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Fungus Creates Zombie Insects On Dogwood, W. John Hayden
Fungus Creates Zombie Insects On Dogwood, W. John Hayden
Biology Faculty Publications
I have something I need to get off my chest. I have an obsession with, of all things, a fungus! And not just any fungus, but a fungus that infects, I am embarrassed to admit, Flowering Dogwood, the VNPS Wildflower of the Year for 2018. Yes, maybe I’ve gone off my rocker. But this fungus is so cool, so devious, so elegantly convoluted and weird—in a creepy sort of way—that I find myself utterly enthralled. Perhaps sharing my obsession with this fungus will prove therapeutic and permit me to return to my more socially respectable obsessive fascination with plants.
Flowering Dogwood Survives Exotic Attack, W. John Hayden
Flowering Dogwood Survives Exotic Attack, W. John Hayden
Biology Faculty Publications
It has been said that loss of native biodiversity from the effects of invasive exotic species is second only to that caused by outright habitat destruction. In the world of plants, some of the worst offenders are exotic species that actively invade intact natural habitats and, by their aggressive tendencies, crowd out native species. Attack by lianas (woody climbing plants) such as Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) and Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) can include effects similar to strangulation, brought on by twining around their host plant’s stems. It is not always the host, however, for which the …
How Cornus Florida Got Its Name, W. John Hayden
How Cornus Florida Got Its Name, W. John Hayden
Biology Faculty Publications
In 1753, Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus was the first to apply the scientific name Cornus florida to the plant we know as Flowering Dogwood. That simple and straightforward declarative sentence belies the complexity and obscurity of how Linnaeus named this and nearly 6,000 other plants in his seminal work, Species Plantarum. To understand what Linnaeus actually did requires a dive into the arcane world of 18th-century botany. And that is what this article endeavors to accomplish, to explain how Cornus florida, the 2018 VNPS Wildflower of the Year, got its name.
Flowering Dogwood, Cornus Florida, 2018 Virginia Wildflower Of The Year, W. John Hayden
Flowering Dogwood, Cornus Florida, 2018 Virginia Wildflower Of The Year, W. John Hayden
Biology Faculty Publications
The Flowering Dogwood is a small understory forest tree attaining heights of 5–15 m. Bark of older trees forms a checkered pattern. Twigs are smooth and range from green to purplish-red. Leaves are opposite, mostly ovate to wide-elliptic, and 6–13 cm long; bases may be rounded or tapered, if the latter, often unequally so; apices are acute to acuminate; vein pattern is pinnate with 4–6 secondary veins on each side of the midvein; secondary veins approaching the leaf margin curve toward the apex; upper and lower leaf surfaces range from glabrous to finely pubescent.
Butterfly, Dogwood Linked In Circle Of Life, W. John Hayden, Nicky Staunton
Butterfly, Dogwood Linked In Circle Of Life, W. John Hayden, Nicky Staunton
Biology Faculty Publications
What would it be like to live on a diet of nothing but flowers? From the perspective of human nutrition, conventional wisdom suggests that it would be difficult to obtain a well-balanced diet from flowers alone. We do, however, have the legend of the lotus-eaters, people encountered by Odysseus and his crew on their epic return journey from Troy. As recounted in the Odyssey, lotus-eaters lived life in a perpetual stupor, and the two crew members who sampled lotus flowers immediately lost all interest in returning to their homes in Ithaca. Upon seeing the danger of consuming these flowers—the botanical …