwing it to the ground. It does almost seem to be a game, however, as rarely does the cat do anything to the bear after this. Nevertheless, the bears are often so scared that they have heart attacks, leading to their population numbers suffering needlessly as a result of this "game" played by the cat. She is discouraged, but likes to hunt at night when no one is watching. We have considered erecting a fence to protect this fragile ecosystem...

Merry Christmas, everyone!