Don't Eat That Bean!

After writing recent posts about Poison Sumac and White Snakeroot, I got to thinking more about poisonous plants. Plants can have wondrous healing properties, of course, but there sure are some to be avoided out there. And some can be both good and bad for humans, depending on which part is used and/or how it is prepared. I was reminded about all this on our trip to Florida when we walked by a big thriving stand of one of the most poisonous plants on the planet, Castor Bean (Ricinus communis), at Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge:

Those big, palmately-veined leaves are unmistakable.  I remember seeing this plant growing as a weed when I lived in San Diego, and a botanist friend with whom I was birding filled me in on its potent properties. 

Plants, which can't fly, scream or run out of the way of something attacking them, have to have some defense against hungry critters. Chemicals, thorns, leathery texture and other obstacles fill that bill. Often those defenses are inconvenient or even hazardous to humans, but for me they add a lot of interest to the botanical world and Castor Bean is way up there on my list of fascinating plants.

Native to Ethiopia, Castor Bean grows well in many tropical areas and has become a weed in southern parts of the United States. It can be grown in Ohio and other temperate areas from seed as an ornamental annual, although as you'll see that doesn't seem like a great idea even though Amazon, eBay and other sources can fix you right up with seeds. Cultivars are available with purple and red leaves, but the seeds should definitely be kept away from children.

Castor Bean flowers are rather unusual:

They are not very conspicuous, lack petals and are pollinated by wind. Male and female flowers are separate, but the plant has both on a stalk called a raceme. The male flowers are below the female flowers. Here is a closeup of the flowers:

Once pollinated, the female flowers develop spiny capsules which each contain 3 half-inch long speckled seeds. The seeds (which, despite their name, are not really beans; Castor Bean is in the spurge family or Euphorbiaceae, along with poinsettias) can be seen here.

While intact seeds can pass through the digestive tract without causing a problem, if the outer shell is broken or chewed they can cause extremely severe gastrointestinal reactions and can be fatal. These effects are due to a chemical called ricin, which prevents cells from making proteins. Ricin is also present in lesser concentration throughout the plant. In addition, allergenic compounds can be found on the plant's surfaces which can cause nerve damage, making castor bean harvesting a hazardous profession.

Why harvest castor beans? Well, the flip side of the toxicity of these plants is the fact that if you mash up the beans and extract the oil, you have the familiar component of traditional and alternative medicines, castor oil. The process separates the ricin from the oil, since ricin is water soluble and not soluble in oil. The ricin can then be destroyed by heating while processing the leftover mash into fertilizer.

Here are some facts about uses (and misuses) of castor beans, ricin and castor oil--references are at the end.

• One castor bean seed can kill a child, four seeds will kill a rabbit, 5 a sheep, 6 an ox or horse, 7 a pig, 11 a dog, but it takes 80 to kill a duck (statistics which mainly prove that human curiosity has no boundaries...).
• In addition to potentially fatal gastroenteritis, castor beans can also cause neurological and ophthalmological lesions
• According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian writer and journalist who was living in London, died after a man stabbed him with an umbrella, which injected a ricin pellet.
• Castor oil is a good motor lubricant and has been used in internal combustion engines, including those of World War 1 airplanes, some racing cars and some model airplanes. It does not, however, mix with petroleum products. It has been largely replaced by synthetic oils that are more stable and less toxic.
• Castor oil is used in the food industry as food additives, flavorings, and as a mold inhibitor.
• The United States Food and Drug Administration has categorized castor oil as a "generally recognized safe and effective" laxative but it can cause painful cramps and can, shall we say, be a much more powerful laxative than is usually needed or desired.
• In traditional medicine, castor oil has been used for just about everything, from skin problems to birth control, to headaches, muscle aches, and sinusitis. It has been used to induce labor, but the accompanying awful vomiting and diarrhea render it inadvisable for that application.

Here are some interesting links for more information:

A Case of Castor Bean Poisoning

Cornell University: Plants Poisonous to Livestock

CDC: Facts about Ricin

USA Today

Wikipedia

Plant of the Week

The chemical properties of plants continue to be mind-boggling to us humans, who try so hard to understand and explain the world around us. Here is one last photo of a Castor Bean plant, and notice that in all of these photos of mature plants you don't see any insect damage on the leaves--likely for a very good reason! 

