{"id":1384,"date":"2012-07-05T10:20:09","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T14:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2012-07-12T10:24:16","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T14:24:16","slug":"waters-edge-botany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/2012\/07\/waters-edge-botany\/","title":{"rendered":"Water\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s edge botany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Ken Moore<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Flora Columnist<\/em><\/p>\n<p>After months and months, I finally got the kayak out on the water a couple weeks ago. I wanted to return to the Robeson Creek tributary of the Haw River not far above the Jordan Lake dam. I remembered launching the kayak at Robeson Creek being a bit tricky several years ago. Not so now; there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a new canoe\/kayak roll-onto-the-water floating launching dock that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a joy to use.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_26831\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/?attachment_id=26831\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26831\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26831\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Buttonbush-flowersa.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Buttonbush-flowers\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26831\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-26831\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Buttonbush flowers encourage a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153closer look.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Photo by Ken Moore<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve set paddle from there three times during the past two weeks \u00e2\u20ac\u201c twice with Tony, one of my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s-get-lost-in-the-woods\u00e2\u20ac\u009d walking buddies, and once with my partner\/spouse, Kathy. <\/p>\n<p>Though each paddle was along the same shorelines, the adventures were surprisingly different.<\/p>\n<p>The experiences have included impressive fish-jumping displays and spectacular bird sightings. A noisy kingfisher or two are always to be expected. The quiet-when-standing and loudly croaking-when-flying great blue herons are too numerous to count. The family of osprey screaming and fishing in proximity is awesome. And Mary Sonis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 dramatic image of the bald eagle taking flight in this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>MILL<\/em> came to mind this past Sunday when Kathy and I marveled at seeing three mature and three immature eagles at various shoreline sites during the paddle.<\/p>\n<p>However, there are stretches of quiet, non-animal activity during a several-hour paddle. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not to worry,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as the British love to say. There are so many plants hanging out along the shoreline that even casual botanizing can be engaging for hours.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_26832\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/?attachment_id=26832\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26832\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26832\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Buttonbush-viewed-from-kayaka.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Buttonbush-viewed-from-kayak\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26832\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-26832\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In the wild, buttonbush prefers water\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s edge. Photo by Ken Moore<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nMost visible along water\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s edge now, while it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in flower, is buttonbush, <em>Cephalanthus occidentalis<\/em>, literally hanging out there with its roots in the water. Buttonbush is common in wet habitats throughout the eastern half of North America and is a favored food plant for a great diversity of pollinators including painted lady, cabbage white, clouded sulphur, eastern black swallowtail and monarch butterflies.<\/p>\n<p>If you have a pond, you can easily establish buttonbush along the edges. And surprisingly, you can grow buttonbush without having a wet spot. My wild-gardening buddy, Sally Heiney, was proud to describe a specimen buttonbush in the botanical garden\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Plant Families Garden that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153never knew it likes to have its feet in water.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That specimen is huge \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one literally stands in the shade beneath it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and Sally says it gets watered very infrequently.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_26836\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/?attachment_id=26836\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26836\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26836\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/buttonbush-at-botanical-gardena1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"buttonbush-at-botanical-gardena\" width=\"400\" height=\"550\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26836\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-26836\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Buttonbush towers above the blue-coiled sculpture at the botanical garden. Photo by Ken Moore<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nThere is an impressive newly planted specimen along the main entrance to the botanical garden\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Visitor Center, and nearby you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find buttonbush in pots at the plant sales area. Other sources of buttonbush are Cure Nursery and Mellow Marsh Farm.<\/p>\n<p>Along the edges of Robeson Creek\/Haw River, buttonbush will be in flower for another week or two, followed closely by the flowering of rose-mallow, <em>Hibiscus moscheutos<\/em>, another water\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s-edge plant that takes well to cultivation. <\/p>\n<p>A leisurely paddle reveals many interesting plants, like impressive clumps of Southern wild rice, <em>Zizaniopsis miliacea<\/em>, standing tall within extensive marshy zones of lush Asiatic dayflower, <em>Murdannia keisak<\/em>. Whether or not you can name them, you can enjoy water\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s-edge botany at a distance or close-up. <\/p>\n<p><em>Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at <a href=\"http:\/\/carrborocitizen.com\/flora\">The Annotated Flora<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ken Moore Flora Columnist After months and months, I finally got the kayak out on the water a couple weeks ago. I wanted to return to the Robeson Creek tributary of the Haw River not far above the Jordan Lake dam. I remembered launching the kayak at Robeson Creek being a bit tricky several [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,22],"tags":[974,979,978,312,973,980,977,976,975],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-moores-flora","category-summer","tag-asiatic-dayflower","tag-buttonbush","tag-cephalanthus-occidentalis","tag-hibiscus-moscheutos","tag-murdannia-keisak","tag-robeson-creek","tag-rose-mallow","tag-southern-wild-rice","tag-zizaniopsis-miliacea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1386,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions\/1386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}