Caladesi Island Necklace Pod

I recently took a trip to one of Florida's most beautiful and last remaining natural barrier islands with the Suncoast Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society. The island, called Caladesi Island, was voted the nation's best beach in 2008. It was originally settled by a Swiss man named Henry Sharrer in 1883. It is now part of Florida's State Park system and is preserved without development. How lucky! The island is accessible via a short ferry ride from another barrier island to the north called Honeymoon Island.


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While on Caladesi, we observed a large population of a native Florida shrub known as Necklace-Pod (Sophora tomentosa). It is a dense, multi-trunked shrub with beautiful rounded leaves, yellow pea-like flowers, and the neatest seedpods. The day we were on the island, a storm was threatening in the Gulf of Mexico and thankfully stole all the moisture from the air, leaving us with a perfectly sunny and extraordinarily calm day on the island. The plants in the understory of a pine and oak canopy were easily viewed in the sunlight. Although I've seen Necklace-Pod before, I've never noticed the brightly colored, symmetrically aligned orange petioles of the leaves. As you can see below, a petiole is the part that connects the leaf to the stem of the tree. This tiny nuance of the shrub was so beautiful!

The pods look like the picture below. Seeing these pods, I excitedly cracked one open, expecting to see large beanlike fruits. This was not the case. Instead, a flurry of extremely small brown seeds poured out into my hand. Although I have a tendency to try to eat things in the wild, these didn't look so appetizing, so I dropped them to the ground. Good thing! Turns out the seeds are dangerous to eat. They contain an alkaloid called cytisine which causes nausea, vomiting, and acts as a laxative. None of those things sound good on a hike!

The bright yellow flowers bloom in a bright clump toward the end of the branches throughout the year. Apparently, they are well liked by many insects including this Monarch butterfly we saw feeding madly on these sweet flowers. The Monarch butterfly populations are on their fall migration pattern to Mexico where they will spend the winter. This individual wanted one last succulent taste of Florida before moving on.


I hope you too are enjoying all the wonderful plant and wildlife happenings of this fall!

Are you green today?

Happy St. Patty's Day! Even if you're not Irish, today is a day most Americans celebrate purely for the joy of wearing green and drinking. So pull out that green t-shirt and grab a pint of dyed green beer...or not. What exactly makes your beer green? We've become so accustomed to associating the color green with healthy or environmentally friendly things that it's pretty easy to gloss over that question. But on St. Patty's Day we find quite a few things dyed a neon green that are typically very different colors. It almost turns me off from the beer that flows on this day...almost.

So, really, what is that green dye made of? Green food coloring is also known as FD&C Green No. 3 or Fast Green FCF or E143 or Sea Green. It is one of the seven dyes that were originally approved in 1906 in the Pure Food and Drug Act. Yes, that's right, it's that old! But is it safe?

Well, that's relative. The US Food and Drug Administration would have you think so. But a study conducted in 1969 by Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (did you even know this existed?) found that injections of small amounts of the green dye in rats caused fibrosarcoma, a malignant tumor derived from fibrous connective tissue, and inhibited growth. But, then in a study in 1978, no tumors formed in hamsters that were injected with the green dye. In a study in 1966, rats were fed the green dye instead of injected, and they did not show growth or mortality effects. The result of the 1969 study reported that there was no evidence of green dye causing cancer if eaten and digested. However, they did state that the study was not thorough enough and results may have been inadequate to prove this, so another study would have to be completed by 1985. Additionally, the study assured us that the green dye is poorly absorbed by our bodies and most of it is excreted in our feces (yay!). Ok, sounds like we're in the clear!!

Or are we? I checked an MSDS safety sheet for the green dye and according to it's toxicology status, Fast Green FCF in solid form is considered an animal carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and it is a mutagenic substance. Mutagenic means that it actually changes your genetic material. It specifically states "mutagenic effects have occurred in humans" but it doesn't list what they were! It is also considered a skin, eye and respiratory irritant! Yikes. Here's another study conducted in 1984 that confirmed these scary findings!

Ok, ok, so maybe we'll be safe if we only have a little green beer on St. Patty's Day and then avoid green jelly beans for the rest of the year. But what else is Fast Green FCF found in? Well it comes in doses of up to 100mg/kg in typical things like:

• candied fruit
• fruit purees and toppings
• coconut milk
• fruit fillings for pastries
• hard candy
• pastas and noodles
• cereal and puddings
• frozen fish
• fried fish
• custards
• herbs, spices, condiments
• mayonnaise and salad dressing

And get this, Fast Green FCF has been prohibited in the European Union. Don't be too alarmed, 10mg/kg is a very small amount, but who knows how much bartenders are pouring into their beer concoctions for today!