Florida Scrub Jay

The predicted "arctic blast" of cold air that I mentioned in my last post has indeed materialized here in Ohio, so I'm going to think about warm Florida today! As I mentioned in a previous post, a handful of birds occur in Florida and nowhere else in the U.S. The Snail Kite and Limpkin from that post do, however, also occur in Central America. One bird, the Florida Scrub Jay, can ONLY be found in Florida.

In fact, its very specific habitat requirements have limited its range to sandy scrublands in central Florida, which look like this:

Plants which are characteristic of this habitat include a variety of small, evergreen oaks, taller slash pines and sand pines, and an understory which includes saw palmetto and sand palmetto. This habitat has been vastly reduced, probably since the mid-1800s, for development of towns, citrus groves and pastures, and more recently for military installations, phosphate mining, tourist attractions, shopping malls, the space center...and on and on. 

The habitat is dependent on periodic fires, and fire suppression has further reduced scrub jay habitat. All of these factors have severely reduced the bird's population, but they can be reliably seen at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, just north of the Kennedy Space Center.

Florida Scrub Jays are about the same size and shape as the Blue Jays here in Ohio, but they lack the crest and bold black and white markings. They look similar to the Western Scrub Jays that we had in our backyard in San Diego, but the Florida birds have distinctly different DNA and are therefore considered to be a separate species. They eat almost anything they can find, with insects being their main food; acorns are also an important part of their diet. Here is a picture of one out looking for food:

Success! This bird may eat this item, but they also bury acorns and other seeds which in turn helps to regenerate their habitat:

A couple of interesting behavioral characteristics are quite different from those of the look-alike western population, and, in fact, from most birds. Florida Scrub Jays use what is called "cooperative breeding" in which juvenile birds help to raise their parents' later offspring. They live in family groups of between two (a mated pair) to larger groups of up to 8 adults and one to 4 juvenile helpers. Breeding success is significantly higher when helpers are present than when they are not. 

Another interesting characteristic of these birds is that they often station a "sentinel bird" on a high perch to watch for predators while the rest of the family looks for food, often in open areas on the ground:

If a hawk or other predator is spotted, the sentinel gives an alarm call and all find cover.

Florida Scrub Jays have been extensively studied (note the bands on these birds' legs) and since their population has been severely reduced they are considered "threatened" by the federal government. Because they live in family groups, if birders are lucky enough to find one bird they might see at least a couple more. 

Here is one more picture of this unusual bird:

January Thaw

Saturday, January 12, 2012

What a contrast! Last Saturday we were bundled up hiking in snow, and today we removed several layers as the temperature climbed to 65 degrees. This warm southern air is bringing lots of moisture with it, and will be followed by what the weather forecasters like to call an “arctic blast”. Sunday looks very wet, so today we headed with a friend to Dawes Arboretum in Newark.

We have hiked the trails through the prairie and wetland areas at Dawes but we had never walked through the more central areas, so today we took the loop trail from the visitor’s center to the lake, and back to our car. It went through both the formal gardens and the woodland. This was anything but a dismal winter hike! Right by the visitor's center we found this lovely Lenten Rose or Hellebore just about to bloom:

Despite its name, it is not closely related to roses, and the Hellebores are native to Europe. They certainly add a lot of beauty to gardens very early in the year, when little else is in bloom. 

