Life Sciences Commons^™

Oh No! Something Is Eating My Coral Honeysuckle!, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

Let’s imagine a situation that could happen in your own backyard. Suppose you have a healthy specimen of 2014’s Virginia Native Plant Society Wildflower of the Year, coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens). Suppose further that this plant rewards you every spring with a flush of flashy red flowers that you treasure all the more because they consistently bring hummingbirds to your yard. Now imagine that one fine morning you notice some little green caterpillars voraciously eating the leaves of your beloved coral honeysuckle. What do you do?

Coral Honeysuckle Easy To Propagate With Cuttings, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

One of my earliest botanical/horticultural memories involves time spent with my dad taking cuttings of ornamental plants. Every spring, he would start several dozen new chrysanthemums from carefully overwintered stock plants. He was also fond of long yew hedges that he developed by taking numerous cuttings from just a few original shrubs in our yard. And, from time to time, both my grandmothers would propagate, via cuttings, house plants like geraniums, African violets, and Christmas cacti. But I think it was my dad’s comparatively larger scale operation that fascinated me; with just a little effort, a single shrub could yield …

Humming Birds: Pollination Facts And Fancy, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), the 2014 VNPS Wildflower of the Year, is a classic example of a hummingbird-pollinated flower: bright red petals, often with contrasting yellow tones in the corolla throat, provide visual attraction, drawing hummingbirds to the flowers, where they are rewarded with a rich supply of nectar. Whereas hummingbirds have good color vision, they have a poor sense of smell. So it is not surprising that coral honeysuckle flowers are nearly scentless, at least to the human nose; even modern analytical instruments detect only traces of volatile molecules emanating from them. And open coral honeysuckle flowers, …

Commelina Benghalensis New To Virginia, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

This is the first report of Commelina benghalensis (Benghal dayflower, tropical spiderwort) in Virginia. Three mature plants with intertwined stems bearing numerous chasmogamous and cleistogamous flowers were discovered as weeds in a landscape planting of hybrid Hemerocallis, hybrid Iris, and a dwarf cultivar of Nandina domestica; nine nonreproductive seedlings were found about one meter distant in the same flower bed.

Gender And Species Use In Amazonian Home Gardens: The Social And Economic Context Of Biodiversity Conservation, Leigh Ann West, David S. Salisbury, Ana I. Ríos-Sanchez, Jorge Vela Alvarado

Geography and the Environment Poster Presentations

Home gardens, “the peridomestic area belonging to the household where members plant and/or tend useful plants” (Perrault-Archambault and Coomes 2008), are found throughout the world. However, their use and importance vary from region to region. In the Peruvian Amazon, owners use home gardens for a domestic supply of foods, craft materials, medicines, condiments, and shade (Miller and Nair 2006). With this wide range in function, reflected in species content, home gardens are very biodiverse.

Home garden biodiversity may be increasingly important in a rapidly changing Amazonia (Betts et al. 2008). Thus, the sociocultural and economic factors contributing to home garden …

Green Mulch From Invasives Offers Many Benefits, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

For the past several years, I’ve been clipping leafy branchlets of autumn olive for direct use as green mulch in my vegetable garden. In essence, I clip the shoots into segments ranging from 4 to 10 inches long, gathering the freshly chopped mulch into a wheelbarrow. I like to emphasize the youngest and leafiest stems, but since I am also interested in reducing the exotic plant’s biomass, I also clip woody stems up to a half inch in diameter. I then place the coarse mulch, leaves, young stems, and chopped woody branchlets, around my vegetable plants. I install the fresh …

Frozen Beetle Treats Are Environmentally Friendly, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

At my rural household, the most vexatious insect pest has got to be the ubiquitous Japanese beetle. Native to Japan, these pests have infested most of eastern North America, with isolated infestations appearing in some western states. One reason that Japanese beetles are so bad is that they deliver a double-whammy: the larvae (grubs) consume roots and are particularly destructive of turf and pasture grasses while the adults consume leaves and flowers of a wide variety of plants, leaving behind skeletonized versions of the plant parts consumed.

