Last weekend while home visiting friends and family, I had the great pleasure to visit the Jacksonville Arboretum. This 120 acre nature preserve and arboretum, located in east Jax near Arlington, is a beautiful place for a hike or picnic.
There are lots of trails that loop around the preserves' dozen or so habitat types including a depression marsh, estuary, rosemary scrub, and pine flatwoods. Much of the trails are shaded and many of the plants are labeled with their scientific and common names.
There are lots of trails that loop around the preserves' dozen or so habitat types including a depression marsh, estuary, rosemary scrub, and pine flatwoods. Much of the trails are shaded and many of the plants are labeled with their scientific and common names.
While walking on one of the trails we stumbled upon a queen bumble bee (Bombus sp.) searching for a nest site. She was flying low along the ground and even entered a few small holes and depression in the leaves. Check out this picture I got of her crawling into a small hole she found between pine needles and leaves. Bumble bees usually construct their nests in abandoned rodent burrows and in the spring they search out these potential nest sites. If you want to learn more about bumble bees, check out this new book Bumble Bees of North America.
We also noticed some evidence of leaf-cutter bees (Megachile spp.) on some of the plants along the trail. These perfect circles are cut using the strong cutting mandibles (jaws) by female bees constructing their nest. They use these leaf pieces to line the inside of their nests, which protect them from moisture and mold. If you were to dig up a leaf-cutter bee nest it would look like a green leafy cigar. These leaves are from Chinkapin (Castanea pumila).
We also saw the leaves of Dwarf Huckleberry (Gaylussacia dumosa) cut by leaf-cutter bees. This plant is in the Ericaceae family (Blueberry family) and when it was flowering was probably visited by the Southeastern Blueberry bee (Habropoda laboriosa) and bumble bees (Bombus spp.). We encountered lot's of plants in this family, including sparkleberry (Vaccinium arboreum) and rusty lyonia (Lyonia ferruginea).
Check out some more pics from this awesome arboretum and garden!
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