A remarkable plant, and squirrels on social media

A remarkable plant, and squirrels on social media
Herb Broda

The flowers of the witch hazel are clusters of small, yellow blooms, each with four streamer-like petals, hugging the twigs. The petals can curl inward to protect the inner structures from freezing during the winter.

                        

Does winter have you longing to see a blooming flower or hoping to smell a sweet floral fragrance? There is a remarkable plant with an odd name that blooms after others have faded away, splashing its colorful flowers against the darker forest background.

Witch hazel is not like the delicate little wildflowers that peek through leaf litter in spring; it’s a great big shrub that grows in a dense multi-stem clump, often around 12-15 feet high. Like the wildflowers of spring, it is found in forests or wooded edges. Witch hazel hybrids have been in bloom around here since January.

The name witch hazel comes from the Old English meaning pliable or bendable. It has nothing to do with Halloween or “The Wizard of Oz.”

The flowers are clusters of small, yellow blooms, each with four streamer-like petals, hugging the twigs. Flowers are fragrant and filled with nectar; the petals can curl inward to protect the inner structures from freezing during the winter.

But wait — it’s winter. Most pollinating insects are either dead, migrating, hibernating or overwintering in different stages, waiting to emerge in the spring. Since witch hazel produces seeds, how can it bloom and propagate when there are no insects around to pollinate?

How the answer was found is a great example of creative thinking. For years people only studied the plant in the daylight, watching intently to see what came to the plant from dawn to dusk. Of course there were very few visitors in winter. Thankfully Bernd Heinrich, a professor emeritus in the biology department of the University of Vermont, thought outside the box.

Heinrich decided to check what was happening after the sun set. Although very few insects are flying around in winter, he noticed there are moths that stay active even in freezing weather and prefer nighttime to daytime.

The owlet moths are active on freezing nights. They can raise their body temperature by as much as 50 F by shivering so that they can fly and search for food. Although they usually feed on the sap of injured trees, the blossoms of witch hazel are a welcome food source also.

It’s a good deal all the way around; the moths are fed, and the flowers are pollinated. Witch hazel has survived because of a band of small shivering moths that prefer the night shift.

Witch hazel also has an interesting cultural history. For years it was used for dowsing rods to locate underground water sources. The ends of a forked stick were held as a person walked over an area. If the end of the stick turned down, supposedly water was nearby. The bark and leaves of the plant also have long been used to cure a variety of conditions.

The easiest way to see this plant is to make a visit to the Secrest Arboretum on the OSU Wooster campus. According to Paul Snyder, program coordinator, there are at least 50 witch hazel plants in the arboretum with many along the main paved path in the gardens. Look for splashes of yellow color at eye level. Every time I walk at Secrest I spot another plant.

The plants you will see now are hybrids frequently used in garden plantings. Our locally native witch hazels bloom in the fall but can be hard to see depending on the timing of fall color changes.

Nature Tweets

If you are a squirrel, it’s not all acorns and sunshine out there. At any moment your innocent nut gathering could tragically end in the talons of a red-tailed hawk. So what’s a rodent to do? That question also intrigued three researchers at Oberlin College.

Could nature have its own form of social media? The investigators played recordings of a red-tailed hawk screech, which of course caused the eastern grey squirrels to go on high alert. When recordings were then played of casual bird chatter, the squirrels interpreted the tweets as an all-clear signal.

The birds and the squirrels weren’t working together. The rodents were just eavesdropping on the bird chatter and using the tweets to determine whether or not it was safe to continue with business as usual.

Once again, an example of squirrely ingenuity. Love them or chase them, you have to admit squirrels are amazing animals.

Email Herb Broda at 4nature.notebook@gmail.com.


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