North Shore Naturalist

I've probably been seeing powdery mildew fungi for my whole life. From time to time I notice them growing on wild bergamot, willow, and dandelion to name a few. Most of the time I just walk on by without even seeing them. Recently I've started to actively pay attention and learn about this group. It is amazing how abundant and diverse they are. Most would think that these infections are not aesthetically pleasing, but I think they are quite fascinating, especially as I learn more of their ecology. Powdery mildews like many fungi thrive in cool, moist areas. Exploring the Devil Track River was the perfect place to find many different species. Unsurprisingly many of the plants were also infected with rust fungi. Erysiphe adunca on balsam poplar (with the rust species Melampsora medusae)  Golovinomyces asterum var. solidaginis on goldenrod (with the rust species Coleosporium solidaginis) Golovinomyces sordidus on greater plaintain Erysiphe pisi on bird's foot trefoil  Golovino

What a find! I decided to take a break from work while I was out exploring Sugarloaf to prep for a weekend class I'm bringing there. So, I made my way up to one of the rivers in the area. The rocks were really cool here, but I didn't have very high hopes for finding any interesting plants or lichens. I hadn't really seen many of the lichens that I would expect to see in a habitat like this. I was on somewhat of a time-crunch to get back and told myself that I'd turn around after 10 more minutes of walking up the river. The time passed, but there was a section of rock that jutted out a little further and looked promising. I told myself I would turn around after I reached that point. Thank goodness that I pushed back on my self imposed time limit. The wall right before the rock jutted out caught my eye as it looked quite moist and shaded. There were plenty of mosses, liverworts, and Nostoc communities growing on it. Intermixed with all this was fringed chocolate chip lich

I've wanted to make my way out to this specific site for quite some time, and it was not a disappointment. Today's cliff is part of the Rove Formation, a section of mostly sedimentary geology in northern MN that is quite distinct from the usual igneous rocks. Although I know very little about it, or geology in general, maybe that will be the next thing I have to start researching. I do know that unique geology in conjunction with other unique environmental conditions is a recipe for unique ecology. All in all it was quite the day of botanizing this fascinating site! This is the only location that sticky locoweed (Oxytropis borealis var. viscida) is known from in MN. One of the many arctic-alpine disjunct species (it is about 600 miles from the species main range) of the state, this plant has quite a few adaptations for this harsh climate - a thick taproot, hairy leaves and calyx, low growth form, and the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. As with many of these rare plants onl

From reading up on false mountain willow (Salix pseudomonticola) on the MN rare species guide, I knew it occurred along the St. Louis River somewhere. I figured Jay Cooke was probably the most likely place, after all public land is much easier for botanists to survey than getting permission on private. So, I followed Joe’s advice, look for a distinguishing feature on the landscape and then zoom in and find a distinguishing feature on that feature and so on. Obviously the St. Louis is a big distinguishing feature, by far the largest river in the area, that feeds into the largest lake on the continent. Looking at the satellite map, I saw a large section of waterfall with three large sandbars in the river right after, and what looked like a steep slope along the edge of the river; three distinguishing characteristics in a small area. That had to be the spot! Sure enough after trekking out there I found the willow after about 30 minutes of searching. Willows are usually pretty hard to ID,

As the Adventuring for Animals summer camp is coming to an end, we finished up the last day of classes with an all day bioblitz. We split up into groups and tried to document as many animals around Wolf Ridge as we could, covering as much ground as we could.  My group of students made our way down to Raven Lake where we got a handful of insect, bird, fish, and of course leech observations. The most noteworthy find of the day for me was a species of flesh fly likely in the genus Fletcherimyia. The species F fletcheri seems like a good candidate, but I haven’t been able to find much information on these flies in the north yet. Like other pitcher plant inquilines these flies complete the larval stage of their development in the liquid of the pitchers, consuming the prey that fall in, in turn making nutrients available for the plant.  Fletcherimyia sp. found within purple pitcher plant Still in the pitcher Also plenty of pitcher plant mosquito (Wyeomyia smithii) larva and many pupa and adu