The arboretum has an amazing array of woody plants from all over the world, roughly organized by botanical family. My favorite area was the holly collection, one of the largest in the world. A large flock of American Robins was feasting on the berries. The familiar American Holly was featured prominently:

The deciduous Winterberry Holly was gorgeous:

Here is a black-berried holly called Inkberry, which is native to much of eastern North America:

This yellow-berried holly cultivar was also stunning:

As we walked the trail we were surprised to see a few dandelions in bloom, taking advantage of the warm day and a bit of sunshine. These cheery yellow flowers are excellent nectar sources for insects:

We were in for a couple of surprises as we hiked through the woodland, which is dominated by beech trees both large and small:

The friend that we were hiking with showed us a tent caterpillar egg case on a cherry tree, a preview of things to come in the spring. Soon our friend noticed this moth cocoon hanging on a spicebush twig, and immediately identified it as a Promethea Moth, which is also known as Spicebush Silkmoth: 

How cool is that? This moth caterpillar has surrounded itself with leaves, and cemented the capsule to the spicebush twig. The round buds that are visible are the spicebush's flower buds; in the fall this small tree will have bright red fruits that are eagerly consumed by a variety of birds. Spicebush is one of the Promethea Moth's preferred caterpillar food plants. Take a look at the gorgeous adult Promethea Moth at this link. 

A little further on we had our biggest surprise for a January hike: a butterfly! A  mourning cloak, a bit tattered but still readily identifiable, flew past us twice and we were pretty speechless! Mourning cloaks are one of the few butterflies that overwinter as adults in Ohio; they find crevices to shelter themselves and their physiology keeps them from freezing. They basically hibernate, but it is not unusual for them to fly on a warm day. January is certainly too early to expect them though!

Robins were active in the woods, turning over leaves looking for insects. At this time of year their diet is mostly berries, but on a warm day like this a few invertebrates are active and provide some protein:

Notice how well this robin blends into its surroundings!

Speaking of active insects, here is a mid-day look at the beehive at the Dawes visitor center:

I can't imagine that they were getting much nectar, but maybe they visited some dandelions!

After lunch we headed to Lobdell Reserve, a park near Alexandria, and did another loop hike. Most of the snow was melted here, but there were a few patches remaining:

This made me think of Jim McCormac's post a few days ago about "snow fleas" over at Ohio Birds and Biodiversity. These are tiny critters called springtails or Collembola, which are now classified as "hexapods" although they used to be considered insects. They occur in tremendous numbers in the soil, and especially on sunny days they come out on top of the snow and look like little specks of pepper. They are just a few millimeters long at the most, but they can travel several inches in one jump.

I was wishing that I had known about these critters last week when we had so much snow, but I decided it was worth looking at the small snow patches that remained today. I looked at lots of patches, and saw lots of little black specks but they didn't move and were probably just dirt! Finally, down on my hands and knees, I checked out a patch that did indeed have springtails! They weren't present in huge numbers, maybe because it wasn't very sunny, but they were pretty cool nonetheless:

Now that picture might not generate much excitement, and this guy was only about 2 millimeters long, but boy could it ever jump! And it is pretty cool that this animal would be so active on the snow in January. There are hundreds of species of springtails in North America, and this looks quite different from the ones that Jim photographed--and I won't hazard a guess as to which one it might be.

We also saw a fairly fresh crayfish burrow:

These crustaceans bring up balls of dirt and deposit them on the surface. Burrowing crayfish are semi-aquatic and their burrows can be quite deep, eventually reaching water-saturated soil where their gills can stay moist.

Just as we were pulling out of the parking lot Bill heard something (other than road noise and the target practice taking place nearby) and we all got out to listen right by this small, partially frozen wetland:

It was a chorus frog! Their call sounds like a finger being drawn across a comb. 

We have learned to expect the unexpected on these winter walks! 

Winter at its Best

Most of the time I barely tolerate winter. Here in central Ohio, the weather is often gray and downright depressing after the holidays. I think I was spoiled by living in San Diego for 8 years, when we could go to the beach, mountains, desert, or anywhere in between within an hour or so any day of the year and see flowers blooming and usually, sunshine. (Oh yes, there were those pesky jobs that took up 5 days a week, but we sure took advantage of the weekends!) 

Today, though, was a glorious winter day, with bright sunshine highlighting a covering of clean snow, relatively mild temperatures with no wind, and lots of interesting avian winter visitors to check out. We started at Pickerington Ponds Metro Park, where a Harris's Sparrow has been reported for the last several days. This is a rare bird for this area, and one we had never seen in Ohio. 

On the way to the park we passed a flock of Horned Larks in a farm field:

These hardy birds are resident in central Ohio year round, and feed on seeds leftover in fields. I don't think I've ever seen one at a feeder, though.