So spit out your green beer and grab a draft of something else less dyed, put down Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham, and just wear green instead! Here are a few more ideas for St. Patty's day from one of my favorite environmental blogs, TreeHugger. And six green hangover remedies too!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Beauty in the Glades

I recently had the privilege of stepping foot into the amazing part of Florida called the Everglades. When my friends asked why I was so excited about the opportunity to go camping and hiking with the Sierra Club in the Everglades, I explained it like this; for an environmentalist/nature lover, the Everglades are on our list of the 7 Wonders of the World. And it's so close to me that I'd be a fool to miss the chance to go see this amazing place before humans disturb it even more.

Part of our adventure took us through the Picayune Strand State Forest. We had a beautiful hike through an area that is very obviously wet during the rainy season (probably with about 2 feet of standing water) that is currently bone dry. There we saw bald cypress, pond cypress, air plants/bromeliads, hatpins, and so many more beautiful plants and lots of birds as well. Here are a few pictures from just this one 3-mile hike. Oh, and another fun fact...there were two panther cubs just born in this park (unfortunately or fortunately we did not encounter them)!

Cypress leaves emerging

Hatpin - this one looks like it grew around another plant...check out that squirrely stem!

Bromeliad hanging/hovering on the site of a cypress tree.

The Big Squeeze

Are you feeling a little squeezed out these days? Too much competition? Well, we all know that in the current economic climate competition is stiff and too many people are losing their jobs, being edged out and leaving other employees with much too much work to handle!

Here's a photo I took down in the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve of a Cabbage Palm (Sabal palmetto) being squeezed out by a few Slash Pines (Pinus elliottii). Unfortunately, these tree don't have much chance to fight back or pick up and move, so they're stuck together for the duration.

Is it just me or does life feel like this every now and again? Sometimes you're the palm, sometime you're the pine. Which one are you today?

Weekend Adventures and Cooters

Wow, this was a fun-filled weekend!

Saturday morning I woke up earlier than I typically do on weekends. I was trying to make it to a 10:30am yoga class at the YMCA. Unfortunately, even at 10am I'm still struck by the morning sloth syndrome, so I didn't leave the house until 10:20. What made me even later was the fact that I really wanted to ride my bike to the gym considering it's only a 2.5 mile ride and it was a gorgeous day! Well, needless to say, I was zooming through the streets of South Tampa and made it to the gym 5 minutes too late. I would have snuck into the yoga class anyway, but they did the entire class with the lights turned off, so I assumed me walking in, bumping into 2 or 3 people in funny bendy positions, and then un-velcroing my yoga mat, might be a little (just a little!) distracting to everyone's centered energy. So I passed and worked off my frustration by lifting weights in the gym instead. I felt much better after that! I biked north again, stopped at the library (this was a great idea, but those books definitely added some weight to the bike ride), and then headed home. It was about 70 degrees outside and perfectly gorgeous!
Sunday, I decided to continue my relaxing weekend of alone-time, and while Simon headed off to ultimate frisbee, I headed north, in my car this time. I went to the Sweetwater Organic Farm Sunday Farmer's Market where I purchased a few beautiful things (can't tell you, Mom, it's a surprise!) and some amazing mixed greens, yummmm! I swayed to the band playing and watched some hula hoopers before moving on.
Next on the agenda for the day was a little bargain shopping at a place called $5fashions that was recommended by a local blog. The place had somewhat decent clothes, but no dressing room. That's just as bad as shopping from a catalog. I put all the clothes back when I found that out...unfortunately clothes never fits me the way it does on the hanger and I'm not driving back up there to return stuff, because you all know I won't make the trip and then I'll end up with a purple tube top that only fits as a hat. Stop #3 of the day was the Oldsmar Flea Market, recommended to me by Simon's mom Penny. What a cool place! Perfect for this economy. I got there at 3:30 (the produce market closes at 4pm), so I made it just in time for the produce bargains. Everything was $1!!! My final loot from the flea market included onions, mint, tomatoes, mangoes, and three necklaces. Woohooo! I'm definitely going back there. Reminds me of a combination of the small town flea markets/yard sales from Maryland and a mini-carnival (there was funnel cake and lots of stuff no one needs!).


