Happy Mystery Monday! Do you know what is powdery, black, and growing in this American beech tree?
Last week, we asked you about skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). Skunk cabbage is one of the earliest native plants to wake up and flower in the spring. This plant is thermogenic, meaning that it can generate its own heat. This gives it multiple advantages including helping the plant to pop up through any frozen ground or snow and spreading its malodorous aroma to attract pollinators. When the leaves are bruised, they also give off a rather pungent smell, keeping the plant true to its name.
Adkins Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy and Adkins Arboretum. For more information go here.
Worrall (:Nick") Carter says
The black substance is a specialized fungus, “Sooty mold” , Scorias spongiosa. It develops by feeding upon the wastes-=- “honeydew” of a specialist beech aphid, Grylloprociphilus imbricator. We’ve seen it for years on our beeches near the upper Choptank outside Greensboro. However, its exact identification had to wait6 on literature review by Wayne Tyndall, plant ecologist formerly with DNR. GO, Wayne !