Monthly Archives: May 2019

Hummingbirds in the Real World: evolution, physiology and relationship

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800px-Giant_hummingbird_Patagonia_Gigas_on_cactus_in_Peru_by_Devon_Pike

Giant Hummingbird, Patagona gigas on Cactus in Peru, by Devon Pike

Hummingbirds are clearly fascinating and engaging creatures.  They are biological wonders of ‘invention’, little gems that sparkle in their airborne dances through sunlight, with the seductive power to capture the attention of even the most incognizant of us lumbering earthbound humans, including many of those pretty much blind to the natural world.  I did not set out to write this piece, I was researching several Puya species of the South American Andes, curious about their survival and pollination and became intrigued by these miraculous little fliers.  Part of our fascination with them I think is attributable to their size.  There are 338 known species today, 104 genera, which as a group comprise the entire Hummingbird family, the Trochilidae, the second largest bird family found in the Americas, numbers that speak to their success that many ornithologists say ‘could’ continue to increase over the next several million years!  The species range in size from the tiny Bee Hummingbird, of Cuba, about 2″ long and less than 2 grams in weight to the 9″ long, 24 grams, that’s around 3/4 of an ounce, of the behemoth, Giant Hummingbird found in much of the more arid western Andes from Ecuador south into central Chile.  The Giant, Patagona gigas, is the sole species of its genus, though there is a subgenus that is found into Ecuador,  and it is thought to be about as large as any Hummingbird can be.  Any bigger and it is thought that those characteristics that differentiate Hummers from other birds become more difficult to sustain. Continue reading →

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Puya: Growing These Well Armed South Americans in the Pacific Northwest

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[I wrote this originally about 2 years ago as part of what turned out to be a too long look into the Bromeliad Family.  Here I present only the genus Puya spp. in an edited form with the addition of the species Puya berteroniana.  Go to the original article to read about the shared evolution of the several genera and families that comprise the family, why these are not considered succulents and a look at the armed defenses of many plants.  My plan is to breakout at least some of the other genera as well as I think the length of the original post may have put some readers off.]

Puya: one of the Xeric Genera of Terrestrial Bromeliaceae

Puya chiliensis
The inflorescence is very ‘spiky’ in its structure its many ‘arms’ covered with buds.
Each bud will open over time giving a long season of bloom.

The name “Puya” comes from the Mapuche Indian word meaning “point” (The Mapuche people are indigenous to Chile and Argentina.  They constitute approximately 10% (more than 1.000.000 people) of the Chilean population. Half of them live in the south of Chile from the river Bío Bío to Chiloé Island. The other half is found in and around the capital, Santiago and were mostly forced to the city after Pinochet privatized their lands giving them to the wealthy.)…the assignation is clear and the pointed, spiky, nature of this genus is immediately obvious to anyone.  But there is something easy and comfortable about the sound of the word in your mouth when you speak it…poo-‘yah.  Puya are native to the arid portions of the Andes and South American western coastal mountains.  (Oddly, two species are found in dry areas of Costa Rica.)

Puya spp., populate arid western regions of the Andes Mountains up into southern Central America.  These are terrestrial plants, relying on their roots to find the moisture that they need.  They possess the same basic rosette structure common to all members of the Bromeliad family to which they belong, including their petiole-less leaves, which clasp directly to a compact stem structure, funnelling the infrequent, and seasonal, precipitation they get into their crowns and root structures where they can take it up, a strategy very similar to Agave and Aloe which grow under similar conditions. Continue reading →

A Course Correction: The Wild and the Human, On Repairing the Relationship Between Politics, Economics and the Environment

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“We are the odd ones, with bright eyes, that see the wonder of a bountiful world.  We don’t look through rose colored glasses…we’ve only removed the veil that breaks and blinds….Now, to cut the strings that tie us to the lie. ”  Lance Wright, Jan. 2019

Echinops ritro in front of a Miscanthus gracillimus several years ago at Holladay Park. A series of perennial beds were created with help from a notable local designer. For a variety of reasons related to budget, staffing and vandalism, the beds declined.  Beauty, that necessary elixir, truly abounds, but we must be cognizant of the forms in which we accept it and be committed to what it requires to flourish.