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The final adventure of the day was a trip to the Upper Tampa Bay County Park. I didn't have much time to see the park because I was in a rush to get back to meet Simon to take his parents out for dinner (which was also fantastic!). So I walked around the visitor's center and took a walk to some of the piers surrounded by bay and mangroves. It's definitely someplace I want to go check out again. It's a small park at the northern tip of Old Tampa Bay, but it has some trails and it's a welcome break from the strip malls that surround the area. Here's what I found along some of the trails:

The seedhead from a Bushy Seaside Oxeye (Borrichia frutescens) whose leaves are surprisingly somewhat succulent.

Beginning of a propagule on a red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle). If you want to see more pictures of this plant and others, check out Shirley Denton's awesome photography!

The leaves on black mangroves (Avicennia germinans). The plants grow in salty water along the shores of the bay. How do they tolerate high levels of salt in the water? They have evolved to excrete excess salt through pores on their leaves! Plant, you're so smart!

I typically enjoy the trails more than what the visitor's centers have to offer, but I'm so happy I still ventured into this one because what was inside was really well set up. There were about 10 fish tanks with fish that can be found in the area by habitat and well labeled. There was also one with turtles in it that was my favorite. There were two species in the tank. The Ornate Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin macrospilota) and the Florida Cooter (Pseudemys floridana). That name makes me giggle! But I got my mind out of the gutter and looked it up. According to an entry in Wikipedia, the name "cooter" comes from the word "kuta" which means turtle in some african languages. I'm glad to hear that!

The Florida Cooter (top) and Ornate Diamondback Terrapin (bottom). What a cute pair!

Tampa Nightlife

On a crisp night a few weeks back I ventured out on my new bike to try some night photography. My brother and sister-in-law had just given me a really cool birthday gift (thanks!), a remote control for my camera. I was hoping to try some long-exposure night photography from Bayshore Blvd across the bay. The remote control comes in handy because you can step away from the camera and push the button to begin the long exposure without shaking the camera as your pushing the button. Well, since I'm still in the experimental phases with the camera, I've got a lot to learn. According to the fine print on the remote control, you can only use it when the camera is on auto focus. Unfortunately, the photos I was trying to take would only work on manual focus, so I had to scrap the remote control at least for these pictures (don't worry! I'll use it again soon and I'm still really psyched about it!). So instead I put the camera on a delay so it would take a photo after 10 seconds and I put it on 15 second shutter speed. Here's what happened:
What do you think for my first try?

Superbowl Steeler Success!

After graduating high school, I had a loose connection to football and had learned the rules of the game from some very patient friends from Fallston High School and C. Milton Wright High School, but I couldn't pledge my allegiance to any one team. Of course once I started school at Penn State, they became my college football team (and what an awesome team to claim as my own!). As a student at Penn State you had an obligation to pretty much choose between the two major Pennsylvania rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles. And my choice...the Steelers! This came about for several reasons:

1. some of my friends were big fans and took the time to acquaint me with the players and the amazing defensive line
2. I really like Pittsburgh as a town and the people are super friendly and hard working
   
3. and there were too many nights when really inebriated Eagles fans were up at 4am shouting the annoying Eagles chant "E.A.G.L.E.S, EAGLES" at the top of their lungs just under my bedroom window (that's just uncalled for!)

And thus, the Steelers became my NFL team. And boy did I pick right! The Steelers won the Superbowl this weekend which was coincidentally held in Tampa. Now, although there was no way I was getting tickets to the game itself, I decided that this may be a once in a lifetime opportunity. When would I ever have this kind of luck again...not only was the Superbowl in the same town I was living in, but my favorite team was playing in it. I had to go out and support them. So with a little help from my landlady and a lot of help from my boyfriend and his friend, Rebecca, I made it to a Tampa Superbowl tailgate!! Woohoo!!

Stealth Bombs!

