Pollinator Friendly Gardening

Nearly everyone is familiar with butterfly and pollinator-friendly gardening nowadays with all the news about declines in honeybee and monarch butterfly populations. In my “Spring Planting in the Gardens” blog from June 2015, I mentioned one of our garden beds had been converted into a pollinator-friendly bed. Recently, I found evidence of pollinators and insect visitors making it their temporary home.

Inside the folded over brown leaf is the pupa of
an unknown insect undergoing metamorphosis

The pupa inside this nest has elaborately
wrapped the leaves around each other

Note the silk floss holding the
leaves together

I’m not sure exactly which adult insect is going to emerge from the cocoon-like nests featured in the photos above, but it is exciting that they have shown up in our pollinator-friendly bed to complete part of their life cycle. The plant in the first photo is a Jamaican endemic, Portlandia proctori and the Florida native Bahama coffee, Psychotria ligustrifolia, is featured in the second and third photos. Hopefully, we will have more flowers open up to provide nectar for the adults once they emerge.

Meanwhile, in another part of the garden...
While inspecting our key lime tree for presence of Asian citrus psyllid, the vector for citrus greening disease, I noticed three large bird droppings that were moving around! These were not bird droppings at all but the larval stage (caterpillars) of the Giant swallowtail butterfly. As I watched them happily munching away at the key lime leaves an adult swallowtail butterfly flew overhead and began laying more eggs on various other leaves.
During my first observation there were three 2nd instar caterpillars but today, two weeks later, there is only one remaining after several exhaustive searches. Apparently, Giant swallowtail caterpillars are cannibalistic and will eat each other during encounters! I'm not sure if that happened or if a bird found itself a meal but the remaining caterpillar looks to be about a 4th instar and must be close to pupating. Our key lime is fine as the caterpillars did not eat very many leaves but citrus farmers find them a pest and call them "Orange dogs".

Giant swallowtail caterpillar - 2nd or 3rd instar

Adult Giant swallowtail butterfly checking out the key lime tree

4th instar of the Giant swallowtail larva

It is amazing how much is going on around us in the natural world that we tune out and miss by being engrossed in our human routines. Here in the Keys, it is pretty hard to avoid nature as it surrounds us in the hardwood hammock, mangrove forest and marine environments. After a week of late-season rain this month, the increase in fresh water caused a chain reaction: plants flushed out new leaves while insect eggs hatched so the young larvae could eat the fresh leaves and those larvae then turned into butterflies and began laying eggs again until the next cycle.

By gardening for pollinators with nectar plants for adults and host plants for caterpillars, you can bring the natural world right into your yard or patio. Butterfly watching is delightful for people of all ages but especially children. It is also beneficial to your local butterfly species as you will provide them with food. If you plant it, they will come!

Emily B. Magnaghi
Associate Director

Inspiring Students to Discover Why Plants Matter

2015-2016 Teacher's Information Meeting Kick-off

We kicked off the Upper Keys Fairchild Challenge (UKFC) last Saturday with our annual Teacher’s Information Meeting. We are excited for this year’s Challenges as the themes of The Everglades for elementary school and The Voyages of Plants for middle & high school are interesting and relevant not only to the environment and ecology of South Florida and the Keys, but on a global scale, as well. A first for this year will be a teacher’s workshop and professional development points for teachers participating in a Challenge.

2014-2015 Award Ceremony

Last year we had over 1100 students and 62 teachers participate in our program, the highest number to date, and we expect to grow even more this year with additional participation. Last year also marked our first offering for high school Challenges, of which four were submitted by the winning high school. Hopefully we will have another high school jump on board this year for more competition. Competition or not, the students learn many important ecological principles while doing their Challenges. These include plant-animal interactions, plant life cycles, how to take environmental action to the community and state levels, critical thinking skills involving conservation techniques, and using art as a tool to convey environmental awareness, just to mention a few. Speaking of art, last year we provided a student art workshop for elementary school which we have expanded this year to accommodate middle and high school students.