Gardeners are my people…well, actually, so are botanists, horticulturists, entomologists, ecologists, the weekend outdoor adventurers who in regular moments of awe, pause to take in the daily wonder of the world…anyone, really, who works with or has become enamored with the living natural world (and I’m going to include geologists too, at least those not taking their livelihood from resource extraction).  I have a theory, that as our modern world becomes increasingly urbanized, and transformed by our use to that which supports urban living, more of us are becoming consciously aware of what we are losing, of the natural world that has been sacrificed, developed, along the way…and in ways, large and small, many, but still far too few of us, are choosing to make our lives reflect this understanding. We question the ‘stuff’ we have crowded our lives with, that ‘stuff’ we’ve spent our lives to procure while following the dream we’ve all been sold on.  Many of us garden on whatever we have available to us whether it’s a quarter acre, a Juliet balcony or a kitchen counter space.  We plant gardens for food or to support pollinators, to have something green and growing in our homes, we grow small succulents for their simple beauty, flowers for the vase or plants that provide cover and fruit for songbirds, there are many reasons…and we do this for the pleasure that it gives us, for the satisfaction that we are doing something to heal an increasingly ‘broken’ world.  Yet the world continues to spiral down into more ugly chaos, in spite of our increasing awareness…it is not enough.  I find myself drawn even more into the wonder and beauty of a single plant, the ‘miracle’ of life and the amazing complexity, the inter-relatedness of living communities…because, in spite of how our society views this planet and the countless organisms it routinely dismisses as secondary, and unnecessary or of little commercial value…life is in fact the center of meaning and value. Continue reading →

Ginkgo biloba: on reproduction, evolution and anomalous existence

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There are six Ginkgo trees here along Main St., on the north side Chapman Square, downtown, they are the most abundant species on the two blocks and the smelly not-a-fruits that drop in the fall demonstrate that many of them are female.. You can see the Elk fountain, one of several fountains once installed so locals could ‘water’ their horses. Only two the Ginkgos on the two blocks are male clones that I know of, the others are a mix of male and female seedlings. The male strobili are still in evidence on the trees. The female trees appear to hold their strobili on higher branches, as I could see nothing on the available lower branches with my bad eyes.

Mid-April and the Ginkgos are flowering….well, technically not ‘flowering’, because they aren’t angiosperms.  Botanically speaking, they are doing what they do instead, forming the little structures that contain their sex organs for what would most likely be failed attempts at reproduction.  Think about it, in a community filled with males no progeny will be produced.  We were on one of our walks down an inner section of Tri-Met’s Orange Line, approaching the Tilikum Bridge, when I noticed this event…I was a little surprised.

If you know much about Ginkgos you probably know about their fruit, which again is not technically a ‘fruit’.  Only angiosperms, true ‘flowering plants, form ‘fruit’.  The Ginkgo’s ‘fruit like’ structures are notoriously stinky when they become ripe, smelling like what many describe as being similar to dog ‘poo’, others liken it more to ‘vomit’, either equally unpleasant, when they fall to the ground and splatter or are stepped on…one of the reasons why these trees are cloned, grafted, by the nursery industry….By cloning selected forms propagators allow us to remove the chance of purchasing a female tree…unless in their zeal to bring a particular form to market they select a tree that hasn’t flowered yet….Without looking at their chromosomes, it is nearly impossible to determine the sex of a juvenile tree.  Clones stay true to their sex, so if their scion wood, or buds, are taken from a male tree, the result will be a male clone.  Ginkgos are a dioecious species, ‘di’ meaning two, so any one individual plant produces only male or female structures, so it takes two trees, of opposite sex, to produce viable seed.  Monoecious means that an individual plant produces male and female structures.  In Ginkgo spp. and the non-flowering gymnosperms these sexual structures are called stobili or singularly, a strobilus. Continue reading →