I had the pleasure of going back to Troy's house last night to see how far along his furry friends are. They haven't gotten much bigger, but they are now fully grown and flying all over the place! Yes, I'm talking about his flying squirrel duo again. The sweetest things you have ever seen have now become not only sweet but lightning fast. They climb up your jeans, hesitant of any newcomers, and leap from your shoulders to anything they think they can cling to, including the wall, which doesn't work out for them so well! I was standing about 4 feet from Troy as he was talking about the little boy squirrel, when suddenly it sprung from his hand to my shirt, in the blink of an eye. Woah, I didn't see that one coming and it kind of surprises you when it first happens! They barely sat still while I was there because it was about 10pm, their prime activity time. But when they do stop to take a breath and you can see their eyes and baby fine fur, it is truly exciting to have the privilege of seeing such a creature up close!

Flying What??

I said I wanted to get more involved with the Native Plant Society and that's exactly what's happening. First the plant sale (if I forgot to tell you, we had a very large native plant society plant sale at the USF Botanical Gardens and I volunteered for it). Here are some pictures from it:

And no, these are not native plants, but they were really beautiful and also being sold at the sale, so I took pictures.

And now, before I knew what was really happening, I ended up on the board! They invited me to a board meeting to see what it was like. It was held at Troy's house and wow is his garden breath-taking! Here's just some of what I saw in there:
And here's what else he had:
Yup, those are BABY FLYING SQUIRRELS! They are the southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans) to be exact. He owns a landscaping business and unfortunately while doing a job one day, his crew cut down a tree with a nest holding these two cuties. And of course, once the nest is down, it's unlikely the mother would return and be able to care for them in the same capacity. So Troy is fostering them until they're big enough to fly free! Of course, I couldn't keep my hands off them and I offered to feed them for him while he showed off his garden. They were the cutest things! I thought about stealing one (perhaps not the best idea I've had), but they seemed really happy in his care and I decided to just get some pictures to remember them by.

Honeymoon Island...romantic solo trip

The other weekend I drove up to Lake Shore Camera Exchange in Palm Harbor to attempt to get my Panasonic Lumix camera fixed. It was a gift from two people who are important to me and somehow in my excitement to take pictures at the beach one weekend, I got sand in it...you know the kind, the really fine beautiful Florida sand. Well, long story short, the repair people up there told me that sand is pretty much the end of days for a camera and it'd be easier to replace the camera than to fix it. What a bummer.

Do you know what this is?

Well, luckily, I took along my DSLR Canon Rebel XT, so while I was in that part of town, I ventured over to Honeymoon Island for the first time. What an amazing park! Apparently it is the most visited Florida State park and was voted to have the best beaches in Florida. That is definitely obvious once you step into the visitor's center which is the most elaborate and expensive visitor's center I've ever seen at a state park, but somehow they also constructed it so that it really fits into that landscape, so it's a great asset. I didn't stay very long, but I took a little walk around the bay side of the park with my camera (see collage at top of post) and then ventured over to the beach side to find a couple surfers. And you'll be happy to hear that I didn't get sand in my nice camera and I still salvaged a beautiful day.

Ski Bunny Attack!

This year for Halloween, Simon and I took a road trip to Jacksonville for the annual culmination of the football rivalry between the Florida Gators and the Georgia Bulldogs at the "world's largest cocktail party". This year we stayed out of the rambunctious crowd and had a lovely somewhat relaxing weekend of sipping beers and hanging out with friends. Want to know what I dressed up as??

I was a 70s ski bunny and Simon was Reverend Run

Here's the relaxing part:

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Just after the race for the cure, Karen and I stepped onto a beautiful 38 foot long Catalina sailboat with Captain Bill Sharpe at the helm! We were fortunate enough to be invited to join him on this amazing adventure leaving from The Vinoy Marina. We sailed from St. Petersburg, FL to Treasure Island, FL on Saturday and returned the same way on Sunday. This was my first time on a sailboat of such size and with such large sails. On Saturday we had a full boat with three guys on crew hoisting the sails with Captain Bill keeping us on course. One of our crew members was Chris Ross, a seasoned sailor who really knew what he was doing.
He even got us on keel (is that the right terminology?) going about 8 knots with the main sail almost parallel with the water (this means our boat was tipped over at about a 30 degree angle)! This was amazing! Did you know that ovens in the cabin of true sailboats have a thing called a gimbal that keeps the oven level with the horizon even if the boat is tipped over? This has got to be one of the coolest things ever invented!!
We sailed for about 10 hours on day 1 and on the way back we sailed again for 9 hours just barely beating a very heavy thunderstorm. Along the way we lost a few crew members when we docked at John's Pass Marina and gained a few at the same time. Coming into John's Pass, we gained access by calling the bridge keeper at the John's Pass drawbridge. Have you ever gone under a bridge that stops traffic and opens just for you? It kind of makes you feel like a king! Here is the crew:

