The Joyful Botanist: Flava Flave
Yellow Buckeye Trees are among the first hummingbird-feeding flowers to bloom in the mountains.
Adam Bigelow photo
The other day as I was sitting inside with cats on my lap, I heard the sound of a miniature helicopter go whooshing by the window behind my head. While it was the first time I had heard it this year, the sound was unmistakable. I knew the hummingbirds were back.
I wasn’t surprised though, as the plants I like to call hummingbird calendars had already announced that their return was imminent.
Many plants have the tubular flower shape that hummingbirds like to sip nectar from. Plants such as coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) and yellow buckeye (Aesculus flava) will begin blooming mere days before the first hummingbirds return from their winter migration. These plants are also hummingbird feeders, so they have to be ready for the hummingbird’s return.
Many people like to hang up artificial feeders around their homes. While this can be beneficial for hummingbirds, they prefer to drink nectar from an abundance of flowers, especially native plants that their species has co-evolved with over millions of years.
Native plants, such as the giant yellow buckeyes blooming all around the mountains surrounding my home, are great early sources of nectar for hummingbirds, as well as for bees, flies, moths, butterflies and other pollinating insects.
Buckeye trees have opposite leaf arrangement, which means that wherever a leaf emerges from the stem, there is another leaf emerging on the opposite side. Opposite leaf arrangement also means opposite limb branching, and those attributes make identification of this tree relatively easy. The leaves themselves are palmately compound, which means that there are multiple leaflets (five to seven) per leaf, and they grow in a pattern that resembles a hand or palm.
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The hummingbird-feeding flowers of yellow buckeye are yellow with hints of orange and red and grow in the shape of a long, inflated tube with a little hood on it. Under this hood is the style, the pollen-receptive part of the flower that sticks out longer than the pollen-producing anthers. This helps to ensure that pollen from another individual buckeye can cross-pollinate the flower.
In the fall, you can often find the seeds of buckeye laying along the ground, sometimes in the remnant husk that encloses the seeds before they open. Keeping one in your pocket for luck and to use as a worry stone has a long tradition in Appalachia. The flat side of the buckeye is a perfect fit for a thumb to gently rub and calm anxieties.
If you’re intent on putting out feeders for hummingbirds, I hope that at the very least you are not using red dye, which can be toxic to hummingbirds. Also, it is recommended to use only white sugar and water and to follow the recipe of one-part white sugar dissolved in four parts of boiling water. Once cooled, it can be added to your feeder. It is also now recommended that you clean and sanitize your feeders at every refill or at least once per week. This is to help prevent a fungal disease that is being spread by hummingbird feeders.
I am excited to announce to you all that I have been working on a new invention — an automatically refilling and self-sanitizing hummingbird feeder. I’m close to a patent and just workshopping names right now. I’m thinking of calling it Flowers. What do you think?
Flowers, like those of yellow buckeye, produce nectar and get a signal to produce more every time a hummingbird sips from them. And there are antifungal properties including bacteria that live in flower nectar that keep the fungal spores from infecting hummingbirds. Flowers are auto-refilling and self-sanitizing. Perfect.
(The Joyful Botanist leads weekly wildflower walks most Fridays and offers consultations and private group tours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
