UF campus plants, part IV

More photos from walks around the UF campus with Walt Judd (see part I for more information). These are from February 27, 2014, in the area around the Reitz Union.

Asparagus sp. (hard to believe, right?!)

Callistemon viminalis

Callistemon viminalis 

Dietes biocolor

Grewia occidentalis

Morus alba

Myrica cerifera

Myrica cerifera

Pleopeltis polypodioides

Viburnum obovatum

Viburnum suspensum

Viburnum tinus

UF campus plants, part III

More photos from walks around the UF campus with Walt Judd (see part I for more information). These are from Harmonic Woods on February 20, 2014.

Carex striatula

Carex striatula

Prunus caroliniana

Prunus caroliniana

Smilax bona-nox

Trillium macrocarpa

Trillium macrocarpa

Trillium macrocarpa

Viola palmata

Viola palmata

Viola walteri

Baby fern gametophytes!

Ceratopteris richardii

The spores that we plated just a couple short weeks ago are doing very nicely – some have already germinated into (adorable) baby gametophytes! Above is a C-fern gametophyte, professionally known as Ceratopteris richardii. Below are shots of their comfy growth chamber home, and one other species that's growing quite well, Pitryogramma calomelanos. 

Pityrogramma calomelanos

Pityrogramma calomelanos

Pityrogramma calomelanos 

Pityrogramma calomelanos

Fern spores

This was an exciting week in the lab! I have two undergraduates working with me this semester, and they just started a project on fern mating systems, the first big project I'm undertaking since coming to UF. The goal is to determine how often ferns undergo an extreme form of selling, called intragametophytic selfing, and whether the tendency to do so has any ecological or phylogenetic correlates. Ferns (and some lycophytes) are the only plants that can do this extreme form of selfing, which leads to homozygosity at all genetic loci (basically, a tremendous loss of variation that leaves them vulnerable to the effects of deleterious alleles).

The first step in the project was to gather a bunch of spores from different fern species, which has been facilitated by many colleagues and collaborators over the last few weeks. Next, the spores are plated onto a nutrient-rich agar medium, and place in a growth chamber, where hopefully they will germinate into gametophytes. The spores that you see in the pictures (the little triangular-shaped structures) are haploid, having developed via meiosis while inside the sporangia (the larger structures that appear to be cracked open in some cases – that's how the spores got out). The sporangia were attached to the leaves of the adult, sporophyte ferns. The gametophytes that develop from these spores will eventually produce eggs and/or sperm that will undergo fertilization, restoring the diploid state and leading to development of the adult sporophyte. That's the fern life cycle in a nutshell!

UF campus plants, part II

More photos from walks around the UF campus with Walt Judd (see part I for more information). These photos are from November 11, 2013 – and we saw some ferns!

Clerodendrum wallichii

Pteris vittata

Pteris vittata – fertile leaf with sporangia along the margins

Pteris vittata – dried up pinnae with dehisced sporangia

Baby Pteris vittata

Nephrolepis sp.

Phlebodium aureum

Senna bicapsularis

UF campus plants, part I

Over the last couple of weeks, I've taken the first two of what will hopefully become a series of walks around the University of Florida campus, so that I can start to learn the local flora. My guide has been Dr. Walter Judd, professor emeritus at UF and a walking encyclopedia of plant knowledge. The flora of Florida is very different from the floras I've lived with before (in New York, Wisconsin, and Arizona), so these walks are a fantastic introduction to the local plants. They will also come in particularly handy starting next fall, when I begin teaching Practical Plant Taxonomy, an undergraduate course covering systematics and taxonomy of vascular plants. It's always great to give students local examples in courses like this, so I'm taking lots of notes and pictures to incorporate into my lectures and the students' labs and field trips.

The plant diversity in Florida is staggering – even here in northern Florida, where the climate is not technically tropical (as it is in the very southern part of the state). As a result, there's no way I can post photos of all the plants we will see, but I'll include some highlights as our walks proceed over the weeks and months. There are many more angiosperms than ferns, of course, but I'll try to slip in some seed-free taxa whenever we see them! This first set is from October 30 and November 6, 2013, around Bartram and Carr halls, and north of McCarty Woods. Enjoy.

Bidens alba

Galphimia gracilis

Heliotropium angiospermum

Holmskioldia sanguinea

Holmskioldia sanguinea

Indigofera spicata 

Platanus occidentalis

Sapindus saponaria

Solanum diphyllum – flowers

Solanum diphyllum – fruits

Solanum diphyllum – the leaves it's named for

Left, Tillandsia usneoides (Spanish moss); Right: Tillandsia recurvata (Ball moss)