click on this image to see the pictures better

Also, we had a pod of about 10 dolphins sidle up to the boat and swim along with us for a few minutes! They were jumping and playing in our tiny wake.On the way back to St. Petersburg (when I was manning the jib!), we also spotted a school of thousands of stingrays (maybe the Atlantic Stingray) swimming on both sides of our boat out to the Gulf of Mexico. They were so graceful, gliding along and occassionally flapping a wing out of the water to wave us along. So peaceful! Thanks again Bill for a fantastic trip and to the entire crew for guiding us through safely!

Running for boobs!

This is after the race, so please forgive the sweaty exhausted look!

The weekend of October 4 was a busy busy busy one! Somehow, my roomate, Karen, convinced me to run a 5k race. When she told me it was for breast cancer research I immediately said yes without really thinking about the fact that I'm not a good runner nor do I really enjoy the act of running. But by then it was too late. I was registered and on a team (with the Jolly Roger Hash) and the date was approaching. I decided that if it was too hard I would just walk it instead. So that morning, Karen and I awoke at the crack of dawn, drove to St. Petersburg, parked semi-illegally (the town was packed with hundreds of participants and not so much parking space!), grabbed our pirate hats and power walked to the start in Vinoy Park. Vinoy Park is an amazing place in and of itself, but I don't have much appreciation for such things at 6am, sorry! We got our team t-shirts, took some pictures (I have to get these from the team yet, so hopefully you'll see them soon), and before we knew it the race was beginning. Karen started first because she decided to bravely run the 10k. I was sticking with the 5k race and I knew even that would be difficult for me. 30 minutes later, the 5k race began. We all lined up at the start. They label the starting line with big signs that say something like "6 minute mile" all the way down to "20 minute mile". You are supposed to stand next to the sign that corresponds to the pace you think you will be running. Well, I started walking back to 10 minute mile, when my teammates pulled me all the way back up to the beginning of the starting line...apparently no one pays attention to those signs, so if you go that far back, you'll be stuck behind lots of people walking. Glad that I was there with people who had done this before. Well, to make this story a bit shorter, I ended up running the race in 29:12 minutes! Can you believe it? I ran 5km in under a 10 minute mile! That's a big deal for me! Granted, I almost passed out afterwards and I couldn't really focus my eyes for a good 10 minutes, but I felt really accomplished. Throughout the race, I definitely thought about giving up and walking...my lungs burned and my feet hurt...but as I was running I realized that this run really had nothing to do with me. It had everything to do with those people battling breast cancer and going through extremely grueling treatments. So who was I to minimize their struggles by quitting a race that really wasn't that long because my feet hurt a little bit? That just didn't seem respectful. So in honor of the fight against cancer that both my aunt and my mother endured for the past year and their bodies are continuing to fight into the future, I pushed myself to keep running. Thanks to the women in my family for never giving up and going through with the brutal and taxing treatments that will hopefully keep them in our lives for many years to come!Aunt Monika was the person I honored for others to see on my back while I ran. Mom, you'll get a sign on my back too when that race comes to town!

Native Plant Society Plant Sale

So this weekend I volunteered to help the Suncoast Native Plant Society with their big fall sale at the USF Botanical Gardens. I arrived, bleary eyed and barely on-time (without coffee), at the gardens at 7:30am on Saturday morning...yes, that's crazy early for me on a weekend, but I didn't want to let them down. We immediately started unpacking a box truck filled to the max with all kinds of great native plants. Our area, which was right smack dab in the front of the event, had hundreds of really beautiful native plants which we labeled with growing information.

Once the customers started streaming in, we were pretty busy helping fill their wagons. Apparently, well seasoned customers know that the best way to carry all the plants they want in their garden is with a wagon, push cart, or luggage carrier (some people were very creative!). So I was able to help customers pick out the plants that would do best in their yards, would look the best with their gardening vision and see their smiles as they carted off healthy native plants. I also got a chance to check out some of the other booths at the event (though many of them did not have the native plants that are so important for this area) and got some great pictures:

Here are some of the booths at the sale. There was an amazing variety of things to look at and purchase at this sale, including exotic fruit from the Rare Fruit Council of Tampa!


Are there any plant sales or other fun fall events going on in your area?