Seedling Development In Species Of Chamaesyce (Euphorbiaceae) With Erect Growth Habits, W. John Hayden, Olga Troyanskaya

Biology Faculty Publications

Seedling development is described for Chamaesyce hirta, C. hypericifolia, and C. mesembrianthemifolia as discerned by light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Although these species ultimately develop erect to ascending growth habits, epicotyl development is limited to the production of a single pair ofleaves located immediately superjacent to and decussate with the cotyledons. The shoot system develops from one or more buds located in the axils of the cotyledons. In all respects, seedling ontogeny is very similar to that of previously studied prostrate species of Chamaesyce. Evidence from seedling ontogeny thus contradicts a hypothesis concerning homologies of plant …

Revision Of The Cerrado Hemicryptophytic Chamaesyce Of Boissier's "Pleiadeniae" (Euphorbiaceae), Mark P. Simmons, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

The species of Chamaesyce classified by Boissier as the "Pleiadeniae'" are revised in light of presently available collections. Six species are accepted and new combinations are proposed for C. nana, C. setosa, C. tamanduana, and C. viscoides. Although these herbaceous perennials of cerrado vegetation of Brazil, northern Argentina, and adjacent countries are distinctive ecologically and geographically, cladistic analysis does not support their recognition as a monophyletic group.

Celebrating Garden Genius : A Handbook To Selected Gardens By Charles F. Gillette, Charles F. Gillette Forum, W. John Hayden, Sheila M. Hayden

Bookshelf

Celebrating Garden Genius : A Handbook to Selected Gardens by Charles F. Gillette was created as part of the 1992 Charles F. Gillette Forum at The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia. W. John Hayden, Professor of Biology at the University of Richmond, and Sheila Hayden, Biology Research Associate at the University of Richmond, served as editors of the handbook.

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Charles F. Gillette
(1886-1969)

Arriving in Richmond on November 9, 1911 —a dull, damp, dreary day—Charles F. Gillette began his career in the Southeast as "clerk of the record" for landscape architect Warren Manning, who, working with architects …

Notes On Neotropical Amanoa (Euphorbiaceae), W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

Lectotypes are designated for Amanoa caribaea Krug & Urban and A. guianensis Aublet; presumed syntypes of the latter taxon are shown to be heterogeneous by inclusion of a previously unrecognized species. Four new species of Amanoa are described: A. congesta from French Guiana and northeastern Brazil; A. gracillima from Manaus, Brazil; A. nanayensis from Amazonian Peru and adjacent Colombia and Brazil; and A. neglecta from French Guiana and Surinam. Amanoa sinuosa is proposed as a new name for the later homonym A. robusta Leal. A key to the 13 neotropical species is presented.

Flueggea Willd, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

Shrubs to large trees with watery sap. Leaves simple, alternate, pinnately veined, stipulate. Flowers unisexual (and the plants dioecious or rarely monoecious), actinomorphic, in axillary clusters; sepals 4-7, imbricate; petals absent; nectary disk lobed or entire; stamens (3)4-7, alternate with the lobes of floral disk, staminodes absent in pistillate flowers; filaments distinct; ovary superior, on a hypogynous disk, (2)3(4)-carpellate, ovules 2 per cell, hemitropous, pistillode present in staminate flowers; styles distinct and 2-lobed or stigmas sessile. Fruit a capsule or baccate, indehiscent. Seeds 2 per cell. [Hayden, 1987; Sherff, 1939b]

Flora Of Richmond National Battlefield Park, Virginia, W. John Hayden, Melanie Lynn Haskins, Miles F. Johnson, James M. Gardner

Biology Faculty Publications

An inventory of the vascular flora of nine of eleven units of Richmond National Battlefield Park was compiled from 1985 to 1987. Each site was visited during the growing season in two to four week intervals; plant species were identified and recorded in the field and/or collected for later study. A total of 761 different species were identified in the surveyed units, and 2487 individual records of species per particular park unit were noted. Twenty-three percent of the flora consists of exotic species, largely from Eurasia. Voucher specimens are housed in the herbaria of the University of Richmond and Virginia …

The Identity Of The Genus Neowawraea (Euphorbiaceae), W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

