northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's some Foxglove Beardtongue from last spring. This is a native wildflower with (somewhat) bell-shaped blossoms that's considered popular with all bees but especially favored by bumblebees.  What a name, heh? It almost sounds like the name came from a random name generator that went on too long. It's actually named after 2 different genera of flowers, the foxgloves and the beardtongues . Since Foxglove Beardtongue is a type of beardtongue but is not a type of foxglove, you should probably interpret the name something like "a beardtongue that resembles a foxglove". (Since both foxgloves and beardtongues are in the plantain family , perhaps it's not too surprising that there's a resemblance between the 2 [1].) What are the differences? This article (which seems to mix up species/genus a little) mentions several things, like foxgloves being from Europe and having bell-flowers that hang down while beardtongues are North American plants with tubular flow...

From the ground (and maybe a little distance) it sort of looked like there were bananas growing near the top of this tree. Since this was taken at Duke Farms, where the Duke family liked to introduce exotic plants, you could be forgiven for wondering if it's possible that bananas are growing wild at Duke Farms. Appearances are definitely deceiving. I'm not sure you couldn't grow bananas in NJ, but they're certainly better suited for tropical climates, and the only states producing them in any amount are Florida and Hawaii. Instead this is our old friend the Kentucky Coffeetree again, it's just that when their pods are young they look like a pale yellow instead of the dark color they'll have later in the season. (In truth, the pods are probably smaller than the classic banana, but it's a little hard to judge size from a distance.) September 2, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 238963832, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) September 2, 2022 at Duke Farm...

For Throwback Thursday let's take a look at a tree that's not native to NJ but is native to the US. The Kentucky Coffeetree  originally comes from the midwest; despite having Kentucky in its name, it looks like they're much more widespread in Missouri/Illinois/Indiana. Kentucky Coffeetrees are trees in the legume family . This means that a Kentucky Coffeetree is more closely related to a string bean plant than it is to oaks, hickories, or maples. But they do have tree relatives; just in this area, Honey Locust , Black Locust , and Eastern Redbuds are fellow legume trees. I also talked about legumes in this American Senna post . Of the legume trees around here, the Kentucky Coffeetree is the one that produces the most robust pods with the largest seeds. They're supposed to be poisonous, though in theory you can roast them and then make a non-caffeinated beverage from them. March 5, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 6535361, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) March 5...

Here's an American Senna  (aka Wild Senna), a native plant in the legume family . This is an interesting family of plants. It's the 3rd largest family of land plants behind only the orchids and asters (who are in a close race for 1st place). And while we might be most familiar with them for the beans and peas we eat, they're all around us and in various sizes: Clovers are usually low to the ground wildflowers. Sennas are up to 6 feet in height and straddle that area between wildflowers and shrubs. Kentucky Coffeetrees are trees. This indicates that there are some trees that are more closely related to the string beans in your garden than they are to other trees like oaks, maples, etc. Trees do not form a clade ! The largish, healthy population of American Senna at Duke Farms is suspected to be the reason that a butterfly rarely seen in the rest of Somerset County - the Sleepy Orange - is commonly found there. They and other sulphur butterflies like the Cloudless Sulphu...