Nature Notes
Summer's Arrival Brings Forth New Nature Questions
By Patricia Martin

Trish Martin is a yeararound resident of Mackinac Island, has earned a master's degree in botany from Central Michigan University, and owns Bogan Lane Inn.

Summer has finally come upon us. The temperatures have risen a bit, and the spring flowers, for the most part, have passed. I've been fielding a whole new list of questions, and seeing a different variety of organisms these days.

The question that I've been asked most this week is, "What is that yellow flower in the woods?" Now, I know there is more than one yellow flower in the woods right now (I usually think of yellow and orange flowers being summer flowers), but there is one that seems to dominate the landscape, particularly under the cedars. It is the golden lungwort, or common hawkweed, as it's called in England, Hieracium murorum. It's a European import that has naturalized in abundance on the Island. Hawkweeds are a composite flower, like its cousin, the dandelion, which have flower heads when fully expanded that are one-half inch to one inch wide, with more than 12 rays. In the case of golden lungwort, there are several very similar species which are very close, and are all of European origin. This species is somewhat variable. It is unbranched, and has a rosette of basal leaves, which are undivided and often toothed. This plant seems to grow very well on limestone soil, and can be found along roadsides, thickets (usually coniferous or mixed woods), fields, and open groves.

Garter Snake

A second plant that has raised some questions this past week or so is a rather diminutive flower known as gaywings or fringed polygala (Polygala paucifolia). This plant is only about three to six inches tall, and can be found in moist woods, swamps, and on Mackinac, along the shoreline. On this plant there are three to six oval leaves near the top of the stem with small, scale-like leaves on the lower stem, which is woody. In the axils of the top leaves grow a few flowers, which are rose-purple to magenta in color. Each flower has petals, which form a central tube with a pair of "wings" flanking the tube. At the end of the petals is a delicate fringe. The whole flower is only about 3/4-inch long, but its color really stands out. The shape of the flower sometimes makes people think of an orchid.

Squawroot

One plant that I just sighted beginning to come up out of the ground is one of our parasitic plants known as squawroot (Conophilis americana). It appears in dry woods in the late spring or early summer. This plant resembles a yellow pinecone standing on end, and is usually found in clumps. The flower is tubular yellow and stalkless, and it emerges from under compact scales. The flowers and the scales together form a cylindrical spike. The lower scales are overlapping, fleshy, pointed, and yellow to yellow brown. As the plant ages, it becomes brown in color. There are no leaves or chlorophyll in this plant, as it's a parasite, and its most common host are the roots of oak trees, and so it can usually be found in dry woods which favor oaks. Over the years, I've seen it commonly near Coffee and Allouez trails.

It's not only plants that I've been asked about lately. The other day, a guest of mine asked me about a good-sized snake with stripes on its back, sunning itself on the shore road. Most locals would have recognized it at once as a garter snake, specifically the eastern garter (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis). Now, this is the second time in a few days that garter snakes have been mentioned. The first was when I rode with a friend into her yard and her daughter came out yelling that their small dogs had caught a large snake and were doing their best to dispatch it. By the time my friend got to the snake, it was dead, and the only thing to do was dispose of it. The eastern garter is a medium sized snake (18 to 54 inches long), with an extremely variable color pattern. The background color may be black, brown, or olive-green, and the three yellow, white, or greenish stripes may be sharply delineated or dull and obscured. The name "garter" comes from the ribbon-like stripes on the snake, which suggested to someone old-fashioned garters decorated with ribbons, used to hold stockings up. Sometimes individuals have dark spots between the stripes, giving the animals a checkered appearance. The belly of the snake is usually pale yellow, greenish, or blue.

These snakes are common, and live in woodlands, meadows, marshes, lake edges, debris piles, and suburban backyards. I have a couple living in my yard. The garters feed on damp, living organisms, including earthworms, frogs, toads, and small fish. They also eat slugs, and so can certainly live in my garden.

One year I participated in an ecology class, in which we collected 125 eastern garters in a field, and measured them to see what kind of age distribution we could find, as snakes grow all of their lives, which means that their age is directly proportional to their size. I learned two things about these snakes. The first is that their temperament varies greatly. It seemed that the juvenile snakes (read "teenagers") were much more aggressive than the big fat mama snakes. And the other thing I learned was that they don't like to be straightened out to be measured. The reaction to this is to release an unpleasant, to say the least, anal secretion on whomever is holding them. When we finished our measuring, we all had to take a shower and wash everything to get rid of the odor.

After coming out of their hibernaculum in the spring, one of the first things that garter snakes do is to mate. Garter snakes give birth to litters of six to more than 50 in midsummer.

There is one last sighting that I have to mention. Several times recently, I've seen snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) when I've been out riding. Right now it seems that they're wearing white stockings. As most of you probably know, when the temperature turns cold in the fall, and the day length shortens, they shed out their summer-brown and grow a new white coat. In the spring, the reverse occurs, and they grow in a coat of yellow brown to rusty-brown fur, but they retain their white bellies. The "white socks" (do you think they're baseball fans?) are remnants of their winter coat, and they should eventually change. The spring molt usually begins in March, and finishes in late May, but as it's triggered by day length and temperature, our cool spring may have slowed things down. Some years you see very few of these animals, and other years, they seem to be quite abundant. This is because they have a 10- to 11-year cycle. It's odd, but the population cycle corresponds to a multi-year cycle in sunspot numbers. A recent study suggests that there is a link between solar activity, climate, and hare numbers. Snowshoe mortality is high, as they're good food for a variety of predators, including coyotes, foxes, wolves, bobcats, minks, humans, and owls. Only about 15% that are born make it to their first year, which is why they must keep breeding. And breed they do. They generally have four in a litter, and can produce four litters per year, and as they mature quickly, the first litter can be having young by the end of their first summer.

Keep your eyes peeled for these and other organisms that call Mackinac their home.