Yummy Sugar Citrus Squares were submitted by Coral Shores High School for the Green Cuisine Challenge

Key Largo School students working hard on their school garden!

Follow the handmade mosaic stepping stones to Treasure Village Montessori School's garden

Environmental Action by Ocean Studies Charter School.
Where else can students participate in coral restoration?!

The Fairchild Challenge program is developed by Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden and as a satellite partner we use their framework but tailor it to the needs of our schools and the environment of the Florida Keys. We are able to compete with other satellite partners from around the world with a Global Challenge where students’ submissions are entered into an online forum to be judged against each other. This year’s Global Challenge is related to environmental change and how species are adapting to climate change through a comic strip storyline.
All is all, it’s shaping up to be another great school year in the Upper Keys!

The UKFC is supported by Kona Kai Resort and donations from private individuals, organizations and corporations. If you are interested in supporting our program, please click here: www.kkbg.org



Emily B. Magnaghi
Associate Director

Summer Beauties

Summer in the subtropics can be very hot and humid for humans but for most plants acclimated to this climate, it is very comfortable. Along with longer, warmer days, we have been getting consistent rainfall, both of which have helped many of our plants put on new growth and become reproductively active. The Gardens are full of life, colors, textures and interesting structures.

One of the highlights of our collection right now is Cycas micronesica with its first flush of female strobili (cone-like structures). If you have taken my TYUP™ tour, you know all about cycads and their prehistoric past. Now we need a male plant so the pollen from the male strobili can fertilize the ovules in the female strobili and we can get seeds. Despite our lack of a male plant, we may be able to obtain pollen from Montgomery Botanical Center (MBC) in Coral Gables and fertilize the ovules by hand. MBC has a collection of stored pollen from some of their cycads and since our plant came from them, we may well find a match.

 

Cycas micronesica

A female strobilus similar to a (pine)cone

Note the small green ovules inside the 'cone' scales.

After at least one month of waiting for the flower buds to open, we have finally been rewarded with the fragrant blossoms of Jacquinia keyensis or Joewood (primrose family, Primulaceae). This is one of my favorite plants since the flowers are slightly unusual; the outer whorl of stamens are actually well-developed staminodes that resemble petals (see photo below). The fragrance from these blossoms is exquisite and smells like gardenia with a hint of ylang-ylang. The flowers are already fading but will hopefully produce copious amounts of fruit since I want to grow them from seed. Native to the Florida Keys and south Florida, it grows in habitats between the low-lying mangrove forest and the more upland hardwood hammock so it’s right at home along our bayfront.

 

Jacquinia keyensis in full bloom (close your eyes and inhale the perfume from the flowers!)

Floral anatomy of Jacquinia keyensis

We have a closely related cousin to joewood that is a new arrival to the Gardens: Clavija domingensis, otherwise known as Langue de boeuf or beef tongue plant due to the leaves’ resemblance to a long bovine tongue. This plant is native to the Dominican Republic and will eventually be a very interesting specimen once it grows up a bit. After one week of being in the ground it already flushed out a new set of leaves. Two of its Dominican associates are planted nearby, the zombie palm, Zombia antillarum and 2 new Dominican cherry palms, Pseudophoenix ekmanii, which are critically endangered in the wild.

Clavija domingensis or beef tongue plant from the Dominican Republic with its new flush of leaves.

Pseudophoenix ekmanii, Dominican cherry palms, in the wild they are over-harvested for their sap which is used to make palm wine.

Another fragrant favorite is Plumeria sp. or frangipani and all of our trees are in full bloom. Guests recently strung their own lei! You can see the photos on our Facebook timeline.

The little fledgling doves appreciate the canopy of our white Plumeria alba.

At Robert Is Here tropical fruit stand in Florida City, they sell mangrove honey and you may think, "What? I've never seen a mangrove flower." Well, here they are in all their loveliness...

