Our Event early Saturday morning delivered 0.55 inches of rain, and on top of the 0.5 inches on Thursday evening, totals 1.05 inches. For the most part it was gentle rain, and therefore useful in replenishing soil levels. And the accompanying temperatures have been cool, with clouds and little wind, so the moisture has been able to penetrate into large combustible fuels for three days without being dried out. All good news.

Do you automatically, involuntarily count the seconds after a flash of lightning? Divide by 5 (or 3) to get the distance in miles (or kilometers)? I do. I think a lightning strike on Thursday night must have been what happened to gouge this tulip poplar so freshly. I can’t think of anything else that would do this.

Yesterday’s walk didn’t net much in the way of insects - the cool temperatures on Saturday, not topping 65 degF, seems to have put them to sleep. But I did find this, a dozen specimens growing along the ground at the top of the slope on the opposite side of SBS Creek from the house: Carolina Spinypod, Matelea carolinensis.


Now I’ve walked past this area many times in the past but have never seen this little colony. This isn’t too surprising - it happens all the time that I see something new in a well-observed area. Perhaps it was that this was in flower, and more noticeable. That’s unusual because all these plants were confined to the ground, and usually the vine types don’t begin to flower until they’ve begun to climb.

This group of plants is called a bewildering variety of intersecting names - milkvine, angular fruit milkvine, spinypods, what have you, and the scientific name confusion isn’t much better.

First, the whole milkweed family, Asclepiadaceae, has by some authorities, Weakley, for instance, recently been subsumed into the sister family, Apocynaceae (dogbane). Others, USDA Plants (above link) have not yet done this and retain the milkweed family assignment.

Second, there are two genera involved: Matelea and Gonolobus, and there is a lack of agreement again among authorities such as Weakley and whoever USDA Plants uses (I used to think this was Weakley, now I’m not so sure). My own posts reflect this confusion.

When we first moved out here we observed both Spinypod and Angularfruit Milkvine - the two very distinct by whether their fruits had spines or not. Subsequently both sort of disappeared for a few years and it wasn’t until a few years ago that the Angularfruit (smooth fruit) milkvine reappeared. I’ve blogged on it several times since. Warning: Here follows plantgeektalk:

Milkweed Tussock Caterpillars (Sep 2005), in which I incorrectly refer to the smooth-fruited plant as Matelea carolinensis, when it should be Gonolubus suberosus, via Glenn. However USDA Plants says that G. suberosa was incorrectly applied and should be Matelea gonocarpos. It lists several more synonyms, including Gonolobus carolinensis, Gonolobus gonocarpos, AND Matelea suberosus, that should now be called M. gonocarpos.

Milkvines (June 2006), in which I used Matelea gonocarpos, which is ok with USDA Plants but is what Glenn says should be Gonolobus suberosus.

Nice Pods! (August 2006), in which I wrote the following:

In the comments to the previous post, Glenn agreed that the species was previously Matelea gonocarpos, but according to Weakley(2006) all anglepods are now Gonolobus, their own genus. So it is now called Gonolobus suberosus - Eastern Anglepod. According to USDA Plants, which usually keeps up with these things, the situation appears to be reversed - what was *previously* Gonolobus suberosus has become my original classification - Matelea gonocarpos. So it’s possible that we have a conflict between two authorities. Or that what was originally G. suberosus became M. gonocarpos (recognized by USDA Plants here) which then was returned by Weakley to G. suberosus and has not been updated by USDA Plants.

This seems to clear up the basis for the confusion, if not the confusion itself. (Why on earth would we want to do that??) Weakley and Glenn would like Gonolobus to be anglepods and Matelea to be spinypods. USDA Plants has only one US species of Gonolobus, and it occurs only in Puerto Rico. It has taken all the Gonolobus species, and thrown them into Matelea, which according to USDA Plants now is the only genus of milkvine, including both anglepods and spinypods.

Decisions, decisions. What to do?? I suspect the answer lies in the USDA Plants FAQ, which is quite interesting reading besides. As I understand it, and if you believe it, USDA Plants incorporates the latest *published* corrections, and it’s possible that Weakley’s corrections have not made it into accepted standard. Now I think the USDA Plants website is an invaluable tool, so would tend to go with that under most circumstances. I trust them. However Glenn goes by Weakley, primarily, for our part of the country, and USDA Plants secondarily. And for the time being, that’s all there is to that.

Now to my find of yesterday: we all seem to agree that this is not an anglepod, but a spinypod, Glenn (via Weakley) would argue that for this reason it should be Matelea carolinensis, and not Gonolobus carolinensis, which actually none of us has tried to call it, and, finally, USDA Plants agrees (because they put *everything* into Matelea).

I see in the last link above that I speculated that yesterday’s find might have been Matelea alabamensis, which is rare and threatened/endangered. That it’s actually “only” M. carolinensis is good enough for me - it’s also threatened/endangered, and though “common”, is only so locally. *You* try and find it .