A Violent Spring

The mid-section of the United States is the only area in the world that regularly sees tornadoes. Each spring violent thunderstorms develop as warm, damp air rising from the Gulf of Mexico is met by strong cold fronts sweeping down from arctic regions. Atmospheric conditions are made unstable by jet stream currents, high-altitude, high-speed winds that shear the tops off clouds and twist storm cells. The result is violent thunderstorms with torrential rains, numerous lightning strikes, large hail, tornadoes, and strong winds shearing downward at high speed. A series of thunderstorms left a path of death and destruction across the South. Friends from the Birmingham, Alabama region experienced exceptionally large and powerful tornadoes. Many lives were lost in Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Hueytown, and Concord, Alabama. While communications from the affected areas of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, and Georgia have been difficult, it appears that over three hundred deaths resulted from this one series of storms, the latest in four weeks of continuous storms. I encourage anyone who would like to contribute to responsible agencies, such as the American Red Cross, to direct cash gifts to the capable relief workers assisting the affected citizens recovering from the storm damage.

Today the empress tree is in bloom. Whenever I see the large pink to violet bells of the empress tree, I remember seeing them covering Red Mountain in Birmingham, Alabama. These trees, imported from China, as ornamentals escaped into the countryside. Tiny seeds of the empress tree are blown by the winds to propagate this woody member of the important family of bee plants, the figworts. Honey bees can be seen moving about the clusters of large empress tree flowers on the limb tips high in the treetops. Today’s picture is an empress tree blooming in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The tree, purported to be a gift to Jefferson Davis’ wife, came from the Forbidden City of China. Hopefully, the seeds of empress trees will be distributed by more gently winds.

--Richard

The Snapdragon Family

There are several families of plants that are considered to be important to the honey bees and other pollinators because they are good sources of nectar and pollen. With the pollinators in decline, many are attempting to help restore the food and habitat that the pollinators require. One way of doing this is by creating pollinator gardens. These are gardens of various sorts: flower beds, kitchen gardens, herb gardens, landscape plantings, vegetable gardens, even planters and window boxes. A key element in making a pollinator garden is to prudently avoid the use of chemical pesticides that will harm the pollinators. Having some undisturbed soil around the plantings helps provide habitat for underground nesting insects, like the bumble bees. One should choose plants for the pollinator garden that will provide food in the form of nectar and pollen or food for developing larvae.

One way to choose plants that will be effective attractors to the various species of pollinators is to select members of the important bee plant families. One of those families is the snapdragon or figwort family, Scrophulariaceae. This family is made of a number of colorful plants which make for beautiful natural plantings. Among the snapdragons are Gerardia, false foxglove, Indian paintbrush, blue toadflax, red penstemon, woolly mullein, and speedwell. This family also includes the foxgloves and snapdragons from which Digitalis is produced. The honey bee, through pollination of flowering plants, helps produce some of our important medicines. There is one woody member of the snapdragon family which can be found in old homesteads around the Arkansas Delta. It is the Empress tree shown in today’s photo: a large, spreading tree and a native of China, which was planted in the past and later escaped. Empress tree flowers in April and May. The flower buds are rusty tan husks that remain on the tree through the fall and winter.
--Richard

Empress Tree in Bloom

The empress tree is a large, spreading tree with large leaves. The tree is in bloom now with three-inch long, pink, trumpet-shaped flowers. Empress tree was imported to the United States from China. It was planted in homesites in the Mid-South and escaped to sometimes be found in clusters of trees. Empress tree is the only woody member of one of the important families of bee plants, the figworts or snapdragons, to be found in the Arkansas delta. Most of the snapdragons are wildflowers. Mullein is a snapdragon, as is the obedient plant.

If you click on the photo, you can see the egg case of the praying mantis, a beneficial insect. The egg case is the brown object with fine lines located on the plant’s stem below the closest flower. These egg cases are a welcomed find in our gardens. On this day the empress tree was visited by solitary bees, carpenter bees, and honey bees.
--Richard