On the basis of newly acquired morphological evidence gathered in the course of floristic studies, the monotypic genus Neowawraea Rock is now recognized as a species of Flueggea Willd. and is renamed F. neowawraea W. J. Hayden. Taxonomic documentation presented for F. neowawraea includes an expanded morphological description, a map showing its widely scattered distribution in the Hawaiian Islands to which the species is endemic, and discussions of type specimens, common names, and its extreme rarity. The combination of flowers in pedicellate axillary clusters, the lobed staminate disk, pistillode, extrorse anthers, hemitropous ovules, and, especially, the smoothish dry seeds with …

Eryngium Prostratum In Central Virginia, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

While visiting Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield County, Virginia during the fall of 1984, an unfamiliar blue-flowered plant was observed growing near the upper reaches of Swift Creek Lake. This proved to be Eryngium prostratum Nuttall ex DC., a species common near bodies of water in the southeast U.S. While several standard floras include Virginia in the distribution of this plant (Fernald 1950, Gleason 1952, Gleason & Cronquist 1963, Radford et al 1968, Godfrey & Wooten 1981), the only counties for which it is recorded in Harvill et al (1981) are along the extreme southern border of the state, i.e., …

University Of Richmond Herbarium, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

The Department of Biology at the University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, maintains an herbarium of approximately 15,000 specimens. Although recently assigned the acronym URV, this collection has not yet been included in Index Herbariorum and, consequently, few botanists outside of Virginia are aware of its existence. This note provides a brief account of the history of URV, a summary of its contents, and a short bibliography of works pertaining to the collection.

Wood Anatomy And Relationships Of Neowawraea (Euphorbiaceae), W. John Hayden, Dorthe S. Brandt

Biology Faculty Publications

Wood anatomy of three specimens of Neowawraea phyllanthoides Rock, a rare and endangered member of Euphorbiaceae endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, is described and compared with woods of other genera of subfamily Phyllanthoideae. Neowawraea has often been associated or synonymized with Drypetes Vahl. Wood of Neowawraea is diffuse porous, perforation plates are simple, imperforate tracheary elements are thin-walled septate fiber-tracheids, rays are heterocellular and crystalliferous, and axial xylem parenchyma is restricted to a few scanty paratracheal and terminal cells. In several respects these results differ from earlier published descriptions of the wood of this taxon; these earlier descriptions are shown …

Wood Anatomy And Relationships Of Betula Uber, W. John Hayden, Sheila M. Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

Wood anatomy of Betula uber (Ashe) Fernald is described and compared with woods of other birches belonging to series Humiles and series Costatae. Anatomically, wood of B. uber is typical of birches in general. On the basis of pore size and frequency, fiber characteristics, axial xylem parenchyma distribution, and absence of aggregate rays, it is argued that B. uber is properly classified in series Costatae. Resolution of its relationships within series Costatae is not apparent from wood data.

Jamaican Blue-Green Algae Collections Of J.C. Strickland, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

Professor John C. Strickland (1915-1980) devoted much of his life to teaching biology, botany, and phycology at the University of Richmond. Throughout his academic career he maintained a keen interest in the Myxophyceae, or blue-green algae, studying their culture, cytology, and taxonomy (Drouet & Strickland, 1942; Strickland, 1940, 1946). Most of his collections of these and other algae were made in Virginia and are housed in the herbarium maintained by the Department of Biology, University of Richmond. However, he also made four trips to Jamaica in the years 1966-1971 before his health deteriorated to the extent that field work, and …

Comparative Anatomy And Systematics Of Picrodendron, Genus Incertae Sedis, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

This study of the vegetative anatomy of Picrodendron and some of its putative relatives has been undertaken in order better to understand its natural relationships. Despite the number of anatomical studies in the literature (Jadin, 1901; Solereder, 1908; Boas, 1913; Webber, 1936; Heimsch, 1942; Record & Hess, 1943; Metcalfe & Chalk, 1950), our information on the anatomy of Picrodendron is still incomplete· for example, nodal and petiolar anatomy has apparently never been described. Furthermore, with the exception of Record and Hess (1943), who discussed Picrodendron in a family by itself, other anatomists have compared Picrodendron only with members of Simaroubaceae, …