On a bright, sunny day in mid-June, a friend and I strolled on the Lower Loop trail at Eaglecrest. Out in the meadows, we found the white flowers of starflower and three-leaf goldthread; long-leaf and round-leaf sundews were there, as usual, but not yet flowering. Just above the sphagnum moss, I chanced to see some tiny purple things, borne on stems. These turned out to be flowers, only about 2 millimeters wide. The leaves at the base of the stem were shiny, with rolled-in margins, almost hidden down in the moss. My friend immediately said ‘a butterwort?!’ — and that indeed was correct, according to the books. But not much like the common butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) that we knew from other walks. We had never seen this plant before, in all our years of observing trail-side plants and animals. So this was a big discovery for us!
Butterworts are insectivorous plants, catching and digesting small bugs on their sticky leaves. The little plant we found was hairy butterwort (P. villosa), so-named for the hairs on the stem. Hairy butterwort has a circumpolar distribution, living in wet meadows and muskegs. Although our specimen was tiny, the flowers can be up to about 8 millimeters wide. It overwinters by forming a rosette of non-insectivorous leaves that fold up to cover and protect next year’s shoot during the cold months (a hibernaculum). The common butterwort may be pollinated by bees, butterflies, and moths that can reach into the long nectar spur at the back of the flower, but I found no information about pollination of hairy butterwort.
Farther down the trail, we heard hermit thrushes singing and we saw a deer, a doe, warily watching us. So we stopped still, to watch her. That peaceful stand-off was disrupted by a loud-speaker at the head of a cavalcade of Segways ridden by visitors. The deer promptly vanished.
We see dense stands of pink and white flowers along some of our roadsides, especially outbound on Glacier Highway from the high school. I’ve hears some folks call them “phlox.” But they are NOT the familiar phlox that gardeners love. Those roadside stands are produced by a wickedly invasive plant from Europe: Hesperis matrionalis has many common names including dame’s rocket and sweet rocket. It belongs to the mustard family and is not related to phlox, which is in a different taxonomic family. Hesperis and phlox are easy to distinguish with a closer look. Hesperis flowers have four petals and phlox has five petals. Hesperis has alternate leaves on the stem, phlox has opposite ones. They have different aromas, too—Hesperis emitting its perfumes mostly at night. It is pollinated by various insects.
Another attractive European invasive is common on the lower branch of the dike trail. It’s a perennial often called sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella). Male and female flowers are on separate plants. The tiny red flowers are pollinated mostly by wind. It spreads both by seed and by rhizomes.
In June, we noticed that lots of cottonwood and alder leaves had rolled-up edges. That’s the work of leaf-roller moths (Torticidae). The larva rolls the leaf edge around itself for protection while it feeds. If all goes well, it will molt several times as it grows, pupate, and then emerge as a small adult moth. But danger lurks nearby. One day at the end of Sandy Beach, we watched a family of chickadees poking and prying into the rolled-up leaves, extracting the larvae. Some folks smilingly call the leaf rolls “bird burritos.”
Mary F. Willson is a retired professor of ecology. “On The Trails” appears every Wednesday in the Juneau Empire.
A rolled cottonwood leaf has been formed by a small moth larva that feeds and molts inside the protective roll. (Photo courtesy Martina Kallenberger)
Dame’s rocket or sweet rocket is an invasive species along Juneau roadsides. (Photo courtesy Mary F. Willson)