We also passed this beautiful farm:

The Harris's Sparrow has been coming to a feeder at the park, and when we got to the parking lot several birders were already there, bundled up and armed with spotting scopes. Of course, we found out that the bird had been seen before we got there, and then had flown off. We know that patience is necessary in these situations, so we settled in with our scope and enjoyed great views of Red-Bellied Woodpecker, a common bird but always fun to see:

American Tree Sparrows were quite numerous at the feeder:

American Tree Sparrows are among my favorite birds. They are fairly common in rural areas in central Ohio in the winter but they breed far to the north at the edge of the tundra. I always enjoy seeing them!

After 45 minutes of waiting and watching and chatting with the other birders, someone said "There it is, in the tree to the right of the feeder, and now it is underneath the feeder!" Excitement--there was the Harris's Sparrow, and we got good but very brief looks at it with the scope as well as our binoculars. I didn't get a picture, but there is a photo in this link. Winter plumage is paler than the bird in the picture. Harris's Sparrow only breeds in Canada but does winter in the U.S., generally west of Ohio so this is a fun bird to see here.

Then it was off to Blacklick Woods Metro Park. All week there were reports of an Ovenbird there, a warbler which typically winters far to the south. Unfortunately, a Cooper's Hawk made a meal of it a few days ago, so we knew we had missed that rarity! We did a good hike though, enjoying lots of snowy scenery. The snow last week "stuck" to the trees and shrubs and very little has melted:

From Blacklick Woods we went to Blendon Woods Metro Park and walked the Lake Trail. First, though, we stopped at the visitor center to check out the feeders and saw the Oregon Junco that has been there recently. As is obvious from its name, this is a western cousin (actually a subspecies) of our Dark-eyed Junco, a common winter bird here in Ohio. Junco taxonomy is complicated and many think that the Oregon Junco should be a separate species. I'll stay out of that argument!

The birds were pretty cooperative along the Lake Trail. Here is an Eastern Towhee:

and an American Tree Sparrow:

It was fun to watch the Red-breasted Nuthatch foraging upside down on a tree:

A Fox Squirrel, beside its nest, watched us as we hiked back to our car:

All in all, getting out today was a great way to chase the post-holiday winter blues!

Florida Escargot

Ohio birders head to Florida for many reasons, but especially to see a handful of birds that can't be seen anywhere else in the United States. Two of these, the Snail Kite and the Limpkin, are confined to very specific habitats that also support their primary food supply, the apple snail.

Here is a photo of one of the snails:

Now these snails are pretty strange creatures in that they have both a gill and an air sac that functions as a lung, basically making them amphibious. This allows them to survive in areas that alternate between drought and high rainfall, such as is found in Florida marshes and other tropical areas. If they are in water that is low in oxygen, they can climb on vegetation near to the surface and extend a siphon to get some air, while still hiding from their arch enemies, the Snail Kites and Limpkins. 

So when we go to Florida we are always on the lookout for these two birds, and we know to look for them in places that can be expected to have apple snails. Sometimes we see the kites in marshy areas near the Everglades, but not on our most recent trip to Florida a few weeks ago.
 
On this trip, as we headed north, the last likely spot to find these birds was a small park that we have found in the past to be quite dependable. It is called Marina Park in the town of St. Cloud, just south of Orlando. Bordering East Lake Tokopekaliga, it has a marshy edge on its eastern side that is well worth scanning for a variety of birds.

After a nice picnic lunch overlooking the lake, we decided to get serious about checking out the local birds. Soon we heard a harsh scream and located a Limpkin skulking in the grasses. (According to Wikipedia, its vocalizations have been used for jungle sound effects in Tarzan movies!)

This large bird has a wingspan of over 40 inches but can hide easily in the marsh vegetation. Males and females look pretty much alike. They will eat a variety of mollusks, insects, crustaceans and other animals but their primary food source is the apple snail, which they deftly extract from its shell with their long beak. At this park they are not too shy, so it is possible to get decent photos.

