Check Your Boots - March Sarasota Manatee Ecoflora Ecoquest
Cabbage palm bootjacks, which are leftover from fallen fronds, are an excellent habitat for epiphytic plants. For this month’s March EcoQuest, we’ll be checking those boots for the various plant species growing in them. We can see almost anything growing from and around the bootjacks. While we might expect to see native epiphytic species such as the Florida strangler fig or shoestring fern, we can also find non-epiphytic woody plants growing in the boots- even Brazillian pepper and magnolias. Birds and squirrels help disperse the seeds in the bootjacks, making these boots quite the plant nursery! So be sure to join the Check Your Boots Ecoquest and start finding those wonderful epiphytes and hemiepiphytes today!
Image of Golden Polypody ferns Phlebodium aureum, and a Florida Strangler Fig Ficus aurea, on cabbage palm boots. Not all cabbage palms may have these boots with many having smooth trunks. Want to learn why those boots on the trunk are called "bootjacks"? Join the ecoquest to find out!
Comments
Hi Sean,
Are they only counted when they become research grade? As of today I’ve posted 13 photos of bootjack plants and one of a vine on a ‘naked’ cabbage palm but my ‘score’ is much lower. I’ve posted in the notes section of the observation that it’s in or on a boot jack.
Thanks, Patti Haynes
PS I’m trying to beat Claire ;)
Hello @phaynes if you notice one of your posts isn't being added into the project please tag it to the "Check Your Boots" tag or tag @sarasota_manatee_ecoflora_sean so I can add it in manually! We have some broad species lists added into the post but many are not common and thus not added into the ecoquest automatically.
Good luck Patti and hope this helps!
Sean
Hi Sean, I have no idea how to tag observations to the project. Most of my photos from today are there but all the ones I IDed as greenbriars are not there. Not sure why. Perhaps I need an iNat tutorial ;)
Patti
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