Flowers of the red mangrove, Rhizophora mangle, are often overlooked but they are quite elaborate on close inspection.

Here are the flowers of the black mangrove, Avicennia germinans, which, although small, are very fragrant.

For more photos on what is blooming at the Gardens right now, see our Facebook page for photo albums.

Emily B. Magnaghi
Associate Director

Earth Day!

I recently attended an Earth Day event at the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge on north Key Largo. A group of about 20 volunteers including members of FAVOR (Friends And Volunteers Of Refuges) and local state park and wildlife refuge staff and volunteers, came out to plant native trees. We were at an overgrown, cold-war era Nike Missile Site that the tropical hardwood hammock is reclaiming. Due to the sensitive environment, this area is off-limits to the public unless there is a special project. The Wildlife Refuge was originally created to protect the federally endangered American crocodile but there are several other endangered species that fall under the protection of this "umbrella" species.

We planted over 90 Torchwood (Amyris elemifera; Rutaceae) trees which are the host plant for the federally endangered Schaus swallowtail butterfly (Heraclides aristodemus ponceanus). The Bahamian and Giant swallowtail butterflies also lay eggs on this plant. The caterpillars of all three species feed on the young leaves of torchwood. Besides being important for insects, this tree provides interesting and important uses for humans, as well. Torchwood is in the citrus family and has edible fruit and some medicinal oils. The common name comes from its use as a torch; the young green branches are full of volatile oils which are easy to ignite.

The native plant nursery for Dagny Johnson Botanical State Park grew the plants from seed and nurtured them along for several months. Apparently, torchwood is very difficult to grow from seed and many of the seedlings did not make it; we were lucky to have as many as we did. The soil in the planting area was coral limestone rock with little topsoil. Torchwood likes to grow on open edges so holes were dug along the edge of a dirt access road, out in the full sun. The native soil in the planting holes was mixed with a small amount of potting soil and a few fertilizer pellets to give the seedlings a fighting chance in this harsh environment. At least three inches of mulch in a three foot diameter was laid down around the seedlings and two gallons of water were given to each plant to help them establish. Refuge staff will continue watering the plants periodically. 

Many of our local butterfly experts who perform annual surveys for the Schaus swallowtail joined the group. Historically, the Schaus swallowtail butterfly was found throughout the southern tip of Florida in Dade and Monroe counties, extending south to lower Matecumbe Key. Now its range is restricted to several small islands in Biscayne National Park and north Key Largo, with less than 100 butterflies counted per year during annual surveys. Scientists were worried that the Key Largo population had blinked out, after not seeing any butterflies for several years in a row. Luckily, two Schaus swallowtails were observed flying on Key Largo last spring. One individual male butterfly was observed flitting around volunteers' heads for over 10 minutes! Even though he was observed "on the wing" they were able to take several hundred photos and got a clear shot for a positive ID. In June 2014, several hundred hand-reared Schaus swallowtail butterfly larvae and a few adults and pupae were released on nearby Elliott Key in Biscayne National Park, we are hoping that some will end up flying down here and re-populating the hammocks on Key Largo. Hopefully our torchwood trees will thrive and become a flaming beacon to the Schaus swallowtail butterflies.

An old launching shelter being taken over by a strangler fig.

Refuge superintendent, Jeremy Dixon, with his righthand man/son, Connor, describing the day’s activities (foreground) with Dagny Johnson Botanical State Park Nursery manager and torchwood grower, Jackie DeGaynor (back middle) looking on.

A torchwood seedling awaits its new home (which doesn’t look too inviting with all that rock). We were lucky to have pre-dug planting holes waiting for us!

The FAVOR (Friends And Volunteers Of Refuges) group listening to site details from Jeremy.

Dagny Johnson Botanical State Park Nursery manager and torchwood grower, Jackie DeGaynor, provided a planting and mulching demonstration. 

Yours truly, Emily Magnaghi, helping to restore the habitat one plant at a time!

Emily B. Magnaghi
Associate Director