After enjoying the Limpkin we continued to scan the marsh for a Snail Kite. These birds are about the size of a medium-sized hawk and tend to fly low over the vegetation searching for snails. I don't have a good picture of a male; they are almost entirely black with a distinctive white rump spot and an red eye. This link has a good photo.

We were really fortunate and saw a far-off adult male and then an immature bird perched in a tree not far from us, within digiscoping distance:

Note the extremely hooked beak, great for extracting snails from their shells! I did manage to get a fairly decent video of the entire process, and near the end you can see the white feathers at the base of the tail:

As you can see, this bird has bands on its leg. These birds are extensively studied and because their U.S. population is so small they are listed as both State and Federal endangered species. Their extremely specialized habitat requirements tend to keep the population low. So we were very excited to get such a good view.

This small park has a lot more to offer. After looking at the kite we recalled that last year we saw Sandhill Cranes here. Turning around, we saw this individual walking toward us:

What a huge, gorgeous bird! Our day was complete when soon we heard the amazing trumpeting of a small flock of cranes overhead:

Sandhill Cranes do occur quite regularly in Ohio, particularly during migration and a few pairs usually breed in the state. The sound and sight of a flock never fails to be thrilling.

Other animals that we've seen in this park include Florida Cooter turtles, marsh hares, Great and Snowy Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Wood Storks, and a variety of butterflies.

We had such a great time on this trip to Florida, and our visit to this park was one of the highlights. Here is another view of the marsh, home to a wide variety of wildlife including apple snails and their hungry predators!

Leave Only Footprints...

I love a good picnic. I have a standard assortment of food that I bring on our trips--crackers, pretzels and crunchy peanut butter tossed in a tote bag, plus fruit, hummus, hard boiled eggs, cheese and my peanut butter-dark chocolate chip cookies in a cooler. My ideal picnic spot has to have a clean table, a slight breeze to keep the bugs away (but not actual wind that blows the food about), shade if it is hot and sun on a cool day, a good view, and not many people nearby. This combination isn't all that easy to achieve, but on our recent trip to Florida we found the perfect spot:

I will share my secret: it is the beach access at Eddy's Cove on Playa Linda Beach at Canaveral National Seashore, on Florida's Atlantic coast. A few hours here went by very quickly!

After lunch I had to explore the beach, which was nearly deserted. The first thing I happened upon was a Portuguese Man-o-War, tossed up with some seaweed but still inflated. 

This jellyfish-like creature is actually a colonial organism, made up of many individuals, each of which is highly specialized and incapable of living on its own. Its tentacles, the bright blue stringy object in the photo, can deliver a major sting, even after the creature is beached. They can't really swim, like jellyfish do; instead, they move with the currents, winds and tides. 

After poking around the Man-o-War, I noticed that nearly every clump of seaweed contained pieces of discarded plastic, which was very disturbing. Old sandals, bottle caps, jelly jars, and many other pieces of trash appeared wherever I looked. Discarded plastic basically never decomposes; it persists and often pieces are eaten, much to the detriment of the sea creatures that ingest them.

After this depressing observation I decided to check out the upper beach at the base of the dune. 

Dunes are essential to maintaining a beach, and the dunes along this beach were large and well-vegetated with sea grape, a grass called sea oats, and other plants. A sign near the picnic shelter explained more about the dune ecosystem. The vegetation not only stablizes the sand that makes up the dune, it shelters and nourishes a wide variety of wildlife including gray fox, raccoon, bobcat, spotted skunk, various snakes, and many others.

Mid-day is not the time to see any of these animals, but I sure would love to see a bobcat. I haven't seen one in years, since I lived in California, so we drove the roads in the area at dawn and dusk hoping to see one but having no luck. As I walked up the beach though, it became obvious that the sign was correct and bobcats definitely were hiding in the dunes, maybe even watching us!

How cool is that--bobcat tracks! Raccoons had also been prowling the beach:

Here is a fun picture: bird and bobcat side by side? 

Doubtful--the trouble with tracks is that unless you are a real expert it isn't possible to tell, without more evidence than this, who was there first, or if animals were anywhere near each other at any point in time.

