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It sometimes amazes me how much adversity the plants at Blue Jay Barrens can survive. This is a small Chinquapin Oak,
Quercus muehlenbergii. It has been here, at approximately this same size, for as long as I’ve owned the property. It survives on a partially shaded, rocky, south facing slope.
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Here’s a perspective shot of me standing beside the tree. To help you get a feel for the size, I’ll tell you that I’m not over 12 feet tall and the tree barely reaches my chest. The top of this tree has died and a lower branch is now becoming the dominant leader. This sequence of events has played out many times in the past.
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The lower trunk shows a lot of age. You can see the remains of a stub on the left where the tree once died back almost to ground level. This looks much like an old Bonsai specimen.
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A little farther up the tree, there is another die back and promotion of a side sprout to leader.
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Of course, rough growing conditions are not all this tree must endure. Several of the leaves are wearing small oak galls. Galls are usually formed on leaves as a result of either a fungus infection or a response to an insect egg. I believe this is of the latter variety, forming around a tiny wasp egg.
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There are also plenty of insects around to munch on the leaves. This insect is a small Walking Stick. It’ll be larger and much more stick-like this autumn. When they are abundant, Walking Sticks can nearly strip a tree of leaves. It wouldn’t take many to eat all the leaves on a tree this size.
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It could be quite an insult to a tree to be decades old, but have a Bush Cricket take up residence in your leaves. I don’t know if the cricket or some other insect is responsible for the damage to this leaf. Between the cricket’s hind legs is the egg of a butterfly or moth. Soon we’ll have a young larva taking its share of leaves from the tree.
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Here’s an interesting Harvestman, A.K.A. Daddy Long Legs, cruising the branches in search of a meal.
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Looks like one of those long legs went missing. I used to keep guys like this as pets when I was younger. They did quite nicely in a terrarium. Most people never get a good look at the bodies of these interesting creatures. All people see are a bunch of legs and that’s their signal to leave.