Meanwhile, Bill was gazing out at the ocean, looking with good success for sea birds. 

We have been to this beach several times over the years and nearly always have successfully found spectacular Northern Gannets flying high and crash-diving into the water. 

Unfortunately even at high tide these birds are way beyond the ability of our photography equipment to get a good picture but they are readily identifiable in binoculars. It is amazing to watch them fold their wings back and plummet into the water to find fish, and then pop back up to go at it again. I did manage to take a digiscoped video that isn't great but might give some idea of how cool they are. You'll see an initial splash of a diving bird, and then another adult gannet comes into view and flies off.

Here is a shot of a patrolling group of Brown Pelicans:

 

We think these might be Ruddy Ducks:

All in all this is a wonderful place to have a picnic, explore and lose track of time!

Not Exactly a Movie Review

I just got home from seeing the movie Lincoln. What a powerful film! It is amazing how much has changed since the 1860's (transportation, communication) and how much has not changed at all (contentious politics, the pain of loss). A friend of mine was inspired by the film to delve a bit deeper into Lincoln's life, and suggested that I write a blog post about a link between Lincoln and botany: the death of his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln.

Nancy Hanks was born in Campbell County, Virginia, and was orphaned at a young age. She moved to Kentucky with an uncle and his family, where she met Thomas Lincoln. They were married in 1806 and had three children  After losing 3 farms in Kentucky due to boundary and title disputes, the Lincoln family moved to southern Indiana in 1816 where they literally carved out a life in the wilderness.

Thomas Lincoln and his son Abraham cleared the land, planted crops and built a log home using wood from the surrounding forest. Life was manageable, but in the fall of 1818, neighbors in the area became terribly ill from what was called milk sickness. 

Although they didn't know it at the time, this illness, characterized by severe intestinal pain and vomiting, was caused by ingesting milk or other dairy products or meat from a cow that has eaten a plant called White Snakeroot (Ageritina altissima). This plant is extremely common in Ohio and much of the midwest and we saw a lot of it this past summer:

White Snakeroot is a shade-loving plant found throughout Indiana, Ohio, parts of Kentucky, and the wooded parts of Illinois. It is common along roadsides, in damp open areas and on shaded north sides of ridges. Its range does not extend much farther east than Ohio, thus settlers were unfamiliar with it and its toxic properties so allowed their livestock to graze at will in the pastures and forests. 

Thousands of lives reportedly were lost to milk sickness along the Ohio River Valley and its tributaries where the plant is common. Although a connection between the illness and snakeroot was suspected by 1830, the cause of milk sickness was not officially discovered until 1928 when biochemists were able to analyze the plant's chemical makeup. Snakeroot contains the compound tremetol which is described as a "potent toxin" and its effects are usually fatal. It is an unsaturated alcohol with the consistency and odor of turpentine.

The disease was particularly prevalent in drought years, when cows would wander from dry pastures into woods to forage. As the land was cleared and pastures were fenced, the incidence of the disease decreased.

Plants contain some pretty amazing chemicals, certainly capable of curing diseases as well as causing them. The roots of the snakeroot plant were used topically to treat snakebites, hence the plant's name. 

Here is a closer picture of the snakeroot flowers:

When neighbors of the Lincolns in the Little Pigeon Creek settlement where they lived in southern Indiana became ill, Nancy helped care for the sick. Apparently she also drank the contaminated milk, fell ill, and died on October 5, 1818, when her son was 9 years old.

At least that is what many sources report! In fact, medical diagnosis and care in the early 19th century on the frontier was pretty minimal, and certainly lacked detailed record keeping that anyone would have access to now for review. Descriptions of many aspects of life on the frontier and specifically about Lincoln's family are a complicated combination of verifiable facts and speculation.

There is some conjecture that Nancy Hanks Lincoln died not from milk sickness but from a "wasting disease" such as tuberculosis or some form of cancer. We'll never know for sure, but certainly, many deaths have been attributed to milk sickness and it was a much-feared consequence of living on the midwestern frontier.

In any event, be sure to see the movie! The entire cast is excellent, and Daniel Day-Lewis gives an amazing portrayal of Abraham Lincoln.